The State Department has now confirmed that it deleted a question from James Rosen of Fox News from a December 2013 briefing by Jen Psaki. I first reported the story three weeks ago.
This is from the second link. It's a follow-up to the story about Ben Rhodes orchestrating a campaign of lies to push the Iran nuclear deal forward.
After Samuels’s story kicked up a Washington mediastorm, Rosen asked a
colleague to check for the video of Psaki answering his question about
diplomatic mendacity. The colleague came back with an eerie response:
The exchange was gone from the videotape, replaced by a flash of white
light. The gap was evident not only on the State Department website, but
also on its YouTube page. State Department officials, in a series of
briefings, struggled to explain the matter. Trudeau talked about a
glitch but also noted that there was no evidence that this glitch had
selectively attacked any other embarrassing moments from the press
briefings. Kirby later expressed deep concern about the subject.
Today, Kirby brought the goods:
A
portion of the State Department’s December 2nd, 2013 press briefing was
missing from the video that we posted on our YouTube account and on our
website. That missing portion covered a series of questions about U.S
negotiations with Iran. When alerted to this, I immediately directed the
video to be restored in its entirety with a full and complete copy that
exists and had existed since the day of the briefing on the Defense
Video and Imagery Distribution system website otherwise known as DIVIDS.
I also verified that the full transcript of the briefing which we also
post on our website was intact and had been so since the date of the
briefing. I asked the office of the legal advisor to look at this
including a look at any rules that we had in place. In so doing, they
learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the
briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why
it was made. To my surprise, the Bureau of Public Affairs did not have
in place any rules governing this type of action therefore we are taking
immediate steps to craft appropriate protocols on this issue as we
believe that deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is
not in keeping with the State Department’s commitment to transparency
and public accountability. Specifically, we are going to make clear that
all video and transcripts from daily press briefings will be
immediately and permanently archived in their entirety. In the unlikely
event, that narrow compelling circumstances require edits to be made
such as the inadvertent release of privacy protected information, they
will only be made with the expressed permission of the Assistant
Secretary of Public Affairs and with an appropriate level of annotation
and disclosure. I have communicated this new policy to my staff and it
takes effect immediately.
Those are worthy commitments, for the future.
As
for the past, more must be known — though it probably won’t. Followup
questions to Kirby drilled in on the whodunnit aspect of the video
disappearance. Would the department do more investigating to determine
precisely how this happened? No, said Kirby, who noted that the
individual who received the phone request for video elimination doesn’t
remember “anything other than that the caller was passing on the request
from somewhere else in the bureau.” Furthermore, said Kirby, “There
were no rules in place to govern this sort of action, so while I believe
it was an inappropriate step to take, I see little foundation for
pressing forward with a formal investigation.” Spoken like a true
bureaucrat.
In other words, the cow has escaped anyway so why bother checking who was responsible for leaving the barn door open. I'm old enough to recall a President named Nixon who was impeached for similar offenses. He was also forced to resign when the enormity of what he had done came to light as a result of a Supreme Court order that what remained of his tapes be disclosed.
Obama is now in his 8th (and thankfully final) year in office. He will never be impeached. He would never resign even if the enormity of what he did were to come out while he is still in office. He has no shame.
And as a result he has brought shame to America. May he rot in hell.
Rosemary Woods comes to the State Department, doctors press briefing on Iran
How many of you are old enough to remember Rosemary Woods, the Nixon secretary who 'accidentally' erased a critical 18 minutes from the tape of a conversation that took place in the President's office? Woods, who passed away in 2005, has apparently come back to life to work in the State Department.
The Washington Examiner provides a transcript of what the video originally said.
QUESTION: Please, Jen, can we stay on Iran, please?
MS. PSAKI: Sure. Let's stay on Iran and then we can go to China.
QUESTION: On the 6th of February in this room, I had a very brief exchange with your predecessor, Victoria Nuland —
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: — about Iran. And with your indulgence, I will read it
in its entirety for the purpose of the record and so you can respond to
it.
"Rosen: There have been reports that intermittently, and outside
of the formal P5+1 mechanisms, the Obama Administration, or members of
it, have conducted direct secret bilateral talks with Iran. Is that true
or false?"
"Nuland: We have made clear, as the Vice President did at
Munich, that in the context of the larger P5+1 framework, we would be
prepared to talk to Iran bilaterally. But with regard to the kind of
thing that you're talking about on a government-to-government level,
no."
That's the entirety of the exchange.
As we now know, senior state department officials had, in fact,
been conducting direct, secret bilateral talks with senior officials of
the Iranian Government in Oman, perhaps dating back to 2011 by that
point.
So the question today is a simple one: When the briefer was
asked about those talks and flatly denied them from the podium, that was
untrue, correct?
MS. PSAKI: I mean, James, I – that – you're talking about a
February briefing, so 10 months ago. I don't think we've outlined or
confirmed contacts or specifics beyond a March meeting. I'm not going to
confirm others beyond that at this point. So I don't know that I have
any more for you.
QUESTION: Do you stand by the accuracy of what Ms. Nuland told
me, that there had been no government-to-government contacts, no secret
direct bilateral talks with Iran as of the date of that briefing,
February 6th? Do you stand by the accuracy of that?
MS. PSAKI: James, I have no new information for you today on the
timing of when there were any discussions with any Iranian officials.
QUESTION: Let me try it one last way, Jen —
MS. PSAKI: Okay.
QUESTION: — and I appreciate your indulgence.
MS. PSAKI: Sure.
QUESTION: Is it the policy of the State Department, where the
preservation or the secrecy of secret negotiations is concerned, to lie
in order to achieve that goal?
MS. PSAKI: James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs
privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that. Obviously,
we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks
about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1
negotiations, and we've answered questions on it, we've confirmed
details. We're happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an
important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week
ago.
QUESTION: Since you, standing at that podium last week, did
confirm that there were such talks, at least as far back as March of
this year, I don't see what would prohibit you from addressing directly
this question: Were there secret direct bilateral talks between the
United States and Iranian officials in 2011?
MS. PSAKI: I don't have anything more for you today. We've long
had ways to speak with the Iranians through a range of channels, some of
which you talked – you mentioned, but I don't have any other specifics
for you today.
QUESTION: One more on Iran?
QUESTION: The Los Angeles Times and Politico have reported that
those talks were held as far back as 2011. Were those reports
inaccurate?
MS. PSAKI: I'm not sure which reports you're talking about. Are
you talking about visits that the Secretary and others made to Oman, or
are you talking about other reports?
QUESTION: I'm talking about U.S. officials meeting directly and
secretly with Iranian officials in Oman as far back as 2011. The Los
Angeles Times and Politico have reported those meetings. Were those
reports inaccurate?
MS. PSAKI: I have nothing more for you on it, James, today.
You mean the Obama-Kerry State Department lied? Well, I'll be darned....
Flashback: When the White House accused AP of 'trutherism' on Iran
In light of Ben Rhodes' revelation over the weekend that he led a White House effort to lie about the Iranian nuclear deal, it is useful to look back at last summer, when the White House attacked the Associated Press and its diplomatic reporter, @APDiplowriter (Matt Lee) for asking too many questions about the deal, particularly about the side agreement that allows the Iranians to 'self-inspect' their weapons production facility at Parchin.
What this story is really about is the
politicization of expertise, and how far things can go when one group of
experts (arms controllers) decides to fight by impugning the expertise
of another group (in this case, reporters) for the sake of public
theater. This is almost entirely a phenomenon of new media and the speed
of the news cycle in the modern era.
The Iran Deal supporters knew
there was no point in trying to rebut the substance of the claim: The
story was out, people had already read it, and politicians had already
reacted. A careful analysis of whether the document said what the AP
headline said it did would take too long, and most people wouldn’t
bother with it.
Instead, the story had to be
discredited and flushed, as soon as possible. There wasn’t time to
explain that “monitor” might mean different things to a lay reader and
to an expert. Better simply to throw an array of charges at the
Associated Press and its reporters and see what sticks.
In
the end, the most disturbing question of all is to ask what would have
happened if an institution of less prominence and reputation had
published this report. The Iran Deal truthers didn’t count on the AP
firing back, and despite Fisher’s testy accusation that reporter Matt
Lee was having a “meltdown,” the entire company stood behind the story.
The backlash-to-the-backlash has begun, and while the IAEA has said the
story is a “misrepresentation,” they haven’t said it’s false, either.
Neither has the White House. So far, the AP and its story are still
here.
The warning shot to other
journalists is clear, however. Reporters with one of the most reputable
news organizations in the world had to fight off odious charges for
doing their job. This is apparently the price to be paid for reporting
anything that challenges support for a deal that has reached, among its
adherents, the status of a dogma that tolerates no heresy.
After Friday's news, it's difficult to rebut the argument that the Iran deal has the status of a dogma that tolerates no heresy in the eyes of its supporters. But that won't stop them from trying. After all, Big Brother knows best what's good for us. And now that the fight is over, we can all read the bill.
Congress didn't 'buy' @rhodes44 lies either - they looked to him for cover
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
In a comment to this post, Nancy B writes, "Quite disturbing that so many in Congress bought this fiction hook, line and sinker!"
They didn't buy it. The Republicans opposed the Iran deal up and down the line. The Democrats were willing to do anything - anything - to avoid voting against their President. They were looking to avoid rocking the boat without risking the destruction of their careers. They were looking for cover for not opposing Obama. Rhodes provided it.
In an article appearing in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, White House speechwriter Ben Rhodes (@rhodes44) admits what Israel supporters claimed all along: He lied to Congress in order to sell the nuclear sellout to Iran.
Rhodes’s innovative campaign
to sell the Iran deal is likely to be a model for how future
administrations explain foreign policy to Congress and the public. The
way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal
presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with
Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political
reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought
moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the
purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story
are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to
take away from those particulars are often misleading or false. Obama’s
closest advisers always understood him to be eager to do a deal with
Iran as far back as 2012, and even since the beginning of his
presidency. “It’s the center of the arc,” Rhodes explained to me two
days after the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, was implemented. He then checked off the ways in which the
administration’s foreign-policy aims and priorities converged on Iran.
“We don’t have to kind of be in cycles of conflict if we can find other
ways to resolve these issues,” he said. “We can do things that challenge
the conventional thinking that, you know, ‘AIPAC doesn’t like this,’ or
‘the Israeli government doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the gulf countries
don’t like it.’ It’s the possibility of improved relations with
adversaries. It’s nonproliferation. So all these threads that the
president’s been spinning — and I mean that not in the press sense — for
almost a decade, they kind of all converged around Iran.”
In
the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the “story” of the Iran deal began in
2013, when a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan
Rouhani beat regime “hard-liners” in an election and then began to
pursue a policy of “openness,” which included a newfound willingness to
negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program. The
president set out the timeline himself in his speech announcing the
nuclear deal on July 14, 2015: “Today, after two years of negotiations,
the United States, together with our international partners, has
achieved something that decades of animosity has not.” While the
president’s statement was technically accurate — there had in fact been
two years of formal negotiations leading up to the signing of the
J.C.P.O.A. — it was also actively misleading, because the most
meaningful part of the negotiations with Iran had begun in mid-2012,
many months before Rouhani and the “moderate” camp were chosen in an
election among candidates handpicked by Iran’s supreme leader, the
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The idea that there was a new reality in Iran
was politically useful to the Obama administration. By obtaining broad
public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in
the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to
moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their
neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have
otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy
choices that his administration was making. By eliminating the fuss
about Iran’s nuclear program, the administration hoped to eliminate a
source of structural tension between the two countries, which would
create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established
system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and
Turkey. With one bold move, the administration would effectively begin
the process of a large-scale disengagement from the Middle East.
...
The person whom Kreikemeier credits with running the digital side of the
campaign was Tanya Somanader, 31, the director of digital response for
the White House Office of Digital Strategy, who became known in the war
room and on Twitter as @TheIranDeal. Early on, Rhodes asked her to
create a rapid-response account that fact-checked everything related to
the Iran deal. “So, we developed a plan that was like: The Iran deal is
literally going to be the tip of everything that we stand up online,”
Somanader says. “And we’re going to map it onto what we know about the
different audiences we’re dealing with: the public, pundits, experts,
the right wing, Congress.” By applying 21st-century data and networking
tools to the white-glove world of foreign affairs, the White House was
able to track what United States senators and the people who worked for
them, and influenced them, were seeing online — and make sure that no
potential negative comment passed without a tweet.
...
When
I suggested that all this dark metafictional play seemed a bit removed
from rational debate over America’s future role in the world, Rhodes
nodded. “In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse
the [expletive] out of this,” he said. “We had test drives to know who
was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use
outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So
we knew the tactics that worked.” He is proud of the way he sold the
Iran deal. “We drove them crazy,” he said of the deal’s opponents.
Yet
Rhodes bridled at the suggestion that there has been anything deceptive
about the way that the agreement itself was sold. “Look, with Iran, in a
weird way, these are state-to-state issues. They’re agreements between
governments. Yes, I would prefer that it turns out that Rouhani and
Zarif” — Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister — “are real
reformers who are going to be steering this country into the direction
that I believe it can go in, because their public is educated and, in
some respects, pro-American. But we are not betting on that.”
In
fact, Rhodes’s passion seems to derive not from any investment in the
technical specifics of sanctions or centrifuge arrays, or any particular
optimism about the future course of Iranian politics and society. Those
are matters for the negotiators and area specialists. Rather, it
derived from his own sense of the urgency of radically reorienting
American policy in the Middle East in order to make the prospect of
American involvement in the region’s future wars a lot less likely. When
I asked whether the prospect of this same kind of far-reaching spin
campaign being run by a different administration is something that
scares him, he admitted that it does. “I mean, I’d prefer a sober,
reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take
a vote,” he said, shrugging. “But that’s impossible.”
But it wasn't just Congress that was told lies. So was Obama's Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta.
One
of the few charter members of the Blob willing to speak on the record
is Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s head of the C.I.A. and secretary of
defense and also enough of a product of a different culture to give
honest answers to what he understands to be questions of consequence. At
his institute at the old Fort Ord in Seaside, Calif., where, in the
days before he wore Mr. Rogers sweaters, he served as a young Army
intelligence officer, I ask him about a crucial component of the
administration’s public narrative on Iran: whether it was ever a salient
feature of the C.I.A.’s analysis when he ran the agency that the
Iranian regime was meaningfully divided between “hard-line” and
“moderate” camps.
“No,”
Panetta answers. “There was not much question that the Quds Force and
the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm, and there was not
much question that this kind of opposing view could somehow gain any
traction.”
I
ask Panetta whether, as head of the C.I.A., or later on, as secretary
of defense, he ever saw the letters that Obama covertly sent to
Khamenei, in 2009 and in 2012, which were only reported on by the press
weeks later.
“No,”
he answers, before saying he would “like to believe” that Tom Donilon,
national security adviser since 2010, and Hillary Clinton, then
secretary of state, had a chance to work on the offer they presented.
As
secretary of defense, he tells me, one of his most important jobs was
keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his defense
minister, Ehud Barak, from launching a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s
nuclear facilities. “They were both interested in the answer to the
question, ‘Is the president serious?’ ” Panetta recalls. “And you know
my view, talking with the president, was: If brought to the point where
we had evidence that they’re developing an atomic weapon, I think the
president is serious that he is not going to allow that to happen.”
Panetta stops.
“But would you make that same assessment now?” I ask him.
“Would I make that same assessment now?” he asks. “Probably not.”
So another victim of the lies was Israel - specifically Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Except that in Panetta's telling the story, he didn't know he was lying to them. And Panetta now admits what everyone in Israel felt at the time: There was no way in the world Hussein Obama was going to use military force to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
PS I left this out, but it turns out that Laura Rozen - likely the biggest cheerleader for the Iran deal on Twitter, is described as the White House's RSS feed for the deal. Think about that the next time you read something in al-Monitor, which she edits.
Welcome to the United States, where anti-Israel indoctrination masquerades as 'critical thinking'
Greetings to all of you from Boston (yes, again).
I am starting today's posting with a local story - from my home town.
Indoctrination @ Newton, a new video released today by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), exposes a pattern of anti-Israel teachings found in Newton, Massachusetts high schools, including:
Newton’s high schools have used Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) maps that falsify the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Newton students were not told that the maps were created by the PLO’s propaganda unit.
Newton’s schools presented students with a falsified version of the Hamas Charter. In Newton’s doctored version the word ”Jews” – as a target of hatred -- is replaced with the word “Zionists.”
In one lesson, Newton students are asked to consider the Jewish state’s right to exist. (The legitimacy of no other nation-state’s existence is questioned.) The lesson included “expert” opinions, which are drawn overwhelmingly from anti-Israel academics and anti-Semitic activists.
A book used in Newton high schools has a recommended reading list that includes the extremist writings by Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Sayyid Qutb, and Yusuf Qaradawi, whose sermons call for the murder of Jews and homosexuals.
Newton schools officials are shown to continuously refuse to make school curricula and teaching materials available to the Newton residents.
Charles Jacobs, APT President said, “The video also shows that Saudi, Palestinian, and other Arab-funded teaching materials have been inserted into the curriculum, much of it containing anti-Israel bias.”
The Saudi funded Arab World Studies Notebook was used in Newton high schools until public pressure forced its removal. The Notebook, condemned by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and rejected by many other school boards, teaches students, among other things, that Israeli soldiers murder Palestinian women. Newton’s Superintendent of Schools David Fleishman claimed that use of the Notebook helps develop “critical thinking skills.”
The video’s release follows news reports of anti-Semitic incidents, including hateful graffiti found in Newton North High School and at the F.A. Day Middle School. The graffiti featured swastikas and the genocidal statement “Burn the Jews.” According to media reports, Newton Day school officials – in violation of required mandatory reporting procedures – failed to inform parents and police about the incidents. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed concerns about these escalating anti-Semitic incidents.
Upon discovering racist graffiti at Boston Latin High School, city, state, and federal agencies immediately launched an investigation into the matter. Jacobs said, “Concerned parents in Newton demand equal protection for Jewish students. Accordingly, in light of Newton’s biased education, its ongoing refusal to allow public access to curricula and teaching materials, and the recent escalation of anti-Semitism, we urge Newton Mayor Setti Warren, Massachusetts’ state education officials, and the FBI to investigate this hateful situation in Newton schools.”
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
As many of you know, I grew up in Newton - about a 5-minute walk from Newton North High School. I did not attend the Newton public schools. Newton was and is a heavily Jewish suburb of Boston and both Newton North and Newton South have many Jewish students. Some of you may have heard of this alumna of Newton North. One can only wonder how much influence the Newton public schools had on her political views.
Unlike the 'democratic' United States, Iran allowed its parliament to debate and pass the
Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, or JCPOA. The Iranian Majlis took up the JCPOA as a treaty (something that the Obama-Kerry junta would not allow Congress to do), and passed instead a 1000-page bill, which differs markedly from the JCPOA, but which has not yet been fully translated into English.
The Iranian version shows that Iran has not agreed to the same deal to which the United States Senate thought it was agreeing (the House voted the JCPOA down, but a vote in the Senate was blocked by the Democrats). The Iranian version is so different that it is difficult not to notice.
The Iranian parliamentary bill that “approved” the JCPOA reportedly
is 1,000 pages long and has not yet been fully translated into English.
According to Amir Taheri, an Iranian-born veteran Western journalist,
the bill contains these provisions:
The elimination of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
Forbids the inspection of any military site and the interviewing of any
officers.
Calls for strengthening Iran’s defenses, especially by developing its
missile arsenal.
Says the redesign of the Arak heavy-water reactor and its conversion to
run on enriched uranium “are conditional to separate deals.” This refers
to a JCPOA provision to alter the design and fueling of the Arak
reactor so it produces less plutonium. This provision is significant
because it implies either that other agreements need to be negotiated to
carry out this part of the JCPOA or that undisclosed side deals
concerning the Arak reactor exist.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) assessed in an October
13, 2015 report that the Iranian parliament ratified “a nonexistent
document,” not the JCPOA, because it called for sanctions against Iran
to be cancelled and not to be reimposed. By contrast, the nuclear deal
calls for sanctions to be suspended and to snap back in the event of
Iranian noncompliance.
MEMRI also reported text in the Iranian parliament bill calling on
the government to handle the rapid expansion of the country’s centrifuge
program so that within two years, Iran’s enriched-uranium output will
reach 190,000 SWUs (separate work units). This would equal about 25 to
28 times the output of the 9,000 centrifuges Iran currently is operating
and contradicts Tehran’s JCPOA commitment to only operate 5,060
centrifuges for 10 years.
According to press reports, Supreme Leader Khamenei issued a letter on
October 21 “endorsing” the JCPOA that actually appears to endorse the
Iranian parliament’s bill. In the letter, Khamenei demanded that the
U.S. and the EU agree in writing that sanctions “are completely
canceled” when Iran meets its obligations under the agreement. Khamenei
also complained about “ambiguities” in the JCPOA and said any new
sanctions against Iran would be a violation of the agreement.
...
So with Obama officials claiming this week that the JCPOA’s
Adoption Day indicated progress and the willingness of all parties to
implement the agreement, the truth is that Iran is already violating it
and has an entirely different view of the deal from what Obama’s
officials have claimed. I am sure Obama’s officials are aware of this,
but they are so desperate for the JCPOA to succeed that they are
ignoring these violations and finding ways to explain them away,
including by contradicting earlier claims that missile sanctions and the
PMD issue were part of the nuclear deal.
The amended version of the JCPOA passed by the Iranian parliament
is a crucial part of this puzzle. At least one organization in
Washington is working to translate this document. Congress must demand
the U.S. Intelligence Community translate it ASAP and post online so
Congress can consider further action on the nuclear deal.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said in March 2010 that “we
have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in
it. . . . ” This comment is ironic given how Congress is now learning
what was really agreed to in the JCPOA after it survived a congressional
review last month as well as a January 2014 comment by National
Security staffer Ben Rhodes that the Obama administration viewed the
Iran deal as its second term Obamacare.
The deceptions used to pass Obamacare did severe damage to America’s
health-care system and caused costs to skyrocket. The deceptions used to
sell the nuclear deal with Iran may do far more damage to American
interests by providing cover that Iran likely will use to try to become a
regional hegemon while continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Read the whole thing. Unfortunately, much of the sanctions regime has already fallen apart.
Jesse Jackson in 2008: 'Obama will stop Zionist influence on White House'
For those who have forgotten, let's go to the videotape with @greta interviewing Newt Gingrich (Hat Tip: Marcy W).
Sounds to me like Obama lied again, especially in light of what has happened in the last several months. And 78% of American Jews, including Dumb Dumb Debbie listened but did not hear.
"We have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran
from obtaining a nuclear weapon." Actually, the deal's restrictions end
abruptly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium
enrichment fading away after just 10. Late in the speech, Obama made the
case that much can change in a decade and that the West could be in a
stronger position then to continue to block Iran's nuclear desires. But
the temporary nature of the deal remained disguised.
"Much can change in a decade" would be a great argument if the deal was clear (there seem to be at least two and possibly three different versions of what's in the deal - US, Iran and UN), and if we felt we could trust Iran to abide by its end of the bargain. Based on past experience, there is no rational reason to trust Iran on this. None.
"Before the ink was even dry on this deal, before Congress even read it,
a majority of Republicans declared their virulent opposition." That's
true, but ignores that opponents had plenty of time to study the draft
agreement reached last spring. The real problem is that Congress still
hasn't read the entire accord, its side agreements
and the inspections plan negotiated by the International Atomic Energy
Agency. Even Secretary of State John Kerry says there are aspects of the
deal he has never seen.
Remember when Obama promised "the most transparent administration ever"? Sounds like a sick joke today, doesn't it? Is that promise what got you to vote for him? If so, you can be excused for 2008 but not for 2012.
"If there is a reason for inspecting a suspicious undeclared site
anywhere in Iran, inspectors will get that access even if Iran objects.
This access can be with as little as 24 hours' notice." The key words
here are "as little as." Iran can draw that process out for as long as
24 days if it so chooses. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says some
military sites will remain off-limits to IAEA personnel.
Obama's phrasing here is totally disingenuous. As Mrs. Carl would put it, "he's acting like a lawyer."
"I've had to make a lot of tough calls as president, but whether or
not this deal is good for American security is not one of those calls,
it's not even close." Maybe this deal is the best chance to delay the
mullahs' race to the bomb and keep the Middle East out of a nuclear arms
race. But the case is anything but open-and-shut. It's hard to see what
the president gains from denying this.
Well, perhaps one thing:
Obama may hope that denigrating those who disagree with him will rally
Democrats in Congress to support a veto of any measure of disapproval.
Tactics aside, it would be far better to win this fight fairly. The pact
is not a treaty: A future president and Congress might overturn it,
arguing that it was sealed without proper consideration. And history
often looks with disgust at causes built on fear, especially if they go
awry. Obama wouldn't want to face the kind of scorn he heaped on George
W. Bush today.
But face it he will if this deal goes through.
And by the way, while the driving consideration for Obama should be America's security, what about America's allies? If this deal goes through, does he really believe Israel, for example, is ever going to trust an American guarantee again? Okay - we already have plenty of reasons not to trust American guarantees. But this deal will surely close the door.
Does Iran pose an existential threat to its neighbors in the Gulf and to regional security?
Without a doubt. And the Gulf Cooperation Council members that do not
say so publicly will certainly say so privately—even Qatar.
The Iranian ruling elite look down on the Gulf States, many of which
they see as nouveau riche artificial Arab states carved out of the
former Persian Empire and propped up by Western powers.
At the root of Arab-Iranian tensions in the Gulf is Tehran’s
ideological drive to export its Islamist revolution and overthrow the
traditional rulers of the Arab monarchs.
This ideological clash has further amplified the longstanding
sectarian struggle between Shia and Sunni Islam and is exacerbated by
several longstanding Iranian territorial claims in the Gulf.
This will only be made worse as a result of the Iran deal.
The Qatari foreign minister can say what he likes about the deal, but
the only voice that matters in the Gulf Cooperation Council is the
voice of Saudi Arabia’s King Salam.
As the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and as the ruler of the
largest and most important Gulf Cooperation Council member, it is his
voice that counts the most on the Arab street.
Until King Salam speaks publicly in support of the deal, you can bet
there are serious concerns privately among the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Stories like the one that follows are not going to make the Gulf countries any more comfortable with a nuclear Iran.
An Iranian website that specializes in electronic games has released a game named “Beat Up and Insult the Arab” and made the game available for free download.
The site that released the game is allegedly registered at the
country's center for regulating Iranian websites, which is linked to the
Ministry of Culture and Guidance. It introduces itself as an
entertainment site that operates based on the rules of the Islamic
Republic. On the site, it states that it will remove any content that
violates Islamic laws.
The game consists of two parts; the first is called “feed the Arab,” and
the second is called “beat up the Arab,” and includes references to
Gulf Arabs.
Many Ahwazi Arabs, whom the Islamic Republic
legally considers Iranian citizens, commented on the game on social
media, labelling it as racist regardless of which exact Arabs the game
intends to poke fun at.
What a nice country. Let's let them have nuclear weapons.... They wouldn't hurt anyone..... Would they?
Obama cut separate deals with Iran over Parchin and military nukes, hid deals from Congress
Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Ks) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) have been told by the IAEA at a meeting in Vienna on Friday that President Hussein Obama cut separate deals with Iran over its Parchin military complex (you know, the one they won't show to the IAEA) and its military nuclear program, and then hid the deals from Congress.
“According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the
Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge
separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military
complex – one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran – and
how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past
weaponization work. Both arrangements will not be vetted by any
organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even
to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA. This means that the secret
arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not
been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review
of the Iran deal.”
The American public has not been given all the facts on the Iran
deal, nor has congress. This is not only distressing but a violation:
“Even under the woefully inadequate Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act,
the Obama administration is required to provide the U.S. Congress with
all nuclear agreement documents, including all “annexes, appendices,
codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and
guidance, technical or other understandings and any related agreements,
whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be
entered into or implemented in the future.”
Both Pompeo and Cotton are U.S. military veterans. Each of them included a personal statement in the press release:
Obama trying end-run around Congress to have UN approve Iran deal
President Hussein Obama is trying to do an end-run around Congress by obtaining binding United Nations approval for his Iran deal before Congress has time to vote. This is from an email from Omri Ceren.
Lead negotiator Wendy Sherman confirmed for journalists yesterday that the Obama administration will, over the next few days, pursue a binding United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) that will lift sanctions on Iran. The resolution was circulated yesterday by the U.S. and a leaked text is already online. When asked how the move could be reconciled with the 60 day Congressional review period mandated by the Corker legislation, Sherman sarcastically responded that you can't really say "well excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress" because there has to be some way for "the international community to speak." She noted that at least the UNSCR would have a 90 day interim period before its mandatory obligations kick in.
The gambit undermines the Corker bill - to say nothing of American sovereignty - on multiple levels. On a policy level, the UNSCR on its own would compel American action even if Congress rejects the Iran deal. On a political level, the administration intends to take the UNSCR and go to lawmakers while they're considering the deal and say 'you can't reject the agreement because it would put America in violation of international law.'
The pushback from the Hill yesterday was immediate and furious. Corker: "an affront to the American people... an affront to Congress and the House of Representatives". Cardin: "it would be better not to have action on the U.N. resolution". Cruz: "our Administration intended all along to circumvent this domestic review by moving the agreement to the UN Security Council before the mandatory 60-day review period ends". Kirk: "a breathtaking assault on American sovereignty and Congressional prerogative". McConnell: "violates the spirit of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which the President signed into law... inconceivable - yet sadly not surprising".
The Washington Post article at the bottom covers some of those statements and has a bunch of background. The story will develop throughout the day and through the beginning of next week. It's going to be particularly brutal given that the Corker legislation was created and passed to stop exactly this scenario.
Remember how we got here. The March 9 Cotton letter, signed by 47 Senators, declared that without Congressional buy-in any deal with Iran would not be binding on future presidents.
Iranian FM Zarif responded with a temper tantrum in which he revealed that the parties intended to fast-track an UNSCR that would make Congress irrelevant and tie the hands of future presidents: "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law". That created a firestorm of criticism from the Hill. Zarif doubled down from the stage at NYU: "within a few days after [an agreement] we will have a resolution in the security council ... which will be mandatory for all member states, whether Senator Cotton likes it or not".
And so Congress responded with the Corker legislation. 98 Senators and 400 Representatives passed the bill with the intention of preventing the Obama administration from immediately going to the U.N. after an agreement and making good on Zarif's boast. President Obama signed the bill. Now the administration is doing exactly what the legislation was designed to prohibit.
In a letter Thursday, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, and ranking Democrat Sen. Benjamin L.
Cardin (Md.) urged Obama to postpone U.N. consideration of the agreement
until Congress can review it and potentially vote on its own
assessment.
The Republican chairmen of the House Homeland
Security and Foreign Affairs committees sent a similar letter to the
White House on Wednesday.
...
In a compromise reached in May with Congress, Obama agreed not to use
his authority to waive U.S. sanctions against Iran for at least 60 days
after a deal was reached. The review begins when the text of the
agreement is delivered to lawmakers this weekend.
During that
period, Congress has the option of voting, by a simple majority, to
“disapprove” it and permanently bar a sanctions waiver. Obama has said
he would veto such legislation. For the moment, the administration is
certain it has enough votes among Democrats to prevent a veto override,
which requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
If a veto were
overridden — cementing Congress’s official disapproval — a State
Department official said this week that “we don’t have authority to
provide U.S. sanctions relief” and that “the deal won’t proceed.”
White
House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said Thursday that “we will
not begin implementation of the plan until after the congressional
review period is over.” The 90-day delay, officials said, also gives
Iran time to begin taking steps to comply with the deal and allows the
International Atomic Energy Agency to prepare for its inspection and
verification role.
That's not the point. If the UN passes a binding resolution and then Congress says 'no,' then what? The whole point is to give Congress its say - essentially making any US signature on a deal non-binding - until Congress votes up or down. Obama agreed to that in May. Now he's welching on his agreement. Color me unsurprised.
UPDATE 7:09 PM
Please make sure to read the comment posted below. Obama may well be forcing Israel to be the only country in the world that objects to Iran being a nuclear power. Maybe the Saudis would like to object?
Must see: The video that proves Amnesty International is lying about Israel
This video shows how Amnesty International edited a video to make it seem that Israel destroyed a Gaza building immediately after a roof knock last summer, when in fact the IAF had given residents five minutes to escape... and escape they all did.
Let's go to the videotape.
To see the original video and how it was edited, go here.
Ahmad, who is also a regular Ramadan dinner guest of President Obama,
asked the United Airlines flight attendant if she could have an
unopened can of Diet Coke. She flies enough to know that airlines are
running concessions on the cheap, and if you get a soda for free, you’re
not getting the whole thing. But when the attendant told her she
couldn’t have an unopened can, she flipped her headscarf.
According to CNN,
who evidently is soaking up all the allegedly bigoted tidbits of this
story, the attendant informed Ahmad that they are “unauthorized to give
unopened cans to people because they may use it as a weapon on the
plane.” The passenger let the employee know that she felt she was being
discriminated against, because the passenger across the aisle was given a
full, unopened can of beer.
That’s when things started to get really interesting. Not taking into
consideration that the guy with a beer paid an astronomical amount for
that in-flight brew and her cola was on the house, Ahmad called on the
support of other flyers. She ask if they had seen what just happened,
insinuating she was being targeted as a terrorist.
According to her Facebook post, the guy with a beer got in her face and said, “You Muslim, you need to shut the f— up.”
This is if we’re to believe a word this woman has to say on the
matter with no witnesses or cell phone footage to support her claim of
the conversation. “I felt the hate in his voice and his raging eyes,”
Ahmad wrote on Facebook while the plane was still in flight. “I can’t
help but cry … because I thought people would defend me and say
something. Some people just shook their heads in dismay.”
Boo. Hoo. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks she's lying. It would be interesting if the guy who bought the beer would come forward.
And please don't tell me she's going to start flying American between Chicago and Washington. I flew that route a couple of weeks ago, and despite my next-to-top-tier elite status was number 11 of 24 for an upgrade....
My first reaction to this Facebook post was "If Muslims are boycotting United, maybe I should start flying it." But on reading the post above in its entirety, I think it's made up. Come on - if you're posting from a flight where you've had a fight with a flight attendant, wouldn't you at least post some details about the flight? Origin? Destination? Flight number? United posted those details in an image that Tahera Ahmad posted here (post embedded below). I'm sure you'll all be shocked to discover that Ahmad is not just any Muslim.
The Facebook post went viral, and a #unitedfortahera hashtag
immediately began trending worldwide. Many tweeps have threatened to
boycott the airline until it issued Ahmad a formal apology.
According to a metro.co.uk report,
United responded to the incident by saying that they were "a company
that strongly supports diversity and inclusion, and we and our partners
do not discriminate against our employees or customers. We are reaching
out directly to Ms. Ahmad to get a better understanding of what occurred
during the flight. We are also discussing the matter that Ms. Ahmad
describes with Shuttle America, our regional partner that operated the
flight. We look forward to speaking with Ms. Ahmad and hope to have the
opportunity to welcome her back."
Next thing you know, they'll demand that United stop flying to Israel in return for removing their specious boycott.
My bet is that the whole story never happened. Has Al Sharpton taken it up yet?
Here's the second post:
I am truly dissapointed at the latest statement by United Airlines. Unfortunately United has dismissed my entire...
Posted by Tahera Ahmad on Sunday, May 31, 2015
I'll bet she's disappointed. She thought United would prostrate itself without first bothering to investigate whether the incident happened.
UPDATE 4:35 PM
Ms. Ahmad's Facebook account seems to have been taken down (or I've been blocked from it), but she posted the entire second Facebook post on Twitter. I'm embedding it below and will take a screen cap just in case.
Bret Stephens reports that Barack Hussein Obama learned how to lie from the Clintons, and that if Hillary Clinton is - God Forbid - elected President, she will continue the lying tradition.
Sometime in the 1990s I began to understand the
Clinton way of lying, and why it was so successful. To you and me, the Clinton
lies were statements demonstrably at variance with the truth, and therefore
wrong and shameful. But to the initiated they were an invitation to an
intoxicating secret knowledge.
What was this knowledge? That the lying was for
the greater good, usually to fend off some form of Republican malevolence. What
was so intoxicating? That the initiated were smart enough to see through it all.
Why be scandalized when they could be amused? Why moralize when they could
collude?
It always works.
...
Consider this column’s favorite subject: the
Iran deal. An honest president might sell the current deal roughly as
follows.
“My fellow Americans, the deal we have
negotiated will not, I am afraid, prevent Iran from getting a bomb, should its
leaders decide to build one. And eventually they will. Fatwa or no fatwa,
everything we know about their nuclear program tells us it is geared toward
building a bomb. And frankly, if you lived in a neighborhood like theirs—70
million Shiites surrounded by hundreds of millions of Sunnis—you’d want a bomb,
too.
“Yes, we could, in theory, stop Iran from
getting the bomb. Sanctions won’t do it. Extreme privation didn’t stop Maoist
China or Bhutto’s Pakistan or Kim’s North Korea from building a bomb. It won’t
stop Iran, either.
“Airstrikes? They would set Iran back by a few
years. But even in a best-case scenario, the Iranians would be back at it before
long, and they’d keep trying until they got a bomb or we got regime
change.
“Fellow Americans, how many of you want to raise
your hands for more Mideast regime change?
“So here’s the deal with my deal: It never was
about cutting off Iran’s pathways to a bomb. Let’s just say that was an
aspiration. It’s about managing, and maybe slowing, the process by which they
get one.
“I know that’s not what you thought I’ve been
saying these past few years—all that stuff about all options being on the table
and me not bluffing and no deal being better than a bad deal. I said this for
political expedience, or as a way of palliating restive Saudis and Israelis. You
feed the dogs their bone.
“But if you’d been listening attentively, you
would have heard the qualifier ‘on my watch’ added to my promises that Iran
would not get the bomb. And what happens after I leave office?
Hopefully, the
Supreme Leader will be replaced by a new leader cut from better cloth.
Hopefully, too, this marathon diplomacy will open new patterns of U.S.-Iranian
cooperation. But if neither thing happens we’d be no worse off than we are
today.
“That’s why getting a deal, any deal, is more
important than the deal’s particulars when it comes to sanctions relief,
inspections protocols and so on. The details only matter insofar as they make
the political medicine go down. What counts is that we’re sitting at the table
together, speaking.”
...
Question for Mrs. Clinton: Does she think the
U.S. should gently midwife Iran’s nuclear birth or violently abort it? If she
wants to be president, our former top diplomat could honor us with a detailed
answer.
In the meantime, let’s simply note what the
liberal way of lying has achieved. We are on the cusp of reaching the most
consequential foreign-policy decision of our generation. We have a deal whose
basic terms neither side can agree on. We have a president whose goals aren’t
what he said they were, and whose motives he has kept veiled from the
public.
Maybe the ayatollah will give him his deal, and
those with the secret knowledge will cheer. As for the rest of us: Haven’t we
learned that we’re too stupid to know what’s for our own good?
Just words: 28 Times Obama Said He'd Prevent Iran from Getting a Nuclear Weapon
In the new Iranian nuclear deal, President Obama acknowledged that after
13 years, Iran's breakout time could be just a few months. Up until
now, he's promised 28 times that he would prevent Iran from getting a
nuke.
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens rips President Obama's pre-emptive criticism of the 'inevitable critics' of his deal with Iran.
Yes, it’s worse. Much worse.
Yes, because what the president calls “this verifiable deal”
fails the first test of verification—mutual agreement and
clarity as to what, exactly, is in it.
Take sanctions. Iran insists all
sanctions—economic as well as nuclear—will be “immediately
revoked” and that “the P5+1 member countries are committed to
restraining from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.” But
the Obama administration claims Iran will only get relief “if
it verifiably abides by its commitments.” The administration
adds that “the architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions
on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the
deal.”
So who is lying? Or are we dealing with a case of Mutually
Assured Obfuscation?
Yes, too, because the deal fails the second test of
verification: It can’t be verified.
Here again there are significant discrepancies between the
U.S. and the Iranian versions of the deal. The administration
claims “Iran has agreed to implement the Additional Protocol,”
a reference to an addendum to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty that permits intrusive inspections. But Tehran merely
promises to implement the protocol “on a voluntary and
temporary basis,” pending eventual ratification by its
parliament, inshallah.
We’ve seen this movie before. Iran agreed to implement the
Additional Protocol in 2003, only to renounce it in early
2006, after stonewalling weapons inspectors.
But even the Protocol is inadequate, since it doesn’t permit
no-notice, “anytime, anywhere” inspections. “A verifiable
agreement would require unfettered access to all key
facilities, personnel, documentation, and other information
being sought,” notes Olli Heinonen, a former top nuclear
inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency. The
Protocol, he adds, “does not fully oblige this.”
Yes, as well, because Mr. Obama’s caveat, “if fully
implemented,” is catnip to the rulers of Iran. What happens if
Iran complies with every aspect of the accord, save one—for
instance, if it starts fielding more advanced centrifuges?
“The Iranian regime cheats incrementally, not egregiously,
even though the sum total of its incremental cheating is
egregious,” says Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense
of Democracies. Does anyone think Mr. Obama will walk away
from his deal at the first instance of Iranian noncompliance?
This is a president who failed to inform Congress of Russia’s
suspected violations of a 1987 nuclear arms-control treaty so
he could get his own treaty ratified by the Senate in 2010.
Yes, furthermore, because a deal that is “backed by the
world’s major powers,” as Mr. Obama says, is also beholden to
those powers.
...
So let me rephrase the president’s question: Is targeted
military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities—with all the
unforeseen consequences that might entail—a better option than
a grimly foreseeable future of a nuclear Iran, threatening its
neighbors, and a proliferated Middle East, threatening the
world?
I know my answer. What’s yours?
Targeted military action against Iran's nuclear facilities is most definitely a better option than a nuclear Iran.
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
