The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
Featuring:
Life under the US umbrella
Caroline B. Glick
"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
~~~lll~~~
Paying to Pray?
A funny thing happened in the South Florida city of Lake Worth. It appears the local government has given churches the idea they must pay a fee to exercise their constitutionally protected right to worship as they please. In fact, in a move that smacks of totalitarianism, one particular church was singled out for "observation" by a hoodie-wearing code enforcement officer who compiled an official Case Narrative that reads like a bad detective novel. In the city's crosshairs is a Southern Baptist institution known as the Common Ground Church. The church owns and operates a coffee house in the downtown area, and for the last three months it has used it to hold weekly worship services. Previously the congregation rented space at other facilities in the area. Common Ground Pastor Mike Olive spoke with Fox News' Todd Starnes and told him problems began arising last month following an encounter with City Commissioner Andy Amoroso. "After we opened up the coffee bar and started doing services, I heard that he told people we were anti-gay," Olive told Starnes. "So I went to his shop to ask him about that." Despite Olive's insistence that his church is all about loving God and loving people, and that his message to the gay community "is the same as it is to the straight community," Amoroso remained unconvinced, warning the pastor that he'd "better not have a church down there." -The Patriot Post
Right-to-Work Comes to Wisconsin
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Monday signed right-to-work legislation, making "America's Dairyland" the 25th state with laws preventing mandatory union membership and payment of dues. It's both good for Wisconsin's economy and is a feather in Walker's presidential cap. Through a section of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, states were permitted to enact legislation that allowed contracts to be signed between unions and businesses requiring workers at the particular company to pay labor fees, and legally binding those companies to fire workers who refused to join the union. Section 14B of this Act specifically noted that a right-to-work law would prevent such extortion. Union members make up about 8% of Wisconsin's current labor force. Just 30 years ago that number was 22%. Indeed, nationwide, labor unions are losing the muscle that once made them mighty -- because their numbers have dwindled for the last three decades.
-The Patriot Post
INTRODUCING THE DEMOCRATIC 2016 POWER INDEX
Fox News First has been ranking the Republican presidential contenders in our Power Index since January, but left the Democrats out of the mix. Why waste our time and yours on what was shaping up as a coronation? But the ongoing and far-from-finished scandal around Hilly Clinton’s use of a secret home email server as secretary of state casts things in a new light. We have much more on the scandal below, but the political takeaway is fairly straightforward: her cloak of inevitability is torn. Whether as an actual rival or as a life raft for their party’s presidential hopes should Clinton sink herself, Democrats increasingly want and need alternatives. And so, we give you our inaugural Democratic 2016 Power Index.
1) HILLY CLINTON - Today is a perfect encapsulation of Clinton’s campaign: big resources that bring big troubles. Clinton’s controversial family foundation will be acting as an extension of her campaign as it celebrates a speech Clinton gave 20 years ago in China on women’s rights with a dense report, public events and speeches by the candidate. Of course, since the foundation funds its work partly through gifts from countries that repress women as part of official policy, it does get a little icky. She will again be appearing in public but again failing to address the email scandal beyond an impossibly Clintonian tweet on the topic. So she gets a huge boost on visibility on her central campaign theme – that it’s time for a female president – but the means by which she paid for the platform create controversy of their own.
[“What I would like, is for her to come forward and say just what the situation is because she is the preeminent political figure right now. I think from this point on the silence is going to hurt her.” – Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”]
2) loose lips JOE BIDEN - The vice president is kind of a hot mess. He boldly makes untrue statements. He nape-nuzzles other men’s wives in public. He’s 72, but lacks any of the campaign discipline that decades in public life ought to have brought him. And yet, he’s the single biggest threat to Hilly Clinton and the automatic frontrunner if he decides to run. Aside from having Air Force Two and near-universal name recognition, he can make the best claim to Democrats for protecting and defending President nObama’s legacy. And plus, the press loves loose lips Biden, a negative since his every gaffe would be amplified but a positive since he would have the best platform to call Clinton out. The two were consistently at odds during their time in the administration, and he would surely make a potent prosecutor of her claims of foreign policy expertise.
[The Atlantic: “There’s only one prominent Democratic contender who has traveled to all three early presidential primary states so far in 2015. It’s not Hilly Clinton. Nor is it Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or even Martin O’Malley.”]
3) ELIZABETH WARREN - The freshman senator from Massachusetts says she’s not running for president, but she and thousands of her supporters say they just want Hilly Clinton to move to the left and be a “progressive warrior.” But that’s an empty threat without the means to punish Clinton if she doesn’t oblige. Warren, who has had an audience with the frontrunner, has shown a reticence to run beyond coyness in recent weeks. It is helpful to appear not overly ambitious, but too much resistance will cause supporters to look elsewhere. Warren boasts the advantage of a campaign in waiting, but time is running out for her to make a long-shot run. While she might do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, to avoid being road-kill under the Clinton machine in the rest of the primaries, Warren needs to get busy. If she can get rolling, though, her zeal and authenticity could make her the Democratic heartthrob in a flash. Unlike loose lips Biden, Warren would also be a history-making nominee.
[Union label - Warren and loose lips Biden both address the International Association of Firefighters today in Washington.]
4) MARTIN O’MALLEY - You can’t win the game if you don’t suit up and show up, and therein lies former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s cardinal advantage as a candidate. Unlike the others, he is actually on the trail and looking for donors and support. O’Malley is little known and isn’t broadly identified with any particular message, but as the very liberal former governor of a very liberal state, he has many policy points to please Democrats unhappy about the idea of veering from nObama’s domestic doctrine. Campaigning in New Hampshire this weekend, O’Malley demurred when questioned about Clinton’s sketchy email account. If O’Malley wants to be more than a running-mate in waiting, he will have to draw deeper distinctions with the frontrunner to show he’s serious.
5) JIM WEBB - Candidates who are running against their parties don’t usually fare well, and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb looks to be no exception. Webb’s cry is that Democrats have to restore faith with the blue-collar white voters who once were the party’s backbone. And while he has a point to make about economic populism, and the deep embrace by Clinton of Wall Street, on the rest of the party’s issue set, he is a man out of time. Whether it is abortion or gun rights, Democrats made their collective choice against the party’s former base decades ago and won’t be coming back. -Fox News
Fox News First has been ranking the Republican presidential contenders in our Power Index since January, but left the Democrats out of the mix. Why waste our time and yours on what was shaping up as a coronation? But the ongoing and far-from-finished scandal around Hilly Clinton’s use of a secret home email server as secretary of state casts things in a new light. We have much more on the scandal below, but the political takeaway is fairly straightforward: her cloak of inevitability is torn. Whether as an actual rival or as a life raft for their party’s presidential hopes should Clinton sink herself, Democrats increasingly want and need alternatives. And so, we give you our inaugural Democratic 2016 Power Index.
1) HILLY CLINTON - Today is a perfect encapsulation of Clinton’s campaign: big resources that bring big troubles. Clinton’s controversial family foundation will be acting as an extension of her campaign as it celebrates a speech Clinton gave 20 years ago in China on women’s rights with a dense report, public events and speeches by the candidate. Of course, since the foundation funds its work partly through gifts from countries that repress women as part of official policy, it does get a little icky. She will again be appearing in public but again failing to address the email scandal beyond an impossibly Clintonian tweet on the topic. So she gets a huge boost on visibility on her central campaign theme – that it’s time for a female president – but the means by which she paid for the platform create controversy of their own.
[“What I would like, is for her to come forward and say just what the situation is because she is the preeminent political figure right now. I think from this point on the silence is going to hurt her.” – Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”]
2) loose lips JOE BIDEN - The vice president is kind of a hot mess. He boldly makes untrue statements. He nape-nuzzles other men’s wives in public. He’s 72, but lacks any of the campaign discipline that decades in public life ought to have brought him. And yet, he’s the single biggest threat to Hilly Clinton and the automatic frontrunner if he decides to run. Aside from having Air Force Two and near-universal name recognition, he can make the best claim to Democrats for protecting and defending President nObama’s legacy. And plus, the press loves loose lips Biden, a negative since his every gaffe would be amplified but a positive since he would have the best platform to call Clinton out. The two were consistently at odds during their time in the administration, and he would surely make a potent prosecutor of her claims of foreign policy expertise.
[The Atlantic: “There’s only one prominent Democratic contender who has traveled to all three early presidential primary states so far in 2015. It’s not Hilly Clinton. Nor is it Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or even Martin O’Malley.”]
3) ELIZABETH WARREN - The freshman senator from Massachusetts says she’s not running for president, but she and thousands of her supporters say they just want Hilly Clinton to move to the left and be a “progressive warrior.” But that’s an empty threat without the means to punish Clinton if she doesn’t oblige. Warren, who has had an audience with the frontrunner, has shown a reticence to run beyond coyness in recent weeks. It is helpful to appear not overly ambitious, but too much resistance will cause supporters to look elsewhere. Warren boasts the advantage of a campaign in waiting, but time is running out for her to make a long-shot run. While she might do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, to avoid being road-kill under the Clinton machine in the rest of the primaries, Warren needs to get busy. If she can get rolling, though, her zeal and authenticity could make her the Democratic heartthrob in a flash. Unlike loose lips Biden, Warren would also be a history-making nominee.
[Union label - Warren and loose lips Biden both address the International Association of Firefighters today in Washington.]
4) MARTIN O’MALLEY - You can’t win the game if you don’t suit up and show up, and therein lies former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s cardinal advantage as a candidate. Unlike the others, he is actually on the trail and looking for donors and support. O’Malley is little known and isn’t broadly identified with any particular message, but as the very liberal former governor of a very liberal state, he has many policy points to please Democrats unhappy about the idea of veering from nObama’s domestic doctrine. Campaigning in New Hampshire this weekend, O’Malley demurred when questioned about Clinton’s sketchy email account. If O’Malley wants to be more than a running-mate in waiting, he will have to draw deeper distinctions with the frontrunner to show he’s serious.
5) JIM WEBB - Candidates who are running against their parties don’t usually fare well, and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb looks to be no exception. Webb’s cry is that Democrats have to restore faith with the blue-collar white voters who once were the party’s backbone. And while he has a point to make about economic populism, and the deep embrace by Clinton of Wall Street, on the rest of the party’s issue set, he is a man out of time. Whether it is abortion or gun rights, Democrats made their collective choice against the party’s former base decades ago and won’t be coming back. -Fox News
Over the horizon - Suppose Hilly Clinton actually imploded and dropped out of the race. Who else might consider a run and could reasonably get a campaign together on the double. Some names to watch would include Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y. -Fox News
1.
Republican Senators Send Letter to Iran
(Warren Mass) - An open letter sent by 47 Republican senators to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” on March 9 — which provided Iran’s leaders with a brief lesson on the U.S. Constitution’s grant of powers regarding foreign policy...has generated a critical response from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Vice President loose lips Joe Biden, and Senate Minority Leader dinky Harry Reid (D-Nev.)Speaking for the letter’s intended recipients, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said the letter lacks “legal validity” and shows that the signatories of the letter are “ignorant of international law.” “In our view this letter has no legal validity and is just a propaganda scheme,” Zarif asserted. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/20333-republican-senators-send-letters-to-iran-prompting-white-house-reaction?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=c427f1dd5c-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-c427f1dd5c-289778381
2.
McCon-nell Betrays Conservatives to Raise Debt Ceiling
(Raven Clabough) - According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. government will reach its borrowing limit in October or November, after exhausting emergency measures to keep the debt below the limit as long as possible...Without the emergency measures, the growing federal debt would hit the ceiling by the middle of this month. But Republicans who had hoped to use the debt ceiling debate as leverage to pass spending cuts were disappointed to learn that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-nell has already assured the Dems that the GOP would not threaten a default or government shutdown. Never mind that neither a default nor a shutdown would be necessary if the federal governent were simply to slash spending and start living within its means. "The debt ceiling will be handled over a period of months," McCon-nell said his appearance on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday. "I made it very clear after the November election we're certainly not going to shut down the government or default on the national debt." He is acting like a Democratic. Or is he one? http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/item/20329-mcconnell-betrays-conservatives-by-promising-to-raise-debt-ceiling?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=c427f1dd5c-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-c427f1dd5c-289778381
3.
Attack Dog Hilly Clinton Unleashed And Unhinged
(rickwells.us) - The great and wise Hilly Clinton, the beacon of freedom and honesty to a troubled world, took a moment before attempting to defend her secret email server and seizure and sequestration of government records to deflect some attention by attacking Republicans...She did so against a United Nations backdrop, symbolic of the organization that she truly works to advance, regardless of any position she might happen to hold within the U.S. government. It’s the epitome of hypocrisy that the duplicitous Clinton would attempt to sit in judgment of Republicans or anyone else. As the former Secretary of State who is presently engaged in a feverish cover up of her involvement in the events of Benghazi and God knows what else, she is hardly one to claim the moral or any other high ground. The Clintons have always relied upon a strong offense as their best defense. A wild swing or two was to be expected in the opening rounds of her public defense. http://www.rickwells.us/rabid-attack-dog-hillary-clinton-unleashed-and-unhinged-republicans-are-allies-of-nuclear-iran-can-race-card-be-far-behind/
4.
Trey Gowdy – Even More Questions After Clinton Statement
(rickwells.us) - It’s hard to imagine that Hilly Clinton actually expected her official denial of wrongdoing in her email scandal to have quieted things down...Her typical claims of “honest Democrat ignorance,” this time as it relates to all those “confusing techie gadget things” doesn’t seem to have done much to convince many people that she just made an innocent, unfortunate decision; unfortunate definitely, innocent, not so much. She somehow tries to blame an inability or a lack of knowledge of how to operate two email accounts simultaneously on the same device as the reason she hid government records and stole away the paper trail from her time in the State Department inside her home. Rep Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is doesn’t believe that Clinton is just suffering from a lack of technical knowhow, acknowledging that nObama, the busiest man in the country is able to successfully use one phone for his communications and that his archives are, as far as we know, complete. http://www.rickwells.us/benghazi-chairman-trey-gowdy-even-more-questions-after-clinton-statement-than-he-had-before/
5.
Republican Liberty Caucus announces Wayne Allyn Root as chairman
(personalliberty.com) - The National Board of the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) has voted to name Wayne Allyn Root as chairman of its National Campaign Committee, as well as chairman of the RLC Advisory Board...Root, now back to his lifelong Republican roots, was the Libertarian vice presidential nominee in 2008, as well as an elected board member of the Libertarian National Committee and chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee. One of America’s most vocal critics of the nObama administration, Root is a frequent radio and TV guest, political commentator, political columnist and the author of the national bestselling books “The Ultimate nObama Survival Guide” and “The Murder of the Middle Class.” On Thursdays, his video commentary and accompanying transcript run on Personal Liberty Digest™. http://personalliberty.com/republican-liberty-caucus-announces-wayne-allyn-root-chairman-national-campaign-committee/
6.
Hilly Clinton Stonewalling From Here Until Election Day
(rickwells.us) - Referencing the Clinton email scandal, Charles Krauthammer describes it as “the nineties all over again.” He sees the key statement that the former Secretary of State made as being her contention that “the server is private and I’m hanging on to it and no one’s going to have a look at it...She was asked, ‘would you have an impartial outside observer go in and decide which ones are private,’ she said no, basically. We own it.” Krauthammer believes her determined obstructionism dates back to the Whitewater investigation, when she acquiesced to her husband’s decision to cooperate with investigators and agree to a special prosecutor. Krauthammer says Hilly Clinton views that decision as a catastrophic mistake, one he thinks she has vowed to never repeat. http://www.rickwells.us/charles-krauthammer-white-water-the-sequel-hillary-clinton-stonewalling-from-here-until-election-day/
7.
Another Reason To Bail On UN
(rickwells.us) - Two key questions need to be asked in view of the report issued by the UN Commission on the Status of Women, but more accurately, in regards to the United Nations as a whole...What is the United Nations doing in the U.S. and what is the United States doing in the UN? Since most of their so-called humanitarian aid and health efforts are directed towards third world nations and the continent of Africa, why is their headquarters not there, where they could more closely monitor the “good deeds” they are doing and all of the lives that their eugenics programs are “saving?” Is it because the globalist bankers who enrich themselves through the United Nations have their management operations in New York City, not in Niger or Chad? What benefit does the United States derive from UN membership? We are placed into a position of equal stature or less with backward, often much more primitive nations who see us only in terms of the volume of dollars their corrupt leadership can siphon off in their direction. http://www.rickwells.us/another-reason-to-bail-on-un-politically-correct-report-paid-for-by-americans-cites-abuse-of-women-wont-use-the-i-word/
8.
He Might Be A Hilly – Holder Had Secret Email Identities As Well
(rickwells.us) - Obstruction of justice and secret email accounts aren’t just the dominion of Hilly Clinton. With the revelation that Eric Holder has also been using anonymous emails...the extent to which the White House has a policy of lying, hiding, diverting attention and covering up information related to their conduct of the people’s business is further exposed. Attorney General Eric Holder not only used alternate email accounts, but he did so under aliases, an obvious effort to disguise his identity. One has to wonder just how prevalent this practice is in the “least transparent regime” in history. On Tuesday the Huffington Post reported that Holder has used three different false identities for his email accounts during his tenure at the Justice Department, among them the now retired ID of “Henry Yearwood.” http://www.rickwells.us/hes-no-clark-kent-but-he-might-be-a-hillary-clinton-eric-holder-had-secret-email-identities-as-well/
9.
19 Times the Govt Withheld Documents It Didn’t Want You to See
(Sharyl Attkisson) - Lost and missing government records are not isolated to one administration or political party...The list below includes 19 examples of public files that went missing, were withheld or lost and then found. It includes the most recent example of former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Raymond Maxwell’s account of Benghazi documents, which The Daily Signal revealed last month. http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/15/19-times-documents-went-missing-government-didnt-want-know/
10.
Netanyahu provided a sober-minded, carefully constructed argument for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He then demonstrated why nObama’s nuclear negotiating strategy enables Iran to become a nuclear power. In so doing, Netanyahu built sufficient bipartisan Congressional support for an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons to protect Israel from the nObama administration.
Whether Netanyahu will order such a strike, or when such a strike could be most effective, is impossible to judge. But he did secure Congressional support for it.
Netanyahu also created an opening for lawmakers who are frightened by the deal nObama is now negotiating to prevent him from completing it. Whether or when they will use the opportunity is still unclear. nObama has tremendous power and leverage over Democratic lawmakers and he has no compunction about using it to get his way.
On the other hand, buoyed by Netanyahu, Republicans also have power. If they use it judiciously, they will be able to secure 67 votes in favor of legislation that would require nObama to receive Senate approval for his nuclear deal, and would place harsh economic sanctions on Iran if it doesn’t meet the behavioral benchmarks of ending its sponsorship of terrorism, ending its meddling in the internal affairs of other states, and ending its threats to annihilate Israel that Netanyahu laid out.
Beyond that, by making clear that it is pure folly to assume that Iran will magically transform itself into a responsible actor on the international stage after securing the deal, Netanyahu provided the rationale for a strategy of regime change. Whether a future administration will adopt this option or not is unclear, but it is now evident that given the fact that Iran has the technological and scientific capacity to develop nuclear weapons, the only way in the long term to prevent that from happening is to overthrow the regime.
nObama and his advisers argue that there are only two options – their agreement, that enables Iran to build a nuclear arsenal in the coming years, or war. What Netanyahu made clear is that this is a false choice. The US is stronger than Iran. It has more leverage than Iran. All it needs to get a better agreement is a massively diminished desire to conclude one.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0315/glick030915.php3
Hilly Concedes She Deleted Nearly 30K ‘Private’ Emails
(Tony Lee) - On Tuesday, former Secretary of State Hilly Clinton conceded that she deleted nearly 30,000 emails that she deemed were “private” and not “work-related.”...Finally addressing the email scandal that has engulfed her for more than a week, Clinton said that she turned over nearly 30,000 emails and 55,000 pages of documents to the State Department. Her answer will surely raise more questions about whether she alone should have determined what emails should have been turned over to the government, especially after, as Breitbart News noted, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who chairs the House Select Benghazi Committee, said there were huge gaps in the emails his committee has received. Gowdy even “mentioned that his committee has not received any emails regarding Clinton’s trip to Libya even though the iconic picture of Clinton from that day shows her on a mobile device.” http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/10/hillary-concedes-she-deleted-nearly-30k-private-emails/?AID=7236
Life under the US umbrella
Caroline B. Glick
(jewishworldreview.com) - South Korea lives under a US security umbrella. Both on a conventional and nuclear level, South Koreans are dependent on the US to deter North Korea from attacking them and overrunning their country.
Last Friday, US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman scolded South Koreans for being too nationalist. In her words, “Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy.”
The South Koreans interpreted her remarks as criticism of their President Park Geun-hye for her refusal to reinstate reunification talks with North Korea due to Pyongyang’s refusal to discuss the dismantlement of its nuclear program.
Sherman negotiated the US’s nuclear pact with North Korea in the 1990s. The North Koreans used the deal as a smokescreen behind which they developed nuclear weapons while receiving financial assistance from the US which paid off the regime for signing the deal.
Once Pyongyang was ready to come out as a nuclear power, it threw out the nuclear inspectors, opened the sealed nuclear sites, vacated its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began testing nuclear bombs.
Sherman is now the US’s chief negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran.
This week President Park traveled to Saudi Arabia, where she signed a deal to build two nuclear reactors for the oil giant.
The truth is that the North Koreans didn’t need nuclear weapons to deter South Korea from attacking it. Pyongyang possesses one of the largest, most powerful artillery arsenals in the world and it has enough artillery pieces pointed at Seoul to bomb the South Korean capital into the Stone Age.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is not directed primarily against Seoul. It is directed against Washington. And, as the US’s timidity in its defense of South Korea, and its constant attempts to placate Pyongyang indicate, Washington has been deterred.
The day after Saudi King Salman signed his nuclear deal with Park, US Secretary of State Hanoi John Kerry arrived in Riyadh to meet with him and with the foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
According to news reports, Hanoi Kerry offered the Arab leaders to place them under the US nuclear umbrella to protect them from Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
There can be no doubt that in his conversations with the South Korean leader, King Salman discussed what life is like under an American security guarantee. And it is hard to see that he considers it a good bargain.
It is not merely that the US is deterred by North Korea, and therefore is willing to humiliate and endanger South Korea to avoid having to contend with Pyongyang. It is that US President Barack nObama has destroyed the credibility of US security guarantees by repeatedly failing to stand by them.
During the Cold War, West Germany and the rest of Western Europe were able to function under the US’s nuclear umbrella because the Soviet Union was deterred from invading Germany by the US’s nuclear threat. Moscow believed the US was serious when it promised to bomb the Soviet Union with nuclear warheads if it sent tanks into West Berlin.
nObama wouldn’t even undertake limited air strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad after he crossed nObama’s declared redline and attacked his opponents with chemical weapons.
nObama failed to live up to his own redline because he didn’t want to upset Assad’s protectors in Tehran. To build up the credibility of his intentions to appease Tehran, nObama betrayed the Syrian people and his own pledge to defend them against chemical strikes. So even without nuclear weapons, Tehran is deterring nObama.
Last Friday, US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman scolded South Koreans for being too nationalist. In her words, “Nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy.”
The South Koreans interpreted her remarks as criticism of their President Park Geun-hye for her refusal to reinstate reunification talks with North Korea due to Pyongyang’s refusal to discuss the dismantlement of its nuclear program.
Sherman negotiated the US’s nuclear pact with North Korea in the 1990s. The North Koreans used the deal as a smokescreen behind which they developed nuclear weapons while receiving financial assistance from the US which paid off the regime for signing the deal.
Once Pyongyang was ready to come out as a nuclear power, it threw out the nuclear inspectors, opened the sealed nuclear sites, vacated its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began testing nuclear bombs.
Sherman is now the US’s chief negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran.
This week President Park traveled to Saudi Arabia, where she signed a deal to build two nuclear reactors for the oil giant.
The truth is that the North Koreans didn’t need nuclear weapons to deter South Korea from attacking it. Pyongyang possesses one of the largest, most powerful artillery arsenals in the world and it has enough artillery pieces pointed at Seoul to bomb the South Korean capital into the Stone Age.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is not directed primarily against Seoul. It is directed against Washington. And, as the US’s timidity in its defense of South Korea, and its constant attempts to placate Pyongyang indicate, Washington has been deterred.
The day after Saudi King Salman signed his nuclear deal with Park, US Secretary of State Hanoi John Kerry arrived in Riyadh to meet with him and with the foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
According to news reports, Hanoi Kerry offered the Arab leaders to place them under the US nuclear umbrella to protect them from Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
There can be no doubt that in his conversations with the South Korean leader, King Salman discussed what life is like under an American security guarantee. And it is hard to see that he considers it a good bargain.
It is not merely that the US is deterred by North Korea, and therefore is willing to humiliate and endanger South Korea to avoid having to contend with Pyongyang. It is that US President Barack nObama has destroyed the credibility of US security guarantees by repeatedly failing to stand by them.
During the Cold War, West Germany and the rest of Western Europe were able to function under the US’s nuclear umbrella because the Soviet Union was deterred from invading Germany by the US’s nuclear threat. Moscow believed the US was serious when it promised to bomb the Soviet Union with nuclear warheads if it sent tanks into West Berlin.
nObama wouldn’t even undertake limited air strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad after he crossed nObama’s declared redline and attacked his opponents with chemical weapons.
nObama failed to live up to his own redline because he didn’t want to upset Assad’s protectors in Tehran. To build up the credibility of his intentions to appease Tehran, nObama betrayed the Syrian people and his own pledge to defend them against chemical strikes. So even without nuclear weapons, Tehran is deterring nObama.
Beyond that, just as Pyongyang doesn’t require nuclear weapons to destroy South Korea, Iran doesn’t need to attack Persian Gulf states with nuclear weapons in order to dominate them and cause their collapse.
Iran can subjugate and destroy these regimes simply by using its proxies against them and threatening their economies with its control over both the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden. Iran can bring the Saudis to their knees without getting anywhere near a nuclear tripwire.
And like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Arab leaders are convinced that as she did in 1999 with Pyongyang, Sherman and her boss, Hanoi Kerry, are now paving the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
If the Arabs scoff at the US offer of a nuclear umbrella, Israelis don’t even have the luxury of snorting at the offer because there is no reason to believe that even a credible nuclear umbrella would deter Iran from attacking Israel with nuclear weapons.
In Israel’s case there are any number of scenarios under which Iran will see an advantage to attacking Israel with nuclear weapons, either directly or through one of its proxies that now encircle Israel along three borders.
And so we are left with the question of how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
As Netanyahu explained in his address before the joint houses of Congress on Tuesday, the deal that nObama is now offering Iran “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
By leaving Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact, and pledging to end the limitations on Iran’s nuclear program within a decade, nObama is enabling Iran to acquire nuclear arms both by cheating its way there as the North Koreans did, or by waiting out the deal and emerging immediately after as a nuclear power.
Either way, the deal as presently constituted empowers the regime. It enriches the ayatollahs and legitimizes their regime and their hegemonic actions and aspirations.
The problem with seeking to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is that according to arms control expert Graham Allison from Harvard University, and others, Iran passed the point of no return in terms of nuclear know-how in 2008. It has mastered the technology and the science and therefore has where withal to develop nuclear weapons, and rebuild nuclear infrastructures that may be destroyed or damaged in aerial and other attacks.
Given this dismal state of affairs there are three ways to approach the problem.
The first path is similar to Israel’s counterterror strategy of “mowing the lawn.” In counterterror parlance “mowing the lawn” involves destroying as much of the terrorist infrastructure that the terrorist foe possesses in as short a period as possible, and then repeating the process after the terror group reconstitutes its capabilities.
In the case of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a “mowing the lawn” approach would involve using force to destroy as many Iranian nuclear installations as possible in as short a campaign as possible in order to set Iran’s production schedule back for as long as possible, and then repeating the process, when Iran reconstitutes its capabilities.
The second path to block Iran’s nuclear advance is to use coercive diplomacy including harsh economic sanctions and other punitive means to force Iran to dismantle its nuclear installations and couple that coercive diplomacy with an intrusive inspections regime to ensure long term compliance.
The third means of curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions involves overthrowing the regime by providing active support – including organizational support and arms to regime opponents.
When Netanyahu spoke to the joint houses of Congress on Tuesday, he directly advanced the first two paths toward preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and indirectly advanced the third.
Iran can subjugate and destroy these regimes simply by using its proxies against them and threatening their economies with its control over both the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden. Iran can bring the Saudis to their knees without getting anywhere near a nuclear tripwire.
And like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Arab leaders are convinced that as she did in 1999 with Pyongyang, Sherman and her boss, Hanoi Kerry, are now paving the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
If the Arabs scoff at the US offer of a nuclear umbrella, Israelis don’t even have the luxury of snorting at the offer because there is no reason to believe that even a credible nuclear umbrella would deter Iran from attacking Israel with nuclear weapons.
In Israel’s case there are any number of scenarios under which Iran will see an advantage to attacking Israel with nuclear weapons, either directly or through one of its proxies that now encircle Israel along three borders.
And so we are left with the question of how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
As Netanyahu explained in his address before the joint houses of Congress on Tuesday, the deal that nObama is now offering Iran “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
By leaving Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact, and pledging to end the limitations on Iran’s nuclear program within a decade, nObama is enabling Iran to acquire nuclear arms both by cheating its way there as the North Koreans did, or by waiting out the deal and emerging immediately after as a nuclear power.
Either way, the deal as presently constituted empowers the regime. It enriches the ayatollahs and legitimizes their regime and their hegemonic actions and aspirations.
The problem with seeking to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is that according to arms control expert Graham Allison from Harvard University, and others, Iran passed the point of no return in terms of nuclear know-how in 2008. It has mastered the technology and the science and therefore has where withal to develop nuclear weapons, and rebuild nuclear infrastructures that may be destroyed or damaged in aerial and other attacks.
Given this dismal state of affairs there are three ways to approach the problem.
The first path is similar to Israel’s counterterror strategy of “mowing the lawn.” In counterterror parlance “mowing the lawn” involves destroying as much of the terrorist infrastructure that the terrorist foe possesses in as short a period as possible, and then repeating the process after the terror group reconstitutes its capabilities.
In the case of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a “mowing the lawn” approach would involve using force to destroy as many Iranian nuclear installations as possible in as short a campaign as possible in order to set Iran’s production schedule back for as long as possible, and then repeating the process, when Iran reconstitutes its capabilities.
The second path to block Iran’s nuclear advance is to use coercive diplomacy including harsh economic sanctions and other punitive means to force Iran to dismantle its nuclear installations and couple that coercive diplomacy with an intrusive inspections regime to ensure long term compliance.
The third means of curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions involves overthrowing the regime by providing active support – including organizational support and arms to regime opponents.
When Netanyahu spoke to the joint houses of Congress on Tuesday, he directly advanced the first two paths toward preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and indirectly advanced the third.
Netanyahu provided a sober-minded, carefully constructed argument for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He then demonstrated why nObama’s nuclear negotiating strategy enables Iran to become a nuclear power. In so doing, Netanyahu built sufficient bipartisan Congressional support for an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons to protect Israel from the nObama administration.
Whether Netanyahu will order such a strike, or when such a strike could be most effective, is impossible to judge. But he did secure Congressional support for it.
Netanyahu also created an opening for lawmakers who are frightened by the deal nObama is now negotiating to prevent him from completing it. Whether or when they will use the opportunity is still unclear. nObama has tremendous power and leverage over Democratic lawmakers and he has no compunction about using it to get his way.
On the other hand, buoyed by Netanyahu, Republicans also have power. If they use it judiciously, they will be able to secure 67 votes in favor of legislation that would require nObama to receive Senate approval for his nuclear deal, and would place harsh economic sanctions on Iran if it doesn’t meet the behavioral benchmarks of ending its sponsorship of terrorism, ending its meddling in the internal affairs of other states, and ending its threats to annihilate Israel that Netanyahu laid out.
Beyond that, by making clear that it is pure folly to assume that Iran will magically transform itself into a responsible actor on the international stage after securing the deal, Netanyahu provided the rationale for a strategy of regime change. Whether a future administration will adopt this option or not is unclear, but it is now evident that given the fact that Iran has the technological and scientific capacity to develop nuclear weapons, the only way in the long term to prevent that from happening is to overthrow the regime.
nObama and his advisers argue that there are only two options – their agreement, that enables Iran to build a nuclear arsenal in the coming years, or war. What Netanyahu made clear is that this is a false choice. The US is stronger than Iran. It has more leverage than Iran. All it needs to get a better agreement is a massively diminished desire to conclude one.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0315/glick030915.php3
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