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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; sanctions</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>
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		<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>
<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>Sanction Relief Empowering the Mullahs, Not Citizens</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/sanction-relief-empowering-the-mullahs-not-citizens/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sanction-relief-empowering-the-mullahs-not-citizens</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Dec 2014 05:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A year later, the verdict is in on Obama's dirty deal with Iran. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/iran_2677161b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248111" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/iran_2677161b-450x350.jpg" alt="iran_2677161b" width="319" height="248" /></a>There has always been an argument claiming that economic sanctions normally do not yield any result due to the notion that economic sanctions do not target the ruling elite and governmental official, but the ordinary people. This argument is partially accurate.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we need to remember that some targeted economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic (particularly the sanctions in oil and gas sectors and financial and bank institutions) did endanger the hold on power of the ruling cleric in Iran, particularly the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That was the primary reason behind pushing the Iranian politicians to come to the negotiation table in nuclear talks.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the other side of the argument is that if economic sanctions are lifted, the major beneficiaries would be the ordinary people and the civilians. This argument would be accurate if the political and economic system of the given state is democratic, allows open opportunities for all, encourages the private sector, allows transparency, and holds those corrupt officials who commit illegal economic dealings accountable.</p>
<p>The Iranian political and economic system is devoid of the aforementioned standards. In fact, in states which the political system is mainly authoritarian or theocratic, and the economic system is monopolized by few people at top and is state controlled, any increase of wealth or flow of money will inevitably strengthening the ruling elite rather than the ordinary people.</p>
<p>To substantiate this argument, let us take a look on the ground in the Islamic Republic after the sanctions relief.</p>
<p>At the beginning, a majority of Iranian people were hoping that economic sanctions relief would alleviate their suffering, improve their standards of living, and push many families above the poverty line. Almost a year has passed since the Iranian government has been receiving sanctions relief.</p>
<p>After the interim nuclear deal and extension of the negotiations between the six world powers (known as the P5+1: China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and the Islamic Republic, the Iranian government had received an estimated $7 billion.  Iran continues to receive approximately $700 million every month under the extension deal.</p>
<p>In addition, there has been some sanction suspension with respects to some of Iran’s major industries, including Iran’s auto sector, gold and precious metals, as well as Iran’s petrochemical exports. The Iranian currency, the rial, has appreciated due to the sanctions relief, Iran’s oil and non-oil exports have <a href="http://ameinfo.com/blog/finance-and-economy/irans-non-oil-exports-increase-28-per-cent/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">increased</span></a>, its economy is showing signs of stabilization, Tehran’s stock exchange has soared and Iran’s exports and business dealings with several countries have ratcheted up.</p>
<p>The suspension of sanctions has definitely given both psychological and financial support to the Iranian government.  But the real question is how this money is being spent and which institutions benefit primarily from this sanctions relief. Are ordinary people benefiting from these sanctions relief and flow of money?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, some Iranian civilians have begun to believe that even economic sanctions relief or even the lifting of the whole economic sanctions regime from the Iranian government are not going to assist civilians, their financial day-to-day activities, or bring concrete changes on the ground.</p>
<p>Four major institutions are benefiting mostly from the economic sanctions relief: Iran’s military-industrial complex, the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a few top business figures who are connected with the government, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), through either legal and <a href="http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=20355:irgcs-dominance-over-irans-politics-and-economy--part-1&amp;catid=29&amp;Itemid=121"><span style="color: #0433ff;">illegal</span></a> imports and exports.</p>
<p>For example, the IRGC controls and owns a considerable amount of shares in the aforementioned industries which have witnessed sanctions relief. In the petrochemical industry, The IRGC military-industrial complex <a href="http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=20355:irgcs-dominance-over-irans-politics-and-economy--part-1&amp;catid=29&amp;Itemid=121"><span style="color: #0433ff;">owns</span></a> Zagros Petrochemicals; 40% of Pars Petrochemical Company, part of Arak Petrochemicals; 25% of Kermanshah Petrochemicals; as well as 19% of the shares of Maroun Petrochemicals.</p>
<p>This phenomenon of the monopolization of the economy applies in other sectors of Iran’s economy as well.  When it comes to Iran’s economic system, the Supreme Leader and IRGC do have a considerable amount of control and shares in almost all industries <a href="http://www.iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=20355:irgcs-dominance-over-irans-politics-and-economy--part-1&amp;catid=29&amp;Itemid=121"><span style="color: #0433ff;">including</span></a> financial institutions and banks, the transportation industry, automobile manufacturing, mining, commerce, and oil and gas sectors.</p>
<p>As a result, these types of sanctions relief will mostly benefit the ruling elite, primarily the Supreme Leader and Iran’s military-industrial complex, IRGC. Iranian people will hardly observe any benefits from this economic sanctions relief or lifting of economic sanctions.</p>
<p>It appears that the easing of sanctions are strengthening the ruling elite without any sign of redistribution of wealth. This is predominantly due to the fact Iran’s economic system is a state and military controlled system, it lacks transparency, as well as the reality that it is crippled with <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1144661.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">widespread corruption</span></a> by the ruling elite and few on top.</p>
<p>If the intention of economic sanctions relief is to assist the Iranian people and alleviate their suffering, there ought to be more efficient approaches to develop some types of targeted sanctions relief (for example, being directed at Iran’s educational system, health care, etc.) which aim at empowering Iranian civilians and primarily the middle class.</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>Thanks to Obama, Iran’s Economy Is Booming</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Aug 2014 04:30:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Mullahs are back in business. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iran-nuclear-rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238378" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iran-nuclear-rouhani-450x299.jpg" alt="iran-nuclear-rouhani" width="278" height="185" /></a>According to the latest statistics, Iran’s economy is being stabilized, with oil exports increasing by approximately 30 percent. This economic recovery has emboldened and empowered the ruling clerics in the Islamic republic who are fighting several proxy wars in the Middle East by funding and arming Hamas and sending troops to Iraq to ensure the power of the Shiite coalition of Prime Minister Nori Al Maleki and by supporting the Assad regime financially, politically, militarily, and through intelligence.</p>
<p>This is mainly due to the Obama administration’s push to strike any kind of flimsy nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic to avoid taking serious actions. It is also due to President Obama’s efforts to remove economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>As the ruling clerics regain their economy, they will also be more empowered to reach the nuclear break out capacity, obtain nuclear weapons, and defy the West.</p>
<p>A year has passed since President Hassan Rouhani has assumed office. He received the blessings of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was elected predominantly to recover Iran’s economy, regain Iran’s currency (Rial) value, and get a flimsy nuclear deal without giving concessions, which will allow the Islamic Republic to continue enriching uranium and spinning its centrifuges.</p>
<p>The question is: how have the Obama administration’s foreign policies towards the Islamic Republic impacted Iran’s economy after a year? Has Iran’s economy, which had been deteriorating since the Iraq-Iran war due to domestic mismanagement and international economic sanctions, shifted its path?</p>
<p>According to reports, the ruling clerics in the Islamic Republic have witnessed the addition of billions of dollars to their revenues. <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/car040414a.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">According to the</span></a> latest survey by the International Monetary Fund, “Iran has taken important steps to lower inflation… The Islamic Republic of Iran has made progress toward stabilizing its economy in recent months…”</p>
<p>In addition, according to Bloomberg Businessweek and the Iran Project, Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, pointed out to reporters in Tehran on Tuesday that “The process of stabilization has taken hold and we do see the results already in a dramatic improvement in inflation… [The] inflation rate has eased and currency rate has been stable and such improvements are the results of measures taken by the Iranian government…”</p>
<p>Several crucial factors play a role in this positive and promising economic recovery. First of all, thanks to the Obama administration’s altering of the Islamic Republic’s outlook in the international arena, as well as the progress in nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic and P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China,  United Kingdom, and France, plus Germany), Iran has <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/23/fact-sheet-first-step-understandings-regarding-islamic-republic-iran-s-n"><span style="color: #0433ff;">received</span></a> billions of dollars, unfrozen its assets, removed the economic sanctions on some of its crucial industries including gold, precious metals, Iran&#8217;s auto industry, Iran&#8217;s petrochemical exports, and increased its oil exports particularly to Asia.</p>
<p>The aforementioned measures added billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic’s revenue.  Secondly, the new administration in the Islamic Republic has attempted to lure mostly Asian (Chinese, Indian, etc.) investors and reform its contractual as well as economic policies in this regard.</p>
<p>For example, Iran’s oil exports have increased by approximately <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/uk-asia-iran-crude-idUKKBN0G00C320140731"><span style="color: #0433ff;">25 percent</span></a> in the first six months of 2014. The top importers of Iran’s oil are China and India. China alone has <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/uk-asia-iran-crude-idUKKBN0G00C320140731"><span style="color: #0433ff;">increased</span></a> its oil import from Iran by fifty percent, India by nineteen percent, and Japan by 48.6 percent and South Korea’s import in the last year increased by seven percent thanks to the P5+1’s diplomatic headways with the Islamic Republic and the loosening of economic sanctions.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930120000786"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Fars News</span></a> and International Monetary Fund, Iran’s economy and GDP will stop contracting and will grow by approximately one to two percent in 2014, which will be a crucial factor in stabilizing Iran’s economy. The year before, Iran’s economy contracted by 1.7 percent. In 2015, the IMF report predicts that the Islamic Republic’s economy and GDP will increase by 2.3 percent.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930120000786"><span style="color: #0433ff;">according to IMF’s report</span></a>, the inflation in the Islamic Republic has significantly declined by 29 percent  &#8220;The exchange rate has appreciated markedly in the bureau/parallel market. The CBI has kept a lid on base money growth thanks to tighter credit to the banking system and some fiscal consolidation, and inflation has declined to about 29 percent in January 2014.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Rial has also been <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-one-year-under-rouhani-639273557"><span style="color: #0433ff;">strengthened</span></a>. This also lead to a boost in the confidence of the Iranian regime, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Cops (which dominates the economy), and the elite Quds forces (which fights in foreign countries).</p>
<p>Without doubt, President Obama has helped the ruling clerics in the Islamic Republic to make a considerable amount of progress in the last year in stabilizing the domestic economy, strengthening the Rial, reducing the inflation, filling the gap in the revenues and government’s budget, and turning the negative growth and contraction of its economy to a positive path.</p>
<p>As the nuclear talks project, a final flimsy nuclear deal is on the way. This will ensure the further strengthening of the power of the ruling cleric.</p>
<p>Most of this money goes to the regime’s revenues to achieve its ideological, geopolitical and regional hegemonic ambitions. Ordinary Iranian people have not yet received any of these benefits. For example, the unemployment rate is still in the double digits. According to the <a href="http://tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/115225-unemployment-has-reached-a-critical-level-in-iran"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Statistical Center of Iran</span></a>, the unemployment rate hit 10.4 percent. In addition, in Spring 2014, <a href="http://www.payvand.com/news/14/aug/1017.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">700,000</span></a> less workers have been employed in comparison to the previous year, and in urban areas, the consumption of households declined by 5 percent, while in villages it went down by 12 percent.</p>
<p>In addition, the domestic crack down has increased as the regime becomes more powerful economically. As the regime and ruling clerics economic empowerment continue &#8212; thanks to the Obama administration’s efforts &#8212; the regime will ensure the reelection of the President Rouhani and achieve its hegemonic regional ambitions and Islamists ideological objectives more assertively.</p>
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		<title>How the Mullahs Prop Up Assad</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2014 04:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Duplicity is the Islamic Republic's game.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Hassan-Rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223148" alt="Hassan-Rouhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Hassan-Rouhani-450x345.jpg" width="315" height="241" /></a>This week, top Iranian officials, including deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian, pointed out that their assistance and aid to the Assad government is solely humanitarian and based on good will.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian official state media made international news, which spread in the liberal mainstream media, by announcing that the Islamic Republic of Iran has delivered 30,000 tons of food supplies to Syria on Tuesday in order to assist the Syrian government in dealing with its food shortages created by the internal conflict, terrorism, and civil war.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Abdollahian insisted and emphasized that the Islamic Republic’s assistance to Syria is only restricted to humanitarian aid and goods such as medicine and food. He continued that the Islamic Republic is not involved in other military actions.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The double standards, hypocrisy, mendacity, and duplicity of the ruling clerics, Ayatollahs, and Iranian regime have been profoundly manifested in the actual geopolitical, economic, and geostrategic position they have taken on the Assad regime. Although the Obama administration has been incompetent and weak, with no particular foreign policy agenda towards Syria, the Ayatollahs have been very determined and clear about their stance towards Assad’s regime through their military, economic, advisory, intelligence support and their thousands of troops on the ground.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Recently, Tehran extended a $3.6 billion credit line to Damascus. The credit line enables Damascus to buy oil products from Tehran and assist in shoring up Syrian currency (Pound), which has significantly devalued in the last two years.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">First of all, the Islamic Republic has been instrumental in preventing the Syrian government’s economy from collapsing.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Assad’s government lost its daily revenue of approximately 7 millions dollar from oil exports after the US and European countries banned oil exports from Damascus. Moreover, Damascus lost an estimated 7 billion dollars in revenue a year from tourism. Before the conflict, Syria had the capability of producing most of its domestic food necessities as well as exporting wheat. Nevertheless, according to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), Syria will hit a record low this year by producing 1.7 to 2 million tons of wheat. Iran’s economic support is not only pivotal in sustaining the economic status of Assad, but also in assisting the regime to pay for its army, militia groups, and intelligence forces.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition to the extension of billions of dollars in credit and economic assistance, the Islamic Republic has been playing a crucial function, through its proxy Hezbollah as well as the Quds Forces— a special forces unit of Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards Corps— to provide military, intelligence, geopolitical, strategic and advisory aid and backing to ensure that Assad’s government will retain its power for over the last three years of conflict. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran’s Islamist proxy and ally, Hezbollah with the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, as well as other militia groups have been sent by the Iranian regime, ruling cleric and Ayatollahs to wage street warfare and assist al-Assad.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iranian Ayatollahs, who claim that Islam is the only true value supporting human rights and that the Islamist state is the only legitimate power system to fulfill this mission, have been providing the required military capabilities, training, intelligence and financial means for the Assad regime to continue the crack down, bombardment and violence.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the United Nations, the official documented numbers reveal that more than 150,000 people have been killed. In this, history’s most-documented manmade disaster, nine million Syrian civilians, roughly 42 percent of the population, have been forced out of their homes, according to the UN. This would be an equivalent of 132 million people in the United States being driven out of their houses. Among the refugees, an estimated number 1.3 millions are children, half a million less than the age of 6, where 90 percent do not have access to education and basic needs.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With the assistance of the Ayatollahs and Iranian leaders, and with their direct military interventionist policies, intelligence, sophisticated training, economic and advisory aid, the Syrian regime has recently intensified its bombardment of neighborhoods with missiles, heavy artillery, tanks, chemical weapons, poisonous gas, and explosive barrels.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With the backing and aid of the Islamist regime of Iran and with the direct interventionist policies of the Ayatollahs, approximately 700,000 homes have been ruined, unemployment reached 50 percent according to the Damascus-based Syrian Center for Policy Research, and approximately 50 percent of Syria’s hospitals damaged. Thousands of people have been dying from malnutrition impacts and easily preventable disease causes. According to the United Nations Children&#8217;s Fund (Unicef), 5.5 million children need urgent aid. Approximately one fifth of young girls are forced into marriage in neighboring Islamic countries.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This week, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay briefed the U.N. Security Council and called for the opening of a case in International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecuting war criminals in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The UN Security Council will have to unanimously vote for approval and referral of the case to the ICC, but it goes without saying that Russia and China will veto the referral and will shield the Syrian regime.  If the referral passes though, Iranian officials, who have been instrumental in preserving and ratcheting up the ongoing violence by keeping Assad in power through their continued aid, should be held responsible in the International Criminal Court as well. Without the Islamist regime of Iran, Assad would not have been capable of keeping power so long and the war would have not been ratcheted up to this level with this heartbreaking record of human rights violations.</span></p>
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		<title>Rep. Ed Royce: Iran Is Following North Korea&#8217;s Playbook</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-ed-royce-iran-is-following-north-koreas-playbook/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rep-ed-royce-iran-is-following-north-koreas-playbook</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-ed-royce-iran-is-following-north-koreas-playbook/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2014 04:20:44 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ed Royce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lebanon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North Korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222842</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The congressman explains the urgent need to restore sanctions on the Islamic Republic at the West Coast Retreat. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript of Congressman Ed Royce&#8217;s speech at the Freedom Center’s West Coast Retreat, held at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, California from March 21-23, 2014:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/90390381" height="281" width="500" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>The advantage of having some seniority on the Foreign Affairs Committee is you get an opportunity to see the same mistakes made over and over again, and there&#8217;s a certain advantage to that.  With North Korea I used to wonder: am I the only guy in this meeting who thinks it&#8217;s odd that we want to lift sanctions on North Korea?  I mean, we&#8217;ve got them by the throat.  The Treasury Secretary, Steward Levy, was finally able, after we caught them counterfeiting $100.00 bills, finally able to use his authority, since nobody else in the government would do it, to say, well, there&#8217;s only 11 banks they use.  We just freeze the accounts.  They&#8217;ve got a decision to make in China whether they&#8217;re going to do business with the United States or business with North Korea.  What do you think they&#8217;re going to do?  Of course, the North Koreans couldn&#8217;t move a dime.</p>
<p>Now, I had the unique experience of actually interviewing the fellow who was in charge of propaganda for three of these Kims in the dynasty, for the father, the grandfather, the grandson, right?  So he tells me that it shut that economy down like a drum.  I mean, it just absolutely capped all economic activity.  There was nothing they could do.  The fellow who defected out of the missile program told me for eight months everything was closed down on the missile line.  He said, you know we used to buy these clandestine black market gyroscopes that we needed for our missile programs out of Japan.  It costs more on the black market to buy what you need for an underground nuclear program and missile program.  But he said we couldn&#8217;t buy a thing.  Well, the whole thing was collapsing.  He made one astute observation, which I have tried to remember.  You know, if you&#8217;re the dictator and you can&#8217;t pay the generals, that&#8217;s not a good position to be in, and he said that was the position that Kim Jong-Il was in.  And yet somehow, out of the State Department, comes the idea that if we only lift $25,000,000.00 in sanctions at least it might get them back to the bargaining table.  Why?  I mean, we were in the position.  I mean, I was arguing at the time, it&#8217;s collapsing.  Bring it on.  Let&#8217;s see what we get.  No, no, no, no, no, says the State Department.  We have to lift those sanctions, it&#8217;s just $25,000,000.00 and of course once we lifted the $25,000,000.00 what was the result?  Everybody had their confidence to go back in and do business again in North Korea.  All right.  There&#8217;s the sign.  They&#8217;re lifting the sanctions.  Let&#8217;s get back in and do some business and they were out from underneath the pressure.</p>
<p>Now apparently, since we know the Iranians were always over there assisting them, that&#8217;s what Intel says, apparently somebody was taking notes.  Apparently Iran decided, well if that&#8217;s the way the State Department likes to play this game &#8212; and believe me I have debated the individual right now who&#8217;s in charge of these negotiations years and years ago in a 50 minute debate over this same issue with respect to North Korea.  But now you hear the same arguments.  Well, if we just lift the sanctions a little bit we&#8217;ll get a little bit more serious.  Now, if we can just extend an olive branch, to quote one administration official fairly high up, since it was the Secretary of State, if we just extend an olive branch we will get their attention.  And the consequences are that while we sanction the United States right here and refuse to export our natural gas &#8212; by the way, at a time when our natural gas would be worth something since we&#8217;re capping wells here because of the glut, we&#8217;re flaring natural gas, it could really turn out to be handy in Eastern Europe at the moment if we were exporting, but no, no, no, we&#8217;re sanctioning our own because of our fossil fuel concerns; we&#8217;re sanctioning the export of our natural gas into Eastern Europe, but we&#8217;re willing to lift those sanctions.  For three months in a row now we&#8217;ve had an increase in petroleum exports out of Iran.  Well, maybe this has changed Iran&#8217;s behavior.  Maybe this is worth it.  Let&#8217;s think that through.  Let&#8217;s see, what did we have in March?  We had Iran getting caught in the Red Sea with a scheme to first purchase out of Syria M302 missiles with a much longer range than anything that they&#8217;ve been buying lately, 100 miles, and then transfer those into Iran.  And then find a ship, hide it under, I think it was cement, ship that to Iraq again in order to keep it from being discovered, transfer it into Sudan, and unfortunately for Iran, the IDF were monitoring all of this.  This elaborate ruse, in order to disguise the magnitude of a transfer so big, in terms of heavy mortars, in terms of the longest ranged rockets ever to be introduced into a mosque. How long was the range?  Well, enough to hit the Mangurian Airport, enough to hit Tel Aviv, enough to hit Jerusalem.  I mean, these are serious payload, long-range, rockets and fortunately the IDF managed to seize the cargo ship.</p>
<p>So what was interesting to me was the reaction by the reporters.  Reading the story, and the reporter asks by what right does Israel board a cargo ship on the high seas.  Well, that&#8217;s a penetrating question.  How about the question by what audacity in the middle of these negotiations does Iran transfer this new capability to Hamas and why is it that everybody standing there smiling in the pictures shaking hands with the foreign minister or Rouhani instead of asking the question, what the hell is going on and how can it be that this is not the question that all of us are wrestling with right now?  How is it humanly possible in the middle of this for Iran to be showing its true intentions, its true character, the fact that the regime cheats, and that isn&#8217;t the storyline?  That isn&#8217;t the introductory paragraph?</p>
<p>I am reminded of when I was in Haifa, went over during the second Lebanon war.  Somebody&#8217;s got to talk to the marketing department over in Tel Aviv, that has got to be called the Hezbollah War but for some reason we call it the Second Lebanon War.  The war with Hezbollah and those rockets were coming in every day slamming into Haifa.  We were in Haifa.  I went down to the trauma hospital and there were 600 victims in there.  Now that is what Syrian and Iranian rockets were able to do with their limited range in shutting down one city, Haifa.  Imagine with these longer-range rockets now what it would mean in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Now, fortunately along the way Israel had the prescience to develop the Iron Dome.  And that is an Israeli development, something that after the fact we looked at and said, wow they did that for a dime on the dollar for what we could of, if we could have thought of it.  And so now it&#8217;s important, like the Arrow Program where we&#8217;re cooperating with Israel, now it&#8217;s very important to us and to our allies.</p>
<p>For those who ask about our foreign aid support to Israel, you should ask them, where do you think these ideas come from and where are they trained on the battlefield, and how much would it cost to replace Israel if it was not in the Middle East as the bulwark against what is developing as a result of the chaos throughout the region.  But I just bring it up as an example because the press at the time had those same attitudes.  When I was talking to the reporters in Haifa trying to get them to focus on Israel, no, no, no, the focus was on Israel&#8217;s defense of itself.  The question was, well yeah but look at this counter-battery fire into Lebanon.  And I would say, well, yeah but to put this into context, I&#8217;ve been watching it on CNN, I&#8217;ve been seeing this on the BBC, but why don&#8217;t you reporters come down to the trauma hospital and do a story about why it&#8217;s happening?  It&#8217;s happening because Haifa is under siege and has been under siege for weeks.  But we have got to carry that narrative, my friends, because it is not going to happen in the major media, because I was told by the reporters even if we wanted to do that our editors tell us that would not be balanced.  Okay, so, by the way at that time my wife was in Jerusalem and I called her and I was venting, as I am right now, and she said, well, why don&#8217;t you take some of the barbarians and just put them &#8211; take the shrapnel, pick it up, put it in a bag, start going on the shows showing it, because they can&#8217;t resist that, they can&#8217;t resist a demonstration of the shrapnel.  And she was right and then we got that out on CNN and so forth.</p>
<p>But, fortunately for Israel, Israel developed the Iron Dome.  So now Israel has the capacity to knock out a lot of these incoming rockets.  But the fact that we are looking the other way while Iran is doing this in the middle of negotiations is so similar to exactly what the way in which North Korea was emboldened during the negotiations there.  What were they doing?  They were transferring their nuclear weapons capability to Syria, and on the banks of the Euphrates they were building a weapons program for the Syrians this time.  That&#8217;s what North Korea was doing in the middle of these negotiations.  So we have to learn from history and for that reason, the legislation, which I authored, which was this Iran&#8217;s Sanction Bill, took Stewart Levy&#8217;s ideas. I had asked him, if you wanted to just shut an economy down and collapse a government how would you do it?  And his response was well you just block the repatriation of earnings, this whole swift system, the whole system that is used to cash checks and so forth.  It&#8217;s simple.  It&#8217;s just that we lack the will to do it.  So we laid out in the legislation how to do that and what to do on petroleum, etc., and the impact of that would have been to simply implode the regime.  And I think it was Stewart that first said it, give the Ayatollah a choice between regime survival or compromise on his weapons.  So I wrote the Act, sat down with Eliot Engle from New York, from the Bronx. Eliot said this is exactly what we need. He&#8217;s the ranking member, I chair foreign affairs, and he&#8217;s the ranking member, and Eliot said let&#8217;s try to get everybody on board.  We presented it to our committee, despite the administration&#8217;s opposition, we had a unanimous vote in the foreign affairs committee.  We got it out onto the floor, and boy then the administration was working full throttle.  We can&#8217;t have this pass, no, we&#8217;ve got to extend an olive branch, we can&#8217;t do this.  And working time and a half, they were able to have it pass 400 to 20.  They got 20 votes, the progressive caucus got 20 votes.</p>
<p>So, now we&#8217;re in the Senate and we&#8217;re working towards two-thirds support, but of course the administration found a strategy here.  They went to Harry Reid who was willing to do their bidding, and despite the overwhelming support in the Senate for the bill, they bottled it up.  What I notice are more and more people saying, what is going on?  As you know, I do a lot of work out in the communities, in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Bernardino. I have parts of all of those counties, and my district is very ethnic, and so I&#8217;ve taken on the responsibility of going out into all these communities in LA and in Southern California and carrying our message because I&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that David&#8217;s come to, waiting for other people to do it, it&#8217;s just not going to happen.  So, as I&#8217;m out there what I notice is community after community have connected the dots.  We have got to get out friends out there talking to more people in more communities because everybody is waking up and saying, wait a minute, this was not the way it was supposed to turn out.  When we pushed the reset button with Russia wasn&#8217;t the strategy that we would kick the Poles and the Czechs in the teeth, but pull out the interceptors, we wouldn&#8217;t do the program to defend Europe against any launch out of Iran, and defend ourselves out of any launch from Iran, and in exchange we would get respect from Russia.  Russians would work with us because after all we pushed the restart button by doing something Russians wanted us to do.</p>
<p>And when we extended the olive branch to the Ayatollah wasn&#8217;t the result supposed to be that they would stop the centrifuges from spinning, not that we would find out that the Ayatollah himself was the biggest investor in the chemical operation in Iran and that we were now lifting sanctions and exporting petro chemicals and making the Ayatollah rich. That wasn&#8217;t supposed to be the outcome.  The outcome was not supposed to be that Iran in the middle of this negotiation was going to continue to be the No. 1 export power for terror around the globe.  He can get caught doing it again.  And wasn&#8217;t it supposed to be that the centrifuges would stop spinning and the work on the Iraq plutonium reactor would stop, and then you see the foreign minister being quoted, no we&#8217;re not stopping construction on the plutonium reactor.  Well you&#8217;ve got a bomb-making factory there, it seems pretty clear cut.  I mean, well, in the six-month agreement you just saw Catherine Ashton, you had the foreign minister for the EU say in all probability it&#8217;s going to go beyond six months.  Oh, they&#8217;re going to continue to run the clock like North Korea?  I mean, how many similarities are there in this playbook?  Well, my friends, this foreign policy is bankrupt.  This strategy is doomed to fail.  And the reality is that across the United States, and frankly in Europe, people are beginning to realize the cost.</p>
<p>Now you, in this room, have been the most dedicated to this cause because you understand the power of ideas, the power of getting those ideas out to the public.  So I actually shouldn&#8217;t be up here venting with you because frankly you are the ones that have helped support David through all of these efforts, and the reason that we are in the position we are in is because of the intellectual ammunition that comes out of his shop and others allied with his cause.  If we were solely dependent on getting our ideas out of the State Department you know exactly where we would be.  And frankly, because of his ideas, the Republican Party has another chance.  We have another chance.  And we as a country have another chance to set this right, and that chance is coming up in November.  And if we keep our wits and we don&#8217;t embarrass ourselves and we stay focused on the goal and we tell those who want to have these internecine battles within the party right now, look, the fate of the country is at stake, and I will tell you, there are a lot of Democrats with second thoughts who share those thoughts with me, right?  And in terms of taking on the administration on these issues, I mean, I still think about when you put these ideas front and center, the fact that we ended up with a unanimous vote in the foreign affairs committee, because looking at the hard reality of it people went along.</p>
<p>Now I want to just share with you when we talk about the State Department and the mindset one rather recent experience of mine.  I was over in Israel and met with the Prime Minister.  We were going through some legislation that I advanced through the committee for Israel&#8217;s qualitative military edge and some other issues, and the State Department said well you have a delegation of seven members here.  Could you go meet with President Abbas?  I said certainly.  And so I started reading his recent communications to the Palestinian people.  Now, for many years I&#8217;ve tried to get through legislation in the Congress that gave us leverage, and we give Israel leverage on this question of Palestinian incitement, and every year the State Department had been able to block it.  But here was something new.  I had the remarks of Abbas himself, President Abbas himself, Dr. Abbas.  So I thought, well, here&#8217;s an opportunity to talk with him.  And so in that exchange with our delegation I asked him about his broadcast on Iranian-owned radio in which he denied the existence of the Holocaust and I told him I brought with me the photographs my father took when Dachau was liberated.  And, as my father says, this was one camp, on one day, and there were camps all over Europe.  How can anyone deny, I know I&#8217;m supposed to call you Dr. Abbas because you have your doctorate in Holocaust Denial from the University of Moscow.</p>
<p>Now, by the way, you and I all know that the Russians knew better because they liberated camps in the east.  They knew exactly what they were doing when they stamped his doctorate in the University of Moscow and made him a doctor of Holocaust Denial.  They knew they were using a pawn there in the Palestinian authority.  That&#8217;s all they were doing.  But he proudly is Dr. Abbas and everyone refers to him as such.  So I simply asked him, how could you do that?  And he said well it&#8217;s been a long time and there are arguments about this or that, but regardless, he started back up, regardless of that the Palestinians shouldn&#8217;t suffer today because of what happened then.  I said, no, the incitement language, my question goes to the incitement language you used, because the incitement language you used is the same language used in the 1930s to demonize a race of people, to marginalize a race of people, and the consequences of that we know what that was.  So you, knowing that, why would you use this language of incitement yourself?  Now we&#8217;re no longer talking, my friends, about the fact that it&#8217;s in the school books.  This is the president of the Palestinian&#8217;s authority.  And he tried to change the topic.  And I said, and on your map, where is Israel on your map?  He said let&#8217;s see your map, let&#8217;s see your map.  Well, at about that point in time he remembered something and he started yelling at me, and you, Ted, you, you called my son a crook.  And I was trying to figure out what he was talking about.  And then I saw Ted Deutch from Florida sort of raise his hand.  He said, I&#8217;m sorry Mr. President, it was me.  It was Ted.  I called your son a crook.  Well anyway the conversation sort of went downhill from them, but we did later meet with some other Palestinian former representatives who did say the boss&#8217;s son is a crook.  I said tell Ted, tell Ted Deutch.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this.  Afterwards, the State Department said we&#8217;ve never had a conversation go quite like that before.  I said well isn&#8217;t it about time somebody talked about the messaging that&#8217;s going on, because if you&#8217;re not, what I had told President Abbas was, if you&#8217;re not preparing the next generation for peace, if you&#8217;re not educating them, if instead you&#8217;re just inciting them to hate, if you&#8217;re just poisoning the minds of the next generation, is the point I&#8217;m making to you, then how is there going to be peace?  And if the State Department keeps arguing against putting into the inclusion of the bill &#8212; this year I got that included in legislation and we passed it out.  But I will tell you unless we continue to point out the obvious to the American public, and to our colleagues, frankly it&#8217;s not going to help pointing it out to the State Department, I&#8217;ve come to that conclusion, but pointing it out to the world, that we&#8217;re going to continue to find ourselves in the position we&#8217;re in and our allies are going to continue to be in that position.  If, on the other hand, we find the voice to get out there and speak about the world as it really is and speak about our enemies as they are and call upon Americans to assist us, and of course correction, in November then I think we&#8217;re going to see some very real changes.  Thank you all very much for the opportunity to talk with you here.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Congressman, it&#8217;s my understanding that during the Clinton administration, Clinton approved trade with North Korea without any verification to see that they were living up to their promises.  Can you elaborate on that?</p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>Well we had conflict divisions, shall we say, between the Clinton administration and some of us in Congress, including Mark Kirk and myself.  Kirk was then a staff member on our committee on this whole issue and as you know, my policy is Stewart Levy&#8217;s policy and then you have on the other end the engagement theory, and I think it&#8217;s been proven out that engagement is simply a life line manipulated by regimes like that to keep themselves in power at the expense of their own people.  And I think the humane thing to do is to bring that government down, exert enough pressure that people want to get rid of the head of state.  If you don&#8217;t pay the generals, let them turn up the heat, do Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty-style broadcasting into the country, create dissent.  We&#8217;ve got the wrong format in terms of dealing with regimes like that.  I asked the Gallup pollster what percentage of people in Iran want change.  Two-thirds of the country want what they call a western-style democracy and the end of theocracy in Iran.  Well, you&#8217;ve got two choices there.  You can increase the unemployment.  You can increase the inflation.  You can increase the angst and the opposition to the regime or you can make the portfolio for Rouhani and for the Ayatollah grow in value.  You can, as I made my point, while we&#8217;re sanctioning ourselves on exports of gas, either way, we&#8217;ve been asked, they&#8217;re not writing to the president on this anymore, the heads of state of Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic for Poland have all written the speaker to say please start a crash program to send gas east.  The cost is four times the price because he has a monopoly.<br />
President Putin has 52 percent of his income for his military coming from oil and gas.  All we have to do is break the monopoly.  All we have to do is use competition.  That&#8217;s something we&#8217;re supposed to be for, competition.  You want to give him second thoughts about where he goes with policy?  How about competition?  You want to make Eastern Europe more independent?  How about giving them the gas that we&#8217;re flaring and the wells that we&#8217;re capping, right?  Why don&#8217;t we engage with that kind of a strategy?  We had an Apollo program.  Why don&#8217;t we have a crash course to do this?  So this is the request, as well as from the Ukraine.  That&#8217;s how Ukraine got into this mess, because Russia had them by the throat over this issue and they were able to manipulate it, right?<br />
Why not do the easy thing, but suffice it to say that we are not using that strategy and instead we are allowing the economy in Iran to recover.  I held up the Wall Street Journal when we had the Secretary of State testify during one of our hearings and the headline was Businesses Beat a Path to Iran for Opportunities, words to that effect.  Bill, you had a question.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Yeah. Congressman, you made some kind of statement to the effect that you&#8217;ve given up on trying to convince the State Department or something like that.</p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>Right.  Right.  I may have been overly tough on that.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>But why are they like that?  Are they anti-American citizens?</p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Listen.  Some people, Billy, Billy, some people just come to a different conclusion.  If we sit down and reason together, Billy, we ought to be able to come to a conclusion.  And that&#8217;s the way a lot of educated people that have doctorates, if we can just sit at the table and talk back and forth.  But, Billy, that presupposes the person on the other side of the table is using reason and logic.  What if our Western constructs for that is not what&#8217;s motivating them?  What if they&#8217;re willing to lie and cheat and steal to get to their goal?  And what if their goal is not world peace as you and I assume everybody in this room&#8217;s goal is.  What if their goal is to destabilize an entire region?  This is what was interesting about a conversation I had with a Middle Eastern ambassador, one of the Sunni ambassadors.  Myself and Eliot Engle, we were both at the table with him.  He said, now, I know that your government thinks one thing about how they&#8217;re going to handle Iran, but let me tell you what I and other ambassadors believe will happen.</span></p>
<p>He said, I think that when they get this relief from sanctions, far from putting that money into assisting anybody in Iran, that money is going to go to destabilizing regimes all over the region.  He said, what do I mean?  There&#8217;s a low-level insurgency going on in Saudi Arabia among the Shiite population because Iran is funding it.  Azerbaijan, they&#8217;re sending imams into Azerbaijan, and they&#8217;re saying, why are you supporting the secular government here?  Your Shia.  The Islamic Republic is Shia.  You&#8217;re part culturally and historically of, you should be joining the Islamic Republic of Iran.  You should be part of us.  You should overthrow this government.  He said &#8212; this is as close as I can remember to his examples &#8212; they are that close to toppling the government in Yemen, the Iranian forces, their intelligence forces.  And he said, and I need not tell you the history they played in Sudan, and then he went down a long laundry list in terms of North Africa and everything else that you &#8212; so let&#8217;s just say for a minute there is a conflict division between the world that you and I want to see versus the objective of the Iatola in terms of sowing that instability.  I readily understand how people at the State Department can come to a different conclusion.  But the conclusion I have come to is more like Ronald Reagan&#8217;s short retort about well, how does this end between the Soviet Union and the United States.  We win.  They lose.  I think the shorter answer is better because I think as Reagan understood that his adversaries didn&#8217;t have the same goal and therefore it was necessary to spread a different ideal for human progress.  I think it&#8217;s that kind of a situation.  Was there one more question?</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Congressman, please give us what you think or how the confrontation with Russia will play out over the Ukraine and Eastern Europe in view of what you&#8217;ve said about the State Department and as you perceive the administration&#8217;s mindset.  Is this mindset going to change?</span></p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>I think we are going to get more and more support for the legislation which we passed out of committee that calls for a massive targeted export of our L and G reserves into Ukraine and Eastern Europe, as well as support for shell gas exploration in Western Ukraine and a whole host of initiatives that will help make Eastern Europe independent of Russian pressure.  I think the consequences on that are far more important than the calculus on any sanctions on an individual business tycoon or whatever.  I think the only thing that matters is that 70 percent of Russia&#8217;s exports are gas and oil.  And the profit, where they make the most profit is in that Eastern Europe and Central Europe market, and I believe that if that is threatened, the whole calculus in the Kremlin changes and they begin to say, okay, how do we wind this thing down, how do we take this down a notch?  And that&#8217;s how you get their attention and that&#8217;s the way forward, and, as I said, that&#8217;s the way you give Europe some breathing room to be more independent and not to feel that any decision they might make counter to Moscow would risk turning off the valves again, which is exactly what the Russians have done in the winter.  So if we put up an alternative and if we also begin to develop pipelines from Central Asia into the region, that all will come with time.  But what&#8217;s most important is that markets react very quickly, so if the administration were to announce a crash course and announce that the L and G facilities in Texas right now are shipping to that market, instantaneously the future&#8217;s market would react.  The stock market in Moscow would react and certainly the currency would react and that is the clarifying moment for those in charge of policy in Russia.  And you&#8217;re doing it through competition which is the capitalist way.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Hi.  I&#8217;m just wondering if there&#8217;s any move in Congress to get arms to the Ukrainians.</p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>Well, there is, Jack.  There were efforts to assist the Ukraine in that way but I can tell you in order to have a credible threat that would impact Russia&#8217;s calculus economically, the most overt and quickest thing we could do is gas because that&#8217;s what would change the balance.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>And if we don&#8217;t do these things and Putin continues his march and NATO does nothing, will NATO collapse?</p>
<p><strong>Ed Royce: </strong>I think Russia is a dying power.  I think if we look ahead, well, it&#8217;s not a dying power, but you&#8217;ve seen the demographics of the birth rates in Russia and you know what&#8217;s happening with radical Islam.  You all saw the footage from Beslan the school.  I know several, in Dagestan several moderate, actually Muslim representatives there.  They&#8217;re scared to death of what&#8217;s happening with radical Islam.  I think Putin is very much locked in the past.  I&#8217;ll tell you a quick story, doctor.  The first time I met him, he was a councilman from Saint Petersburg.  There were two of them and two members of Congress were asked to stay over and meet with them and I had a friend there and Jack was &#8212; some of you know Jack Wheeler &#8212; Jack was arm wrestling Putin.  Putin, we&#8217;d had a few drinks and Putin&#8217;s very competitive, and in the middle of this effort, well, actually Jack won the first round because he&#8217;s very muscular.  He works out a lot but he had a hard time.  I mean this was really, Putin&#8217;s a strong guy.  So Jack wins and Putin says, I think he says, I&#8217;m left handed.  Now the other arm.  And so in the middle of that second match, Putin looks at Jack and jumps up, Jack jumps up and Putin pokes him in the chest.  Jack had done some work in Central Asia and he yells, CIA.  And Jack goes, KGB.  Then Putin lets out this big laugh, and my take away is that Putin is very much in the past, a KGB guy that remembers the high point of the empire or what-have-you, but at the same time what he has to contend with is a declining birth rate, an ever-encroaching radicalization of a part of the population and ten years from now we&#8217;re going to be dealing with somebody else in Russia.  And Russia&#8217;s big problem is going to be what&#8217;s happening in Southern Russia with respect to radical Islam.</p>
<p>Al-Qaida affiliates are operating all through that region and they&#8217;re growing explanentially.  And so I think Russia&#8217;s real, long-term &#8212; I mean we&#8217;ve screwed this up in all the ways that I&#8217;ve explained to you.  But we can get it back in terms of a situation that can be managed because the real challenge for the West is going to be the Al-Qaida affiliated organizations, they&#8217;re going to continue to grow and let&#8217;s keep our eye on that ball.  Let&#8217;s solve this problem. To solve this problem, let&#8217;s show the world what we can do.  We produce far more gas than Russia.  It&#8217;s just Russia exports more into that one little market where they&#8217;ve got a monopoly.  Let&#8217;s knock them off their game there.</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>AIPAC and Iran’s War Against America</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/aipac-and-irans-war-against-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=aipac-and-irans-war-against-america</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Feb 2014 05:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218511</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the pro-Israel lobbying group walked away from the Iranian sanctions push.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/nat_aipac_flags_03052013-584.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218512" alt="nat_aipac_flags_03052013-584" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/nat_aipac_flags_03052013-584-450x338.jpg" width="270" height="203" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-world-AIPAC-and-Irans-war-against-America-340993">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>For its decision to pull anchor last Friday on its bid to pass new sanctions on Iran, AIPAC has been accused of slavish devotion to bipartisanship. Although the criticism is not without foundation, it is probably undeserved in this case.</p>
<p>AIPAC did not cut and run from the Iran sanctions fight because it consecrates two-party initiatives. It walked away because it lost.</p>
<p>If the Republicans controlled the Senate, it’s possible that AIPAC would have maintained its support for the bill’s immediate passage even in the face of President Barack Obama’s pledge to veto any sanctions law. But since the Democrats control the Senate, the bill was dead without Democratic support.</p>
<p>Once President Obama coerced Senate Democrats into ending their support for the bill’s passage, he killed the bill. And he didn’t kill it by making it a partisan bill per se. He killed it by making it impossible to pass the bill through the Senate.</p>
<p>In truth, AIPAC’s retreat from the Iran sanctions bill is probably a good thing. The pro-Israel advocacy group’s high-profile role in the US debate about Iran’s nuclear weapons program has caused US policymakers to confuse the issue.</p>
<p>Due in part to AIPAC’s leadership role over the past decade in getting anti-Iran sanctions passed through Congress, most Americans perceive Iran’s nuclear weapons program as an Israeli security problem, not an American problem. Since AIPAC is a lightning rod for isolationists in both parties, and for anti-Israel forces in the Democratic Party, its leadership role in the debate reinforced that perception.</p>
<p>Certainly it is true that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is the most acute threat that Israel faces to its long term survival.</p>
<p>But it is also the most acute national security threat facing the United States.</p>
<p>The Obama administration exploits AIPAC’s high-profile role in the Iran sanctions debate to accomplish two goals. With the American public’s interest and patience for foreign affairs at a low point, the White House has used AIPAC’s central role in the Iranian nuclear issue to discredit AIPAC.</p>
<p>The administration views AIPA C, and the American Jewishcommunity more generally as an adversary in its bid to reposition the US on the world stage, by among other things, downgrading the US relationship with Israel to the level of EU-Israel ties.</p>
<p>Since last November, when the administration forged the deal with Iran that clears the path for Tehran to complete its nuclear weapons development in peace, the White House has actively endorsed the claim that AIPAC, or “the Israel lobby,” is using its supernatural powers on Capitol Hill to pass legislation that will force the US into war, for Israel.</p>
<p>This message was so incendiary that it became the focal point of news coverage of the Iranian nuclear weapons story.</p>
<p>And that in turn advanced the administration’s second goal.</p>
<p>That goal is to obfuscate the fact that Iran is working to acquire nuclear weapons, both as a means to become a regional hegemon, and to carry out its goal of destroying its enemies, including the United States.</p>
<p>Until Friday, the administration faced two obstacles toward achieving that goal: the Congressional sanctions bid, and Iranian behavior.</p>
<p>The sanctions bill wasn’t important as a sanctions bill per se. The sanctions placed on Iran’s economy over the past decade had either no impact or a marginal impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>The sanctions bill was important because it demonstrated that it was the will of the American people, through their Congressional representatives, to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. In other words, it said that Obama’s diplomatic fetish is not the be all and end all of American power.</p>
<p>By killing the bill, Obama did far more than weaken AIPAC. Indeed, the real impact so dwarfs whatever harm was caused to the hated Jewish group that it exposes the entire debate on AIPAC’s power or lack thereof as completely ridiculous.</p>
<p>By defeating the sanctions bill, Obama showed the mullahs that the domestic constituencies in the US that oppose Iran’s nuclear program are powerless to stop it. In other words, Obama told the Iranians that they have no reason to maintain even a pretense of good will or faith.</p>
<p>In truth, since Iran’s phony moderate Hassan Rohani was elected to the presidency last summer, Iran’s positive signals to the West have been so weak, that in a previous era, when reality played a greater role in US foreign policy, they would have been laughed off as pathetic feints.</p>
<p>But at least they were there.</p>
<p>No more.</p>
<p>Just hours after the Democrats withdrew support for sanctions, (and AIPAC declared defeat), Iranian television broadcast a documentary of a simulated military attack on Israel and on US military targets, replete with drone and missile strikes on theUSS Abraham Lincoln, downing US aircraft, and striking US military installations in the Persian Gulf.</p>
<p>One of the interesting aspects of Friday’s broadcast of “The Nightmare of Vultures,” is that it follows a much shorter computer-simulated clip of Iranian attacks televised in early November.</p>
<p>That clip was broadcast a week before the conclusion of the interim deal, which enables Iran to complete it nuclear weapons program. Notably, the earlier clips only showcased Iranian strikes on Israeli cities.</p>
<p>The computer-simulated attacks on US targets were not included.</p>
<p>Friday’s dramatization of Iran’s war against America was followed on Saturday first with a verbal assault on the US by Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei.</p>
<p>In a speech before military officers, Khamenei referred to the US as Iran’s “enemy,” and he said that Americans are “controlling and meddlesome,” and that US officials are “lying” when they express friendship with the Iranian people and when they “tell our authorities that they are not after regime change in Iran.”</p>
<p>Hours after Khamenei rallied his military forces with his stirring “hate America” screed, Iranian Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Naval Fleet announced that the fleet was on its way across the Atlantic Ocean, headed for America.</p>
<p>In his words, “Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message.”</p>
<p>Then on Sunday, Iran dropped the bombshell.</p>
<p>Speaking to Iran’s ISNA news agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, said that Iran will not allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to visit the Parchin military nuclear complex.</p>
<p>Parchin is believed to be the site where Iran is combining the enriched uranium and other components of its nuclear program and building its actual arsenal.</p>
<p>Most recently, in August 2013, the private satellite imaging company Digital Globe published new photos of the Parchin facility. According to the Associated Press, those images indicated that Iran may be building nuclear bombs at the site.</p>
<p>One of the many flaws of the interim deal with Iran was that the US and EU did not insist on inspecting Parchin. Given that Parchin wasn’t included, there was no apparent reason for the Iranians to restate the known fact that Parchin was not part of the deal. And consequently, Kamalvandi’s statement cannot be viewed as posturing.</p>
<p>It has to be seen as a threat.</p>
<p>AIPAC’s withdrawal from the sanctions debate may or may not be good for AIPAC. But lawmakers – from both parties – would do their country a great service if they use the occasion of AIPAC’s departure to place the domestic US debate where it should have always been – on the dire threat Iran’s nuclear weapons program constitutes for the security of the United States of America.</p>
<p><strong>The author’s new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Israeli-Solution-One-State-Peace-Middle/dp/0385348061/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1392060072&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+israeli+solution" target="_blank">The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East</a>, will be released on March 4. </strong></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>Date Set for Iran Deal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ryan-mauro/date-set-for-iran-deal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=date-set-for-iran-deal</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Jan 2014 05:31:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=215213</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While White House smears critics as warmongers.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/340282_Iran-Rouhani-WMD.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-215216" alt="340282_Iran-Rouhani-WMD" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/340282_Iran-Rouhani-WMD-429x350.jpg" width="300" height="245" /></a>The six-month nuclear deal with Iran will go into effect on January 20 and the White House is nervous that its critics will lead to its undoing. As a bi-partisan majority comes together in Congress to approve further sanctions if a final deal is not reached at the end of the six months, the White House is accusing them of secretly desiring a war.</p>
<p>“As of that day, for the first time in almost a decade, Iran’s nuclear program will not be able to advance, and parts of it will be rolled back, while we start negotiating a comprehensive agreement to address the international community’s concerns about Iran’s program,” Secretary of State Kerry <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/12/world/meast/iran-nuclear/">said.</a></p>
<p>This boast is based on two flimsy premises.</p>
<p>Firstly, Iran’s nuclear program <i>can</i> and <i>will</i> advance. The regime is still <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-226166-Iran-defends-development-of-advanced-centrifuges">developing</a> advanced centrifuges, enriching uranium, building ballistic missiles, and training nuclear scientists.</p>
<p>At the same time, the work that Iran supposedly halts will continue in North Korea. It is an error to look at the nuclear programs of the two countries as independent. They are interlocked. When North Korea advances; so does Iran.</p>
<p>Secondly, while it is technically true that parts of the program are “rolled back,” they are not necessarily permanent. It is true that the Iranians are required to convert its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium into an oxide that cannot be used for building a bomb, but that’s not the same thing as disarmament.</p>
<p>Two experts from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-nuclear-plans">explain:</a></p>
<blockquote><p>“The notion that this puts the material ‘beyond use for bombs’ is simply wrong. The conversion of oxide back to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas is not ‘time-consuming,’ is not necessarily ‘detectable,’ and it is not particularly ‘technically demanding.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This conversion does not eliminate Iran’s 20% enriched uranium; it just makes it a little harder to use for nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime is calculating that this temporary setback will yield long-term nuclear gains. This “concession” in no way reflects a commitment by Iran not to build nuclear weapons capabilities.</p>
<p>A powerful bi-partisan coalition has come together in Congress that the White House worries will jeopardize its deal. Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have written a new bill that will hit Iran with even stronger sanctions at the end of the six-month period if a comprehensive deal is not reached. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is also a critical supporter.</p>
<p>Their logic is solid: If sanctions are what brought Iran to the negotiating table, then the threat of harsher sanctions will compel Iran to agree to a long-term deal. If Iran does not give up its uranium enrichment, then it will face sanctions that threaten its oil industry like never before.</p>
<p>The Obama administration is <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/01/11/White-House-Suggests-New-Sanctions-A-Veiled-Attempt-At-War-With-Iran">offensively questioning</a>  these congressmen’s sincerity. A spokesperson for the National Security Council accused them of secretly trying to trigger a war. She said if they “want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American people and say so.”</p>
<p>The administration is worried because its foreign policy legacy is at stake. The Iranian regime is threatening to walk away from the deal if new sanctions are passed. Hypocritically, it was the Obama Treasury Department that <a href="http://freebeacon.com/treasury-department-tightens-iran-sanctions/%20">placed further sanctions</a> on entities linked to Iran’s nuclear program after the agreement was announced.</p>
<p>There are also political risks for the administration. The strong showing of bi-partisan opposition threatens the deal and the administration’s credibility on Iran. President Obama says he will veto any new sanctions legislation, but he now faces a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/senate-reaches-veto-proof-majority-on-iran-sanctions">majority</a> that can override his veto. The back-and-forth would cause numerous unfavorable news cycles and the episode would be brought up again every time in the future that Iran is talked about.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime is already seeing enormous benefits even before the six-month period begins on January 20. International investors are <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/geneva-deal-sparks-new-international-investor-interest-in-iran-a-940629.html">ready to pounce</a> at the opportunity to exploit the easing of sanctions. Italy is particularly <a href="http://freebeacon.com/sources-italy-leading-charge-to-collapse-iran-sanctions/">eager</a> to end the sanctions on Iran.</p>
<p>Russia is on the cusp of a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/10/us-iran-russia-oil-idUSBREA090DK20140110">major deal</a> to buy 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day, increasing the regime’s exports by a whopping 50%. Turkey is <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/28/turkey-and-iran-accused-of-oil-for-cash-sanctions-scheme.html">believed</a> to have helped Iran work past the sanctions and such cooperation will only increase as the Turkish and Iranian governments become closer and closer.</p>
<p>This is all on top of the $7-10 billion in sanctions relief that the Obama administration publicly agree to provide Iran over the course of the six-month period. Israeli <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.562824">estimates</a> put the figure at around $20 billion.</p>
<p>That’s the reward Iran gets for agreeing to stay <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/fpi-analysis-minimum-interim-deal-should-fully-freeze-iran%E2%80%99s-growing-nuclear-threat">7/10ths</a> of the way towards having bomb-grade uranium. In addition, the deal has helped <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/middle-east-now-has-three-alliances-none-are-us">push</a> Iran’s Arab enemies into the arms of Russia and away from the U.S.</p>
<p>To summarize, here’s what Iran has gotten for agreeing to slow down its nuclear pursuits:</p>
<p>• The delaying of further sanctions</p>
<p>• $20 billion in sanctions relief</p>
<p>• Lucrative deals with international partners and investors</p>
<p>• A decreased likelihood of effective sanctions in the future as more countries and companies invest in Iran</p>
<p>• Favorable geopolitical shifts</p>
<p>• The preservation of its nuclear infrastructure and 20% enriched uranium</p>
<p>• An acknowledgement from the U.S. that Iran should be allowed to enrich to at least 5%</p>
<p>The Iranian regime’s participation in the deal doesn’t mean it’s had a change in heart. All it did was negotiate a deal that any nuke-seeking mullah would see as a good bargain.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="http://www.theird.org/">Institute on Religion and Democracy</a> contributed to this article.</em></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>Kerry&#8217;s Iranian Appeasement Pitch to Congress</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/kerrys-iranian-appeasement-pitch-to-congress/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kerrys-iranian-appeasement-pitch-to-congress</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:25:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will lawmakers have the fortitude to go through with necessary sanctions? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/8983EC15-C321-41E5-AC3F-F2FFAAF51433_mw1024_n_s.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-213105" alt="8983EC15-C321-41E5-AC3F-F2FFAAF51433_mw1024_n_s" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/8983EC15-C321-41E5-AC3F-F2FFAAF51433_mw1024_n_s-450x300.jpg" width="315" height="210" /></a>Bipartisan legislation written by two U.S. senators— the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Mark Kirk— is asking for alternatives if the Islamist Ayatollahs in Iran do not abide by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and international community rules and standards.</p>
<p>Congress is preparing a piece of legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran in six months, if the provisional and interim nuclear deal on the Islamic Republic&#8217;s nuclear program does not lead to a comprehensive and final accord (and if it goes nowhere like all the previous nuclear deals reached in the past decade).</p>
<p>The details of the legislation, crafted by Menendez and Kirk, suggest that the sanctions would target Iran&#8217;s remaining oil exports, strategic industries, as well as foreign exchange reserves. A senior Republican Senate aide told Reuters, speaking on the condition of anonymity, that this bipartisan legislation is &#8220;an insurance policy to protect against Iranian deception.&#8221;</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Obama administration is focused on fixing the domestic economy, creating jobs and addressing unemployment, and has been recently spending most of its political capital in Congress to warn the legislative body to not pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ruling Ayatollah.  After the Obama administration scored a victory (from their perspective) in pushing the international community to ease pressure on Iran and to reach an agreement, President Obama has shifted his current efforts toward Congress, to prevent further sanctions on the Islamist ruling leaders in Iran.</p>
<p>Secretary of State John Kerry is on a promotional tour in Congress, attempting to drum up support for the provisional and interim nuclear agreement that was recently reached with Iran.</p>
<p>Testifying before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Kerry has spent a lot of political capital to remove fear about Iran as a threat or that Iran would become a nuclear power.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are asking you to give our negotiators and our experts the time and the space to do their jobs and that includes asking you while we negotiate that you hold off imposing new sanctions,&#8221; Kerry said.</p>
<p>However, it is crucial to point out that the same reasoning and process led to North Korea becoming a nuclear-armed state. In addition, Iran has been given almost two decades of time.</p>
<p>Although Republicans and Democrats (on the House Foreign Affairs Committee) alike are not persuaded by the policies that the Obama administration is carrying towards the Ayatollahs— and because of the president’s secret talks with the Mullahs— the administration is pushing hard to stop any bipartisan sanction bill on Iran from passing Congress’s floor.</p>
<p>Republican Committee Chairman Ed Royce, had a very astute observation and informative question for Kerry: “I am hard pressed to understand why we would be letting up sanctions pressure at the very time its economy is on the ropes without getting an agreement which stops its centrifuges from spinning.”</p>
<p>This question is fundamental to the issue in that it is very puzzling that although the international pressures and sanctions have pushed the Mullahs to a level that they would accept any deal, the Obama administration is not asking the Iranian regime to halt its nuclear program or to even roll it back. Instead, President Obama, has issued an executive order to release billions of dollars back to the Islamist Ayatollah, based on the recent nuclear deal.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has been successful at pursuing the Senate Banking Committee to hold off on passing a new Iran sanctions bill. Democratic Senator Tim Johnson said in a statement on Tuesday, &#8220;The president and Secretary Kerry have made a strong case for a pause in Congressional action on new <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/iran?lc=int_mb_1001">Iran</a> sanctions, so I am inclined to support their request and hold off on committee action for now.&#8221;</p>
<p>The first issue is that there is a distinct bipartisan agreement and suspicion on the Obama administration’s foreign policies toward the Islamists and Ayatollahs, their nuclear program, their heavy-water reactor, plutonium processing, and their nuclear sites in various underground locations in Iran. Both Democrats and Republicans are puzzled as to why the Obama administration is pushing for more leeway for the Iranian Islamist Mullahs at these critical moments, when Iran is just a short technical step away from militarizing its nuclear industry.</p>
<p>The second critical issue is the enigma over President Obama’s eagerness to halt any sanctions on Iran. Politically speaking, if Congress passes further sanctions, the Obama administration can use that as strong leverage against the Ayatollahs, particularly for the next round of talks and for making a permanent and final deal. But, why would President Obama not want this formidable leverage? Even Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House panel, told Kerry that he thought that the Obama administration would have more leverage if more sanctions were allowed to pass. He pointed out, &#8220;I think it could potentially strengthen your hand with a good cop, bad cop scenario.&#8221;</p>
<p>Finally, and more fundamentally, while the unemployment rate is high and economy is not showing any signs of improvement, President Obama is spending most of his political capital in Congress fighting to avoid new sanctions on the Iran and the Ayatollhahs. The question remains whether this is, in fact, the primary concern of President Obama rather than focusing on the domestic economy, the destiny of millions of American youth and unemployment.</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>Iran is More Than a Threat to the Middle East</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/iran-is-more-than-a-threat-to-the-middle-east/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=iran-is-more-than-a-threat-to-the-middle-east</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Nov 2013 05:05:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why sanctions must be kept in place.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/it.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-211590" alt="it" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/it.jpg" width="353" height="240" /></a>Why sanctions must be kept in place:</p>
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		<title>Obama, Iran and World War III</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/noah-beck/obama-iran-and-world-war-iii/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-iran-and-world-war-iii</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2013 04:51:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noah Beck]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The price of appeasement. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/iran20a.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-211133" alt="iran20a" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/iran20a.jpg" width="261" height="219" /></a>According to <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-and-us-held-secret-talks-for-over-a-year/">a recent news report</a>, President Barack Obama has for over a year secretly conducted negotiations with Iran (through his adviser Valerie Jarrett) and the Geneva talks on Iranian nukes now appear to be just a facade providing international legitimacy for Obama&#8217;s secret deal with Iran.</span></b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/obamas-fight-with-israel-99964.html">Secretary of State John Kerry&#8217;s contradictory criticism of Israeli objections to that deal only suggests more bad faith</a> by the Obama administration. Kerry claims that Israel has been kept fully apprised of the negotiations with Iran but then argues that Israel has never seen the terms of the proposed deal with Iran and therefore shouldn&#8217;t question it. The Obama administration apparently wants to present the nuclear deal as a fait accompli that Israel must simply accept as is.</p>
<p>In what is becoming a familiar pattern, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/18/russia-steps-in-as-egypt-sours-on-us/">Russia is readily moving in to the Mideast areas</a> where U.S. influence has waned because of Obama&#8217;s many fumbles in the region. Last August, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-vows-to-back-egypts-rulers.html?_r=0">Saudi Arabia made it clear that it would happily replace US aid to Egypt</a> (highlighting one of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/22/six-reasons-the-u-s-and-saudi-arabia-are-moving-apart/">many issues straining U.S. relations with yet another Mideast ally</a>).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/17/us-israel-usa-kerry-idUSBRE9AG06720131117">On the issue of Iranian nukes, France has effectively replaced the U.S. as Israel&#8217;s strongest ally</a> and as the most sober-minded advocate of caution when negotiating over the single greatest threat to global security. Incredibly, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-be-working-with-saudi-arabia-on-iran-strike-plan/">Saudi Arabia is reportedly replacing the US in providing logistical support for an Israeli strike on Iranian nukes</a>.</p>
<p>Yaakov Amidror, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, recently indicated that the Israeli Air Force has been preparing for a potential strike on Iran. <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-can-strike-iran-alone-say-former-top-security-adviser-to-pm/">According to Amidror, such a strike could set back Iran&#8217;s nuclear program “for a very long time</a>.&#8221; So Israel can go it alone, if it must, although the results will be far messier than those produced by a stronger U.S. approach.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration has suggested that critics of the current Geneva deal are &#8220;<a href="http://www.thetower.org/bipartisan-calls-new-sanctions/">on a march to war</a>,&#8221; it is that very deal &#8212; which gives Iran a nuclear breakout capacity &#8212; that will force the states most threatened by Iran to take preemptive military action.</p>
<p>Even if one accepts Obama&#8217;s apparent view that decades-long alliances matter no more than do U.S. assurances, there are other compelling reasons for Obama to reverse his disastrous Iran policy before its too late.  Granting an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout capability will produce catastrophic consequences  (many of which Obama himself acknowledged, in <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/04/remarks-president-aipac-policy-conference-0">his March 2012 speech</a>):</p>
<p>1) The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will effectively be finished. The world&#8217;s most volatile region will become even more explosive as other regional players scramble to establish their own nuclear arsenals to counter Iran&#8217;s. And rogue nations will realize that by following Iran&#8217;s deceptive playbook, they too can develop a nuclear capability.</p>
<p>2)  The force of U.N. Security Council Resolutions will be further diluted, as Iran will continue flouting six of them with impunity.</p>
<p>3) Iran-backed terrorist organizations &#8212; including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah &#8212; will grow emboldened by the nuclear umbrella of their patron.</p>
<p>4) Terrorism could go nuclear, should Iran share some of its nuclear materials with the terrorist groups that it supports.</p>
<p>5) U.S. influence in the Middle East will erode even more, as Obama further damages U.S. relationships and influence in the region.</p>
<p>6) U.S. credibility throughout the world will plummet. If the U.S. cannot be trusted to provide strong leadership on the national security issue of greatest concern to the free world, where U.S. interests are directly at stake, what does that mean for U.S. credibility more generally?</p>
<p>7) Global instability and oil prices will skyrocket. If Israel, with Saudi assistance, strikes Iran&#8217;s nuclear program, the Iranian retaliation that follows could spark World War III. Will Iran attack Saudi oil fields or otherwise pour more fuel onto the Sunni-Shia fire in Syria? Will Iran and Iran-backed Hezbollah (<a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/10/22/Israel-worried-about-US-Iran-deal-mulls-hitting-Hezbollah/UPI-46661382471401/#ixzz2l4Glp92k">estimated to have at least 45,000 missiles</a>) launch a massive attack killing thousands of Israeli civilians? Will some of the Syrian chemical weapons held by Assad (another Iranian ally) end up hitting Israel? How would Israel respond? Is this how Armageddon happens?</p>
<p>8) U.S. interests will be attacked. Obama may think that his policy of appeasement will shield the U.S. from Iranian reprisals, but the opposite is true. When the U.S. appears so weak and ready to abandon allies (as with Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia), Iran has less fear of attacking the U.S. and more reasons to do so, as a way to exacerbate U.S. tensions with Israel.</p>
<p>Will attacking U.S. interests be yet another Obama &#8220;red line&#8221; that gets crossed with impunity? If so, then whatever is left of U.S. deterrence and credibility will have been destroyed. If not, then the U.S. will get sucked into another Mideast war but on terms dictated by the adversary, and without any first-strike advantage.</p>
<p>The catastrophic consequences outlined above would all directly result from Obama&#8217;s disastrously weak &#8212; but still reversible &#8212; policies on the Iranian nuclear threat.</p>
<p>The Jewish people have a long memory, and it pervades the thinking of Israeli civilians and top brass alike. Thus, Israel&#8217;s brief history is replete with daring military operations to protect its security. In <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.550012">Netanyahu&#8217;s speech at the last UN General Assembly</a>, in what may have been Israel&#8217;s final warning to the world to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat before Israel must, the Prime Minister summed up &#8212; from his personal family history &#8212; the collective experience that guides Israel on fateful decisions:</p>
<p>&#8220;[O]ne cold day in the late 19th century, my grandfather Nathan and his younger brother Judah were standing in a railway station in the heart of Europe. They were seen by a group of anti-Semitic hoodlums who ran towards them waving clubs, screaming &#8216;Death to the Jews.&#8217; My grandfather shouted to his younger brother to flee and save himself, and he then stood alone against the raging mob to slow it down. They beat him senseless, they left him for dead, and before he passed out, covered in his own blood, he said to himself &#8216;What a disgrace, what a disgrace. The descendants of the Macabees lie in the mud powerless to defend themselves.&#8217; He promised himself then that if he lived, he would take his family to the Jewish homeland and help build a future for the Jewish people. I stand here today as Israel&#8217;s prime minister because my grandfather kept that promise.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama should know by now that if he forces Israel&#8217;s hand, then Israel alone will neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, regardless of how messy the aftermath may be. Netanyahu &#8212; like any other responsible Israeli leader &#8212; would rather bring about World War III than the last Israelis.</p>
<p><b>Noah Beck is the author of </b><a href="http://thelastisraelis.com/buy-the-book/"><b><i>The Last Israelis</i></b></a><b>, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.</b></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 Secret Talks Between Obama and the Mullahs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/the-secret-deals-between-obama-and-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-secret-deals-between-obama-and-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Nov 2013 04:52:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How the president has been sabotaging sanctions from the beginning.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/obama-rouhani.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-210267" alt="obama-rouhani" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/obama-rouhani.jpg" width="249" height="195" /></a>I have long pointed out that Barack Obama’s administration, and particularly president Obama himself, has been more than likely clandestinely communicating and working with the Islamic Republic of Iran much longer than just before the current nuclear talks, and even long before President Hassan Rouhani came to the United States to attend the UN General Assembly. Several national and international outlets have just released more details and reports on this issue.</p>
<p>The crucial point of this issue is that while the American people were told by the Obama administration (an image projected by President Obama) that this September’s “historic” telephone call between President Obama and President Rouhani was the first diplomatic outreach to achieve agreement on nuclear issues, the recent revelations indicate otherwise.</p>
<p>These secrets talks, surreptitious letters, leading to confidential and classified negotiations between Obama and the Islamist leaders of Iran, were initiated long before the current nuclear talks, right after the current president of Iran was elected to office.</p>
<p>According to several outlets, including the Daily Beast, the Blaze, and the <em>Washington Times</em>, the White House— under the leadership of President Obama— started lifting and easing its sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran right after President Hassan Rouhani took office.</p>
<p>According to The Daily Beast, Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a group that works closely with Congress and the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/white-house/">White House</a> regarding Iranian matters, stated that for &#8220;five months, since <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/hassan-rouhani/">Rouhani</a>’s election, the United States has offered <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/iran/">Iran</a> two major forms of sanctions relief.” In addition, Dubowitz pointed out that Iran has been selling oil illegally on the black market, leading to a large profitable amount of illegal revenues for Iran.</p>
<p>This also explains why President Obama has tried to oppose any sort of sanctions, policy recommendations, and legislation presented by the overwhelming majority of congressional representatives.</p>
<p>While it took several American administrations, the international community, the United Nations, and European countries to identify illicit institutions and actors in Iran who have abused the international financial sector, the Obama administration is quietly reversing these processes.</p>
<p>The Obama administration’s policy of quietly lessening financial pressure on Iran has significantly emboldened the position of Iranian Islamists in the international arena.</p>
<p>According to Dubowitz, two types of relief and special offers have been given to Iran by the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Firstly, the Obama administration has significantly decreased issuing designations of sanctions violators in comparison to any previous administrations. This is occurring at a time when Iran has been more rapidly working on its nuclear program and increasing its centrifuges, according to the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran has also increased the number of engineers working at a new plutonium plant, and according to many nuclear experts, Iran will reach the breakaway capacity of developing bomb-grade nuclear weapons within the first six months of next year.</p>
<p>These secrets concessions have significantly assisted the new president of Iran, allowing the administration to make millions of dollars in profit by increasing its oil sale in the illegal black market. While President Obama has not only done nothing to counter it, but has also assured the Iranian Islamist leaders that they have the green light to receive further relief down the road.  This is in complete violation of the financial global standards.</p>
<p>Secondly, and more importantly, the Obama administration has been offering Iran special deals by opposing sanction recommendations coming from both parties in Congress. In addition, Iranian lawmakers have previously pointed out that President Obama has previously sent secret letters to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While the Obama administration denies that they sent a secret letter to Khamenei, Iran&#8217;s Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that Tehran did receive the secret letter to the Supreme Leader. Furthermore, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, pointed out, US Secretary of State John Kerry is currently pushing for an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, which will ease sanction on Iran without even asking Tehran to slow down its nuclear activities.</p>
<p>The secrecy of the Obama administration’s work with the Islamist leaders of Iran is brining, and will continue to bring, further severe repercussions for American national interest, which will just intensify as these clandestine communications networks continue to occur. Some of the negative backlash to this event is aimed at how the Obama administration is alienating its regional allies, particular Israel, through these acts. By these secret reliefs, the Obama administration is significantly assisting Iran in more quickly obtaining bomb-grade nuclear capabilities and weapons. The Obama administration is also breaking the number one rule in foreign service, in which United States prohibits its diplomat from contacting Iranian counterparts. Finally, and more fundamentally, this move has worked to embolden the Islamists’ position, weakening and damaging the American image.</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>Money Flows Back to the Mullahs Thanks to Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/money-flows-back-to-the-mullahs-thanks-to-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=money-flows-back-to-the-mullahs-thanks-to-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2013 04:15:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Moderate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How the West's appeasement of Iran is already setting back human rights in the region. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1623441389.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209147" alt="1623441389" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1623441389-450x342.jpg" width="270" height="205" /></a>Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s government could not have possibly expected, or wished for, a better American government to work with than the Obama administration. The Iranians could not have imagined that an American administration could so easily buy their argument and image of a “moderate” government, allowing Iranian leaders to pursue their own Islamist and meddling foreign policies.</p>
<p>The Obama administration is attempting to persuade Congress, the international community, and its Western and European allies, that Rouhani’s government is moderate and different than Iranian governments of the past. While the American government has sent strong signals to the international community and multinational corporations that the Iranian government is moderate, the Islamic Republic of Iran is gleefully rebuilding its crippled economy. The Obama administration is also trying to prevent Congress from enacting further sanctions on Iran. As the Obama administration is attempting to halt further pressure on Iran, and is considering loosening and easing current economic sanctions (it is worth noting that it has already loosened some non-economic sanctions), Iran is getting back on the track.</p>
<p>First of all, Iran’s major economic lifeline, its oil industry, has rapidly begun to recover. According to <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2012/october/name,32248,en.html">International Energy Agency</a> (IEA) reports, in September, Iran has already increased its oil exports by 180,000 barrels per day as compared to the previous year, equivalent to a 26 percent increase.</p>
<p>An adviser to Iran’s oil minister, Mehdi Hosseini, was quoted in the Financial Times saying that the Iranian government is developing a “win-win” form of contract, which could benefit leading Western and Eastern companies alike.  The Iranian government is trying, according to Hosseini, to also change the current system of “buyback” contracts, which currently do not permit foreign companies to book reserves or take equity stakes in Iranian oil, gas, or other projects. This is can be viewed as a considerable shift in Iran’s oil industry, which has previously been exposed to little foreign investment in its oil and gas fields due to the international sanctions and pressure.</p>
<p>As the theocratic and Islamist government of the Ayatollahs and clerics are again observing the flow of wealth and cash into their government, thanks to the Obama administration loosening its policies on Tehran, the ruling Islamists in Iran are feeling more confident in their abilities to ratchet up their crackdown on minorities, oppositional groups, along with political and human rights activists.</p>
<p>Despite Rouhani’s moderate image and American outreach to Iran, the religious persecution of minorities—particularly Christians and Sunni Muslims— is increasing and continuing. According to a Christian advocacy group and international news outlets, just this week a court in Iran has sentenced four Christian men to 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion ceremony. This sentencing is part of the government crackdown on so-called “house churches.” House churches are unofficial locations where Christians meet in Iran in order to practice their faith while trying to not be recognized, detected, and persecuted. Several other political and human rights activists have also been sentenced to jail in the last few weeks.</p>
<p>According to a new UN report made in October by Ahmed Shaheed, a UN special reporter on human rights in Iran, such persecution of Christians is common in the country despite new President Rouhani&#8217;s pledge to be a moderate.  “At least 20 Christians were in custody in July 2013,&#8221; Shaheed reported, adding, &#8220;In addition, violations of the rights of Christians, particularly those belonging to evangelical Protestant groups, many of whom are converts, who proselytize to and serve Iranian Christians of Muslim background, continue to be reported.”</p>
<p>Additionally, the UN report noted that Iran’s “Authorities continue to compel licensed Protestant churches to restrict Persian-speaking and Muslim-born Iranians from participating in services, and raids and forced closures of house churches are ongoing,” and that “More than 300 Christians have been arrested since 2010, and dozens of church leaders and active community members have reportedly been convicted of national security crimes in connection with church activities, such as organizing prayer groups, proselytizing and attending Christian seminars abroad.” Furthermore, this past Saturday, Iranian authorities executed 16 Sunni insurgents. These executions were reportedly conducted as retaliation for an attack carried out a day earlier, by other groups.</p>
<p>Recently, Iran’s press watchdog has imposed a ban on a major reformist newspaper <i>Bahar</i>, because it published an article viewed as raising questions about the beliefs of Shi’ite Islam. The <i>Bahar</i> newspaper published an op-ed article in which the author casted doubts on whether the Prophet Muhammad had appointed a successor (Ali). The newspaper was banned because this statement contradicts the beliefs of Shia Muslims, Iran’s ruling clerics and Ayatollahs.</p>
<p>As the Islamist state of Iran is becoming more confident about its economy and its reopening of oil contracts, it is also further finding itself more capable of funding its proxies in the region including Hamas and Hezbollah.  Meaning that Iran is increasing its geopolitical and foreign policy influence across the region. These are some of the recent highlights and consequences of the Obama administration’s softening policies towards Iran. When foreign policies are not calculated and informed meticulously, the repercussions will be severe, not only for one nation but for security and peace regionally and internationally.  As the United States is loosening its pressure on Iran and urging other countries to do the same, more oil companies are investing in Iran, allowing Tehran to feel more confident in their persecution of minorities and political activists, along with their funding of proxies and meddling in the affairs of other countries.</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>Kerry &amp; Netanyahu Spar in Rome</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/kerry-netanyahu-spar-in-rome/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kerry-netanyahu-spar-in-rome</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:52:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[deal]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[With Iran’s nuclear clock running out.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/BFD8291D-E3C2-4210-BE9A-1B2F7F47908E_mw1024_n_s.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208510" alt="BFD8291D-E3C2-4210-BE9A-1B2F7F47908E_mw1024_n_s" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/BFD8291D-E3C2-4210-BE9A-1B2F7F47908E_mw1024_n_s-414x350.jpg" width="290" height="245" /></a>AP <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_24360867/iran-nuke-overture-more-promise-than-an-offer?source=rss">reported</a> this week that Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi “predicted…the nuclear talks could take as long as a year…with the first milestone coming in three to six months and negotiations concluding within the year.”</p>
<p>That “prediction” should come as no surprise. The same report says “significant gaps remain between what the Iranians offered” in last week’s first round of talks and what the P5+1 countries are seeking “to reduce fears Iran wants to build nuclear weapons.”</p>
<p>In other words, Iran’s strategy is to make an offer it knows even its eagerly “peace”-seeking interlocutors are quite capable of refusing—and then take lots of time seemingly whittling down that offer toward something more acceptable. Meanwhile Israel—if this goes according to plan—gets diplomatically closed out of taking military action and incurring universal wrath by wrecking “peace” and “progress.”</p>
<p>Also this week <i>The New Republic</i> <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115313/amos-yadlin-iran-strike-why-israel-needs-act-soon">posted a long interview</a> with Amos Yadlin, Israel’s previous chief of military intelligence and current head of its leading security think tank.</p>
<p>Interviewer Ben Birnbaum notes that in September 2012, when many thought an Israeli strike on Iran was imminent, Yadlin told an Israeli journalist: “They say that time has almost run out, but I say there is still time. The decisive year is not 2012 but 2013. Maybe even early 2014.”</p>
<p>That is, a direct clash with Araghchi’s assessment of another leisurely year for talks.</p>
<p>Does Yadlin still see it the same way? It emerges that he does:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>…I think 2012 was the wrong year to do it, because in 2012, it was a bright red light from Washington. I would like to emphasize, Israel is not asking for a green light. Israel only doesn’t want to do something that is going 180 degrees against American vital interests as long as it is not a response to a threat that is almost an existential threat. I think in late 2013 or early 2014, especially if America sees that Iran is not serious about reaching an acceptable agreement and only continues to buy time, the U.S. will accept an Israeli attack because a nuclear Iran is absolutely against American vital national security interests.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Yadlin adds later:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>The most problematic issue has nothing to do with Israel. It’s nonproliferation in the Middle East. It’s the fact that the Saudis, the Egyptians, and the Turks will go for nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, and…miscalculations, unintended escalations, nuclear weapons to terrorists will be multiplied tenfold—it will be a nuclear nightmare.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, in a tour of European capitals this week Secretary of State John Kerry tried to assuage, in particular, Israeli and Saudi concerns about Washington’s Iran policy. According to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/world/middleeast/kerry-reassures-israel-on-iran-but-divisions-remain.html"><i>New York Times</i> report</a><i> </i>on Thursday, Kerry had little success.</p>
<p>The <i>Times</i> notes that “Saudi officials have made it clear they are frustrated with the Obama administration,” which is viewed in the region at large as simply seeking to avoid confrontations and hence quite amenable to Iran’s approach of drawing out the talks and playing for time.</p>
<p>And as for Kerry’s seven-hour-long meeting in Rome on Wednesday with Binyamin Netanyahu, the <i>Times</i> says “Kerry’s comments appeared to do little to persuade” the Israeli prime minister, with “the United States and other world powers…willing to explore a deal that is far less stringent” than any Netanyahu would consider acceptable.</p>
<p>In other words, the picture that emerges is less optimistic than former intelligence chief Yadlin’s expectation of U.S. understanding for a possible Israeli attack in a matter of months.</p>
<p>The next round of talks with Iran on November 7-8 should help clarify whether the U.S. and its European allies are capable, even at this late date, of relating to the danger with a modicum of seriousness.</p>
<p>Israel, for its part, should be thinking about forestalling the nuclear nightmare without even an amber light from Washington.</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>Emboldening and Empowering Islamic Fundamentalists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/emboldening-and-empowering-islamic-fundamentalists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=emboldening-and-empowering-islamic-fundamentalists</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How the Obama administration has already assured Iran that the West is ready to fold.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1371416420044127700-e1373642361951.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208526" alt="1371416420044127700-e1373642361951" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1371416420044127700-e1373642361951-450x264.jpg" width="315" height="185" /></a>In the last few months, the Obama administration has removed some non-economic sanctions on Iran, has stopped its efforts to push for more pressure on Iran’s nuclear defiance and clandestine uranium enrichments, has described the Islamist government of Iran (which holds the top rank on the list of nations with the highest human rights abuses and the support of terrorism) as a rational actor, and has characterized the recent nuclear talks with the Islamist government and fundamentalist theocratic regime of Iran as “positive” and “constructive.”</p>
<p>However, beyond all these political and diplomatic benefits given to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Ayatollahs, Western countries including France and the United States indicated this week that they are considering including Iran in the next Geneva II conference on the Syrian civil war and violence. The Western nations pointed out that Iran could be included in a Geneva II conference to negotiate an end to Syria’s bloody conflict.</p>
<p>Besides the permission given to the Islamists in Iran to continue uranium enrichment, which can soon turn into a nuclear breakthrough capacity according to nuclear experts, the West is basically sending a signal to the Islamists in Iran that they are legitimizing the Iranian government’s support of Assad’s Alawite and police state, Hezbollah’s interference in Syria (and every other geopolitical and strategic issue in the region), and Hamas activities.</p>
<p>First of all, by bringing the Islamist state of Iran into the Geneva II conference and by giving a seat to these Iranian radical leaders, the international community— particularly the West— will be implicitly accepting all the military, financial, intelligence, advisory, and terrorist assistance that the Islamic leaders of Iran and its radical Revolutionary Guard Corps have been giving to the brutal Assad regime and his apparatuses.</p>
<p>Secondly, through all these recent strategies of appeasement from the West and the Obama administration toward the Ayatollahs and clerics in Iran, the United States and the West are keeping other nations, ordinary people, and regional countries (particularly Israel) at a complete disadvantage. They are tipping the balance of power totally towards the Islamists in Iran.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime’s human rights abuses, its discrimination against religious minorities, its executions of political and human rights activists, it use of stoning for punishment of adultery (akin to the Middle Ages, or to the thousands of years ago in era of Muhammad), Tehran’s financial and military support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Iranian leaders&#8217; involvement in Syria in the slaughtering and killing of children and women, are somehow all being legitimized. Iranian Ayatollahs are gaining credibility and legitimacy.</p>
<p>Iran’s state media has recently told its people, or its non-states actors, that the reasons behind the West’s softening tone and actions towards Iran is that the West— particularly the United Sates and Israel— are desperate; Washington and Tel Aviv have lost their power and have failed, while other countries are leaving their alliances with the US, the West, and Israel, instead joining the Islamists in Iran.</p>
<p>When the Islamist state of Iran comes to the Geneva II conference it will tip the balance of power in favor of the Assad regime. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the new government of Hassan Rouhani have been very clear about their position toward the dictatorship in Syria; Ayatollahs view Bashar Al-Assad’s government as the legitimate governing force representative of its people. The Iranian clerics will do whatever they can (financially, advisory, intelligence, and militarily) to ensure that Assad will stay in power; Hamas and Hezbollah will keep provoking Israel, continuing to launch missiles into the country. The Ayatollahs’ position on Syria is in complete contrast with the rules of the Geneva Communiqué, which will be the foundation of the next Geneva II conference.</p>
<p>More and more concrete evidence, including documents, videos, and official statements from Iranian authorities have come out showing that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, its intelligence and militia groups, such as the Basij, are deeply involved in the killings of people in Syria, supporting Assad alongside Russia, and training the Syrian government’s forces. In addition, Iran continues to buttress the government of Assad by extending its millions of dollars of credit to the Assad government, attempting to keep the Syrian economy and government’s military expenditure going.</p>
<p>When Assad sees that the Islamist leaders are with him in the Geneva II conference, this will be a source of empowerment; he will interpret this as the weakness of the West and the United States. Furthermore, Assad will see no reason to step aside while his staunchest ally, Iran, is being treated as a legitimate power by the West and the United States.</p>
<p>Moreover, this move towards appeasement will send a signal to the Iranian leaders that the West, particularly the Obama administration, does not actually have the power the stop Tehran from enriching uranium. According to many experts and the Institute for Science and International Security (a nonproliferation monitoring group based in Washington, DC) Tehran’s current nuclear pace can theoretically create adequate bomb-grade uranium by the middle of 2014. Through all these signals of appeasement from the West and the Obama administration, Iranian Islamists and Ayatollahs are contently and joyfully assured that they can buy some more time— only less than a year— to make the “breakout capacity.”</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>Ignoring an Al-Qaeda Sponsor</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/ignoring-an-al-qaeda-sponsor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ignoring-an-al-qaeda-sponsor</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2013 04:29:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why isn’t Eritrea labeled a State Sponsor of Terrorism?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/shabaab_1959028c.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203447" alt="shabaab_1959028c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/shabaab_1959028c.jpg" width="248" height="194" /></a>A U.N. report in July confirmed that the African government of Eritrea is still supporting Al-Qaeda’s Somali branch, a group known for its reach into America. The Eritrean dictator, an ally of Iran and top persecutor of Christians, is met with silence. Is President Obama’s desire to <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/obama-declares-war-terror-must-end" target="_blank">end the war on terror</a>stronger than his desire to punish Al-Qaeda’s allies?</p>
<p>The U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-07-17/news/sns-rt-somalia-eritreaun-exclusive-20130716_1_shabaab-mogadishu-eritrean-government" target="_blank">concluded</a> in July that Eritrea, though governed by a self-professed Christian dictator, is materially aiding al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia that has <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/27/muslim.radicalization.hearing/index.html" target="_blank">recruited over 40 Americans.</a> The group has an estimated 5,000 terrorists controlling central and southern Somalia and earns millions for Al-Qaeda through the sale of charcoal. The Eritrean government, led by President Isaias Afewerki, has two main liaisons to Al-Shabaab.</p>
<p>The first, a warlord named Abdi Nur Siad ‘Abdi Wal,’ works with an unnamed senior al-Shabaab commander and collaborates with other Somali Islamists. The second liaison is named Mohamed Wali Sheikh Ahmed Nur and he is described as Al-Shabaab’s “political coordinator.” He is on Eritrea’s payroll and has admitted in private meetings to being an Eritrean agent.</p>
<p>Ahmed Nur also works with the terrorism-sponsoring governments of Iran and Sudan, visiting the former in December. One of the purposes of these meetings was to explore ways of covertly financing him. The Eritrean ambassador to Sudan was kicked out from Kenya in 2009 because of his meetings with al-Shabaab.</p>
<p>The Eritrean embassy in Kenya had been <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&amp;objectid=10900677" target="_blank">utilized</a> as a bank for its terrorist allies, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/un-links-eritrea-to-ethiopian-terror-plot-20110729-1i490.html" target="_blank">funding</a> Al-Shabaab with $75,000 a month. The financial network is now spread out through front businesses in Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Yemen.</p>
<p>The existence of these fronts in Yemen raises the possibility that Eritrea also has a relationship with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and/or the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the north. It was first reported in 2009 that Iranian Revolutionary Guards personnel in Eritrea were training Houthis. There are also unconfirmed reports of Iranian missiles in Eritrea.</p>
<p>In January, Arab media sources <a href="http://www.yemenfox.net/news_details.php?sid=5613" target="_blank">reported</a> that Iran was transporting weapons to Yemen through Eritrean islands where Houthis also receive training. The weapons are smuggled into Yemen in fishing boats. Also that month, the Yemeni authorities <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/02/us-somalia-arms-un-idUSBRE96101E20130702" target="_blank">intercepted</a> an Iranian ship delivering arms to the Houthis and, possibly, Al-Shabaab via Eritrea. A diplomatic source said it had 16,717 blocks of C4 explosives and the Houthis aren’t known to use C4, but Al-Shabaab is.</p>
<p>According to a Yemeni political source, Iran’s operations in Eritrea and Yemen have heightened because of the Syrian civil war.</p>
<p>“Iranian national security council adopted a new strategy intended to shift the battle from Syria and Lebanon in the north to the Yemen on the southern tip of Arabian Peninsula, after Tehran has realized that its allied regime of Bashar Assad in Damascus cannot continue,” the source <a href="http://www.yemenfox.net/news_details.php?sid=5613" target="_blank">told ASharq Alawasat.</a></p>
<p>The Afewerki regime has even directly organized potential mass-casualty terrorist operations. According to an earlier U.N. report, Eritrea <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/28/eritrea-planned-ethopia-bomb-attack" target="_blank">planned</a> “mass casualty attacks against civilian targets” in January 2011 during a high-level African Union meeting in Ethiopia. The dispatched terrorists were instructed to make “Addis Ababa like Baghdad.” Nothing happened in response to the foiled plot.</p>
<p>The 47% of the Eritrean population that is Christian is oppressed (as are many non-Christians), even though Afewerki says he is a member of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The country is <a href="http://www.persecution.org/2013/06/20/africas-north-korea-and-the-most-repressive-nation-on-earth-this-is-eritrea/" target="_blank">described</a> as a “giant prison” and Reporters Without Borders gave it the title of “most repressive nation on earth.”</p>
<p>All but three Christian denominations have been outlawed, and even members of the permitted denominations face persecution. Somewhere between <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=40850" target="_blank">1,200</a>and <a href="http://www.persecution.org/?p=46454&amp;upm_export=print" target="_blank">3,000</a> Christians are in prison in “unimaginably atrocious conditions.” In July, 39 high school students, including 11 girls, were <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2013/july/eritrea-punishes-future-high-school-grads-for-christian-fai.html" target="_blank">arrested</a>, banned from graduation and sentenced to hard labor and beatings because of their public expressions of faith. Reportedly, they have been given an opportunity to leave if they renounce their faith in Christ.</p>
<p>The viability of the Eritrean opposition makes the West’s tolerance of Afewerki even more disheartening. On January 21, about 200 soldiers with two tanks took over a government ministry and demanded the release of all political prisoners. The coup failed.</p>
<p>The Afewerki regime is dividing against itself, with many youth and forced conscripts fleeing the country. Recently, 180 members of the navy were<a href="http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=463ef21123&amp;id=521aebe35" target="_blank">massacred</a> by the security forces when they tried to get out. The known <a href="http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/experts+Eritrea+courting+Somalias+leaders+well+warlords/8682552/story.html" target="_blank">defections</a> include three senior air force pilots and senior officials “have started to manifest open dissent to military and economic policy decision-making.”</p>
<p>In 2010, Rep. Ed Royce of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, <a href="http://royce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=199328" target="_blank">wrote a letter to the State Department</a> demanding that Eritrea be added to the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Even under President Obama’s vision of the war on terror as solely a war on Al-Qaeda, Eritrea qualifies as a state sponsor, but nothing has happened.</p>
<p>Sanctions were first placed on Eritrea for its arming of terrorists in December 2009. For three and a half years, the regime has been allowed to sponsor Al-Shabaab, oppress its citizens (especially Christians) and ally with Iran. For two and a half years, Eritrea has not been held accountable for its direct involvement in a major terrorist plot.</p>
<p>Al-Qaeda’s favorite “Christian” leader is known by virtually no American and Al-Shabaab and Iran can thank the Obama Administration for that.</p>
<p><em>This article was sponsored by the <a href="http://www.theird.org/" target="_blank">Institute on Religion and Democracy.</a></em></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>How to Respond to EU Sanctions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/how-to-respond-to-eu-sanctions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-to-respond-to-eu-sanctions</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Jul 2013 04:48:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[1948]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Europe's economic warfare against Israel must receive a serious answer. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/holland-loves-labeling-jews.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198368" alt="holland-loves-labeling-jews" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/holland-loves-labeling-jews-450x345.jpg" width="270" height="207" /></a>Originally published in <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=321086">The Jerusalem Post. </a></i></p>
<p>THIS WEEK the EU took three steps that together prove Europe&#8217;s ill-intentions toward the Jewish state.</p>
<p>First, last Friday the EU announced it is imposing economic sanctions on Israel. The sanctions deny EU funds to Israeli entities with an address beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. They also deny EU funds to Israeli entities countrywide that carry out activities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.</p>
<p>The areas beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines delineated by the EU directive include the Gaza Strip, which Israel abandoned eight years ago; the Golan Heights, which has been under Israeli sovereignty since 1981; eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem, which have been under Israeli sovereignty since 1967; and Judea and Samaria, over which Israel has shared governance with the PLO since 1994 in accordance with signed agreements witnessed by EU representatives.</p>
<p>The EU&#8217;s second action was the publication Tuesday of EU foreign policy commissioner Catherine Ashton&#8217;s letter to her fellow commissioners informing them that by the end of the year, the EU will publish binding requirements for specially labeling Israeli goods produced by Jews beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines exported to EU member states.</p>
<p>This act is potentially more damaging for Israel than the ban on transferring EU monies to Israeli entities with &#8220;bad&#8221; addresses. Labeling Israeli products is a means of signaling Europeans consumers that they should view all Israeli exports as morally inferior to other goods and wage a consumer boycott of Israeli products. Indeed, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius described the proposed labeling as an alternative to a broader boycott of all Israeli goods.</p>
<p>The EU&#8217;s third act was its decision to define Hezbollah&#8217;s &#8220;military wing&#8221; as a terrorist organization, but leave all the other Hezbollah-related institutions untouched. While the move has been applauded by Israeli politicians desperate to deny Europe&#8217;s animosity, Europe&#8217;s partial designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity is another act of aggression against Israel.</p>
<p>By pretending that Hezbollah has a legitimate &#8220;political wing&#8221; &#8211; a transparent lie that even Hezbollah has denied &#8211; the EU ensures that Hezbollah personnel and Hezbollah institutions can continue to find safe haven in Europe so long as they avoid attacking non-Jewish Europeans.</p>
<p>Hezbollah agents can continue raising money, planning attacks, and recruiting terrorists in Europe, as long as Hezbollah labels the activities &#8220;political.&#8221;</p>
<p>In other words, all Hezbollah operations directed against Israel and Jews will remain lawful in Europe.</p>
<p>Beyond exposing the EU&#8217;s fundamental and obsessive hostility toward the Jewish state, these three actions put paid to the EU&#8217;s protestations of allegiance to international law and commitment to bringing about peace between the Palestinians and Israel.</p>
<p>As ambassador Alan Baker, the former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, wrote in an article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the EU&#8217;s actions against Israeli entities that operate beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are unsupported by international law. The EU&#8217;s claim that Israel&#8217;s presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines is unlawful is not supported by any treaties or customs. Indeed, it is explicitly refuted by treaties and customs.</p>
<p>Israel&#8217;s legal rights to sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem are recognized under the law of nations through the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which also called for &#8220;close Jewish settlement&#8221; of these areas. The Mandate&#8217;s allocation of sovereign rights over all of these areas to the Jewish people, and its recognition of the Jews as the indigenous people of the areas, has not been abrogated by any subsequent treaty. To the contrary, they were reinforced by Article 80 of the UN Charter.</p>
<p>Moreover, as Baker noted, the EU wrongly claims that Jewish communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention from 1949. But authoritative interpretations of Article 49 make clear that Article 49 does not apply to such communities.</p>
<p>The lines the EU points to as Israel&#8217;s legal border were never borders and never legal. The 1949 Armistice Lines, which the EU falsely refers to as the 1967 borders, represent nothing more than the lines at which Israeli forces halted the invading armies of Arab states that illegally assaulted the nascent Jewish state at its birth on May 15, 1948.</p>
<p>The armistice agreements explicitly stated that the armistice lines lack all legal significance in terms of claims of parties to lands beyond the lines.</p>
<p>Finally, as Baker noted, the EU itself repeatedly supported UN resolutions and international agreements that recognize the legality of Israel&#8217;s continued control and civilian presence in the areas. As a consequence, its own actions contradict its claim that Israel&#8217;s presence and the presence of Israeli civilian communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are illegal.</p>
<p>Beyond its unsubstantiated legal claims against Israel, both in its intention to label Israeli products and in its actions related to Hezbollah, the EU is acting in violation of international law. The EU&#8217;s intention to label Israeli products involves the imposition of trade barriers in contravention of the World Trade Organization&#8217;s legally binding rules.</p>
<p>By allowing Hezbollah to continue to operate in the EU, the EU is in violation of binding UN Security Council Resolution 1373 from 2001 that prohibits the use of member states&#8217; territory for the benefit of terrorist groups.</p>
<p>Justice Minister Tzipi Livni called the EU&#8217;s imposition of economic sanctions a &#8220;resounding wake-up call,&#8221; adding, &#8220;I hope that now all those who thought it is possible to continue with the freeze [in the peace talks with the PLO] will understand that we have to act to open negotiations, because this is the only way to protect Israel&#8217;s general interests.&#8221;</p>
<p>This view, which is the official view of the Left, is based on a complete denial of reality.</p>
<p>The EU announced its sanctions on the very same day US Secretary of State John Kerry announced he had convinced the PLO to return to peace talks with Israel. The confluence of these events could not demonstrate more clearly that the EU&#8217;s diplomatic onslaught against Israel has nothing to do with the conduct of negotiations with the PLO. If the EU&#8217;s chief interest was bringing Israel and the PLO to the negotiating table, Brussels would be sanctioning the Palestinians who have refused to negotiate with Israel since 2008.</p>
<p>By levying sanctions the EU does not seek to advance the cause of peace. It hopes to coerce Israel into abandoning its legitimate historic claims as the indigenous people of the Land of Israel to the lands allocated to the Jewish people under international law by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. It hopes to coerce Israel into surrendering its right to defensible borders and voluntarily transform itself into an indefensible strategic basket case wholly dependent on the goodwill of outside powers for its survival.</p>
<p>The question is what can Israel do about it? Were Israel to fight fire with fire and levy counter sanctions on European goods it would be entering an economic war that it would lose and therefore has every interest in avoiding. But Israel&#8217;s inability to respond in kind to European aggression does not mean it is without options.</p>
<p>Europe is using economic sanctions to expand its political power over Israeli decision-makers. So Israel should act to diminish Europe&#8217;s political power in Israel.</p>
<p>The EU itself told Israel how to go about doing this in Paragraph 15 of the sanctions directive. It reads, &#8220;The requirements [banning the transfer of EU funds to Israeli entities operating beyond the 1949 armistice lines]&#8230; do not apply to activities which, although carried out in the territories&#8230;</p>
<p>aim at benefiting protected persons under the terms of international humanitarian law who live in these territories [i.e., the Palestinians] and/or at promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy.&#8221;</p>
<p>In other words, Israeli NGOs that receive EU assistance are exempt from the financing ban if they commit to undermining Israel&#8217;s rights in the area. As the EU sees it, NGOs who receive EU money are EU agents, advancing European goals in the domestic Israeli arena, and as such should be exempted from the EU&#8217;s economic sanctions.</p>
<p>In a 2010 meeting with US diplomats leaked by WikiLeaks, Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israeli-registered pro-Palestinian pressure group B&#8217;Tselem, effectively admitted that her organization would cease to exist without European funding.</p>
<p>According to the protocol of the meeting, Montell &#8220;estimated her NIS 9 million ($2.4 million) budget is 95 percent funded from abroad, mostly from European countries.&#8221;</p>
<p>TO STEM THE momentum of Europe&#8217;s new economic war, Israel&#8217;s first response to the EU&#8217;s sanctions must be swift passage in the Knesset of a law requiring all Israeli entities that agree to operate under the EU&#8217;s funding guidelines to register as foreign agents and report all EU contributions.</p>
<p>Those contributions should be taxed at the highest corporate tax rate.</p>
<p>EU officials have stated repeatedly that they seek to undermine Israeli control over Area C. Area C is the area of Judea and Samaria where, in accordance with agreements signed between the PLO and Israel, Israel exercises most civil and military authorities. The EU is funding projects in Area C whose stated goal is to make it impossible over time for Israel to assert its authority over the area.</p>
<p>Israel&#8217;s second response to the EU&#8217;s announcement of economic sanctions on Israeli economic activity in Judea and Samaria should be to suspend all EU projects in Area C. Future EU projects should be subject to intense scrutiny by the civil administration. Israel&#8217;s default position should be to reject, rather than approve, such requests, given their hostile intent.</p>
<p>Finally, EU peacekeeping forces from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria have repeatedly proven not only their cowardice, but their willingness to act in ways that endanger Israel in order to protect themselves.</p>
<p>In Gaza, EU border guards fled to Israel following Hamas&#8217;s takeover of the area in 2007.</p>
<p>Along the border with Syria, Austrian peacekeepers fled at the first sign of trouble, leaving Israel to deal with Syrian breaches of the European-sanctioned 1974 disengagement agreement by itself.</p>
<p>European forces in UNIFIL in Lebanon have signed protection agreements with Hezbollah where in exchange for European forces&#8217; turning a blind eye to Hezbollah&#8217;s illegal use of civilian infrastructures as military installations, Hezbollah has promised not to murder European forces.</p>
<p>Given this track record, Israel should bar European forces from further participation in armed forces in Israel. To this end, Israel should allow the mandate of the European-dominated Temporary International Presence in Hebron to expire when it next comes up for review. The TIPH, which has been deployed to the city since 1994, is composed of forces from Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.</p>
<p>Israel has for years been operating under the misguided belief that the EU would eventually come around and side with Israel against its enemies.</p>
<p>This belief has been informed by equal doses of innocence and wishful thinking. The EU&#8217;s decision to initiate an economic war against the Jewish state forces Israel to abandon its long-held illusions.</p>
<p>Israel has options for responding forcefully to Europe&#8217;s aggression. If judiciously and firmly employed, these responses can diminish the Europeans&#8217; interest in escalating this economic war, by denying them the political victory they seek.</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>Mideast Red Star Rising</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/mideast-red-star-rising/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mideast-red-star-rising</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:49:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[How Obama’s surrender in the region spawned China's merger with the Axis of Evil.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/china.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-192956" alt="china" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/china-450x281.jpg" width="288" height="180" /></a>According to reports, last weekend&#8217;s California summit between President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, focused on subjects such as North Korea, cyber security and areas of potential cooperation between the two world powers.  President Obama said that &#8220;we’re more likely to achieve our objectives of prosperity and security of our people if we are working together cooperatively, rather than engaged in conflict.” However, as President Obama tries to pivot away from his disastrous Middle East-North African policies to focus more on Asia, and China in particular, he finds himself faced with China&#8217;s increasing presence in the chaotic region he is leaving behind. Conflicts developing between China and the United States over Middle East interests on diplomatic, economic and even military levels are inevitable, made more imminent by Obama&#8217;s reckless policies and shift in priorities.</p>
<p>On President Obama&#8217;s watch, the rising sectarian violence in the Middle East-North African region, the Islamist take-over in Egypt, and Islamist Iran getting ever closer to achieving its ambition of a nuclear arms arsenal capability have fueled the kind of instability in an energy rich portion of the world that China abhors. China believes it has no choice but to step into the morass left by Obama to protect its own national interests. With the United States&#8217; abdication of leadership under Obama, China also sees an historic opportunity to extend the sphere of influence it has already established on the African continent. And that means currying favor with the Arab states and Iran, at the United States&#8217; expense.</p>
<p>Vali Nasr, a foreign policy expert and former special adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009 to 2010, explained in an interview with PBS News Hour last month that &#8220;the Middle East is a rising strategic interest&#8221; for China. Nasr, who is currently dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, noted that China refers to the wide area encompassing Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia and Turkey as &#8220;West Asia.&#8221; China looks at this area as a vast source of supply for its energy needs and as a potential market for its investments and products. By 2020, it is estimated that 80% of China&#8217;s oil needs will be supplied from the Middle East.</p>
<p>Thus, &#8220;just as we are pivoting East, the Chinese are pivoting West,&#8221; Vali Nasr noted. China craves stability and influence in the region, and will bet on the rulers it perceives as the most likely to tamp down unpredictable, potentially dangerous outcomes.</p>
<p>Reflecting China&#8217;s increased efforts to become more directly involved in matters outside of its own Pacific backyard, it hosted Palestinian and Israeli leaders earlier this spring and put forward its version of a peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that tracked closely with the Arab peace plan.</p>
<p>Chinese special envoy to the Middle East Wu Sike told the publication <i>Xinhua</i> in an interview on June 3rd, during his visit to Egypt as part of his Mideast tour, that &#8220;China is willing to cooperate with Arab states to push the Middle East peace process.&#8221; The Arab states highly value China&#8217;s position on the Palestinian cause and appreciate China&#8217;s peace proposal, Wu said, which &#8220;represents an important diplomatic action of the new Chinese leadership.&#8221;</p>
<p>After meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi, Wu told <i>Xinhua</i>: &#8220;Arabi said that China backs justice and provides strong support for the number one issue in the Arab world.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wu downplayed any differences regarding the Syrian conflict, despite the fact that the Arab League supports the Syrian opposition and China continues to support, in a low-key manner, the Assad regime. Referring to a second international conference on Syria expected to be held in Geneva this summer, sponsored by the United States and Russia, Wu tried to position China as a relatively neutral party most interested in securing a peaceful resolution: &#8220;China sees that Geneva II conference is necessary and that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and all concerned Syrian parties should take part in the conference. China&#8217;s position is clear: it requires the international community to create momentum for a political solution to the crisis.&#8221;</p>
<p>China is complementing its more assertive diplomatic presence in the Middle East with increased economic investments, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. In 2012 alone, according to Heritage Foundation statistics, China invested $4.9 billion in the United Arab Emirates&#8217; real-estate sector and another $3.3 billion in its energy sector. Trade between the two countries has grown 35 percent annually over a 10-year period. Dubai is also an important entryway for China into Africa, where it has numerous investments.</p>
<p>China invested $12.9 billion in Saudi Arabia in 2012, including the energy and metals sectors. By comparison, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, U.S. foreign direct investment in Saudi Arabia was $8.0 billion in 2010 (latest data available), a 0.2% decrease from 2009.</p>
<p>China is also making aggressive moves to enter the Qatar and Egyptian markets, as the Obama administration seeks to lower its profile in the region. And while the United States has its defense pact with Yemen, China has become Yemen&#8217;s biggest trading partner. At the same time, playing all ends against the middle, China is also Iran&#8217;s biggest trading partner.</p>
<p>Speaking of Iran, China and Iran have conducted joint naval exercises. For example, the Iranian Navy’s 24th fleet of warships, comprising the Sabalan destroyer and Kharg helicopter carrier, docked in China&#8217;s Zhangjiagang port in early March of this year and conducted training exercises. The Kharg helicopter carrier is the largest of its kind in &#8220;West Asia.&#8221; It operates as a backup aircraft transport for the Iranian Navy’s destroyers in international waters.</p>
<p>The Iranian commander said that “presence in the Pacific Ocean is a prelude to [Iran’s] presence in the Atlantic Ocean,” adding, according to PressTV, that a constant and extensive presence of Iran in international waters will be on top of the Navy’s agenda.</p>
<p>Moreover, China has continued its arms transfers to Iran despite United Nations sanctions. According to a report prepared in October 2012 for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, multiple sources have indicated that &#8220;China inaugurated a missile plant in Iran in early 2010, even as the United States and its allies were pressing Beijing to support a new round of tough economic sanctions.&#8221;</p>
<p><i>Jane’s Defence Weekly</i> reported in the same time frame that there has also been cooperation between the Iranian and Chinese aerospace industries and there have been cooperative tactical missile programs underway between China and Iran. &#8220;China&#8217;s design bureaus have displayed several &#8216;export only&#8217; weapons (such as the C-705 lightweight cruise missile) that would seem set to follow the established route into Iran,&#8221; <i>Jane’s Defence Weekly</i> stated. &#8220;With such a solid relationship established between the two countries it is not difficult to see why China has been reluctant to commit to the Western push for sanctions against Iran.&#8221;</p>
<p>In February 2012, according to the report for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission mentioned above, Iran began &#8220;production of the Zafar naval cruise missile, a short-range, antiship, radar-guided missile apparently based on Chinese C-701AR missile.&#8221;</p>
<p>With regard to Chinese oil imports from Iran, Beijing and Tehran signed a deal in 2011 that gives China exclusive rights to several Iranian oil and natural gas fields through 2024.</p>
<p>Just a year ago, in response to U.S. sanctions aimed at Iran&#8217;s oil exports, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson insisted that “China’s importing of Iranian oil is based on its own economic development needs. This is fully reasonable and legitimate.”</p>
<p>From April of last year to April of this year, China has actually increased its oil imports from Iran, although they are less than they were in 2011.</p>
<p>Yet, against this background of continued military and economic cooperation between China and Iran, the State Department last week decided to reward China. The State Department exempted China from financial sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales because it had supposedly reduced its purchases of Iranian crude oil.</p>
<p>In commenting on what he hoped would result from his two days of meetings with President Obama, China’s President Xi Jinping said he was looking for the establishment of a “new model of major country relationship” with the United States. President Obama&#8217;s disastrous policies in the Middle East and North Africa and his pivot away from the region give China the chance to construct its own model there to replace the United States&#8217; strategic leadership.</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>Is Iran Really a &#8216;Rational&#8217; State Actor?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/is-iran-really-a-rational-state-actor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=is-iran-really-a-rational-state-actor</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:39:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rational]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theocracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=184483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The West's fundamental mistake in its interpretation of Iranian "self-interest."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/is-iran-really-a-rational-state-actor/ahmadinejad-15/" rel="attachment wp-att-184488"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-184488" title="Ahmadinejad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ahmadinejad.jpg" alt="" width="256" height="192" /></a>Recently, there has been an ongoing debate among political analysts in the United States that is centered on the question of whether the Islamic Republic of Iran is a rational actor and whether it has rational-legal authority in the institutions within which it functions.</p>
<p>The argument goes, if credible and powerful incentives were presented to the Iranian regime the Iranians would agree to halt uranium enrichment. Additionally, if the Iranian regime believes that it will be regarded with respect and viewed as a strong geopolitical, economic and strategic actor by regional and international governments it will open talks with the United States, Israel, and other European countries.  In particular, it will have strong diplomatic relations with the United States which will ultimately lead to the inauguration of mutual embassies in Tehran and Washington, DC, as well as the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran. It is also argued that if Iran is a rational actor, even if it achieves nuclear capability and consequently nuclear weapons, it will still not threaten other countries, according to the rational theory of “deterrence.”</p>
<p>First, &#8220;rationality&#8221; must be defined. One might define it as the efforts of a government to pursue its own strategic, economic, national, and security interests. However, even according to this definition, it does not mean that the Iranian regime would fix its relationships with many countries including the United States or Israel if more appealing offers were presented to the clerics. The key principle upon which the Islamic Republic of Iran rules is its opposition to Western nations, particularly the United States and Israel and even some powers in the East. The principle slogan of the Iranian Revolution as coined by Ayatollah Khomeini (the founding father of the regime) is &#8220;Not the east, not the west.&#8221; He adds, “this is the established principle of Islamic nations and countries who, with the help of Allah, will accept Islam as the only ideology leading to salvation – and they will not go back from this principle in the least.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, in this era of globalization, if being a rational government means protecting one&#8217;s own economic interest, any state should subscribe to a modern nation-state political system. Khomeini said, “in our domestic and foreign policy, &#8230; we have set as our goal the world-wide spread of the influence of Islam &#8230; We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world. We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.”</p>
<p>The fact is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is centered on the principles that Ayatollah Khomeini established. It derives its power and legitimacy from practicing those principles which require ending any relationship with the United States (also known as “the great Satan” in Iran) and Israel at any cost. If the Iranian regime changed these fundamental organizing principles, it would not be able to define itself as the “Islamic Republic of Iran” which was founded on the principles and values of Ayatollah Khomeini. Additionally, resuming relations with the United States and Israel would mean that the Iranian regime would not be able to maneuver politics the way it has been for the last three decades &#8212; by maintaining power by crushing and labeling any internal opposition to the regime as American or Israeli plots. Being against the US and Israel has also helped clerics detract attention away from the economic crisis in the country.</p>
<p>On the other hand, in Iran, the nuclear program has long been a point of consensus across Iran&#8217;s political spectrum, both among hardliners and moderates. Being a nuclear power is a matter of survival for the ruling clerics. They didn’t endure four rounds of sanctions and decades of isolation only to surrender their nuclear program. In their perspective, having nuclear capabilities will not only support their regional hegemonic ambitions but will also ensure their hold on power.</p>
<p>The problem is that the Iranian regime is viewed as a modern nation-state that plays by the international rules and standards that have been developed by the West in the last century. It might be time to take a closer look at the clerics&#8217; fundamental principles and the political structure of the regime.</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>U.N. Finally Hits Back at North Korea</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/u-n-finally-hits-back-at-north-korea/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-n-finally-hits-back-at-north-korea</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North Korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[threat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=180576</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But little hope that the Communist prison state will change course. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/u-n-finally-hits-back-at-north-korea/kim07313e/" rel="attachment wp-att-180578"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-180578" title="kim07313e" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/kim07313e-432x350.jpg" alt="" width="259" height="210" /></a>The United Nations Security Council displayed a rare sign of effectiveness on March 7th by passing unanimously its most toughly worded resolution to date (Resolution 2094) against North Korea. It condemns the rogue state&#8217;s nuclear test last month and imposes significant new penalties under the Council&#8217;s enforcement powers pursuant to Chapter VII of the UN Charter.  More than three weeks had elapsed following North Korea&#8217;s test before the United States and China found enough common ground to agree on the text of a resolution, but they were finally able to do so.</p>
<p>After the passage of Resolution 2094, both U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and China&#8217;s UN Ambassador Li Baodong expressed satisfaction with their accomplishment. Ambassador Rice, who smiled noticeably as she emerged from the Security Council chamber to speak with reporters, chose to emphasize the scope and strength of the new sanctions, saying that they &#8220;will bite and bite hard.&#8221; She added that &#8220;the entire world stands united in our commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in our demand that North Korea comply with its international obligations. If it does not, then the Security Council committed today, in this resolution, to take further significant measures if there is another nuclear test or missile launch. We regret that North Korea has again chosen the path of provocation instead of the path of peace.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ambassador Li Baodong was more circumspect, but pointed out that the resolution is a reflection of the determination of the international community to stand against nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula. He said that China voted for the resolution because it regarded the resolution as &#8220;balanced&#8221; and&#8221; proportionate,&#8221; with appropriate focus on the nuclear issue. He characterized the resolution as one step in &#8220;a long journey&#8221; and called for resumption of the six party talks as soon as possible to help achieve &#8220;peace and stability&#8221; in the region.</p>
<p>Resolution 2094,  the fifth since 2006, strengthens and expands the scope of the strong sanctions regime already in place. For example, it requires member states to freeze or block any financial transaction or financial service that could contribute to North Korea&#8217;s illicit nuclear arms and ballistic missile programs or the violation of Security Council resolutions. It requires that states not provide public financial support for trade with North Korea such as export credits or insurance if there is a link to North Korea&#8217;s illicit programs or the violation of Security Council resolutions. It calls on states to prohibit the opening of North Korean bank branches on their territories and to prohibit their own financial institutions from opening offices in North Korea if there is such a link. It also extends the sanctions to bulk cash transfers, including through cash couriers (a common way that North Korea has moved illicit funds).</p>
<p>In addition to major strengthening of the financial sanctions, Resolution 2094 requires member states to inspect cargo on their territories, if the state has reasonable grounds to believe the cargo contains prohibited items (e.g., conventional arms, nuclear, or ballistic missile-related items, etc.) and to deny port access to any North Korean vessel that refuses to be inspected or any other vessel that has refused an inspection authorized by that vessel&#8217;s flag state. The resolution does contain, however, a potential loophole for air shipments, containing only a voluntary call that states deny permission to any aircraft to take off, land in or overfly their territory if the aircraft is suspected of transporting prohibited items. Whether China in particular goes along with this call remains to be seen.</p>
<p>The resolution expands the scope of the existing asset freeze to cover the subsidiaries and front companies of entities that have already been designated for targeted sanctions. It also requires states to prohibit the travel of any individual determined to be working for a designated individual or entity or who is violating existing sanctions. If the individual is North Korean, then the states are required to expel that person back to North Korea.</p>
<p>Finally, in a move that is certain to upset the youthful dictator of North Korea Kim Jong-un, who likes his yachts, fancy cars and other privileges of the rich and famous, Resolution 2094 prohibits the transfer of luxury goods to North Korea, including certain kinds of jewelry and precious stones, yachts, luxury automobiles and racing cars.</p>
<p>The resolution also warns North Korea of more to come if it persists with further nuclear or ballistic missile tests.</p>
<p>Even before Resolution 2094 was passed, North Korea&#8217;s leaders threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States. Ambassador Rice did not appear to be fazed by such threats. When asked to comment, she said:</p>
<blockquote><p>North Korea will achieve nothing by continued threats and provocations. These will only further isolate the country and its people and undermine international efforts to promote peace and stability in Northeast Asia. We have urged the North Korean leadership repeatedly—and continue to do so—to heed President Obama’s call to choose a path of peace and to come into compliance with its international obligations. That is what North Korea ought to do.</p></blockquote>
<p>When asked whether even this tough resolution will make any difference in breaking &#8220;the repeated pattern of sanction, provocation, sanction, provocation,&#8221; Ambassador Rice responded that the answer &#8220;lies of course with the decisions that the North Korean leadership make.&#8221; So far, there is little reason to hope for a break-through, unless of course former basketball star and Kim Jong-un&#8217;s new best friend Dennis Rodman can pull off his own version of a diplomatic &#8220;fast break.&#8221;</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>October Surprise: Direct Talks with Iran?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/october-surprise-direct-talks-with-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=october-surprise-direct-talks-with-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:45:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Direct]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[one-on-one]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[talks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Valerie Jarrett]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=149265</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is the Obama administration trying to change the subject from Libya?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-klein/october-surprise-direct-talks-with-iran/iranian-president-ahmadinejad-speaks-during-media-conference-on-the-sidelines-of-the-67th-united-nations-general-assembly-in-new-york/" rel="attachment wp-att-149281"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-149281" title="Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks during media conference on the sidelines of the 67th United Nations General Assembly in New York" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/r.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="230" /></a>On the eve of the third and final presidential debate, which deals with foreign policy, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/iran-said-ready-to-talk-to-us-about-nuclear-program.html?hp&amp;_r=1&amp;">the New York Times ran a lead story</a>, citing unnamed Obama administration officials, that the United States and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran reportedly has insisted that its direct talks with Washington should not begin until after the U.S. presidential election on November 6 and wants to broaden the scope of the discussions beyond just the nuclear enrichment issues.</p>
<p>Denials from both sides quickly followed.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,&#8221; U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement quoted by Reuters.</p>
<p>Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi denied that any bilateral talks were in the offing. &#8220;We don&#8217;t have any discussions or negotiations with America,&#8221; Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference according to Reuters. &#8220;The (nuclear) talks are ongoing with the P5+1 group of nations. Other than that, we have no discussions with the United States.&#8221;</p>
<p>In fact, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander was quoted as bragging that the recent Hezbollah-launched drone into Israeli territory proved that &#8220;Zionists (Israelis) and Americans must know that no place is safe for them anymore.&#8221;</p>
<p>Could the New York Times story be simply a trial balloon by Obama administration officials to change the subject from Libya?  Although certainly a crass political maneuver, that theory would turn out to be the best scenario.  Of far more concern to the security of the United States and Israel is that there really is a deal &#8211; the October surprise that we have all been waiting for &#8211; that would trade soften sanctions for some temporary limits on Iran&#8217;s further enrichment of uranium.</p>
<p>A former CIA operative inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who goes under the pseudonym <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obama-cuts-deal-with-iran-over-nukes/">Reza Kahlili, wrote in WND</a> that his highly placed source inside the Iranian regime told him that a deal has in fact been struck. Moreover, once Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei receives a letter from President Obama in the next few days guaranteeing the details of the agreement, there will be a public announcement made before the election. All this was reportedly worked out in a secret meeting held in Qatar earlier this month.  None other than Obama&#8217;s confidante Valerie Jarrett led the U.S. delegation, according to Kahlili&#8217;s Iranian source.</p>
<p>No European countries were reportedly involved in this meeting. Israel, which has the most to lose if the Iranian regime goes for a nuclear weapon despite an agreement with Obama to behave, was left completely in the dark.</p>
<p>Kahlili&#8217;s article is far more specific than what the Times reported:</p>
<blockquote><p>The agreement calls for Iran to announce a temporary halt to partial uranium enrichment after which the U.S. will remove many of its sanctions, including those on the Iranian central bank, no later than by the Iranian New Year in March.</p></blockquote>
<p>Kahlili&#8217;s sources included not only the highly placed Iranian &#8220;who remains anonymous for security reasons.&#8221; He also claimed verification by French intelligence that &#8220;Yukiya Amano, the current director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been given the go-ahead by the U.S. to be ready to travel to Iran and announce the agreement.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Iranian regime knows that it will have a much easier time dealing with the Obama administration than a new Romney administration.  Thus, it would not be surprising at all if Iran&#8217;s Supreme Leader were willing to give Obama the opportunity to boast to voters on the eve of the election that his diplomacy-and-sanctions policy has worked after all.</p>
<p>Kahlili reported that, according to his Iranian source, &#8220;the U.S. delegation urged an announcement, even if only on a temporary nuclear deal, before the U.S. elections to help Obama get re-elected.&#8221;  The U.S. delegation also reportedly warned the Iranian negotiator that a Romney presidency &#8220;would surely move more toward Israel if Iran does not stand by Obama&#8221; and that &#8220;if Iran does not stand by Obama, Israel will attack Iran.&#8221;</p>
<p>WND asked for comment on its report from the State Department and the White House.  It got no response from the State Department and a &#8220;no comment&#8221; from the White House.</p>
<p>If Kahlili&#8217;s report turns out to be true, the implications are staggering. To win re-election, Barack Obama is willing to pull a Neville Chamberlain and announce a nice sounding deal with a totally untrustworthy, ruthless regime just in time for the election. Valerie Jarrett will have taken over high stakes diplomacy for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who just took a bullet for the Obama team in accepting responsibility for the Benghazi security disaster.  Israel has once again been thrown under the bus.  And our European allies, who stuck their necks out with very tough sanctions against Iran, have been excluded from the negotiations.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime has used negotiations as a stalling tactic for years.  Only this time, it is for keeps.  Obama has chased his unconditional negotiations dream for four years, allowing Iran to get closer and closer to achieving its goal of nuclear arms. If Reza Kahlili&#8217;s story is true, the Iranian regime will succeed sooner rather than later.</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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