Obama - The King of Condescension

Audacity Vs. Reality

By Investor's Business Business Daily
Monday, May 18, 2009

Middle East: President Obama seeks a grand, unlikely reconciliation between Jews, Shiites and Sunnis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decidedly undreamy Mideast agenda is about survival.

In the Middle East of the early 21st century, the world is challenged by two big facts: one, a problem with no solution; the other, a problem it's been pretending isn't really there.

The first fact is the troubled co-existence of Israel with its hostile Muslim neighbors.

It's obvious that the Jewish state will never be accepted as legitimate by a large number of Arabs.

There will always be Muslim nations and armed organizations that will never accept its right to exist, and that would try to get rid of it.

Yet year after year we hear most of Western Europe, Third World nations and now apparently America insist that a Palestinian state is the key to a lasting Mideast peace.

In truth, such an Israeli concession would likely fan the flames of hate toward Israel, make it territorially far less secure, and be seen by radical Muslims as a step toward Israel's eventual destruction. The heat would be turned up on the Jewish homeland.

As the world insists the insoluble problem — harmony between Middle Eastern Jew and Muslim — be given priority, the other fact regarding the region is neglected, even though it has a solution.

That second problem is Iran's nuclear ambitions. The options available now for years include concerted economic isolation, an explicit policy of regime change manifested through the material support of Iran's organized dissidents, and joint military action by the major free world powers.

Instead of any of that, this Islamofascist regime that has called for the destruction of Israel and has sponsored terrorists in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq has been subjected only to impotent sanctions that have encouraged Tehran's ruling mullahs.

It is in this context that Barack Obama and Bibi Netanyahu's two hours together at the White House on Monday must be seen.

The president let it be known in his public remarks that he told the hard-line Israeli PM to "get a serious movement" going.

He also pointedly insisted to the Israeli leader that Jewish West Bank "settlements have to be stopped," and in a remark in which it is difficult not to find condescension, he expressed confidence that Netanyahu "is going to rise to the occasion."

An enticing vision of normalized relations between Israel and all Muslim countries was reportedly presented to the Israeli leader. Clearly, Netanyahu is far too sagacious to swallow any such fantasyland scenario.

Yet it was this same supposedly hotheaded hawk, the Israeli who during his previous tenure as prime minister is said to have caused Bill Clinton to spew a string of angry profanities, who came to Washington with the real message of unity.

"There's never been a time when Arabs and Israelis see a common threat the way we see it today," Netanyahu said of the Iranian nuclear threat.

When President Obama said "there is no reason why we should not seize this opportunity and this moment," it's too bad he wasn't talking about the opportunity to unite Israeli and Arab against the evil that continues to fester in Iran.
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Obama abandons Israel - Iran will continue their pursuit of nuclear weapons

US-Israel summit shadowed by Obama's soft stand on Iranian enrichment

from the DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
May 19, 2009, 12:08 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran has consistently fooled international nuclear monitors

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that the gap between US president Barack Obama and Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Iran was wider even than on the Palestinian issue. Overshadowing their outwardly easy conversation was the US president's growing inclination to meet Iran halfway on uranium enrichment and call off UN and American sanctions if Tehran allows international monitoring of the process.

Our intelligence sources report that Obama is seriously considering taking up the Anglo-German proposal for an international monitoring mechanism strict enough to preclude Iran's attainment of weapons-grade enriched uranium.

The president was convinced by American intelligence and nuclear experts that this can be done. He also believes that nothing will persuade Tehran to cede its right to enrichment activity on its soil.

Israeli intelligence and military experts take the opposite view. They believe the Anglo-German plan gives Iran the perfect cover for concealing its race for a nuclear bomb, a misgiving shared by the political and military establishments of the moderate Arab governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

It is their view that if Obama adopts this plan, Iran can be sure of arriving at a nuclear weapon capability by the end of 2010.

This dispute did not come up in the Obama-Netanyahu conversation. Both skated around the Iranian nuclear threat separately without touching on options outside diplomacy. The US president said he was in the process of "reaching out" to Iran and was confident he could persuade Tehran's rulers that a nuclear weapon was not in their best interest if they wanted to be fully accepted as part of the international community. He did not mention uranium enrichment or a military option against Iran. Neither would he accept a deadline for negotiations with Tehran, except to say that at the end of the year, "we will see where we stand."

But asked later to comment, Netanyahu said: "We will defend ourselves."

Seen from outside Washington, by Iran's neighbors, Israeli and Arab alike, President Obama has made Iran the gift of seven clear months for developing its nuclear capabilities and enrichment undisturbed.

The only thing left to the Israeli prime minister was to commend "the president's firm commitment that Iran will not attain a nuclear weapon."

Obama Continues The Rape Of Israel

Obama: Billions for jihad, zero for Israel
from Jihad Watch.org
May 18, 2009
image by rees

$17 million for counterterror operations. Billions to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Gaza. What guarantee does Obama have that that money will not pass to Islamic jihadists who are determined to destroy America and her allies? Why, none. None at all.

"Obama’s Supplemental Bill Passes, Gives Billions to Enemies?," from Creeping Sharia, May 13 (thanks to Pamela):

Barack Obama’s 2009 Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Pandemic Flu was revised and “passed by the full committee”. Not sure what the next step is, but based on the summary, it gives billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to countries and entities that support sharia law and/or harbor, hide and support those who want to destroy the U.S. and our allies.
Read the summary from David Obey’s office that was quietly released last week with nary a word from any media.

• $3.6 billion, matching the request, to expand and improve capabilities of the Afghan security forces

• $400 million, as requested, to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of the Pakistani security forces

• Afghanistan: $1.52 billion, $86 million above the request

• West Bank and Gaza: $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza

• Jordan: $250 million, $250 million above the request, including $100 million for economic and $150 million for security assistance

• Egypt: $360 million, $310 million above the request, including $50 million for economic assistance, $50 million for border security, and $260 million for security assistance

• Pakistan: $1.9 billion, $591 million above the request

• Iraq: $968 million, $336 million above the request

• Oversight: $20 million, $13 million above the request, to expand oversight capacity of the State Department, USAID, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan to review programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq

• Israel: $555 million of the $2.8 billion 2010 request for security assistance, $555 million above the supplemental request. (Note: that means Obama’s original request did not include any money for Israel in 2009)

• Lebanon: $74 million [...]

• Refugee Assistance: $343 million, $50 million above the request, …including humanitarian assistance for Gaza. Funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency programs in the West Bank and Gaza is limited to $119 million (Note: Gaza = Hamas) [...]

• Department of Justice: $17 million, matching the request, for counter-terrorism activities and to provide training and assistance for the Iraqi criminal justice system...
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Netanyahu: Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear Weapons

Hamas: "We will not discuss the recognition of 'Israel' with Fatah"

So how does Obama force feed his middle east peace process down Israel's throat when Hamas refuses to recognize the existance of Israel? This is a show stopper for him.
Rees

Hamas will not discuss recognition of Israel
from Yahoo News
Sat May 16, 2009

CAIRO (AFP) – The Islamist Hamas movement said on Saturday that it will not discuss the recognition of Israel with president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party during reconciliation talks in Cairo.

"We can discuss with Fatah all the options... which do not contradict our national goals and the rights of our people, except the American card which stresses recognition of the Zionist entity and the conditions of the Quartet," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in Gaza.

"This is not open for discussion."

The so-called Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- has long demanded that Hamas renounce violence and recognise Israel and past peace deals as a precondition for dealing with any Palestinian government in which the Islamist movement is represented.

Representatives of Fatah and Hamas began a new round of reconciliation talks in Cairo on Saturday.

The two groups have been bitterly divided since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007.

Egyptian efforts to reconcile them have so far foundered amid disagreements on the composition and obligations of a proposed unity government.
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Netanyahu 'won't back Palestinian state'

from Breitbart.com
May 16, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will refuse on his trip to Washington to back the formation of a Palestinian state, an MP close to the premier said on Saturday, according to national radio.

Netanyahu "will not make a commitment to Washington on the creation of a Palestinian state which would undoubtedly become a 'Hamastan'," Ophir Akunis from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party was quoted as saying, referring to the Islamic movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and favours armed struggle against Israel.

The hawkish prime minister is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Sunday ahead of his maiden meeting with US President Barack Obama since the two men took office this year.

The key meeting takes place against a backdrop of disagreements over the Middle East conflict and how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme.

While Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to endorse the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, Obama is insisting on a "two-state solution" to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis."

Obama also wants the new Israeli government to halt new building work in Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank but Netanyahu has said he wants to expand existing settlements.

The Israeli premier has pledged to unveil his policy for regional peace at the White House meeting, focussed on countering Iran.

Contents are still secret but one Netanyahu aide told AFP that differences between Israel and the United States are "more on the outside" and "Israel does not want to rule the Palestinians" despite Netanyahu's refusal to back a Palestinian state.
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ElBaradei: Israel would be 'utterly insane' to attack Iran

from The Jerusalem Post
May 16, 2009

Israel would be "utterly insane" to attack Iran, outgoing International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview with German daily Der Spiegel Saturday.

"That would turn the region into one great fireball, and the Iranians would immediately begin building the bomb - with the support of the entire Islamic world." [If Iran would immediately begin building the bomb, then ElBaradei is admitting that they already have the material and know-how to do it. If that's the case, then Israel does need to bomb Iran. Elbaradei is one of the main reasons why Iran has progressed so far with their nuclear program. - my comments]

In the interview ElBaradei called on Teheran to take advantage of the US's newfound willingness to negotiate over the nuclear issue.

"I advise the [officials] I meet from Iran: Seize the hand that Obama is offering you," he said.

ElBaradei, with whom Israel has had a rocky relationship, is stepping down after a 12-year tenure.

While Israel has taken no formal stand regarding who it would like to see win out as his successor, government sources in Jerusalem seem to prefer the Japanese candidate, Yukiya Amano.

The 35 board-member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency failed to elect a new agency chief in their first rounds of voting.

The race is important because ElBaradei's successor will influence how the world meets the nuclear challenges posed by extremists like Iran and Syria who are thought to be looking for the bomb. Nonproliferation is the IAEA's most high-profile task.

Herb Keinon, Hilary Krieger and AP contributed to this report.
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Obama The Destroyer - deliberately undermining the very fabric of these United States

from The American Spectator
By Quin Hillyer
on 5.15.09

If somebody were deliberately trying to undermine the very fabric of these United States, he would first vow not just to change its policies but to completely "change America," and then would do just about everything Barack Obama already has begun to do as president.

To undermine this nation, he would attack the essential sanctity of contracts -- exactly as Obama has done. Never mind the "contracts" clause of the Constitution -- who needs to get hung up on the Constitution's actual language when "empathy" is more important?

For that matter, he would denigrate the whole notion of equal justice under the law by criticizing the whole notion of a judge as a neutral umpire. And he would employ, as a senator, outrageous and unprecedented means -- the filibusters of judicial nominees -- to block judges who don't agree with his own choices of who deserves more "justice" than whom.

To undermine this nation, he would selectively release only those portions of intelligence memos that make his nation look bad, but not those that provide context and reasonable motivations for the subject of the memos. And he would selectively edit memos from his own intelligence director to eliminate his statements in support of the effectiveness of the policies discussed in those other memos -- and his statements supporting the motives of those who adopted those policies in protection of their fellow citizens. And he would leave open the possibility of prosecuting earlier administration's lawyers merely for giving legal advice he disagrees with.

To undermine this nation, a president would go on a spending binge so incredibly wild that annual deficits and national debt would reach frightening proportions before most Americans could even absorb the arithmetic of it all. He would be utterly reckless with our grandchildren's tax money, but would turn around and achieve savings -- minor savings at that -- only by cutting or even gutting defense forces.

He would stop paying for missile defenses. He would stop planning for forces strong enough to handle two regional wars at once, and would concentrate only on counterinsurgency needs while hollowing out our conventional forces. He would repeatedly insult our closest ally (Great Britain) while kowtowing to enemies such as Iran, Venezuela, and Nicaraguan communists. He would travel the world repeatedly apologizing for supposed American sins while failing to defend the USA from verbal assaults from tinpot dictators.

He would submit budgets that would eliminate funding for an already authorized border fence, and nominate as top lawyer of the State Department a man who openly mocks the legal underpinnings of American sovereignty. He would propose raising taxes on corporations, on soft drinks, on investors, on savers, on the grieving families of dead people, on small businesses, and on every family that uses public energy sources.

And worst of all, he would propose unprecedented and underhanded use of a parliamentary maneuver called "reconciliation" to ease the way to an irrevocable government takeover of an entire major sector of the economy -- health care -- without adequate debate and with firm knowledge that the takeover could lead to serious health care rationing and even government-determined decisions on life and death.

To undermine this nation, he would throw out more than two centuries of economic freedom in favor of a modern-day version of Mussolini's economic fascism.

He would refuse to prosecute vote fraud or even guard against it, while repeatedly awarding financial grants to organizations such as ACORN that have been accused of vote fraud on multiple occasions in multiple states. He would stack his Justice Department with highly politicized left-wingers. He would fail, until put directly on the spot, to offer the slightest rebuke to his hand-picked, ethically compromised Attorney General when said AG calls his fellow citizens "a nation of cowards."

In short, to undermine the United States, the president would, as fast as possible, create a massively debt-ridden, tax-ridden, regulation-ridden government whose prosecutors play political favorites but whose stances on the world stage are marked by weakness, self-criticism, and solicitousness towards one's enemies.

Surely this president has other motives. But even if his intentions are good, we all know the substance of the pavement on the road to perdition.
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Obama Administration is the most anti-Israel in U,S. history

from Joshua Pundit
May 15, 2009

With Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu scheduled to come to the White for the first time next week, there's been a great deal of speculation regarding the Obama Administration's new strategy in the Middle East the future of the US -Israeli relationship and what it signifies for both countries in the future.

There's a new game shaping up in the Middle East, and the pieces are moving with astounding speed.

It's not an exaggeration to characterize the Obama Administration as the most anti-Israel in American history. Many of President Obama's closest advisers, with the possible exception of Dennis Ross can be characterized by hostility to the Jewish state and the belief that the US pressuring Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 borders and using that territory to create a Palestinian state - regardless of its attributes or character - in the soonest time possible while distancing the US from its long standing alliance with Israel is the surest way to curry favor in the Muslim world.

President Obama has made the new attitude in the White House towards Israel clear in a number of ways. Israel has systematically been cut out of the security coordination with the US it enjoyed in earlier days, with the most recent example being Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller's call for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, a violation of a US-Israeli agreement that goes back forty years to the Nixon Administration. Under that agreement, the US agreed not to press Israel at the UN or elsewhere for transparency or inspections of its nuclear program and Israel agreed not to test a bomb or declare that it had developed a bomb.

Then there was the nomination of the anti-Israel Chas Freeman to an influential post the Durban II controversy and America’s joining of the the United Nations Human Rights Council — a group that basically is controlled by the Organization of Islamic Conference and obsessively focuses on demonizing Israel at the hands of paragons of human rights like Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Obama's NSA Adviser ( and de facto Secretary of State) General Jim Jones was widely quoted as telling a European foreign minister that America will take a more “forceful hand” towards Israel than previous administrations. And over at the AIPAC convention, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel cornered three hundred of AIPAC's top donors in a closed room and told them that if Israel expected any US help with Iran, they had better cave in to the Saudi Peace ultimatum, while Vice President Joe Biden addressed the convention and said that Israel had better 'stop building settlements' and essentially prepare to submit to Obama's diktats for a Palestinian state.

And to top it all off, Obama went public today. warning Israel not to 'surprise him' with an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. This is just the latest in a series of signals designed to show Israel that the Obama Administration is more than prepared to appease Iran at Israel's expense.

With all this in mind, what is the May 18th meeting between Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Hussein Obama likely to be like? What's going to happen when Bibi meets Bammy?

Life in Israel with the threat of Iranian nukes hanging over them would be intolerable. I doubt that the present Israeli government is under any illusions about that, and will do something about it.
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Obama's Political Rape of Israel Continues!

Obama’s U.N. Mistake
America is now on a collision course with Israel.

from The National Review Online
By Anne Bayefsky
May 15, 2009

In advance of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States on Monday, President Obama unveiled a new strategy for throwing Israel to the wolves. It takes the form of enthusiasm for the United Nations and international interlopers of all kinds. Instead of ensuring strong American control over the course of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Obama administration is busy inserting an international mob between the U.S. and Israel. The thinking goes: If Israel doesn’t fall into an American line, Obama will step out of the way, claim his hands are tied, and let the U.N. and other international gangsters have at their prey.

It began this past Monday with the adoption of a so-called presidential statement by the U.N. Security Council. Such statements are not law, but they must be adopted unanimously — meaning that U.S. approval was essential and at any time Obama could have stopped its adoption. Instead, he agreed to this: “The Security Council supports the proposal of the Russian Federation to convene, in consultation with the Quartet and the parties, an international conference on the Middle East peace process in Moscow in 2009.”

This move is several steps beyond what the Bush administration did in approving Security Council resolutions in December and January — which said only that “The Security Council welcomes the Quartet’s consideration, in consultation with the parties, of an international meeting in Moscow in 2009.” Apparently Obama prefers a playing field with 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 22 members of the Arab League — most of whom don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist — and one Jewish state. A great idea — if the purpose is to ensure Israel comes begging for American protection.

The U.N. presidential statement also makes laudatory references to another third-party venture, the 2002 Arab “Peace” Initiative. That’s a Saudi plan to force Israel to retreat to indefensible borders in advance of what most Arab states still believe will be a final putsch down the road. America’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, announced to the Security Council that “we intend to integrate the Arab Peace Initiative into our own approach.”

Make no mistake: This U.N. move, made with U.S. approval, sets America on a well-calculated collision course with Israel. U.S. collusion on this presidential statement was directly at odds with Israel’s wishes and well-founded concerns about the U.N.’s bona fides on anything related to Israel. Israeli U.N. ambassador Gabriella Shalev issued a statement of Israel’s position: “Israel does not believe that the involvement of the Security Council contributes to the political process in the Middle East. This process should be bilateral and left to the parties themselves. Furthermore, the timing of this Security Council meeting is inappropriate as the Israeli government is in the midst of conducting a policy review, prior to next week's visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States. . . . Israel shared its position with members of the Security Council.”

By contrast, Rice told reporters: “We had a very useful and constructive meeting thus far of the Council. We welcome Foreign Minister Lavrov’s initiative to convene the Council, and we’re very pleased with the constructive and comprehensive statement that will be issued by the president of the Council on the Council’s behalf. This was a product of really collaborative, good-faith efforts by all members of the Council, and we’re pleased with the outcome.”

The Obama administration’s total disregard of Israel’s obvious interest in keeping the U.N. on the sidelines was striking. Instead of reiterating the obvious — that peace will not come if bigots and autocrats are permitted to ram an international “solution” down the throat of the only democracy at the table — Rice told the Council: “The United States cannot be left to do all the heavy lifting by itself, and other countries . . . must do all that they can to shore up our common efforts.” In a break with decades of U.S. policy, the Obama strategy is to energize a U.N. bad cop so that the U.S. might assume the role of good cop — for a price.

On Tuesday the Obama administration did it again: It ran for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. As expected, the administration won election to represent the Council’s Western European and Others Group — it was a three-state contest for three spaces.

The Council is most famous, not for protecting human rights, but for its obsession with Israel. In its three-year history it has:

-adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than condemning the 191 other U.N. members combined;

-entrenched an agenda with only ten items, one permanently reserved for condemning Israel and another for condemning any other U.N. state that might “require the Council’s attention”;

-held ten regular sessions on human rights, and five special sessions to condemn only Israel;

-insisted on an investigator with an open-ended mandate to condemn Israel, while all other investigators must be regularly renewed;

-spawned constant investigations on Israel, and abolished human-rights investigations (launched by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights) into Belarus, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Moreover, every morning before the Human Rights Council starts, all states — and even observers like the Palestinians — get together in their regional blocs for an hour to negotiate, share information, and determine positions. All, that is, except Israel. The Western European and Others Group refuses to give Israel full membership. Now the U.S. will be complicit in this injustice.

Joining the Council has one immediate effect on U.S.-Israel relations: It gives the Obama administration a new stick to use against Israel. Having legitimized the forum through its membership and participation, the U.S. can now attempt to extract concessions from Israel in return for American objections to the Council’s constant anti-Israel barrage.

Obama administration officials may believe they can put the lid back on Pandora’s box after having invited the U.N., Russia, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to jump into the process of manufacturing a Palestinian state while Israel is literally under fire. They have badly miscalculated. By making his bed with countries that have no serious interest in democratic values, the president has made our world a much more dangerous place.

— Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and at Touro College. She is also editor of http://www.eyeontheun.org/
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Israel Blackmailed Into Notifying U.S. Before Iran Attack

Israel to let Obama know if it attacks Iran
from American Thinker
by Rick Moran
May 15, 2009

There are a couple of ways to take this news. The spin put out by the administration is that it is a major concession by Israel. But in reality, I don't think it changes Israel's plans one iota.

I assumed that Israel was always going to notify America if it planned to strike Iran for the logical reason that they will almost certainly have to overfly Iraqi airspace to reach the nuclear sites. The other route is much longer and in the end, Israeli jets would have to overfly Turkey to reach the Gulf.

Aluf Benn of Haaretz is reporting that CIA chief Leon Panetta paid a visit to Israel a few weeks ago and got a pledge from the leadership: No surprises on Iran:

Israel has acceded to American demands by pledging to coordinate its moves on Iran with Washington and not surprise the United States with military action.

During a trip to Jerusalem earlier this week, CIA chief Leon Panetta informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. President Barack Obama demanded that Israel not launch a surprise attack on Iran. The message expressed concern that Israel would cause an escalation in the region and undermine Obama's efforts to improve relations with Tehran.

However, the content was nothing new: The Bush administration also sent tough messages to Jerusalem a year ago, including a demand that it not strike Iran. Israeli officials believe that U.S. foreign policy professionals are vehemently opposed to an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, so this position was transmitted from the previous administration to the present one.

The U.S. expects Israel to coordinate its military actions with Washington, a condition to which Jerusalem has agreed due to its dependence on U.S. aid. Senior officials in the Bush administration testified to Congress that Israel had consulted them before deciding on its 2007 air strike on an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor. They said Israel had explained that it considered the Syrian project an existential threat and therefore had to act.

"Coordinate" its moves is a very loosely defined term. There may have been a secret agreement that gives Washington 24 or even 48 hours notice of an attack so that America can at least put its vulnerable facilities in the Gulf and Iraq on alert.

But it's hard to see Israel bringing Washington in much sooner than that. Israel well knows that they have enemies in the Obama administration - even in the intel agencies - who might leak the information about an Iran attack which would almost certainly cause a scrubbing of the mission.

I think with Netanyahu in office, the odds of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites have gone up dramatically - say, better than a 50-50 probability. Considering that last year, those odds were considerably less, you would have to say that the situation has changed.

Given the progress of Iran's nuke program, it may be a very hot summer in America and around the world.
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Is Obama convinced Israel will attack Iran?

CIA chief visits Israel, mixed Washington assessments on Iran

DEBKAfile Special Report
May 14, 2009

Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta visited Israel two weeks ago to explore Israel's intentions with regard to a raid on Iran's nuclear facilities and its alignment with Egypt and Saudi Arabia for this shared objective.

On the one hand, Panetta showed Israeli leaders with a new US report which estimates first, that Iran lacks adequate military resources to shield its nuclear sites from attack and, second, would pull its punches in responding to an Israeli strike. On the other, it is feared in Washington that by linking up with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Israel would be free to send its warplanes against Iran through the skies of its two Arab partners, without deferring to the United States.
(This potential partnership was first disclosed in detail by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 395 of May 8).

This report was also presented by defense secretary Robert Gates on May 5-6 to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo and Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh.

None of the three Middle East leaders took the report seriously because -

1. They could not make out if it was meant to encourage or deter an Israeli attack? Surely, the best time to strike would be before Iran acquires adequate defenses for its nuclear sites. Is that what the Obama administration is after?

2. Israel does not believe that Iran would emulate Iraq's Saddam Hussein who refrained from hitting back after Israel demolished his nuclear reactor in 1981. Iran's rulers are committed to massive retaliation or else face a degree of popular contempt that would test the regime's survival.

Panetta and Gates alike returned home convinced that Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf emirates are far more fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran than of clashing with the Obama administration over its policy of engaging Iran.

This understanding prompted a policy review in Washington, which is still going on.

One outward symptom of a possible reversal was the sudden announcement on May 8 that President Obama had decided to again address the Muslim world from Egypt on June 4, ten days after Mubarak visits Washington. On the same day, he also renewed sanctions against Syria, which, after weeks of diplomatic pursuit, he accused of sponsoring terror and seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Washington's dawning appreciation that the rise of a nuclear-armed, terror-sponsoring Iran is the burning preoccupation of Middle East rulers, leaving the Palestinian issue for another day, will certainly make Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's talks in the White House next Monday, May 18, a lot smoother. The clash which otherwise would have been unavoidable may now be averted.
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Obama warns Netanyahu: Say What??? Obama needs to understand he's not "The King Of The World"

Obama warns Netanyahu: Don't surprise me with Iran strike

By Aluf Benn and Natasha Mozgovaya Haaretz Correspondents

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu's envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy.

It may be assumed that Obama is disturbed by the positions Netanyahu expressed before his election vis-a-vis Tehran - for example, Netanyahu's statement that "If elected I pledge that Iran will not attain nuclear arms, and that includes whatever is necessary for this statement to be carried out." After taking office, on Holocaust Memorial Day Netanyahu said: "We will not allow Holocaust-deniers to carry out another holocaust."

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak do not oppose American dialogue with Tehran, but they believe it should be conducted within a limited window of time, making it clear to Iran that if it does not stop its nuclear program, severe sanctions will be imposed and other alternatives will be considered.

The American concern that Israel will attack Iran came up as early as last year, while president George W. Bush was still in office. As first reported in Haaretz, former prime minister Ehud Olmert and Barak made a number of requests from Bush during the latter's visit to Jerusalem, which were interpreted as preparations for an aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

‫State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly did not directly address the question of the U.S.'s official stance on an Israeli attack, but said Thursday that "we believe that the multilateral track with Iran is the right way to go."

"Our goal is to make them abandon their nuclear program in a verifiable way, and we will continue with this track. We decided that we want to let Iran get back to the table, to engage them, because the previous approach of isolating Iran didn?t work. But we don?t have a clear timetable," he said.

Following the Bush visit to Jerusalem, about a year ago the previous administration sent two senior envoys, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and the former U.S. national intelligence chief Mike McConnell to demand that Israel not attack Iran.

The previous administration also gave the message greater weight through Mullen's public statement that an Israeli attack on Iran would endanger the entire region. Since that statement, Mullen has met a number of times with his Israeli counterpart, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
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Surprise, surprise: Iran is deploying missiles in Persian Gulf

from The Jerusalem Post
May 12, 2009

Report: Iran deploys missiles in Persian Gulf
By THE MEDIA LINE NEWS AGENCY

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have begun deploying mobile launchers for surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles in the Strait of Hurmuz and other areas in the Gulf, it has been revealed.

Iran's preparations for a potential military strike are not new. The republic has conducted several military exercises over the past few years, some with the explicit intention of preparing the armed forces for a possible confrontation with the West.

The source said the missiles were deployed a few weeks ago. Iran is said to have informed Arab countries in the region of its activities and reassured its neighbors that the missiles were not aimed at states in the region, a reference to Sunni Arab states such as Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which has a Shi'ite majority but Sunni government.

Bahrain, for example, is closer to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant than the Iranian capital Teheran. Any strike on the facility will affect Bahrainis more than Iran's center of power.

Hady 'Amr, Director of the Brookings Doha Center, said there were too many variables at play in the region to draw conclusions as to the deployment's underlying meaning. 'Amr spoke of the Obama administration's disposition towards dialogue with Iran, shifting alliances in the US dialogue with Syria, the Iranian presidential elections and the global financial crisis which has made both Iran and the Gulf states less secure.

On several occasions Iran has expressed its displeasure over potential US bases in its Arab neighbors' territories. "This may be part of their muscle-flexing in that regard," 'Amr told The Media Line, "to make sure that the Gulf states hosting American and French bases understand that there will be a price to pay."

The reports of missile deployments coincide with the US's declared intentions to bridge the rift with Iran.

US President Barack Obama is attempting a dialogue with Teheran to defuse tensions built up during the Bush Administration over Iran's controversial nuclear program.

The release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi from Teheran's Evin prison on Monday could be a response to US overtures.

Saberi, 31, was originally sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of espionage and had been held in prison since January, 2009. An appeals court in Iran reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended term and a five-year ban on reporting in Iran.

Iran has been under international pressure to abandon its nuclear program and uranium enrichment activities since 2002. The US, Israel and other countries are concerned that Iran is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, although Teheran vociferously denies these accusations and claims its program is for peaceful purposes.

The US has not ruled out the possibility of a military strike on Iran.

Iran has threatened to retaliate to any aggression on its soil by closing down the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which will disrupt global oil supplies.

Last year Iran opened a new naval facility in Jask, in the entrance to the Gulf, the declared aim of which was to enable Iran to block the enemy from entering Iran in the event that the country were attacked.

Gulf countries, including Iran, hold more than half of the world's crude oil reserves and more than 40 percent of the world's proven gas reserves.
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Israel and Iran: What Next?

May 11th, 2009 3:40 pm
from Pajamas Media
by Ron Radosh

As Israel faces the possibility of increased pressure to make dangerous concessions, before the Palestinians show that they are indeed ready to accept a Jewish State alongside their own, it becomes even more important to provide information necessary for those who must continually act to defend Israel’s right to exist.

An exemplary and first rate article that touches all the bases appears in The Australian, and is written by Greg Sheridan. He ties everything together- left-wing anti-Semitism; the new radical Islamism, the new campaign to delegitimize Israel; continuing Arab anti-Semitism, and the argument that Israel does not seek peace, only expansion and new settlements. Pass this article around. It deserves the widest reading possible.

On the issue of Iran and the bomb, a first rate interview may be found in Der Spiegel on line with my friend, the brilliant historian Jeffrey Herf. He gives the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt, hoping that its desire to negotiate is based on letting Iran know it must move to stop its nuclear development in a short period of time. He then adds the caveat: “If however, the Obama administration thinks that smiles and a new tone will change Iranian behavior, it is pursuing a policy that is both naive and potentially dangerous.” Herf reminds his readers that it is in the interests of the United States and the West to let Iran know, via tough and severe economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, that it must retreat, and now.

Finally, David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, challenges Shimon Peres’ claim to the AIPAC conference that no reason exists to think there is a division between the interests of Israel and those of the United States. But Israel and America, Horovitz responds, draw a very different line on the issue of Iran and the bomb—thereby making it clear that the Obama administration is pursuing just the path which Jeffrey Herf fears it might be following. Horowitz sees a “veritable abyss” developing between the two nations, not simply a “crack,” to use Peres’ term.

America, for one, seems to be saying there must be progress first on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, before the US addresses Iran. It is clear that Iran, as Horovitz puts it, is on a “march to the bomb” and hopes to gain it way before a single step that means anything is taken to settle Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. His bottom line: “While Netanyahu has accepted that Obama’s opening gambit, engagement, can be useful, the intended US timeline, the goals and the benchmarks currently lack cogent definition. Israel’s leadership has come to fear that our country’s existence is at stake, and America offers no solace.”

Israel, more realistically than the United States, believes that “the Iranians will not prove amenable to diplomacy, and broadly certain that Iran will not be shifted from its nuclear course by anybody or anything short of radical action.” There is, Horovitz argues, little room for maneuver, and there is no hard evidence that Obama is getting powers like Russia and China to go along with his agenda, and to move effectively so that the sanctions actually work. And since Robert Gates has said that U.S. military intervention would only be a last resort—-it becomes even more clear that the message to Iran is that they have unlimited time. When the United States finally decides that last resort has come—-it probably will be too late.

So, as Horovitz puts it, “the pressure seems to be taken off Iran,” and hence, Israel feels things can only get worse. So with Israel prepared to use the doctrine of pre-emption, as it has before-and the United States arguing that nothing could be worse than a strike against Iran—-the coming Obama-Netanyahu meeting could prove very tense.

Let us hope that Obama and his advisors get it right, and agree to act so that Iran does not get the bomb.
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Obama Is Politically Raping Israel - I am ashamed that he is America's President

Obama’s Signal to Israel: Submit

His foreign policy is 50 percent wishful thinking and 50 percent left-wing mush.

from The National Review
By Mona Charen

In early April, Vice President Biden was asked if the administration was concerned that Israel might strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I don’t believe Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that,” Mr. Biden replied. “I think he would be ill-advised to do that.”

A few weeks later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained the administration’s solution to the threat of an Iranian bomb: “For Israel to get the kind of strong support it’s looking for vis-à-vis Iran it can’t stay on the sideline with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts . . . they go hand-in-hand.”

And on May 10, National Security Advisor James Jones spelled it out further. “We understand Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that. . . . By the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.”

By what reasoning has the administration decided that pushing Israel to permit a new Palestinian state would — in any way — diminish the threat from Iran? Do they believe that Iran’s (or, I should say, the Iranian leadership’s) genocidal hostility toward Israel is the result of lack of progress toward an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza? Will the Iranian leadership, which has characterized Israel as a “cancerous tumor,” declared that “Israel must we wiped off the map,” and promised that “Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear,” change its mind if Israel enters into negotiations with the Palestinians?

“Obama will be a great friend to Israel.” So said a Jewish Democrat in a pre-election debate with me. I asked her whether she had any hesitations about someone who had been steeped in academic pieties and Hyde Park left-wing intellectual fashions, and who had tamely absorbed Reverend Wright’s sermons for 20 years? Her response was to mouth some of the platitudes about support for Israel that were to be found on the Obama campaign’s website. I wonder if she is having doubts now.

Does it give her pause that Rose Gottemoeller, assistant secretary of State and America’s chief nuclear arms negotiator, has called on Israel (along with Pakistan, India, and North Korea) to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? By including Israel on a list of nations known to either have nuclear weapons or be close to acquiring them, the Obama administration is introducing a sinister note of moral equivalence to the problem of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. All previous U.S. governments have implicitly accepted that Israel’s nuclear weapons pose a threat to no nation and are maintained only to deter Israel’s enemies from genocidal attacks.

Like other liberals, my debate opponent probably believes that Obama’s apology tour of global capitals was pitch perfect. Of course, it’s one thing for the United States, still the world’s superpower, to delude itself that winning international popularity contests will make us safer (though it’s a dangerous delusion) but Israel, which always sits inches from the precipice of destruction, cannot afford such fantasies at all.

We have recent history to guide us. In 2000, Israel withdrew from the security corridor it had established in southern Lebanon. The world had long been clamoring for Israel to do this. The Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah movement immediately seized the area — trumpeting its triumph in driving out the enemy. In 2006, southern Lebanon became the launching pad for Hezbollah’s missile campaign against northern Israel.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Iranian-backed Hamas movement moved quickly and took control there (not without significant internecine bloodshed with Fatah), and again used the territory not to build a peaceful Palestinian enclave, but to launch 10,000 missiles against southern Israel.

Fatah (which is called moderate because it wants to destroy Israel on the installment plan rather than all at once) retains tenuous control of the West Bank. But even Mahmoud Abbas admits that if Israel were to withdraw completely from the area Hamas would gain control in a heartbeat.

Next week, Prime Minister Netanyahu will meet with President Obama in Washington. It is hard to see how this relationship can go well. President Obama has sent abundant signals that his foreign policy is 50 percent wishful thinking and 50 percent left-wing mush. There may not be any easy answers to the problem of a nuclear Iran. But pressuring Israel to take suicidal risks is clearly the worst possible approach. Iran will conclude, as its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas at various times concluded — that force and the threat of force work.
— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist
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Nuclear blackmail by Obama

Nuclear blackmail - Why The Obama Administration Has The Iran Problem Backwards

from The New York Post
By Alan M. Dershowitz
May 10, 2009

"The task of forming an international coalition to thwart Iran's nuclear program will be made easier if progress is made in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has said, according to sources in Washington. Israeli TV stations had reported Monday night that Emanuel had actually linked the two matters, saying that the efforts to stop Iran hinged on peace talks with the Palestinians." - Jerusalem Post, May
4th.

Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is dangerous.

I have long favored the two-state solution, as do most Israelis and American supporters of Israel. I have also long opposed civilian settlements deep into the West Bank. I hope that Israel does make efforts, as it has in the past, to establish a Palestinian state as part of an overall peace between the Jewish state and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

Israel in 2000-2001 offered the Palestinians a state in the entire Gaza Strip and more than 95% of the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem and a $35 billion compensation package for the refugees. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and instead began the second intifada in which nearly 5,000 people were killed. I hope that Israel once again offers the Palestinians a contiguous, economically-viable, politically independent state, in exchange for a real peace, with security, without terrorism and without any claim to "return" 4 million alleged refugees as a way of destroying Israel by demography rather than violence.

But the threat from a nuclear Iran is existential and immediate for Israel. It also poses dangers to the entire region, as well as to the US - not only from the possibility that a nation directed by suicidal leaders would order a nuclear attack on Israel or its allies, but from the likelihood that nuclear material could end up in the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas or even Al Qaeda. Recall what Hashemi Rifsanjani said to an American journalist:

[Rifsanjani] "boast[ed] that an Iranian [nuclear] attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated by dropping its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose only fifteen million people, which he said would be a small 'sacrifice' from among the billion Muslims in the world."

Israel has the right, indeed the obligation, to take this threat seriously and to consider it as a first priority. It will be far easier for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians if it did not have to worry about the threat of a nuclear attack or a dirty bomb. It will also be easier for Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank if Iran were not arming and inciting Hamas, Hezbollah and other enemies of Israel to terrorize Israel with rockets and suicide bombers.

In this respect, Emanuel has it exactly backwards: if there is any linkage, it goes the other way - defanging Iran will promote the end of the occupation and the two-state solution. Threatening not to help Israel in relation to Iran unless it moves toward a two-state solution first is likely to backfire.

After all, Israel is a democracy and in the end the people decide. A recent poll published in Haaretz concluded that 66% of Israelis favored a preemptive military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, with 75% of those saying they would still favor such a strike even if the US were opposed.

Israel's new government will accept a two-state solution if they are persuaded that it will really be a solution - that it will assure peace and an end to terrorist and nuclear threats to Israeli citizens. I have known Prime Minister Netanyhu for 35 years and I recently had occasion to spend some time with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. I am convinced that despite their occasional tough talk, both want to see an end to this conflict.

Israelis have been scarred by what happened in Gaza. Israel ended the occupation, removed all of the settlers, and left behind millions of dollars worth of agricultural and other facilities designed to make the Gaza into an economically-viable democracy. Land for peace is what they sought. Instead they got land for rocket attacks against their children, their women and their elderly. No one wants to see a repeat of this trade-off.

Emanuel's statements were viewed with alarm in Israel because most Israelis, though they want to like President Obama, are nervous about his policies toward Israel. They are prepared to accept pressure regarding the settlements, but they worry that the Obama Administration may be ready to compromise, or at least threaten to compromise, Israel's security, if its newly elected government does not submit to pressure on the settlements.

Making peace with the Palestinians will be extremely complicated. It will take time. It may or may not succeed in the end, depending on whether the Palestinians will continue to want their own state less than they want to see the end of the Jewish state. Israel should not be held hostage to the Iranian nuclear threat by the difficulty of making peace with the Palestinians. Israel may be rebuffed again, especially if Palestinian radicals believe that such a rebuff will soften American action against Iran. In the meantime, Iran will continue in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

That cannot be allowed to happen, regardless of progress on the ground toward peace with the Palestinians. These two issues must be delinked if either is to succeed. There are other ways of encouraging Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. Nuclear blackmail is not one of them.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the author of "The Case Against Israel's Enemies" (Wiley).
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