No Worries, Obama Will Talk To Them

This is from a post at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Gee, what a coincidence! Tues news: US troops killed Afghan civilians, Wed news - Obama & Karzai meet

WHO SAID THE FOLLOWING?: "This war against terrorism will succeed only if we fight it from a higher platform of morality."

Karzai did - This type of mush usually oozes out of Obama's mouth. Gee, now they're all set to have their U.S. Troops bashing session in the White House. They can both climb up on their morality platforms and spew away. I can't wait for the sound bites.

Like I've said before, it's no longer possible to fight a war. Our soldiers have gone from having one armed tied behind their back, to now having both of them. It's dangerous enough when you have normal rules of engagement, but now it will be suicidal. We should pack-up our troops and get them the hell out of Afghanistan and let the prehistoric wasteland go back to the full-blown tribal warfare that they so crave.
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Afghans say US bombing run killed dozens

by Rahim Faiez And Jason Straziuso
Associated Press Writers

KABUL – Bombing runs called in by U.S. forces killed dozens of civilians taking shelter from fighting between Taliban militants and Afghan and international troops, Afghan officials said Tuesday. The U.S. promised a joint investigation.

A provincial councilman said he saw about 30 bodies, many of them women and children, after villages bought them to a provincial capital.

Overall death toll estimates varied widely. Villagers estimated from 70 to well over 100 civilians may have died, according to local and regional officials. But no government official could confirm such a toll.

Civilian deaths have caused increasing friction between the Afghan and U.S. governments, and President Hamid Karzai has long pleaded with American officials to reduce the number of civilian casualties in their operations. Karzai meets with President Barack Obama in Washington on Wednesday.

In remarks at a Washington think tank Tuesday, Karzai alluded to the problem of civilian casualties without mentioning the bombing deaths. He said the success of the new U.S. war strategy depends on "making sure absolutely that Afghans don't suffer — that Afghan civilians are protected."

"This war against terrorism will succeed only if we fight it from a higher platform of morality," he added in a speech at the Brookings Institution. Asked later what he meant by that remark, Karzai said, "We must be conducting this war as better human beings," and recognize that "force won't buy you obedience."

The latest fighting broke out Monday soon after Taliban fighters — including Taliban from Pakistan and Iran — massed in Farah province in western Afghanistan, said Belqis Roshan, a member of Farah's provincial council. The provincial police chief, Abdul Ghafar, said 25 militants and three police officers died in that battle near the village of Ganjabad in Bala Baluk district, a Taliban-controlled area near the border with Iran.

Villagers told Afghan officials that they put children, women, and elderly men in several housing compounds in the village of Gerani — about three miles to the east — to keep them safe. But villagers said fighter aircraft later targeted those compounds, killing a majority of those inside, according to Roshan and other officials.

The top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan, Col. Greg Julian, confirmed that U.S. coalition forces participated in the battle. Julian said five wounded Afghans sought medical treatment at a military base in Farah.

"We offer our condolences to those affected by today's operations and will immediately investigate the claims to determine what happened," Julian said.

Abdul Basir Khan, another member of Farah's provincial council, said Farah's governor had hoped to send a delegation to the bombing site Tuesday to investigate, but that officials decided not to go because of how dangerous the region was. It wasn't clear when investigators might reach the village.

The United Nations often takes a lead role in investigating high-profile civilian death cases, but the U.N. doesn't have any officials in Farah province.

A Western official in Kabul said Marine special operations forces — which fall under the U.S. coalition — had called in the airstrikes. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

Khan said villagers brought bodies, including women and children, to Farah city to show the province's governor. Khan estimated that villagers brought about 30 bodies.

"It was difficult to count because they were in very bad shape. Some had no legs," Khan said.

Farah's hospital treated at least three wounded villagers, including an 11-year-old boy whose chest, arms and shoulders were completely bandaged. A girl named Shafiqa had bandages under her chin. Two of her toes were severed in the fighting.

"We were at home when the bombing started," she told AP Television News. "Seven members of my family were killed."

Khan said villagers told him more than 150 civilians had died, but he said he had no way to know whether that claim was true.

The issue of civilian deaths is complicated in Afghanistan. Journalists and human rights workers can rarely visit remote battle sites to verify claims of civilian casualties. U.S. officials say Taliban militants sometimes force villagers to lie and say civilians have died in coalition strikes.

But the villagers' claims on Tuesday were bolstered by the wounded at Farah's hospital shown on AP Television News. And Khan's account of several truckloads of bodies taken to Farah city added more weight to the claims.

Mohammad Nieem Qadderdan, the former top official in the district of Bala Baluk, said he saw dozens of bodies when he visited the village of Gerani.

"These houses that were full of children and women and elders were bombed by planes. It is very difficult to say how many were killed because nobody can count the number, it is too early," Qadderdan, who no longer holds a government position, told The Associated Press by telephone. "People are digging through rubble with shovels and hands."

Qadderdan said the civilian casualties were "worse than Azizabad," a reference to an August 2008 strike in a district immediately to the north of Bala Baluk.

An Afghan government commission found that an operation by U.S. forces killed 90 civilians in Azizabad, a finding backed by the U.N. The U.S. originally said no civilians died; a high-level investigation later concluded 33 civilians were killed.

After the Azizabad killings, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, announced a directive last September meant to reduce such deaths. He ordered commanders to consider breaking away from a fire-fight in populated areas rather than pursue militants into villages.

Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
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IRAQ: OBAMA TAKES HIS EYE OFF THE BALL

from the blogspot The Real World
image from The Real World
Sunday, May 03, 2009

Candidate Obama and his fellow anti-war buddies spent well over a year accusing the Bush gang of taking their "eye off the ball" in Afghanistan by choosing to fight in Iraq.

By the time Bush left office, Iraq was largely a settled matter and focus had shifted back to the Afghan situation. What became clear is that most jihadists had given up on Iraq and had reconvened in Pakistan in order to fight across the border.

Candidate Obama promised to do two things. First, to fight vigorously against the resurgent Taliban in Pakistan. Second, to get Osama. He has accomplished a tad of the first and none of the second. The Afghan war continues to escalate and become increasingly problematic.

President Obama has sent in additional forces but the tide continues to run against him. To date, the anti-war Obama is escalating the fighting and losing the battle. Apparently, it is much easier to be a smartass as a candidate than it is to be the responsible decision maker as the POTUS.

But the real irony is this: Obama has taken his eye off the ball. As the following story reports, our military is facing growing jihadist activity in Iraq, where things had been progressing nicely pre-Obama.

However, by announcing withdrawal plans, ordering the end of our terrorist detainment regime, promising to no longer practice enhanced interrogation on enemy combatants and generally taking a far less aggressive posture than the Bush administration, Obama has not only taken his eye off the ball, he can no longer see the field. He has encouraged the enemy to return to the fight.

The message to those on a jihad: America is backing off and there is a much clearer field for you now to practice murder, torture, intimidation and genocide. Obviously, the terrorists have gotten the message.

Our troops are now much more in harms way in Iraq than was the case in January. Further, we are clearly worse off in the Afghan and now Pakistan region of conflict than we were six months ago.

In other words, Obama has taken his eye off the ball in Iraq while at the same time dropping the ball in Afghanistan. At immediate risk are American troops in the field in both Mideast theatres.

At risk ultimately are the American people and the homeland. This leftist anti-war President has remained loyal to his long held doctrinal beliefs relative to our military and the ongoing conflicts with our sworn enemies.

To date, he has shown little loyalty to his fellow Americans in such matters.
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Obama, You Are An INFIDEL - That's according to Islamic law!

Obama, You Are An INFIDEL - That's according to Islamic law, not just what I'm saying, even though I agree with the Infidel part

I absolutely believe you understand your identity according to Sharia law. It would be intellectually dishonest if you were to deny it. It would be inconceivable if you didn't.

Let's proceed with the understanding that you know you're and infidel along with the rest of us non-believers. Islamic law is inflexible and unforgiving. Unless you and the rest of us non-believers convert, we will destroyed. It's a simple as that. You can talk to them all you want, but nothing is going to change.

Even you as the current day Messiah, will not succeed in changing Islamic law, and their professed intentions to implement it worldwide. The choices are very clear, you need to work towards stopping their effort, or someone else needs to assume your position and proceed with our battle to survive.
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Obama’s Grand Delusion about Iran
A clearer, tougher policy is required — urgently
May 1, 2009
from Pajamas Media
by 'Reza Kahlili'

President Barack Obama’s recent video message to Iranians and their ruling mullahs for the Persian new year was both kind and heartfelt. Norouz, the Persian new year, has been celebrated by Iranians for almost 3,000 years. Norouz means new day and it represents two symbolic ancient concepts: end and rebirth — or end of evil and rebirth of good.

But the ruling mullahs in Iran are trying to usurp our Persian heritage and replace it with Arab/Islamic events. They have even tried to ban the new year celebration, calling it un-Islamic. If it were not for the courage and resistance of Iranians, our new year would have been replaced with an Islamic event just like the many other social changes since the Iranian Revolution.

Forcing Iranians to adhere to a strict Islamic dress code is the least of it. We have been subjected to amputation as the punishment for stealing, lashing for drinking, stoning for adultery, and execution by hanging from cranes for speaking against our rulers. Just days ago, Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammadi Gilani was awarded the highest judicial honor for his 30 years of service to the Islamic Republic. As the chief judge of the Revolutionary Courts, he ordered that demonstrators be killed and virgin girls be raped prior to execution so they could not go to heaven. He called the torture and killing of male and female opponents of the regime fair and just. All for no other reason than they violated the Islamic law as viewed by the mullahs.

President Obama’s comments may be well-intentioned, but like previous U.S. presidents, he ignores the ideology behind the mullahs’ regime. The mullahs’ view of Islam is based on Sharia, Islamic law that condemns as enemies of God all those who oppose them and all those who don’t believe in Allah. The mullahs believe in jihad or holy war for Islam, shahadat (martyrdom), and mahdaviat (the coming of the Shiites’ 12th imam to usher in Armageddon.) They believe that justice can only be served by killing the infidels and raising the flag of Islam worldwide.

These beliefs shape the mullahs’ jihadist policies. And therein lies the reason that U.S. presidents have not managed to succeed in negotiations with Tehran — either through secret or open channels — since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. President Jimmy Carter failed to negotiate the release of American hostages in Iran after the U.S Embassy in Tehran takeover. President Reagan failed to improve relations and failed to release American hostages held in Lebanon in exchange for arms. President George H. W. Bush failed in his secret negotiations with Hashemi Rafsanjani, going as far as recognizing him as the new leader of Iran. President Bill Clinton failed to improve relations when he met Iranian demands, removed sanctions, and apologized to the Iranian government for past U.S. behavior toward Iran. And President George W. Bush failed with his constant threats, which saw no follow-through.

The lesson of America’s failed carrot-and-stick foreign policy toward Iran is clear: Carrots don’t work; sticks work only if there is a follow-through.

The mullahs have backed down only once. Reagan had just about had it with the mullahs after his failed negotiations with them. Iran would not accept peace with Iraq and constantly threatened the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. Reagan ordered attacks on the Iranian oil fields and naval units in the Persian Gulf. A top Revolutionary Guards commander told me, “A message has been sent by Reagan that if we do not accept peace [with Iraq] immediately, they will nuke us.” It was only then that Ayatollah Khomeini caved in and ended the Iran-Iraq war.

President Obama must be clear and concise with his policy toward Tehran. An Iran with nukes must never be allowed. The mullahs must abandon their enrichment activity and allow full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of all suspected sites. And they must stop supporting terrorism. Only then should they be welcomed by the world community.

If the mullahs continue to defy U.N. Security Council resolutions, there must be serious consequences. It could start with a naval blockade of Iran’s refined oil imports, which account for almost half of its domestic consumption. If that does not persuade them, then taking out the mullahs’ nuclear installations would be a better solution than facing a nuclear-armed Iran. Hesitation with Iran will only result in an inevitable nuclear confrontation with dire consequences, not only for Iranians but the region and the world.

The mullahs’ lobbyists in the U.S. have been trying hard to influence the Obama administration with their delusional picture of the leaders of Iran. The mullahs say a softer tone will earn their love and that their problems are not with America but with Israel.

In a recent New York Times column, Roger Cohen defended the mullahs against claims that they are a messianic apocalyptic cult. He said the regime is “the same ‘messianic apocalyptic cult’ that has survived 30 years, ushered the country from the penury of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war … cooperated with America on Afghanistan before being consigned to ‘the axis of evil,’ and kept its country at peace in the 21st century.”

Apparently, Mr. Cohen has been living in a cave for the past 30 years, during which the Iranian regime was busy with the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, the torture and killing of American hostages such as CIA agent William Buckley in 1985, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, and the bombings of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994 and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Other atrocities include:

• the massacre of as many as 30,000 political prisoners in 1988
  
• the stabbing and mutilation in France of Shahpour Bakhtiar in 1991 — the last prime minister under the shah — and the ensuing release of a French hostage by Hezbollah in exchange for the French turning a blind eye to the killing
  
• the Mafia-style assassination of the Kurdish opposition leaders in Germany in 1992 (Mykonos Trial)
  
• the serial killings of Iranian dissident intellectuals in 1998
  
• the 1998 stabbing and mutilation of the leader of Iran’s National Party and his wife (Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar) while tied to the chair in their home facing Mecca
  
• the killing of the students in their uprising of July 1999
  
• the 2003 rape, torture, and killing of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian/Canadian reporter in Tehran
  
• and the recent imprisonment of Roxana Saberi , a U.S. journalist on trumped-up charges of espionage.
  
• some of the highest-ranking Iranian authorities are currently either on Interpol’s most-wanted list or have arrest warrants issued for them by several courts around the world for their terrorist activities.

Mr. Cohen also claimed after a short visit to Iran that life was not that bad for the Iranian Jews under the Islamic rule of the mullahs. I guess Mr. Cohen did not get the chance to talk with the Jews who were blindfolded and taken in front of an execution squad and told they were going to die unless they signed a confession letter admitting they spied for Israel. He probably didn’t have the opportunity to talk to those Jews who, out of fear, converted to Islam but still had their passports confiscated every time they came back from a trip outside of Iran and had to put up with hair-raising questioning sessions in the Revolutionary Courts about their travels.

Mr. Cohen, a short visit to Iran does not make you an expert. I have lived it and seen it. I was a member of the Revolutionary Guards and chose to spy for America, thus putting my life and the lives of my family on the line to help America see the truth about the mullahs and the true aspirations of the great people of Iran.

It’s time to learn from past mistakes and understand the seriousness of the situation. A nuclear-capable Iran will create uncertainty, havoc, and total imbalance in world order. If one thinks the proliferation of arms by Iran to Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Iraqi militants, the Taliban, Sudan’s radical regime, and many terrorist groups around the world is a problem now, wait until dirty bombs show up everywhere.

The mullahs will sit at the negotiating table and shake hands, but as they have done for the past 30 years, they will sting you in the end just like a scorpion, for it is their nature to help Islam conquer the world. The Quran is their best guidance: deceive your enemies until such time as you are powerful enough to destroy them.

“Today Iran, with the grace of God, is controlling the entire nuclear fuel cycle,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state television of the nuclear fuel facility in Isfahan, which is capable of producing 10 tons of nuclear fuel annually. Once fully operational, it could produce sufficient plutonium for two nuclear weapons a year.

Iranian officials have also announced an increase in the number of centrifuges at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz (7,000, up from 6,000) and indicated their progress in testing a more advanced type of centrifuge.

It is estimated that Iran currently possesses over 26 kilograms of U-235 in its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and produces close to two kilograms more a month. The amount needed for a first-generation atomic bomb is 21.6 kilograms, and the time needed for the conversion of low-enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium is estimated to be two to six months. This is while the Revolutionary Guards, with the help of North Korea, are working on long-range ballistic missiles in tests that are concealed by its space project. As long as America continues to step back from its red line, both Iran and North Korea will take a more offensive posture in their policies.

Learn the lessons of history, Mr. President. If you don’t, the world is in peril.
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Ahmadinejad: Zionist regime will be uprooted - Sounds like a broken record

Iranian president, in public speech, says Zionists have told lies to create the 'germ' of Israel. 'Just as it was created, it can be dismantled,' he says of Israeli state

by Dudi Cohen
Published: 05.03.09
from the Israel News

Israel must "stop its crimes" against the Palestinians or "the strong hand of nations will root them out," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday in a speech in the Iranian city of Karaj.

The website of the Iranian IRIB news agency quoted him as saying that, "The era of aggression of the Zionist regime and its supporters has come to an end" and emphasizing that "just as (Israel) was created, it can be dismantled."

He denied Israel's legitimacy, saying that "for 60 years, they have told lies and tried to defraud nations in order to create the germ called the Zionist regime" and added that "Zionism contributes nothing other than aggression, mass murder, terror and threats."

In reference to the political situation in the region, Ahmadinejad asserted that "recently, the Zionist entity gave the Palestinian people an ultimatum to leave their homes in order to destroy them and place a pack of professional thieves, who come from other places in the world, in their place."

Slamming the international community, he asked "where is the United Nations Secretary-General to transfer the cry of the Palestinian people to the ears of the world? Where are the supporters of human rights and democracy?"

The Iranian president called for a referendum in 'Palestine' and said that if Israel "doesn't accept this humane solution, the might of nations will bury them underground and bring about justice."

He also affirmed his intent to continue the nuclear program, saying that "Iran will stay unified until it achieves all the rights it deserves."

Ahmadinejad's statements come about a month before presidential elections, scheduled to take place on June 12, in which he is running for reelection. He has recently faced criticism about his last term from his political rivals, particularly regarding his failed economic policy and his aggressive foreign policy that has left him isolated within the international community and subject to sanctions.
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Netanyahu heads for collision with Obama administration

from the DEBKAfile
May 2, 2009

Israeli president Shimon Peres' task in Washington on May 4-5 is to blunt the sharp edge the White House is honing to force Israel to toe the new Washington line on the Palestinians, Syria and Iran.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu can expect the full force of a bludgeon to be wielded in his White House talks on May 18.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that their host is fired up to be the first US president in decades of close friendship and cooperation to clash openly with Israel and the bulk of US Jewry. Oblivious to Israel's claim of US support for its security in a hostile regional environment, Barack Obama is expected to squeeze the Netanyahu government hard for immediate engagement on the Middle East conflict without further delay.

According to our sources, the White House staff is working at top speed on options for imposing its will.

Peres and Netanyahu will be informed that Washington is setting up two trilateral peace commissions to hammer out peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel with the Syrians.

US officials in both chairs will intercede with their own ideas to prevent them running into deadlock on disputed issues. DEBKAfile's sources confirm that the Obama administration will not spare the whip to force the parties into line.

The US president and his top advisers are convinced that the Palestinian problem is the main obstacle to accommodations for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. Defense secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Gen. James Jones are the leading advocates of this proposition, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more skeptical but ready to back the president's Middle East determination to place Israel in the first line of fire.

Some of DEBKAfile's US sources admit that President Obama is himself under pressure because, despite the high approval rating he gained for his first 100 days in office, his myriad policy initiatives have yet to show results.

His economic remedies have steadied the banking system but not yet filtered down to the general public, he faces a hard slog in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan before making headway, and Tehran is playing hardball at every turn on the road to dialogue.

The only arena where the White House can hope for quick results is the Israel-Palestinian-Syrian track.

The two peace conferences in preparation recall Bill Clinton's success in forcing the Serbs, Bosnians and Croats to sign the Dayton Accord of 1995, so terminating a war of three-and-a-half years.

The presidential envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was the architect of Dayton. George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, is in line for a similar role today. During his two rounds of talks in Middle East capitals, Mitchell has shown a smiling, genial face, but said little, while in Washington, a State Department team is working overtime on a new American "road map."

It starts out with pressure on Israel to freeze settlement activity on the West Bank and construction in East Jerusalem. At a later stage, Israel would be pushed to abandon large sections of the West Bank, remove authorized communities as well as unauthorized outposts and hand over the historic nucleus of Jerusalem.

Finally, the Israeli government would be required to accept an independent Palestinian state, even if its government is dominated by the rejectionist terrorist group Hamas.

Peres and Netanyahu will find administration officials deaf not only on Israel's arguments on the Palestinian issue but on a nuclear-armed Iran too. They will see the US president no longer prioritizing the suspension of Iran's nuclear aspirations, but bent on establishing a new Persian Gulf order that formalizes Iran's rising power. Washington's objective now is negotiations for setting the boundaries of Iran's Middle East expansion and limits for its nuclear program.

Israel will have no say in this process. In fact, by elevating Iran to premier regional power, America is sidelining its longstanding friends, Israel and Egypt, and setting aside their security and strategic interests for the sake of deals with Iran.

Dennis Ross, US envoy for Iran, carried this message to the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, last week.

But Obama's new Middle East design is not without powerful opponents:

1. Tehran itself will not let Washington dictate the limits of its expanding influence but insists on dialogue taking place amid "equality and mutual respect." This attitude also governs its nuclear aspirations. US diplomats will have to make the running to temper the ayatollahs rather than the other way round.

2. Cairo and Riyadh will resist with all their might the US bid to anoint Iran the crowning Middle East-Gulf power. Both perceive Iran's nuclearization as the inevitable outcome of this policy.

They are also extremely concerned by Obana's public endorsement of Turkey as the senior Muslim power in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia, a boost for Ankara's aspirations to resuscitate the Ottoman Empire.

3. Jerusalem will resist being cast into a peripheral role in the strategic and military processes going forward with regard to Iran, the Palestinians, Syria and their terrorist arms, Hizballah and Hamas, all of which bear pivotally on Israel's future existence. Like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Netanyahu government may not accept being crushed between two hostile regional powers, Iran and Turkey, whose aggressive pretensions Washington is promoting.

- Netanyahu is marshalling all Israel's resources, including an active role for President Peres, to avoid dropping into the role of second- or third-rate Middle East power whom no one consults.

Peres, whose rich diplomatic experience and international reputation make him a prime asset, has been pressed into service to become the first Israeli president to step out of his ceremonial role into active-policy-making.

- The Israeli prime minister will also take advantage of the interests Jerusalem shares with Cairo and Riyadh in frustrating the new Washington orientation – and not only with regard to Iran.

Netanyahu and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have arranged to put their heads together and are meeting before their separate trips to Washington.

- Israel has not abandoned its option of a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations and its economic infrastructure. US officials, led by the defense secretary, are accordingly pouring contempt on the extent of the damage Israel is capable of inflicting. Next, they will try and tie Israel's hands by discrediting Netanyahu and his administration.

- A final arrow in Netanyahu's quiver is the ability to enlist American public opinion, which is traditionally supportive and sympathetic to Israel, against Obama's Grand Middle East Design. He will seek to canvass support among friends in the US Congress and the Jewish community.
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Obama and Iran: The President of Pre-emptive Surrender

from Spiegel Online
May 2, 2009

America wants to engage with Tehran and offer concessions over its nuclear program. President Ahmadinejad will naturally swear not to build any nuclear weapons. But his promises will be worth little, because Iran in the long term wants to be a great power -- and for that it will need the bomb.

"Hit us and we shall hit you ten times harder!" This is how General Muhammad Ali Jaafari, the recently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard responded to speculation about a possible attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear installations.

Jaafari replaced General Yahya Safavi in 2007 after the latter made a speech in which he implicitly warned the mullahs that Iran's military was not ready for war against far more powerful enemies.

Those familiar with Iranian military capabilities know that it is Safavi's sober assessment, and not Jaafari's bluster, that reflects the true situation. Jaafari can make his claim only because he, and his political masters in Tehran, are convinced there will be no military action1) against their regime.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad always assumed that once President George W. Bush was out of the White House, the United States would bite the bullet and accept a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic as a "regional superpower" in the Middle East. A change in US policy towards Iran would, in turn, make it impossible for Israel to contemplate military action against the Islamic Republic.

Two events convinced Ahmadinejad that his strategy was correct.

The first came in May 2006, when the Bush administration, then at the nadir of its unpopularity because things were not going well in Iraq, joined the line of supplicant Europeans begging Tehran to negotiate a deal.

This unexpected shift in Washington's policy produced the opposite effect.

Far from persuading Ahamdinejad that it was a good chance to defuse the situation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's attempt at nuance and multilateral diplomacy convinced Tehran that the Americans had blinked.

The second event that confirmed Ahmadinejad's belief that "America cannot do a damn thing" came with the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Using language of obfuscation, the NIE claimed that Tehran had abandoned a key aspect of its nuclear program in 2003. The NIE undermined the whole case brought by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) against the Islamic Republic.

Whatever one might say about Ahmadinejad, one thing is certain: he plays an open hand. He is convinced that with Bush gone, the US does not have the stomach for a fight, let alone pre-emptive war.

He thinks the dominant mood in the US, and the West in general, is one of pre-emptive surrender.

Ahmadinejad may well be right: there is not going to be any war against the Islamic Republic.
President Barack Obama has decided to engage Iran unconditionally. This means he no longer insists that Iran should comply with the terms of three United Nations' Security Council resolutions that demand an end to its nuclear programme in its present form.

The 5+1 talks expected to open later this month will focus on a formula to "walk the camel down the roof" -- that is to say, find a face-saving way to give Obama his first diplomatic success while allowing the Islamic Republic to pursue its program.

The formula would include a provision under which Iran will make a solemn commitment not to develop nuclear weapons. This is not hard to do. The "Supreme Leader" Ali Khameini has already issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against nuclear arms. Iran analysts believe that, for the time being, the regime is interested in acquiring the wherewithal needed to make nuclear weapons without actually taking the final step towards manufacturing them.

Ahmadinejad has already promised "full support and protection" to anti-American regimes in Latin America against the "Great Satan" in Washington. Iran is laying the foundation for an armaments industry in Venezuela. One day a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic may extend its nuclear umbrella to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and -- why not -- Cuba.

The Islamic Republic has been at war against the United States and the international system led by Washington for almost 30 years. It has been a low intensity war because the US and its allies have shied away from full-scale confrontation. The US has shown it has lots of power, but not the courage to use even a fraction of it. The Islamic Republic's power, on the other hand, is "tiny," as Obama has noted. Yet the mullahs have been prepared to use their "tiny" power in full, with already devastating effects.

The issue is not how to avoid war with the Islamic Republic. It is how to end a war that has been going on for almost 30 years.
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'Military option in Iran ineffective' - Gates is either stupid or a traitor - Iran will never stop due to negotiations

from The Jerusalem Post
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR AND YAAKOV KATZ
May 1, 2009

Use of the military option to force Iran to halt its nuclear program would only yield temporary and ineffective results, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

Sanctions would make more sense, he said.

Gates said a military attack on Iran would merely send the country's nuclear program further underground. Instead, [Iran isnthe United States and its allies must convince Teheran that its nuclear ambitions would spark an arms race that would leave the Islamic republic less secure. [Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons to "feel more secure," they're developing them to anihilate Israel. They are not some halfway sane country. When they have them, they will use them. - my comment]

Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US should work with its allies on tougher international sanctions. Gates also said America should pursue partnerships with Russia on missile defense programs in the region to further isolate Iran and to give it economic and diplomatic reasons to abandon its nuclear interests voluntarily.

According to Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, any US-Iranian dialogue should depend on the Iranian regime's willingness to stop its drive toward a nuclear weapon.

"It is unreasonable to even begin such a dialogue when the other side, Iran, is flagrantly in breach of all its commitments," Ayalon said on Thursday. "The Americans shouldn't start the dialogue until there is a full and complete cessation of uranium enrichment and weaponization, and an effective mechanism for verification is installed."

Ayalon was responding to a White House refusal on Wednesday to establish a timetable for the Obama administration's engagement with Teheran.

Speaking to foreign journalists, White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said, "It's not appropriate at this time to be trying to establish timetables, but rather seeing how the engagement can move forward."

The US was not looking for "talk for the sake of talk," but "there are opportunities there for us to engage with the Iranian government," he said. [Oh, doesn't that just have such a warm and fuzzy feel to it - my comment]

The statement appears to echo the view of Clinton, who, in her first appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, refused to put a time limit on the administration's effort to hold a dialogue with the Iranian regime. According to Clinton, the "engagement strategy" gave the US "credibility and influence" with countries that would be needed to impose "tight and crippling" sanctions. This was widely interpreted as a reference to Russia and China.

According to Ayalon, "There are more important issues than just timetables." The dialogue must include "benchmarks and verification mechanisms" to prevent the Teheran from using the diplomatic discussions to buy time for its weapons program.

Ayalon noted that "for the past four years, it is the continuing Iranian violation, the ongoing process of weaponization, that has prevented the Europeans from beginning a dialogue with Iran."

Similarly, senior defense officials have warned in recent days that Iran would exploit such a dialogue and could not be trusted to stop its nuclear program.

"Israel is not opposed to the American dialogue with Iran, but believes that the US should put a time limit on dialogue while the international community prepares a severe sanctions package that can be in place immediately in case the dialogue fails," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement late last week.

He recommended that the sanctions package include the financial and insurance sectors, imports and energy infrastructure, and warned that "Israel has already said that it is not taking any options off the table, and recommends that others do the same."

Earlier this week, Barak and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon urged the Obama administration to set clear benchmarks throughout the engagement process that the Iranians would have to meet for the talks to continue.

"Israel cannot tell the US not to talk to Iran, but can warn that without a time frame, it will almost definitely fail," one senior defense official commented.

The official recommended that the talks be limited to 14-16 weeks.

"This is sufficient time to test the Iranians' sincerity," he said. "If the talks fail to stop Iran after 16 weeks, then it will be time to step up efforts, such as imposing harsher sanctions."

Hilary Leila Krieger, Greer Fay Cashman and AP contributed to this report.
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Obama basically gave Turkey green light to insult Israel

from the Debkafile Special Report
April 30, 2009

Turkey's army chief Gen. Ilker Basburg brushed off the Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak's comment that the joint Turkish-Syrian military exercise was "disturbing."

Barak referred to the first exercise Turkey, Israel's longstanding military ally and NATO member, had ever staged with an Arab nation, Israel's avowed foe Syria. Gen. Basbug said it was only a border exercise, small-scale and "none of anybody's business."

NATO member Turkey and Syria hold first joint military exercise
DEBKAfile Special Report
April 30, 2009, 1:02 PM (GMT+02:00)

The joint Turkish-Syrian tank and armored infantry exercise backed by air power begins across the Turkish-Syrian border Monday, April 27, and lasts three days.

DEBKAfile's military sources stress that it is the first joint military maneuver any NATO member, including Turkey, has ever carried out with Syria. It appears to have received a nod from the Obama administration and another first: Never before has an important NATO power staged a joint exercise with any Arab army.

Ankara's decision to launch the drill on the day Israeli commemorates its war dead - in league with Iran's leading ally - is a measure of how far Turkey's longstanding strategic pact with the Jewish state has fallen by the wayside of recent changes.

Washington's approval underscores its new policy of boosting the strength of the Syrian army as partner in a strong a three-way military coalition with Turkey and Lebanon.

Ankara made its announcement while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was on a short visit to Beirut.

It comes only four days after another first US step: Tuesday, April 22, DEBKAfile's exclusive sources reported that the Obama administration had just approved a large Turkish arms sale to the Lebanese army assigning Turkish military instructors to train Lebanese army units (half of whose personnel are Shiites sympathetic to Hizballah.)

Neither of the Obama administration's actions took into account Israel's vital security interests; nor was Jerusalem consulted about the strategic changes on its borders - or even informed.

DEBKAfile reports that both US drastic policy reverses are causing extreme consternation in Israel's top security echelons, which are criticizing the new Netanyahu government for taking too long to respond to the dire security setbacks piling up around its borders. The most troubling development confronting Israel in years is the grouping together of the Turkish, Syrian and Lebanese armies.

According to the statement from Ankara, the joint exercise "aims to boost friendship, cooperation and trust between Turkish and Syrian land forces and to increase the capability of border troops to train and work together."

In recent weeks, too many developments are closing in too fast and too dangerously for Binyamin Netanyahu to put the whole can of worms on hold until he has a chance to figure out his policies and talk to Barack Obama in the coming month. The dynamic on the ground will be in full flight by then. Too late, the Israeli prime minister will find the security situation running out of his control. Turning back the clock will be hopeless and he will find himself fed some unpalatable accomplished facts.
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Petraeus: Next Two Weeks Critical to Pakistan's Survival

Gen. David Petraeus said he is looking for concrete action by the Pakistani government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action.

By James Rosen
FOXNews.com
Thursday, April 30, 2009

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, has told U.S. officials the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive, FOX News has learned.

"The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists operating out of Northwest Pakistan, the general added.

But Petraeus also said wearily that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action, which is presently set on propping up the Pakistani government and military with counterinsurgency training and foreign aid.

Petraeus made these assessment in talks with lawmakers and Obama administration officials this week, according to individuals familiar with the discussions.

They said Petraeus and senior administration officials believe the Pakistani army, led by Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, is "superior" to the civilian government, led by President Ali Zardari, and could conceivably survive even if Zardari's government falls to the Taliban.

American officials have watched with anxiety as Taliban fighters advanced earlier this month to within 70 miles of the capital city of Islamabad. In recent days, the Pakistani army has sought to reverse that tide, retaking control over strategic points in the district of Buner even as the Taliban struck back by kidnapping scores of police and paramilitary troops.

The see-saw nature of the battles Wednesday demonstrated to U.S. officials that, as one put it to FOX News, "even with intent and superior technology, the capability may not be there" for the Pakistani army to defeat the extremists.

As for the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Saturday, in an interview with FOX News in Baghdad, that the U.S. believes the arsenal to be "safe" but only "given the current configuration of power in Pakistan."

She described as "the unthinkable" a situation in which the the Zardari government were to be toppled by the Taliban, adding "then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan, and we can't even contemplate that. We cannot let this go on any further..."

The officials who spoke with Petraeus, however, said he and they believe that even were Zardari's government to fall, it was still conceivable that Kayani's army could maintain control over the nuclear arsenal.

That is because the Pakistani arsenal is set up in such a way -- with the weapons stockpile and activation mechanisms separated -- so as to prevent easy access by invaders. Moreover, the Taliban is not believed at present to possess the sophisticated technical expertise necessary to exercise full "command and control" over a nuclear arsenal, and would probably require weeks if not months to develop it.

The anxiety with which U.S. officials are monitoring events in Pakistan is compounded by a battle here at home over how best to help the Pakistanis. Some members of Congress want to attach benchmarks to any aid provided to Islamabad -- a move opposed by the Obama administration -- while still others wish to transfer authority over key funding streams from the Defense Department to the State Department, also opposed by the administration.

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Chairman Ike Skelton,D-Mo. asserted that the existing funding mechanism, the Coalition Support Initiative, under which the U.S. reimburses Pakistan for military expenditures undertaken in support of the U.S. global war on terror, "is not serving the interests of either our country or Pakistan very well."

Michele Flournoy, U.S. under secretary of defense for policy, rejected that view, saying the initiative has proved "absolutely critical" to the missions in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the same hearing, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, whose bureau oversees South and Central Asia, told lawmakers the Obama administration favors the Defense Department retaining control over the new funding mechanism for Pakistan being proposed, a Title X provision entitled the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund (PCCF).

The goal of PCCF is to provide funding for the immediate training and equipping of the Pakistani army to fight a counterinsurgency war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Pakistani army, U.S. officials say, has historically been modeled to fight a conventional war against India, as opposed to unconventional warfare against non-state actors like terrorist groups.

A final problem, officials told FOX News, was that no one in the U.S. possesses "an understanding of the Taliban's true objective." It remains unclear to policymakers here whether the group truly seeks to overthrow the Zardari government or merely to carve out a territory within Pakistan in which it can establish safe haven, impose Sharia law, and plot attacks on external targets.
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Israeli intel warns Netanyahu on Obama policy: 'We have become an obstacle'

from The World Tribune
April 30, 2009

TEL AVIV — A classified assessment relayed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Obama and his senior advisers would incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel developed over the last 20 years.

"Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and until now the worst enemies of the United States," an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment said.

"Under this policy, we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle."

[On April 21, Obama said he would meet Netanyahu in Washington as part of revived U.S.-led peace efforts in the Middle East, Middle East Newsline reported. The president said the summit would take place over the next few weeks.]

Israeli sources said the administration would reject Israel intelligence on such threats as Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama agenda to reconcile with the two states, both listed as state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Dept.

On April 20, Israeli military intelligence commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin warned the Cabinet that Obama was prepared to allow Iran to retain its capability to assemble nuclear weapons and support Hamas and Hizbullah.

"Obama wants to advance the peace process in the direction of realistic discussions with extremist elements," Yadlin said.

The Israeli intelligence assessment envisioned that Obama would maintain his reconciliation policy with Iran and Syria through at least 2010. The sources said the assessment determined that Obama was convinced that such a policy would enable a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level," the source said. "The pressure has already begun and will intensify throughout the next year or two."

The military intelligence chief said Obama was also courting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Yadlin said both Damascus and Teheran have not significantly reduced their support for insurgency groups throughout the region.

"President Bashar Assad hopes to turn over a new leaf with U.S. President Barack Obama," Yadlin said. "However, while Western powers are being hosted at the palace in Damascus, Syria is continuing to be used as the back yard of the axis of evil. Assad is letting Hizbullah and Iranian forces freely conduct their affairs in Syria and use its territory for Hizbullah deployment."

Yadlin said Obama's policies have generated dismay among Arab allies of the United States. He said Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia were concerned that U.S. reconciliation efforts would merely encourage Teheran and its proxies to intensify destabilization efforts. In April 2009, Egypt reported a Hizbullah network that operated in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula.
"The Arab world is starting to understand that Iranian proxies are a threat to the region," Yadlin said. "The Hizbullah activity in Egypt is not an isolated incident. Iran has infrastructures across the world seeking to perpetrate terror attacks against Israel."

At the same time, the Obama administration was expected to restrict U.S. arms exports to Israel in an effort to deny systems that could be used in any attack against Iran or Syria. The intelligence sources said this policy was implemented during the last year of the Bush administration and would intensify under Obama.
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If Conservatives Left The Military, There Would Be No Military Left - Liberals Do Not Fight For This Country

Political Extremism Infiltrates the Pentagon
New Defense Department advisor Rosa Brooks is about as far to the left as one can go.

from Pajamas Media
April 24, 2009
by Ryan Mauro

Every once in a while something happens so shocking, so inconceivable, that it threatens to remove the last bastions of confidence I have in the federal government. The appointment of Rosa Brooks, the radical left-wing Los Angeles Times columnist, as an advisor to Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy is one of those moments. And by advisor, I don’t mean someone who talks on an informal basis — I mean a full-time advisor so committed to helping formulate policy that she had to leave her position as a fire-breathing partisan columnist.

It’s frighteningly unclear what caused Brooks to receive the appointment. She’s the author of a book about civil liberties during wartime, is a law professor, and is the director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Human Rights Institute. But why was Brooks, out of the thousands of legal experts in the country, chosen to become a high-level advisor? What made her so attractive? It can’t be her admittedly impressive resume, as there surely are other equally prestigious advisors available in this country of 300 million people.

Brooks could only have been chosen for the opinions she’s voiced, so it’s fair to ask what positions she has that made her catch the eye of Fluornoy and whoever else recommended her.

Was it her attitude towards the previous administration, which she described as “local authoritarians”? On more than one occasion, she’s questioned the sanity of President Bush, hardly the tone of respect President Obama sought to bring to today’s “broken politics.” In her piece titled “Straightjacket Bush,” Brooks says that the president and vice president should “be treated like psychotics who need treatment.”

Even more alarming are her stances on important national security issues. She opposed the surge, which she says “someday the history books will have harsh words” for. She also charges the Bush administration with exaggerating the threat from al-Qaeda. “At the time, most experts say, this description of al-Qaeda simply wasn’t true. It was little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs, well financed and intermittently lethal but relatively limited in their global and regional political pull. On 9/11, they got lucky,” she writes.

Brooks clearly does not see the horrid event as the culmination of a failed approach to a gathering threat, but an occurrence based on chance. Now, “al-Qaeda has become the vast global threat the administration imagined it to be in 2001,” she says, owing it to the neocon administration’s warped reality.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza against Hamas also drew ire from Brooks. “The assault in Gaza has more to do with internal politics than its national security,” she writes, apparently thinking that having neighboring territory controlled by a terrorist group that openly states its desire to destroy Israel isn’t worthy of a military offensive. She opines that a military campaign won’t bring about peace because Hamas will inevitably rearm and such actions create extremism which foments the conflict. If this logic is true, then the U.S. might as well leave Afghanistan and stop any attacks on terrorist targets overseas.

Brooks is also a member of the paranoid opposition — the type of political activist who so dislikes their rivals that they become convinced they are capable of all kinds of evil, reduced to an almost subhuman cornucopia of insanity and deceit. She sounded the alarm that the Bush administration was on the war path with Iran, willing to believe intelligence that incriminated their next target and showcase it to the media to make their case. She cast doubt upon the administration’s claims that the Iranians were helping arm the insurgents, giving the mullahs a benefit of the doubt she would never give the administration.

With Brooks’ appointment, this sentiment has gone from simply foolish and disrespectful to dangerous, as her hyper-partisanship has caused her to assume that one must be mentally ill in order to agree with President Bush’s positions. That sort of arrogance and narrow-mindedness, assuming your opponents’ disagreements can only be attributable to a disorder, is exactly the opposite of the type of minds we need at the Department of Defense.

This isn’t talk radio. This is policy formulation. Unless there’s an undisclosed advisor to Fluornoy of an opposite viewpoint, then a partisan enclave where the far left has a monopoly on intellectual discourse has been created in the Pentagon. For the sake of our national security, we must hope that Fluornoy’s admiration for Brooks’ viewpoints is limited to legal matters and hope that the marketplace of ideas hasn’t been banned from the debate on that issue.

Ironically, Brooks has criticized President Bush’s “cooking of the intelligence books.” If the politicizing of national security is of such a concern to Brooks, she should resign immediately.
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Obama is now Politically and Militarily Raping Israel - It Is Undeniable!

The flags of the United States and Israel shouold be flown at half-mast, because we are truly witnessing the death of our relationship with Israel.
Rees

NATO member Turkey and Syria hold first joint military exercise
DEBKAfile Special Report
April 26, 2009

The joint Turkish-Syrian tank and armored infantry exercise backed by air power begins across the Turkish-Syrian border Monday, April 27, and lasts three days.

DEBKAfile's military sources stress that it is the first joint military maneuver any NATO member, including Turkey, has ever carried out with Syria. It appears to have received a nod from the Obama administration and another first: Never before has an important NATO power staged a joint exercise with any Arab army.

Ankara's decision to launch the drill on the day Israeli commemorates its war dead - in league with Iran's leading ally - is a measure of how far Turkey's longstanding strategic pact with the Jewish state has fallen by the wayside of recent changes.

Washington's approval underscores its new policy of boosting the strength of the Syrian army as partner in a strong a three-way military coalition with Turkey and Lebanon.

Ankara made its announcement while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was on a short visit to Beirut.

It comes only four days after another first US step: Tuesday, April 22, DEBKAfile's exclusive sources reported that the Obama administration had just approved a large Turkish arms sale to the Lebanese army assigning Turkish military instructors to train Lebanese army units (half of whose personnel are Shiites sympathetic to Hizballah.)

Neither of the Obama administration's actions took into account Israel's vital security interests; nor was Jerusalem consulted about the strategic changes on its borders - or even informed.

DEBKAfile reports that both US drastic policy reverses are causing extreme consternation in Israel's top security echelons, which are criticizing the new Netanyahu government for taking too long to respond to the dire security setbacks piling up around its borders. The most troubling development confronting Israel in years is the grouping together of the Turkish, Syrian and Lebanese armies.

According to the statement from Ankara, the joint exercise "aims to boost friendship, cooperation and trust between Turkish and Syrian land forces and to increase the capability of border troops to train and work together."

In recent weeks, too many developments are closing in too fast and too dangerously for Binyamin Netanyahu to put the whole can of worms on hold until he has a chance to figure out his policies and talk to Barack Obama in the coming month. The dynamic on the ground will be in full flight by then. Too late, the Israeli prime minister will find the security situation running out of his control. Turning back the clock will be hopeless and he will find himself fed some unpalatable accomplished facts.
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Obama Officially Abandons Israel - Continues charm offensive for radical rulers

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
April 18, 2009

The new US president's dramatic global policy steps have easily dwarfed the knotty Israeli-Palestinian peace issue handed down from one US president to the next over decades. Barack Obama's outstretched hand to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Iran's best friend in the Americas, on April 17, at the summit of American leaders in Port of Prince, made the talk surrounding Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell's mission to Jerusalem and Ramallah this week sound eerily like voices from the past.

After talking to Mitchell, Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak tried the usual bromides: They protested that Jerusalem's ties with Washington and Jerusalem were as strong as ever and they would work together toward an agreed solution for the Palestinian problem.

But those words were lost in the black Iranian cloud hanging over the relations.

Barack Obama has set his sights and heart on friendship with the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran and their radical allies. The name and policies of the occupant of the prime minister's office in Jerusalem do not matter - any more than Tehran's determination to complete its nuclear weapons program in defiance of the world, or even its first A-bomb test in a year or two, for which intelligence sources report Tehran is already getting set.

Obama's Washington believes America can live with a nuclear-armed Iran – a decision probably taken first under the Bush presidency. But Israel cannot, and may have no option but to part ways with the Obama administration on this point. As a nuclear power, Iran will be able to bend Jerusalem to the will of its enemies, make it unconditionally give Syria the Golan plus extra pieces of territory, tamely accept a Hamas-dominated Palestinian West Bank louring over its heartland and let the Lebanese Hizballah terrorize Galilee in the north at will. All three would make hay under Iran's nuclear shield, while Tehran lords it over the region in the role of regional power conferred by Obama's grace and favor.

In no time, Israel would be stripped of most of its defenses.

Israel is not the only nervous country in the region. But Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is the only Middle East leader brave enough to stick his neck out, albeit with Saudi backing, and stand up to the Iranian peril, direct and through Hizballah.

He has also outspokenly criticized Washington's courtship of the revolutionary Islamic republic.

Cairo's Al Ahram Saturday, April 18, accused Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hizballah, Hamas, al Jazeera TV of a conspiracy to overthrow Egyptian government.

But the US president is not daunted by the radicalism or enmity of his new friends or the loss of old ones. At the Summit of All Americas, Obama greeted Hugo Chavez 24 hours after the Venezuelan ruler said: "The United States Empire is on its way down and will be finished in the near future, inshallah!"

Using the Muslim blessing to underline the wish for America's downfall was no bar to the smile and handshake; neither was Venezuela's recent severance of its ties with Israel for no provocation or its willingness to host a delegation of Hizballah (internationally branded a terrorist organization) in Caracas.

What is relevant to Obama is Hugo Chavez's role as co-architect of the joint Russian-Iranian campaign to displace American influence in the southern hemisphere. The US president has opted for winning America's enemies over with smiles and embraces rather than punishing them like George W. Bush.

Obama continues to woo Bashar Assad apace despite his blunt refusal to loosen his strategic ties with Tehran or stop supporting the Lebanese Shiite group [with arms] because Hizballah is dedicated to fighting Israel, - as he is quoted as saying in the pro-Hizballah Lebanese publication al Akhbar on April 17.

For the first time in years, the administration this week sent a high-ranking delegation to Syria's independence day celebrations at Washington's Mandarin Oriental Hotel, headed by Jeffrey Feltman, former ambassador and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs.
The thaw in relations has gone so far that some Washington wags are calling Assad's capital "Syria on the Potomac."

The American storm besetting the Middle East leaves Israel's most vital interests way behind. The condition Netanyahu put before Mitchell for progress in peacemaking - that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state, which was instantly rejected by Palestinian Authority leaders – aroused scant attention in Washington or anywhere else.

As Netanyahu will find when he meets Obama in Washington early next month, Israel is no longer a prime factor in US global policy, because America has fundamentally reshuffled its Middle East allegiances and alliances. Even Tzipi Livni at the helm in Jerusalem would not divert Obama from his détente with Ahmadinejad, Assad and Chavez.

To gain points with his new friends, Obama's White House is not above nudging Israel to please them. This week, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Jewish leaders whom he met in Washington that if Israel wants America's help for thwarting Iran's nuclear program, it must first start evacuating West Bank settlements.

This was of course cynical claptrap.

Even if every single settlement were to be removed and Israel lined up with Obama's quest for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the US president would not drop Tehran or help Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities. He has already ceded Tehran's uranium enrichment program (and therefore its drive for nuclear arms), and would forcefully oppose any Israeli military action. US defense secretary Robert Gates indicated as much this week when he went to almost absurd lengths to play down the Iranian nuclear threat and Israel's ability to handle it.

So what options are left to Israel at this juncture?

1. To bow under the Obama tempest until it blows over in keeping with the old proverb which says that trees bowing in the wind remain standing. This would entail going along with US acceptance of Iran as a nuclear power. The question is will Israel's trees still be standing when the storm has passed and, if so, in what strategic environment?

2. To follow the example set by Likud's first prime minister Menahem Begin in 1981. He stood up to Ronald Reagan's fierce objections and sent the Israeli Air force to smash the Iraqi nuclear reactor before it was operational. Saddam Hussein never rebuilt the facility. By following in Begin's footsteps before it is too late, Netanyahu would change the rules of the game regionally and globally.

(The London Times reported from Jerusalem Saturday that the Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government. Two civil defense drills have been scheduled to prepare the population for missiles that could fall on any part of the country without warning.)

3. Israel could go for a more modest target, one of Iran's faithful surrogates – Syria or Hizballah – to warn Washington that a larger operation is in store for their boss. If the Gaza offensive against Hamas last January was meant to send this message, it failed. Hamas is still the dominant Palestinian power and Barack Obama was not swayed from forging ahead with his policies of rapprochement with Iran and other radical world leaders.
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New Rat Species Discovered

The CDC is warning that unless extreme measures are taken immediately to eradicate this breed of rats, the disease that these rats carry could spread across the entire world.