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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; weakness</title>
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		<title>How Obama&#8217;s Weakness Is Emboldening ISIS and Iran</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/how-obamas-weakness-is-emboldening-isis-and-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-obamas-weakness-is-emboldening-isis-and-iran</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 31 Oct 2014 04:20:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243895</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And why a new strategy is necessary. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #1a1a1a;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/iran_7.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243896" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/iran_7-450x347.jpg" alt="iran_7" width="327" height="252" /></a>Iranian leaders, particularly the senior cadres of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have successfully sensed, invested in, and exploited the White House&#8217;s weaknesses and hesitation in following up on its words.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">When it comes to Syria, President Obama has sent a strong signal to the Islamic Republic that Washington would not dare cross Iran’s influence in the country. On several occasions, when President Bashar Al Assad and his armed forces crossed President Obama’s multiple red lines, President Obama decided to sit at the margin, not taking action, which led to the questioning of US credibility.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">This projection of weakness has not only empowered the Islamic Republic, its military activities, and intervention in other countries in the Middle East, but has also emboldened extremists groups such as the Islamic State.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">The Islamic Republic no longer hides its military, financial, intelligence, and advisory assistance to Assad, and it does not shy away from its engagements in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, or other regional nations. Groups such as the powerful Iranian-backed Shia Badr brigade are being publicly utilized in Iraq. The fighters from Hezbollah (Lebanon&#8217;s pro-Iranian Shiite movement) and Quds forces (an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps), have been publicly operating in several foreign territories. This issue has been significantly instrumental in tipping the balance of power in favor of the Syrian government, as well as keeping Assad in power after more than three years of the conflict in Syria.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force (an elite branch of the IRGC), who has always kept a low profile, is now boasting about his army&#8217;s presence in Iraq. Suleimani has been <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/news/640586"><span style="color: #0433ff;">taking</span></a> professional pictures for the sake of publicity for the Iranian government. Iranian state TV has also been showing the pictures of Suleimani in foreign territories and pointing to the Islamic Republic’s indispensable power and influence in the Middle East. In addition, Yadollah Javani, a senior adviser to Khamenei, recently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/suleimani-high-profile-to-publicise-irans-key-anti-isis-role"><span style="color: #0433ff;">stated</span></a> that “Baghdad was prevented from falling because of the presence and assistance of the Islamic republic.”</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">These moves are unprecedented in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, and they highlight a crucial strategic shift in the Iranian leader’s tactics, mission, regional hegemonic ambitions, and search for regional supremacy in the Middle East. Iranian leaders are attempting to reassert their power and supremacy in the Middle East more publicly, as well as sending the signal to other states that Iran is in fact the sole regional power to rely on rather than the United States and Western allies.</p>
<p style="color: #1a1a1a;">In addition, through their media and TV outlets, Iranian leaders have been trying to circulate an image of Iran to the Iranian people, that the Islamic Republic can defeat the Islamic State by itself and act as a regional power. For example, Amirali Hajizadeh, the airforce commander of Iran’s Revoluationary Guard Corps, confirmed the presence General Qassem Suleimani in Iraq on Iran’s national TV, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/suleimani-high-profile-to-publicise-irans-key-anti-isis-role"><span style="color: #0433ff;">adding</span></a> “If it wasn’t for Iran’s help, Iraq’s Kurdistan would have fallen into the hands of Daesh.”</p>
<p style="color: #141414;">Currently, the Islamic Republic’s strong position is that Iran is drawing red lines for the United States. More fundamentally, President Obama seems to have accepted and recognized Iran’s red lines with regards to Assad, and the White House appears to overlook or appease the Islamic Republic&#8217;s objectives in that regard. Since the White House has been indirectly cooperating and coordinating aerial and ground battles against the Islamic State, President Obama has come to the understanding that he will carry out an appeasement policy towards Iran’s role in the region, its military involvement in Syria, and Iran-Iraq ties.</p>
<p style="color: #141414;">For Washington, the battle against the Islamic State is at the top of its foreign policy agenda. The future Assad, his use of brute force, and Iran’s IRGC assistances have definitely become secondary and marginal objectives to tackle. In addition, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have also slid to the sidelines of the US and Western allies’ objectives, as the battle against the Islamic State goes on. The US, the major negotiator in the p5+1 group (<span style="color: #323333;">China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has significantly softened its position towards Iran’s nuclear program by favoring policies such as nuclear containment rather than dismantlement of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure. This follows that Iran might be allowed, like Japan, to be a nuclear threshold state.</span></p>
<p style="color: #141414;"><span style="color: #323333;">President Obama’s foreign policy of compartmentalization – which focuses on the Islamic Republic&#8217;s assistance in defeating the Islamic State while overlooking all other activities of the Islamic Republic &#8212; will lead to costly long-term and short-term outcomes. </span>The most effective approach is to simultaneously address the Islamic Republic’s multi-dimensional functions across the Middle East, including its military, financial intelligence, advisory assistance to President Bashar Al Assad, military involvements in Iraq and Yemen, the involvement of pro-Iranian and pro-Shiite proxies and militias in the region, as well as Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This comprehensive strategy will address some of the crucial underlying factors behind the crisis in the Middle East, including the rise of extremist groups such as the Islamic State. By not taking Iran’s nuanced role in the Middle East seriously, and by turning a blind eye to all Iranian military activities in Syria and other countries &#8211;due to the notion the Islamic Republic is assisting the United States and Western allies in their fighting campaign against the Islamic State &#8212; will solely ratchet up the conflict and eventually lead to significant blows to American national security, political and economic interests.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Not Destroying ISIS</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/adam-turner/not-destroying-isis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=not-destroying-isis</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 04:25:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Adam Turner]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[boots on ground]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241986</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Obama's weakness is undermining the cause. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/image_update_img.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242084" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/image_update_img.jpg" alt="image_update_img" width="325" height="277" /></a>Let me be clear:</p>
<p>Now is not the time for a hard rhetorical &#8220;<span style="color: #0463c1;"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/17/obama-central-command-iraq-syria-tampa-dempsey-ground-troops/15766543/">red line</a>&#8220;</span> by the Obama Administration against sending American troops into Iraq or Syria to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) threat.  U.S. Presidents should not fight wars focused on political slogans – “no boots on the ground” – that <a href="http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2014/09/11/a-president-surrenders/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">show</span></a> weakness and limit them from getting the job done.  Besides which, it is simply not true; the U.S. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/army-chief-of-staff-says-us-may-need-more-troops-in-iraq/2014/09/19/63917a0c-400e-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">already has</span></a> sixteen hundred troops “on the ground.”</p>
<p>Now is also not the time to focus on building a new force of Syrian rebels that will actually be trustworthy, pro-American, and well-trained. A project like this will take months, if not years, to bear fruit.</p>
<p>Now is also not the time for indecision about <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/03/conflicting-signals-obama-vows-to-destroy-isis-make-it-manageable/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">whether</span></a> to “manage” or “degrade and destroy” ISIS.</p>
<p>Now is not the time for theoretical <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-text-of-president-obamas-speech-outlining-strategy-to-defeat-islamic-state/2014/09/10/af69dec8-3943-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">discussions</span></a> about the nature of Islam, especially when the Obama Administration has no actual expertise on this subject.</p>
<p>Now is not the time to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/218756-obama-calls-on-muslim-world-to-reject-isis-in-address-to-un"><span style="color: #0463c1;">focus</span></a> on getting the support of the U.N. for anything, as it is an international group of <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2013/05/07/antiamericanism-increasing-at-the-united-nations-n1590060/page/full"><span style="color: #0463c1;">anti-American</span></a>, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Is-the-United-Nations-anti-Semitic-361842"><span style="color: #0463c1;">anti-Semitic</span></a>, extremists, and brutal dictators.</p>
<p>Now is not the time to limit our air strikes to nighttime raids that <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/09/isis_air_strikes_designed_to_minimize_terrorist_casualties.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">minimize</span></a> the death and damage to ISIS.</p>
<p>Now is not the time for the U.S. to consider the Iranians as an ally against ISIS. Iran is an even more powerful Islamist enemy of the U.S., who is still <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/adam-turner/rushing-to-war-with-iran/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">engaging in</span></a> a thirty-five year bloody war directed against the U.S.  Besides which, the pro-Western Arab nations – Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia – are unlikely to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/france-to-take-part-in-military-strikes-over-iraq-against-islamic-state-1410772479"><span style="color: #0463c1;">cooperate</span></a> with the U.S. if there is a real collaboration between the U.S. and Iran.</p>
<p>And perhaps most importantly, now is not the time for more superfluous blather by <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/218409-obama-its-the-world-vs-isis"><span style="color: #0463c1;">President Obama</span></a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/21/-sp-climate-change-protest-melbourne-london-new-york-protest"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Secretary Kerry</span></a>, or any other member of the Administration about this crisis.   The problem with this administration is not that outside observers believe they are reticent to express their views on this, or any other, topic. It is that outside observers believe that all the Administration does is talk, but never do they follow their talk with any real action.</p>
<p>And the U.S. must act, now.</p>
<p>Let me be clear – ISIS is an immediate danger to the U.S.  ISIS terrorists beheaded two American citizens, laughing and insulting the U.S. and President Obama as they did so.  ISIS has its own state, <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/the-terrifying-rise-of-isis-2-billion-in-loot-online-killings-and-an-army-on-the-run/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">two billion dollars</span></a> in its bank accounts, oil fields, tons of modern weaponry, along with thousands of dedicated terrorists ready to kill infidels and crusaders.   It also <a href="http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgent-isis-kills-300-iraqi-soldiers-chlorine-gas-attack-saqlawiyah/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">has</span></a>, and has used, chemical weapons.   U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/218392-obama-takes-anti-isis-pitch-to-united-nations"><span style="color: #0463c1;">acknowledged</span></a> that more than 100 U.S. citizens with passports have fought alongside the terrorist organization in the Middle East.  Some of them already have, and all of them can, easily <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/218494-white-house-radicalized-americans-back-in-us"><span style="color: #0463c1;">return</span></a> to the U.S. to conduct terror attacks.   And who knows how many Americans still within the continental states are sympathizers of ISIS.  Further, the leadership of ISIS has time and again threatened <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/213117-us-officials-warn-isis-worse-than-al-qaeda"><span style="color: #0463c1;">President Obama</span></a>, the U.S. and Americans throughout <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/isis-video-us-troops_n_5835036.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">the world</span></a> and <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/isis-leader-see-you-in-new-york.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">at home</span></a> in America.</p>
<p>ISIS is <a href="http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2014/09/14/the-president-pushes-back/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">electrifying</span></a> the extremist Islamist world with its battlefield successes and flaunting of American power, making the U.S. look weak in front of the rest of the world.  Having heard President’s speech to Americans about ISIS and Iraq, the ISIS barbarians posted a video, which in the words of the Weekly Standard, can be <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/isis-us-bring-it_805252.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">summarized</span></a> by the title “ISIS to U.S.: Bring It On.”</p>
<p>This situation is extremely dangerous.  Because of the President’s current show of weakness, and his previous foreign policy mistakes, ISIS, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and every other bad actor in this world have taken measure of President Obama and they have determined him to be a feeble and indecisive man.  None fear him.   And now, they are continually taking advantage of him.  That, more than anything else, is what is driving the increasing chaos and danger throughout the world.</p>
<p>Let me be clear – President Obama needs to brush up on his <a href="http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince17.htm"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Machiavelli</span></a>; “whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? …because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.”</p>
<p>And there is only one way that he can create fear in the hearts of ISIS.  The U.S. must destroy ISIS.  The U.S. must kill “Caliph Ibrahim.”  And the U.S. must execute the jihadists who personally beheaded the two American citizens.</p>
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		<title>Will Leftists Admit They Were Wrong about Obama?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/will-leftists-admit-they-were-wrong-about-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-leftists-admit-they-were-wrong-about-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2014 04:14:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The man who promised to improve America's global image has made us more hated than ever. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/737450ac-79fb-4e7d-8fc8-21dbd2d63175.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220675" alt="Barack Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/737450ac-79fb-4e7d-8fc8-21dbd2d63175-450x339.jpg" width="315" height="237" /></a>Those who voted for Obama should look around at the world and America.  From the economy to quality of life, to Obama’s countless foreign policy mistakes, and the fact that </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/america-weaker-in-the-eyes-of-the-world/">there has never been a time when America has been less respected by the world</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, how can one not regret voting for President Barack Obama?</span></p>
<p>After more than five years of serving as President, Barack Obama has been a complete and utter failure.  Will liberals ever admit they were wrong? From the economy, which continues to stagger along, to the continuing raising of taxes and big government, when is <i>enough enough</i>? From the continued expansion of welfare, to the failed stimulus package, arrogant Obama has failed miserably. And let’s not even get started on Obamacare, which has caused more uninsured than ever before and is a colossal failure.</p>
<p>And while domestic policies are surely more important than foreign policy, in a dangerous world a secure America matters.</p>
<p>It is laughable to look back to the 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin, when Barack Obama said,</p>
<blockquote><p>The Bush administration has done so much damage to American foreign relations &#8230; If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time. It’s important for us in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step.</p></blockquote>
<p>There is not one single country on planet Earth that America has better relations with today than under the previous Administration. From destabilizing allies in the Middle East to being emasculated by President Putin, Obama is a spineless and ineffectual leader. Whatever one thinks of him, under Bush, people at least feared and respected America.</p>
<p>Remember, President Obama spoke at the General Assembly of the United Nations and, addressing Iran and Russia, urged them to wake up, as “we are no longer in a Cold War.” He gave an interview on a national TV outlet and said, “And so you know, this is not the Cold War. This is not a contest between the United States and Russia.” Are you so sure, Mr. President? <i>Not a cold war?</i></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This Administration asked the Russians to “reset” relations (although what was handed to Russia actually said &#8220;overcharge&#8221; on it) – and relations have indeed been “reset.” </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-situation-should-worry-israel/">The pendulum of power has swung towards Russia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Obama mocked Romney for claiming that Russians are our &#8220;no. 1 geopolitical foe&#8221; and retorted: &#8220;The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama also took an “American Apology Tour.” As Mitt Romney wrote in </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">No Apology</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">[N]ever before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined. It is his ways of signaling that foreign dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; Obama&#8217;s words are kindling to them. In his first nine months in office, Obama &#8230; issued apologies and criticism of America in speeches in France, England, Turkey, and Cairo.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">When one apologizes, one must realize there are consequences. America is in decline, and American leadership isn’t felt in America, or overseas.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama said, “You&#8217;ve got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean.” Unfortunately, they are very clear.  Our allies don’t trust us, and our enemies know we are full of hot air.  Welcome to Obama’s America. America voted for Obama, as he promised change. From the economy to foreign policy, healthcare to social security, can anyone possibly claim that this Administration has succeeded? </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regardless of where one stands on the political map, it is time to say that choosing Obama was terrible for the American people.  </span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Nobody Believes In America’s Strength Anymore</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/nobody-believes-in-americas-strength-anymore/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=nobody-believes-in-americas-strength-anymore</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:15:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220473</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How our enemies view the commander-in-chief -- and the country. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/140228-putin-0453_3f836c6eea7cd157959100b83f27d3a1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220474" alt="140228-putin-0453_3f836c6eea7cd157959100b83f27d3a1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/140228-putin-0453_3f836c6eea7cd157959100b83f27d3a1-430x350.jpg" width="301" height="245" /></a>This week, Senator John McCain at AIPAC rightfully said that Vladimir Putin’s strong-man tactics are “the ultimate result of a feckless foreign policy in which nobody believes in America’s strength anymore.” As we watch Putin operate with impunity, it&#8217;s evident that </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/ronn-torossian-russia-ukraine/2014/03/01/id/555497">these actions are because America is not feared or respected</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. There have been so many repeated foreign policy disasters by the Obama Administration – </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/the-only-world-leader-who-fears-american-power-is-obama/">From Syria to Iran, Benghazi to Egypt, Obama has taken American self-respect and honor to a terrible place</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama’s foreign policy in a dangerous world has been an absolute disaster and danger for America. There are so many words of wisdom from some wise people:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Take Jennifer Rubin of the uber-liberal</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Washington Post</i>:<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> “The president’s embarrassingly weak response to Russian aggression in Europe, following his about-face on Syrian use of WMDs last year and the deeply flawed interim Iran agreement, should unnerve even the most loyal Democrats.” Then, there’s David Kramer, the President of Freedom House, who rightfully noted, “After all, if the authoritarian tyrant Vladimir Putin is allowed to get away with his unprovoked attack against his neighbor, a blatant violation of that country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, then U.S. credibility, already damaged by Obama’s poor handling of Syria, will be down to zero.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Chris Matthews of MSNBC noted, “The Democrats just don&#8217;t have a foreign policy that they&#8217;re willing to defend, that they&#8217;re willing to use to take down the president&#8217;s. We&#8217;re dealing with the power of suggestion here.” And then there’s Dan Lieberman, who said, “The U.S. State Department officials seem to watch helplessly as sympathizers to Al Qaeda in Mali, Libya, Syria and Iraq gain strength and support, while the U.S. Defense department scrambles to react to inept foreign policies.” (Indeed, didn’t Obama run on a platform of improving foreign relations? Is there any nation on Planet Earth America has better relations with since Obama took office?)</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kerry Patton, an internationally recognized security expert, noted, “Jimmy Carter allowed the crippling of US Intelligence during the Church and Pike Committees in an attempt to appease the American people. He is often considered America’s worst President and his foreign policy could easily be argued as the most horrific foreign policy in American history[.]”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And as Rubin of <em>Washington Post</em> also opined in a recent column, “This president is far worse as commander in chief than Jimmy Carter, who was naive but serious and sincere; Carter also learned something when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Obama is the least serious commander in chief we have had, disastrously at one of the most dangerous times since WWII … Obama’s grievous defeats and grievous errors are America’s. All members of Congress who blindly follow him will be equally responsible for the dangers that result.”  Americans today are wondering how long we will suffer from the after-effects of Obama’s administration.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So many across the political aisle have noted that Putin and others take positions because they know there is a weak leader. As James F. Meehan said, “The U.S. has lost prestige in the world and is perceived as weak. This has created a dangerous situation. Unfortunately Obama&#8217;s hand on the helm is not ‘steady,’ it is shaky.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And I,</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://insights.wired.com/profile/RonnTorossian"> Ronn Torossian, would concur</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> – Obama is a complete and utter disaster. Scary times. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kristen Soltis Anderson, a leading millennial pollster, studies numbers &#8212; and any political observer of the world can see and realize for very good reason that “Americans have grown frustrated with Obama’s handling of our relations with the world over the last year. The most recent polls show half of Americans disapprove of the job Obama is doing at handling foreign affairs[.]” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In many ways, Nile Gardiner, a British conservative commentator, nailed it squarely on the head, saying, “The White House’s strategy has been one of abject confusion, with no clear leadership from the president. Barack Obama’s approach has been one of ‘leading from behind,’ a phrase first coined by one of his own advisers. He has been content to farm out US foreign policy to a feckless United Nations, and has kowtowed to a ruthless Moscow, which views Syria as a client state, a useful bulwark against American influence in the Middle East, and a thorn in the side of the world’s superpower.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama’s foreign policy may work in policy papers in academia – but in the real world it has been an absolute disaster. America’s foreign policy and national security has fallen apart. On every single front the Obama Administration has failed miserably. America has suffered tremendously during the Obama reign. How many days left till we have a new President?</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Obama Enters Putin’s World</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obama-enters-putins-world/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-enters-putins-world</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:44:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Putin]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Weakness is the new strength, progressive foreign policy experts say.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/p061812ps-0404.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220115" alt="p061812ps-0404" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/p061812ps-0404-438x350.jpg" width="307" height="245" /></a>At the beginning of February, Fred Kaplan, the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, headlined a Slate article, “Obama Isn’t Disengaged From the World: He just has a better understanding of how power works in the modern world.”</span></p>
<p>Power, as it turned out, worked much the same way in the modern world as it did back in the horses and bayonets era as Putin demonstrated when he did what no one in the West believed he would do by sending men and armor into Crimea.</p>
<p>Since one doesn’t get to be an Edward R. Murrow fellow by sitting on one’s hands, Kaplan dashed off to pen a follow-up article headlined: “There’s Nothing Obama Could Have Done to Stop Putin.” Kaplan’s advice to Obama was to avoid threatening Putin with “consequences.”</p>
<p>“Obama should be looking for common interests. One such interest is ending the bloodshed,” Kaplan suggested.</p>
<p>If the Russian dictator is known for anything it’s his tender heart and opposition to bloodshed.</p>
<p>“Even Putin couldn’t want to send troops to the Ukrainian heartland,” Kaplan wrote. Unless of course Putin, whom foreign policy experts assured us couldn’t possibly want to send troops into Crimea, turns out to be ignorant of “how power works in the modern world” and does it anyway.</p>
<p>If that happens then the same experts who told us he wouldn’t do it, will tell us that we can’t do anything about it. It’s not in the nature of “power in the modern world.”</p>
<p>“You just don&#8217;t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext,&#8221; a baffled Secretary of State John Kerry said, as if Putin had decided to bring back monocles and pork pie hats.</p>
<p>But nevertheless Putin dug through his closet, stuck in his monocle and decided that you actually can invade other countries even though it’s 2014.</p>
<p>Lieutenant John Kerry, still baffled by the concept of one country invading another, also called it &#8220;an incredible act of aggression&#8221; and &#8220;a stunning, willful choice by President Putin.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Russia is in violation of its international obligations,&#8221; he bleated. Despite presenting a ceremonial potato to the Russian Foreign Minister, Kerry didn’t seem to understand that Russia cares about its international obligations almost as much as his boss cares about the United States Constitution.</p>
<p>This strange claim that invading other countries went out of style in the 19<sup>th</sup> century is belied by two world wars, countless smaller conflicts, including the Korean War and the Gulf War, and a few wars in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, but those facts don’t penetrate the progressive worldview.</p>
<p>At the debates, Obama had mocked Romney’s criticism of his drastic military cuts by accusing him of living in a 19<sup>th</sup> century “horses and bayonets” world and sneered at Romney’s statement that Russia was our leading geopolitical foe by asserting, “You don’t call Russia our No. 1 enemy… unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War mind warp.”</p>
<p>When Sarah Palin predicted back in 2008 that the invasion of Georgia would lead to the invasion of Ukraine, Saturday Night Live brought in Tina Fey to put on a little skit about seeing Russia from her house and everyone had a good laugh at the bumpkin who didn’t realize that the Cold War was over.</p>
<p>Last summer, Obama told Jay Leno, &#8220;There have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality. What I continually say to them and to President Putin, &#8216;That&#8217;s the past. We&#8217;ve got to think about the future.’&#8221;</p>
<p>Leno is gone and Putin is in the Ukraine and Obama is baffled to realize that when your enemies are stuck in the Cold War mentality, you either get your Cold War mind warp on or give up and go home.</p>
<p>Putin is thinking about the future. It’s Obama and Kerry who are clinging to discredited ideas about international law and diplomacy. These ideas are much more 19<sup>th</sup> century than anything Putin did.</p>
<p>The progressive spin is that Putin’s invasion, as the Center for American Progress put it, is “an act of weakness, not strength — an act, as Kerry aptly characterized it, anachronistic in both moral and strategic terms… fundamentally mismatched to 21st century realities.”</p>
<p>In the upside down world of progressive soft power, invading another country is an act of weakness while being unable to do anything about it is an act of strength. Weakness is the new strength and strength is the new weakness.</p>
<p>Obama’s impotence makes him a world leader, while Putin’s potency makes him a 19<sup>th</sup> century relic.</p>
<p>The more Putin does, the more he shows that he’s another Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney, a déclassé bumpkin unfit for the modern 21<sup>st</sup> century realities of discussing foreign policy on Jay Leno and cracking wise about horses and bayonets.</p>
<p>True strength means recognizing your own weakness and not doing anything about it except making snarky remarks about how backward those rough 19<sup>th</sup> century barbarians with their old-fashioned invasions are.</p>
<p>“In a world of free trade and highly globalized markets, territorial conquest simply isn’t a good way to make your country stronger,” the Center for American Progress insists.</p>
<p>But what if it is?</p>
<p>What if we haven’t entered some land after time where armies don’t matter and everything works because Tom Friedman wrote a book about the flattening earth?</p>
<p>What if all those old strategies that made today’s powers what they are, still work? What if steel and lead, the old verities of the world of horses and bayonets that Obama cheerfully dismissed while cutting the military to the bone, still make all the difference in the world?</p>
<p>“He has the G8 summit in Sochi coming up, no one really saw this kind of thing coming,” a Senate aide protested. In the world of Senate aides, G8 summits matter more than territory. That attitude reflects more on the unreal world of modern politics than on what it actually takes to be a great power.</p>
<p>Meetings, committees and conferences, international organizations, multilateral initiatives and all the other dross with which the great powers occupy themselves are nothing more than the elite rituals of an exclusive club whose members have forgotten that it was their wealth and armies that made them powers, not their committee meetings.</p>
<p>The progressive delusion of a modern world with no room for armies and invasions falls apart the moment that a barbarian rides in on a horse brandishing a rifle with a bayonet and shows that it can be done despite all the free trade agreements and G8 summits in the world.</p>
<p>Obama and Kerry find themselves, like time travelers thrown back in time to the 19<sup>th</sup> century or the 1950s, stuck in a world that plays by Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Vladimir Putin rules, where no one knows that invading other countries is passé and that power is achieved at summits and not at the point of a gun.</p>
<p>Like the nerds at the back of the cafeteria they pretend that the jocks who invade other countries will flunk out and have to work in a Moscow shoe store and eventually everyone will recognize that real power is being able to denounce the uncivilized ruffians as backward cretins in the school paper.</p>
<p>And if that doesn’t happen, due to the nature of power in the modern world, they won’t be able to do anything about it anyway.</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>Obama&#8217;s &#8216;Wait and See&#8217; Foreign Policy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/obamas-wait-and-see-foreign-policy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-wait-and-see-foreign-policy</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:19:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=191815</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And how it is emboldening Salafists and Hezbollah. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ShowImage.ashx_1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-191863" alt="ShowImage.ashx" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ShowImage.ashx_1.jpg" width="261" height="178" /></a>One of the early policy gaffes that the Obama administration made, and which will ultimately have severe negative repercussions on the United States, was not commanding a strong leadership when protests erupted during Iran’s debated 2009 elections. It was during this time that the U.S. leaders had the potential to significantly alter the balance of power against the ruling clerics and Ayatollahs. A second, and similar, geopolitical, national and strategic mistake that the Obama administration is currently conducting is allowing Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran to take the leadership position in regards to Syria. What the Obama administration is adopting is the policy of “Wait and See”; a strategy that supports taking the back seat rather than the steering wheel. In comparison to other mistakes and miscalculations implemented by the Obama administration, these particular uninformed policies and strategic lapses regarding the over two-year-long Syrian conflict may bring about a more significant level of threat to the United States’ national, global, geopolitical and strategic interests.</p>
<p>First of all, the absence of robust leadership from Obama’s administration has sent a formidable message to Hezbollah and Hamas: that these two groups can militarily operate regionally and globally as they desire without being held accountable or politically reprimanded. After witnessing the Obama administration take a back seat in the ongoing conflict between the rebels and the brutal police-state of Assad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah came out publicly announcing that he will support Assad’s regime and the Alawite sect until they score a victory. Nasrallah emphasized that his thousands of professionally trained soldiers are committed to fighting against what he projects in his propaganda to be radical Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria, at whatever the cost. In a televised speech on Saturday evening, Nasrallah stated, &#8220;We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position….We will be the ones who bring victory.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hezbollah has long been covertly operating in Syria. Through military support, intelligence advisement, and furnishing of necessary equipment, the group has been able to assist Assad’s brutal crack down on civilians. Yet, if the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran&#8217;s ruling clerics would have instead perceived the Obama administration as being serious about removing Assad from power and taking leadership, Hezbollah would have never been emboldened and empowered to the extent that it is now to publicly undermine the United States’ national and regional interests, global prestige, as well as its leadership role in the region and in the international arena.</p>
<p>The recent announcements by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which declared a shift in the U.S. position from asking Assad to step aside to now adopting primarily the Russian position, has been especially detrimental to U.S. national interests. The Russian position is a superficial negotiation between the regime of Assad – a brutal regime which has lost its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the Syrians, regional and international circles, and oppositional and rebel groups. Following the Russian leadership, the Obama administration will be holding a so-called “peace plan conference” with a regime notorious for committing crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>In addition, the absence of credible leadership in the Obama administration has also emboldened Russian leaders to send the most advanced anti-aircraft weapons to the Assad regime, which poses a severe threat to Israel’s national, geopolitical and strategic interests. After the Obama administration agreed to hold the “peace plan talks,” which are primarily being orchestrated by Russia, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that he defended Russia’s planned sale of S-300 missile systems to the Assad regime, despite strong opposition from Britain, France and Israel. Ryabkov pointed out that this action is intended to “stop” and “restrain” the “hotheads” who are hoping to remove Assad from power and to conduct an international intervention in the Syrian conflict.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is worth noting that the growing presence and influence of the Salafists, Islamists groups, Al-Qaeda members, and Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups have become more evident not only in various cities in Syria (including Damascus, Allepo, Homa and Hama) but also Lebanon (in cities such as Tripoli) and Iraq, where they are also strongly operating. These groups have become empowered to the extent that they are now calling for mobilization in the Islamist state of Syria and Iraq, having found the appropriate and ripe environment to regroup in numbers larger and stronger then when the terrorist act of 9/11 was conducted from Afghanistan.</p>
<p>While the Obama administration has been adopting the effortless strategy of “Wait and See” in the Syrian conflict  – choosing the back seat instead of the steering wheel, avoiding taking serious geostrategic and geopolitical actions, and permitting Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran to govern regionally and internationally – severe long-term and short-term negative repercussions for the national, regional, global, geopolitical and politico-economic interests of the United States are brewing.</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>When America Is Weak, Its Enemies Attack</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/when-america-is-weak-its-enemies-attack/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=when-america-is-weak-its-enemies-attack</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=186623</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama’s weakness is America’s vulnerability.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Obama3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-186772" alt="Obama3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Obama3.jpg" width="294" height="441" /></a>On September 12, 2012, Obama stepped out into the Rose Garden and told the millions of Americans watching at home, “We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.  And make no mistake, justice will be done.”</p>
<p>More than half a year has passed since then and justice is nowhere in sight. The perpetrators of the attack openly walk the streets of Benghazi long after the FBI team sent there has gone home.</p>
<p>It may well be a coincidence that the first major successful terrorist attack comes as the administration plots a withdrawal from its second lost war. The Boston marathon massacre may have succeeded by a simple roll of the dice. Or it may have inaugurated a new series of terrorist attacks on the homefront.</p>
<p>For over a decade, Islamic terrorists who wanted to kill Americans headed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Obama’s grand security plan was to replace boots on the ground with drones carrying out pinprick strikes and then flying away again. It was a comfortable technocratic vision but it doesn’t account for what happens to all those fighters on the ground with no one left to fight and no reason to stick around except to act as drone targets.</p>
<p>Some have headed for Syria and others for North Africa. But the big question is how long will it be until they make another serious pass at the United States? Or have they made it already?</p>
<p>In Libya, Obama tried to avoid casualties by bombing from the air under the guise of a No Fly Zone. But once Gaddafi was dead and the zone was down, nothing protected the Americans in Benghazi. Obama had used the United Nations to sanction regime change, but without its sanction or the sanction of the Arab League, he refused to use air power to scare away the Salafist militias besieging the trapped Americans.</p>
<p>The new soft power strategy was big picture. It had nothing to offer the Americans fighting and dying while waiting for help to arrive.</p>
<p>Al Qaeda understood soft power as a weakness. Unlike the decrepit Clinton policy wonks, it was not impressed by the old strategy of refusing to engage while hiding behind the drones that were standing in for Bill Clinton’s favorite terrorist-fighting cruise missiles. It understood that limited engagement was not some bright and new philosophy, but an unwillingness to take casualties and inflict collateral damage.</p>
<p>“We will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people,” Obama announced in the Rose Garden and the terrorists laughed. They laughed because they had support from within the Libyan government. They laughed because the Libyan government had obstructed the arrival of rescue teams and denied the use of armed drones over Libyan airspace.</p>
<p>What sounded like a reasonable statement to an American audience was actually an admission that Obama would not act unilaterally to go after the killers. There would be no Abbottabad style raids. There was no reason to worry that they would wake up to find the Navy SEALS coming down on them.</p>
<p>Obama had been unwilling to flout the authority of the Libyan government to rescue the Americans in Benghazi. He was certainly not going to do it to find their killers.</p>
<p>The Jihadists had carefully assessed Obama’s weaknesses while searching for loopholes to exploit. In Afghanistan, the Taliban had outplayed him by refusing to negotiate. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood had outplayed him by claiming the mandate of the people. Iran had outplayed him by prolonging meaningless negotiations. Al Qaeda had outplayed him by using that same reliance on the meaningless formalities of international law.</p>
<p>Before the Boston bombing, Guantanamo Bay was in a virtual state of revolt with prisoners refusing to move to individual cells and covering up security cameras and windows to take control of sections of the prison. While some imprisoned terrorists staged hunger strikes, others wielded broomsticks and batons in clashes with guards.</p>
<p>In Guantanamo Bay, in Benghazi and Afghanistan and Mali and a hundred other places, the Jihadists were testing the nerve of their infidel opponents and probing for weaknesses. Weak opponents can be hemmed in by their own laws and hamstrung by their need to cling to the moral high ground. The greatest weapon of the terrorists is their ability to exploit our rules, leaving us unable to act.</p>
<p>As the surviving Boston bomber lies in his hospital bed, Republican senators and congressmen are calling on the administration to treat him as an enemy combatant. But the same administration that refused to violate Libyan airspace to rescue its own people is showing no signs that it is willing to push the envelope in Boston and transfer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev into military custody.</p>
<p>When Obama spoke in the Rose Garden on September 12, all he had to offer were worthless words spewed from a teleprompter. On April 15, he delivered much the same speech, with entire sentences seemingly lifted from the original. Once again there were vows of justice, tributes to the American spirit and all the other formalities of an administration covering up its failures with heaps of words.</p>
<p>The media cheers every one of Obama’s utterances, as do the Jihadists, but where the media sees strength, they see weakness.</p>
<p>The Taliban won in Afghanistan. The Muslim Brotherhood won in Egypt. Al Qaeda won in Benghazi. And they don’t intend to rest on their laurels. Whether or not the surviving Boston bomber was one of theirs, the old war that was put on hold when American troops went to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan is about to go hot again as Al Qaeda franchises gain the spare resources and breathing room to develop and deploy the next generation of terrorist plots.</p>
<p>The United States is the only country in the world that rewards the weakness of its opponents. The opponents we face today lack any such chivalrous notions. They have exploited the weakness of our leaders in Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya. And they intend to exploit that weakness on American soil.</p>
<p>After September 11, President George W. Bush made it clear that the United States would do whatever it took to protect the homeland. This administration has sent the opposite message over and over again. The Clinton Administration’s ineptitude in dealing with the World Trade Center bombing and the African embassy bombings invited September 11. The Obama Administration’s ineptitude in Benghazi may have invited the marathon massacre of April 15.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Karl Rove: The President Is No B+ &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:16:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49% approve and 46% disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll. There are many factors that explain it, including weakness abroad, an unprecedented spending binge at home, and making [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Barack Obama has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49% approve and 46% disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.</p>
<p>There are many factors that explain it, including weakness abroad, an unprecedented spending binge at home, and making a perfectly awful health-care plan his signature domestic initiative. But something else is happening.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574600002289276662.html">Karl Rove: The President Is No B+ &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Welfare State and Military Power &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/the-welfare-state-and-military-power-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-welfare-state-and-military-power-wsj-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:03:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40415</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For our money, one of the better parts of President Obama&#8217;s speech at West Point this week was his connection between a healthy economy and U.S. national security. To quote: &#8220;Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy.&#8221; We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For our money, one of the better parts of President Obama&#8217;s speech at West Point this week was his connection between a healthy economy and U.S. national security. To quote: &#8220;Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy.&#8221; We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link between the larger welfare state he is trying to build at home and the economic weakness that will undermine our military power.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574573711965511326.html">The Welfare State and Military Power &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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