I've already written a couple of times about the fears here in Israel of what President Hussein Obama might try to do to us in his final days in his office. Here's a really disturbing Wall Street Journal piece from Jonathan Schanzer about some of the possibilities.
The Middle East has few
bright spots these days, but one is the budding rapprochement between
Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates, thanks to shared threats from Iran and Islamic
State. Now the Obama Administration may have plans to wreck even that.
Israeli diplomats gird for the possibility
that President Obama may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel
and the Palestinians at the United Nations. The White House has been
unusually tight-lipped about what, if anything,
it might have in mind. But our sources say the White House has asked
the State Department to develop an options menu for the President’s
final weeks.
One possibility would be to sponsor, or at
least allow, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli
settlement construction, perhaps alongside new IRS regulations revoking
the tax-exempt status of people or entities involved
in settlement building. The Administration vetoed such a resolution in
2011 on grounds that it “risks hardening the position of both sides,”
which remains true.
But condemning the settlements has always been
a popular way of scoring points against the Jewish state, not least at
the State Department, and an antisettlement resolution might burnish Mr.
Obama’s progressive brand for his postpresidency.
Mr. Obama may also seek formal recognition of a
Palestinian state at the Security Council. This would run afoul of
Congress’s longstanding view that “Palestine” does not have the
internationally recognized attributes of statehood,
including a defined territory and effective government, though Mr.
Obama could overcome the objection through his usual expedient of an
executive action, thereby daring the next President to reverse him.
Both actions would be a boon to the bullies in
the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, while also subjecting
Israeli citizens and supporters abroad to new and more aggressive forms
of legal harassment. It could even criminalize
the Israeli army—and every reservist who serves in it—on the theory
that it is illegally occupying a foreign state. Does Mr. Obama want to
be remembered as the President who criminalized Israeli citizenship?
The worst option would be an effort to
introduce a resolution at the U.N. Security Council setting “parameters”
for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The French
have been eager to do this for some time, and one
option for the Administration would be to let the resolution pass
simply by refusing to veto it. Or the U.S. could introduce the
resolution itself, all the better to take credit for it.
As the old line has it, this would be worse
than a crime—it would be a blunder. U.S. policy has long and wisely been
that only Israelis and Palestinians can work out a peace agreement
between themselves, and that efforts to impose
one would be counterproductive. Whatever parameters the U.N.
established would be unacceptable to any Israeli government, left or
right, thereby destroying whatever is left of a peace camp in Israel.
The Palestinians would seize on those
parameters as their birthright, making it impossible for any future
Palestinian leader to bargain part of them away in a serious
negotiation. Arab states would find their diplomatic hands tied,
making it impossible to serve as useful intermediaries between
Jerusalem and Ramallah. It could refreeze relations with Israel even as
they finally seem to have thawed.
President Obama may be the last man on earth
to get the memo, but after decades of fruitless efforts to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict it might be wiser for the U.S. to step back
until the Palestinians recognize that peace cannot
be imposed from the outside.
If Mr. Obama is still seeking a Middle
East legacy at this late stage in his presidency, his best move is do
nothing to make it worse.
A few comments. First, it is longstanding US policy that peace between Israel and the 'Palestinians' can only come through direct negotiations between the parties. Obama has done much to undermine that policy through his insistence on international peace conferences and other ways of allowing the 'Palestinians' to avoid direct negotiations, including his support for preconditions to negotiations. Perhaps that's why Obama has zero influence in Israel, where the government once again spat in his face on Monday, announcing that it would build 98 new homes in Shilo, which is well outside the 'settlement blocs.'
On Monday the state informed the High Court of Justice it awaited
final bureaucratic approval to develop the site within six months as a
relocation option for the 40 families from the Amona outpost.
It, therefore, asked the HCJ to delay by seven months the mandated December 25 demolition of the outpost.
Alternatively,
the state said, it was also pursuing the option of using the abandoned
property law, so that it could relocate the outpost to land adjacent to
the community’s current location.
Washington has rebuked Israel
for both plans, but the State Department issued a particularly sharp
statement in which it said the Shiloh project was tantamount to the
creation of a new settlement, something Israel had promised the US it
would not do.
“This settlement's location deep in the West Bank…
would link a string of outposts that effectively divide the West Bank
and make the possibility of a viable Palestinian state more remote,” the
State Department had said.
Second, as much as I will never vote for Hillary Clinton (#NeverHillary), it is clear to me that this sort of scorched earth strategy from the Obama administration is far more likely if Donald Trump wins next week's election than if Clinton wins it. After all, it was Netanyahu who set up Clinton's illegal private server, and it was he that caused it to be used for government business (/sarc). Obama would have far more interest in trying to tie Trump's hands than in trying to tie Clinton's.
All in all, the outlook is bleak with the 'most pro-Israel administration evah' set to extract revenge from an Israeli government that has not been willing to surrender to Obama's wishes over the past eight years.
Iran's weapons ferrying service about to expand big time
For at least five years, Iran has been using commercial airliners from Mahan Air (an IranAir subsidiary from what I can gather) to ferry terrorists and weapons from Tehran to Damascus. Now, thanks to the Obama-Kerry sellout and the lifting of sanctions Iran (having been blocked by Congress from purchasing from Boeing) is about to buy 500 new jets from Airbus, the European consortium. Iran currently has 50(!) commercial jets. Imagine how much more trouble they can make with 500.
A report published by Forbes said Iranian commercial aircraft
routinely violate international aviation rules by transporting arms and
military personnel to Syria, and therefore, “selling aircraft to Iran
will expose manufacturers to the risk of becoming complicit in such
activities.”
Forbes said Iran was trying to ink a deal to buy up to 500 aircraft over the next decade.
The magazine said: “Iran remains the foremost state sponsor of
terrorism in the world and is still number one on the recently-released
Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index Report of 2016, which assesses the
risk of money laundering and terrorist financing in 149 countries.”
The report coincides with the comments of U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry, who expressed his country’s worries regarding Iran’s
transfer of weapons to Yemen.
Also, the international community is worried from an Iranian activity
towards refueling conflicts in Arab countries, which Tehran says was
protecting its security and national interests.
Last Thursday, Iran announced that a deal with Airbus was in its last
phases,” according to Fars news agency, quoting Iranian Minister of
Transportation Minister Abbas Akhoundi.
Forbes warned the Airbus Company to think twice before inking such a deal.
The report said: “The problem with the Islamic Republic’s aircraft
shopping spree is that Iran’s state-owned airline, Iran Air, will be the
sole company purchasing these aircraft.”
It said Iran’s current fleet
stands at 36 aircraft while its subsidiary, Iran Air Tours, has 14.
Mahan Air is considered the first Iranian company, which conducted flights to Syria for transferring weapons in 2011.
Yet another frightening installment in the Obama legacy. What could go wrong?
Iran deploys S-300 to protect Fordo nuke plant, forms Shiite army to eradicate Israel
Here's Barack Obama's legacy. After allowing Iran's nuclear program to survive and thrive and giving the Mullahcracy $1.7 billion in spending money, Iran is using the money exactly how it promised to use it. It has deployed an S-300 missile system to protect its Fordo nuclear plant, and it has formed a Shiite army whose goal is to eradicate Israel. This is from the first link.
A video showed an S-300 carrier truck in Fordo, raising its missile launchers toward the sky, next to other counter-strike weaponry.
The images were aired hours after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech to air force commanders, including Esmaili, in which he stressed that Iranian military power was for defensive purposes only.
"Continued opposition and hype on the S-300 or the Fordo site are examples of the viciousness of the enemy," Khamenei said.
"The S-300 system is a defence system not an assault one, but the Americans did their best for Iran not to get hold of it."
The Fordo site, built into a mountain near the city of Qom has stopped enriching uranium since the January implementation of a nuclear deal with world powers.
Under the historic accord, Iran dismantled most of its estimated 19,000 centrifuges -- giant spinning machines that enrich uranium, keeping only 5,000 active for research purposes.
Retired General Mohammad Ali Falaki, who is currently one of the Iranian
forces leaders in Syria, has recently revealed that Iran has formed a
“Shiite Liberation Army” led by Quds Force commander, General Qassem
Soleimani.
The Quds Force also known as Pasdaran in Persian is
a special forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and
is responsible for the Islamic Republic’s extraterritorial operation.
“The Shiite Liberation Army is currently fighting on three fronts -
Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” he told Mashregh news agency, which is close to
the IRGC, in an interview published on Thursday.
The retired
general said “This army is not only composed of Iranians but it recruits
locally from the regions witnessing fighting.”
Falaki, who is
leading part of the IRGC fight in Syria to give support to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, advised that it was “not wise to
directly involve Iranian forces into the Syrian conflict.”
“The
role of our personnel should be limited to training, preparing and
equipping the Syrians to fight in their areas, ” he added.
Falaki said that the main objective behind the formation of the first
nucleus of the ‘Shiite Liberation Army’ is to “eradicate Israel after 23
years, especially that these battalions are now on Israeli borders.”
#ThanksObama
And you were still wondering why he hasn't taken the fight to Assad?
How will Obama's final days in office play out for Israel?
From an al-Monitor piece discussing why Prime Minister Netanyahu is likely to conclude a new defense package with the United States before President Obama leaves office come these disturbing thoughts.
“We are talking about a comprehensive deal,” one senior political
source in Jerusalem told Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity.
“Netanyahu is trying to clear the table and move toward the demands made
by Obama’s people in the hope that the aid agreement will be finalized.
For the same price, Netanyahu is trying to assuage any desire for
retribution that Obama might still nurture. He is also trying to
increase his own chances of getting through the Obama era in peace,
without any new diplomatic initiative, a formative presidential address or some problematic Security Council resolution.
Right now, the chances of Netanyahu succeeding are reasonable. Within
President Obama’s circles, there is, as of yet, no decision as to what
the final chord of his administration’s Middle East policy will be. Some
are pressuring Obama to reveal the draft of the framework agreement (as
reported in previous articles
in Al-Monitor) that he reached with Netanyahu and his staff, or to
allow the French to bring their own initiative to the Security Council
and then not veto it. Obama will only decide what to do at the very last
minute.
The question now being asked in Israel is which of the two
temperaments will ultimately triumph. Will it be Obama’s desire to get
back at Netanyahu, who taunted him for the last eight years and dragged
him into ugly and unnecessary mud-slinging matches? Or will it be
Obama’s cool, collected temperament, which will keep him from
reshuffling the deck and shaking everything up just moments before he
exits the arena?
People close to Netanyahu say that Obama has no plans to disappear.
Even after he leaves office, he will remain an active and influential
figure in America. It could, therefore, be worth it for him to maintain a
reasonable relationship with the Israeli government.
Obama administration: 'We stopped sanctioning Iranian human rights abusers after the nuke deal'
Remember how the Obama administration promised us last summer that sanctions would be 'snapped back' into place in the event of violations by Iran of the (still unsigned) JCPOA? Well, they're now admitting that in at least one area, the sanctions are gone - permanently. Not one Iranian human rights abuser has been designated as such since the P 5+1 (but not Iran) signed the JCPOA. And Congress is awakening to the reality that it was fooled.
Republicans and Democrats alike are now accusing the administration
of misleading Congress about its commitment to sanctions and saying that
it has avoided such designations in order to prevent the Iranian regime
from walking away from the deal.
“We were told during this process that getting the nuclear issue off
the table was so critical and we could actually expect Iran to engage in
additional destabilizing activity,” Rep. David Cicilline (D., R.I.)
said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee examining the
administration’s promises regarding Iran.
“We were assured that this would give us an opportunity to push back
hard in these other areas because the danger of a nuclear Iran would be
off the table, and I was very persuaded by that,” said Cicilline, a supporter of the nuclear agreement.
Cicilline asked Ambassador Stephen Mull, the administration’s lead
coordinator for implementing the nuclear deal, what the administration
has “done since the signing of the [nuclear deal] with regard to
imposing sanctions on human rights violators in Iran.” Mull admitted
that the U.S. has not taken any action.
“There has not been a specific sanction on human rights cases since the signing” of the deal, Mull said.
Cicilline questioned why, since the administration promised to take
action, it had not done so in the face of rising human rights abuses by
Iran.
Mull emphasized that the administration is concerned about human
rights in Iran and has raised the issue in meetings with regime
officials.
In case you missed it, Cicilline is a Democrat and supported the deal.
Meanwhile, the White House plans to block any attempt to impose new sanctions on Iran, because... you know... the legacy....
“Congress wants to impose new pressure against Iranian human rights
violations, but the Obama administration keeps blocking new action. The
administration’s excuse is they already have all the tools they need,”
said one source who works closely with Congress on the Iran issue. “What
today’s admission shows is that they might have those tools, but
they’re certainly not using them.”
Make sure to read the whole thing. The unsaid problem in this whole affair is that reimposing sanctions is like closing the barn door after the cow has escaped. It would take years to new sanctions to begin to have the effect that the old ones had. As one Presidential candidate asked, "What difference does it make?"
Whether or not it happens before January 20, 2017, Islamophile Hussein Obama's 'legacy' is meant to be the destruction of the one and only Jewish state of Israel. Here's hoping he will never succeed.
The Iranian nuke deal isn't about the nukes - it's about Israel
Abe Greenwald is spot-on in pointing out that the Iranian nuclear sellout isn't really about the nuclear weapons (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
If you think the United States just struck a poor nuclear deal with
Iran, you’re right; but if that’s your key takeaway, you’re missing the
point. Iran’s nuclear program was last on the list of the Obama
administration’s priorities in talking to Tehran. The administration
readily caved on Iran’s nukes because it viewed the matter only as a
timely pretense for achieving other cherished aims. These were: (1)
preventing an Israeli attack on Iran; (2) transforming the United States
into a more forgiving, less imposing power; (3) establishing diplomacy
as a great American good in itself; (4) making Iran into a great
regional power; and (5), ensuring the legacies of the president and
secretary of state as men of vision and peace.
The administration has always viewed
Israel as an intractable troublemaker and the main catalyst for the
region’s woes. An Israeli strike on Iran, especially if supported by the
United States, would have been yet another display of destabilizing
Israeli aggression that put Middle East peace further out of reach.
Barack Obama, therefore, repeatedly warned Israel against attacking
Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu complied, and for his compliance White House
officials taunted him in 2014 as a “chickenshit” whose window of
opportunity had closed. That window is now barred. The Iran deal states
that the U.S. will train Iranians to counter any sabotage attempts on
its nuclear facilities and systems. This is aimed at frustrating Israeli
action.
...
From the administration’s standpoint, the deal was a grand slam. If it
left Iran as an official nuclear power on the perpetual verge of a
breakout, well, that was always the bargaining chip to get everything
else. And with the United States having shown extraordinary cooperation
and forgiveness, the thinking goes, even a nuclear Iran will become a
less bellicose and more collegial member of the community of nations.
What good the deal has already done, the administration believes, will
continue to pay dividends. As is his wont, Obama is now declaring as
much. But by the time his vision is upended by facts, he’ll be out of
office, and we won’t have the luxury of fighting reality with
abstractions.
Greenwald understates the extent to which Obama's anti-Israel obsession drove this deal. As John Podhoretz wrote in his review of Michael Oren's Ally (which I am currently reading), for ideological reasons, Obama doesn't like that Israel exists. Period. That anti-Israel obsession led to the Iran nuclear deal more than anything else.
Statement from Josh Block, President and CEO of The Israel Project on the Iranian nuclear deal
I received the following statement by email from Josh Block, the President and CEO of The Israel Project.
Today's announcement of this nuclear agreement with Iran is a
realization of the deepest fears and the most dire predictions of
skeptics who have, for two years, been warning against exactly this
outcome -- a bad deal that both enriches this tyrannical regime and
fails to strip Iran of nuclear weapons capability. The deal will give
Iran billions in cash and sanctions relief to fuel its terror and war
machines, shred the hard-won sanctions regime beyond repair, and enable
the Iranians to get away with hiding the full extent of their nuclear
work, infrastructure, and know-how. It will not have an enforceable
inspections regime or a workable way to re-impose pressure on Iran when
it cheats.
And then, after just over a decade, most of this deal will
expire, and Iran will be allowed to have a full-blown nuclear program-- a
screw's turn away from a nuclear weapon.
It is important to ask: if a 3-month nuclear breakout by Iran is a
problem today, why are we giving the Mullah’s in Tehran hundreds of
billions of dollars, all so Iran will have a zero break out time,
according to President Obama himself, in just over a decade?
Iran’s repressive regime needs economic relief far more than we
need an agreement by these terms. Prior to this round of talks in
September 2013, Iran was six-months from a balance of payments crisis
and total economic calamity. Rather than leveraging that pressure to
stop Iran and dismantle its program, President Obama relieved it
prematurely in order to secure an agreement that will midwife an era of
nuclear terror and tyranny, at the expense of freedom, human rights, and
American national security.
At the beginning of these talks, President Obama promised
Congress and the American people that he would secure a good deal or
walk away. He couldn't bring home a good deal and he couldn't bring
himself to walk away. Instead, he walked away from every key position
demanding the shuttering or dismantlement of Iran's military nuclear
infrastructure -- including their fortified enrichment bunker, buried
under a mountain, on a military base, where Iran will be permitted to
continue enriching and developing its ability to spin faster and more
advanced centrifuges.
To believe this is a good deal, you have to trust Iran. The American people, and their lawmakers, rightly, do not.
Over the next 60 days, Congress will review this accord,
acknowledge that the President has, unfortunately, not lived up to the
promises that he made, and instead delivered a deal that will make
America, our children, and the world less safe.
The American people deserve better. Our negotiators can do better. Congress must insist on it, and reject this bad deal.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
