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Iran Tag

Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon reported that that the Obama administration is willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a veto override when Congress votes on the Iran deal. This morning, CNN hosted a veritable White House press conference about the subject. Former State Department Iran negotiator Hillary Mann Leverett and Obama shill and Haaretz contributor Peter Beinart were anchor Chris Cuomo's entire panel. One point that Beinart made that deserves examination is his assertion that “Iranian dissidents want this deal to go through,” on the theory that opening up Iran will lessen the regime’s human rights abuses. He’s made the same argument here, and we're likely to hear it again in the coming weeks. It's worth asking, then, whether the human rights situation in Iran stands to improve. To begin with, Beinart is being disingenuous when he says that dissidents support the deal. Eli Lake documented in 2013 that, while some support it, many others do not.

Another day, another deadline busted. Officials attending nuclear policy talks in Vienna announced today that the deadline set by negotiators has been extended three days to July 10. This is the third time in a year that officials have blown past a deadline, but spokespeople from various parties blame this failure to agree on several "thorny" issues that appear to be hanging in the balance between total failure and...well, whatever level of "failure" will be represented by whatever terrible deal eventually emerges from this mess. Via the Wall Street Journal:
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters the two sides weren’t formally extending the deadline but would effectively stop the clock on the talks. “The news is, we are continuing the negotiations in these hours. You might see some ministers leaving in the next hours and then ready to come back in the coming hours and days,” said Ms. Mogherini, who chairs the six-power group. “We are continuing to negotiate for the next couple of days. That does not mean we are extending our deadlines,” she said, adding that “we are interpreting” the July 7 end-date “in a flexible way.” Ms. Mogherini said the negotiations have hit the most difficult and sensitive final issues, but that sealing a nuclear agreement “is still possible.”

Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon obtained an e-mail threatening Democratic legislators who have doubts about the nuclear deal with Iran that the administration is negotiating.
“Democrats in Congress are the only remaining obstacle to finalizing today’s historic deal,” Zack Malitz, campaign manager for CREDO, said in a statement emailed to reporters on July 2, along with a note that details of the email were not to be published until a deal was actually announced. “Every Democrat should go on the record right now in support of the deal, and pledge to defend it from attacks in Congress.” “Republicans will try to sabotage the deal and take us to war, but they can’t do it without Democratic votes,” Malitz wrote. “Progressives will hold accountable those Democrats who vote to help Republicans sabotage the deal and start a war.”
The Free Beacon cited a source who observed that this kind of political threat was consistent with the administration's mindset.
“This is exactly what you’d expect from the deal-at-any-cost lobby,” the source said. “The White House lied to Congress about what it would deliver and doesn’t have anything left than its raw political power.”
The Free Beacon report comes just after Bloomberg reported that an effort to promote a nuclear deal with Iran has been funded with millions since 2003.

Two recent articles document the multiple American capitulations to Iran in pursuit of a nuclear deal. One is Friday's column by Charles Krauthammer, which showed the numerous retreats the administration has taken from ensuring that Iran will stick to an agreement. Another is by Lee Smith, who earlier this week covered a number of retreats the administration took in allowing Iran to maintain its nuclear infrastructure. The administration's goal seems not to be preventing Iran from making a nuclear weapon but to making a deal. Iranian TV is talking tough: Krauthammer summarizes how the administration backed down from inspections, Iran's having to account for its past illicit nuclear research, as well as its generous application of sanctions relief. The matter of past nuclear work is necessary (and it's something that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei refuses discuss) in order to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear program. Here's what happened:

The arbitrary deadline to come to a nuclear agreement is less than a week away. Yet again, Iran's Supreme leader took to Twitter to make his demands -- demands not congruent with previous agreements. The New York Times reported Tuesday:
In a speech broadcast live on Iran state television, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanded that most sanctions be lifted before Tehran has dismantled part of its nuclear infrastructure and before international inspectors verify that the country is beginning to meet its commitments. He also ruled out any freeze on Iran’s sensitive nuclear enrichment for as long as a decade, as a preliminary understanding announced in April stipulates, and he repeated his refusal to allow inspections of Iranian military sites. American officials said they would not be baited into a public debate with the ayatollah, who has the final word on nuclear matters. But with Western foreign ministers already hinting that the negotiations may go past the June 30 deadline, both American and European officials have said in recent weeks that they are increasingly concerned about the possible effects of the ayatollah’s statements.

Representatives from the Yemeni southern separatist movement are meeting in Oman this week with Houthi officials in an attempt to stall the fighting that has led to a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished nation. In addition, a coalition loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has headed to Moscow for a meeting with Russian officials (Lost track of who is fighting who in Yemen? The AP puts it this way: The fighting in Yemen pits the Houthis and allied troops loyal to Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in September.) Meanwhile on the ground, anti-Houthi forces have managed to re-secure one of the border crossings between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This crossing was being held by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels as part of their retaliatory assault on Saudi Arabia; Saudi, determined to maintain its influence in the region in the face of a rising Iran, has for the past several months led an intense bombing campaign against Houthi strongholds. This, of course, has led to a massive anti-Saudi propaganda campaign on behalf of rebel fighters who seek to maintain their strategic hold on the region. More from Reuters:

IranTruth.org hopes to expose the dangers of the Obama administration's dealings with Iran. As part of the site launch, IranTruth released a new video chronicling the devolution of President Obama's Iran stance, beginning with Senator Obama's campaign promises:

Every headline today concerning Saudi Arabia and the conflict in Yemen contains the words "crunch time." Every. Single. One. It's an accurate assessment, of course, and it does a good job of describing the urgency that Saudi and western powers are finding themselves operating under. Saudi Arabia has now spent 11 weeks conducting airstrikes on key strategic targets in Yemen in an effort to drive back the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and bolster local fighting forces loyal to deposed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The strikes have done their job, destroying heavy artillery and machinery, and creating a chaotic playing field for rebel ground forces. But:
Despite the destruction of much of their heavy weaponry, the Houthi militia and army forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control most of the country's populated west and still daily attack Saudi territory with mortar fire or missiles. The possibility of a ground operation in support of the ragtag local groups still fighting the Houthis in Aden, Taiz, Marib and al-Dhala appears to have been discounted by the Saudis and their allies in an Arab coalition from early on.

Last week President Obama finally stated openly what everyone, including the Iranians, has known all along – that he is simply not willing to use military force to stop Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. Those of us with common sense and reason also know that his negotiations with Iran might delay, but will not stop, that country from attaining a nuclear weapon. We know this both because Obama himself told us so in an interview with NPR, and because once a military option is clearly off the table, Iran has no incentive to make concessions in a negotiation and no reason to comply with a negotiated agreement. With no US-sponsored military solution, at least for the remainder of Obama’s term, and no diplomatic solution, there are still two things left that the US can do. First, we can refrain from criminalizing the actions of other states for whom military action against Iran would be considered both reasonable and necessary. Second, we can, at the very, very, least, refrain from funding Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb ourselves.

President Obama's speech a week and a half ago at Washington D.C. synagogue Adas Israel was alternatively promoted as both an opportunity to address the scourge of anti-semitism, and a chance to reach out to American Jews. The speech did nothing to advance either goal and was tone-deaf to any Jews, or Americans for that matter, who don't buy into the president's foreign policy. As far as his reaching out, the president simply rehashed all of his administration's arguments about closing off Iran's paths to a nuclear weapon. He offered nothing new. Of course, he said that the deal he's trying to make with Iran will make Israel safer. He made a point of saying that he shares the goal with Israel of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; but he said it with no real conviction. He was just repeating a talking point. Repeating all of his talking points isn't going to convince someone who doesn't already agree with him. Notably, he repeated his 2012 line about having Israel's back. But with Israel's political establishment - Isaac Herzog is no less skeptical of the emerging deal than Benjamin Netanyahu is - doubting the efficacy of the ongoing diplomacy, that claim hardly seems credible. He says that he welcomes debate, but the night before Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress, Obama gave an interview to Reuters attempting to undercut Netanyahu's arguments.

Finally---a hostage crisis that didn't end in bloodshed. (Yet.) Today Houthi rebels released the first of several American hostages currently being held in Yemen. Casey L. Coombs was held by the Iranian-backed group for two weeks in the capital city of Sanaa before his family was informed of his successful transfer out of the country and into neighboring Oman. From the New York Times:
Mr. Coombs, who lived in Sana, Yemen’s capital, was arrested by Houthi militiamen there in mid-May, and traveled to neighboring Oman on Monday. He was scheduled to undergo a medical evaluation there before flying home to Seattle, his mother, Jill Marie Hammill, said in a telephone interview. Ms. Hammill said she had received a call from the International Committee of the Red Cross early Monday saying that Mr. Coombs was at the Sana airport and was preparing to leave Yemen. She was able to speak to her son on Monday afternoon, after he arrived in Oman. “I cannot describe how happy I am,” she said. Mr. Coombs has written for publications including The Intercept, The American Prospect and Time magazine. The Obama administration has said a number of Americans have been detained by the Houthis, a Shiite rebel group that took control of Yemen’s capital and forced the United States-backed Yemeni government from power earlier this year.

If you were looking for a monument to supreme egotism, you would have to go far to beat Obama's statement in this interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:
“Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this,” he said, referring to the apparently almost-finished nuclear agreement between Iran and a group of world powers led by the United States. “I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.”
I rack my brain to think of another president in our history---or another statesman or even another prominent politician---who would think to say "trust me, because my ego is riding on this." What on earth does ego have to do with judgment? In the calculus of what are the most important considerations about any Iran deal, the most important would be "our profound national-security interests" and those of the entire world. That's what's riding on it, that's the reason to "lock it down" (odd phrase for negotiations). The state of Obama's personal reputation ought to be so low on the list of things to think about that it shouldn't even be on his radar screen at this point, much less ours. Obama says he's got a special personal interest in "locking this down." But an agreement on nuclear weapons with Iran is not merely a question of applying oneself. Obama may think there's no limits to his powers, but sizing up Iran and negotiating with a country which is essentially an aggressive, repressive, fanatical enemy isn't just a matter of trying hard enough and thinking you're the smartest guy in the room. Even if it were true that Obama wanted and even needed to negotiate a good deal for the US in order to protect his precious reputation, that doesn't mean he has a clue how to get there from here, or that it's even possible to do so.

Leave it to the good ol' Ayatollah to tattle on U.S. officials. If Atatollah Khamenei's Twitter feed is any indicator, Iran is not too keen on the idea of nuclear inspections. Early this morning, Iran's Supreme Leader tweeted: The New York Times Ayatollah Khamenei, "ruled out inspections of Iranian military sites and interviews of Iranian nuclear scientists in any potential deal on its nuclear program," at a graduation speech Wednesday.

I appeared on Saturday, May 16, 2015, on The Craig Silverman Show on 710 KNUS in Aurora, Colorado. The conversation covered my background, what it means to be a conservative on campus, the anti-Israel boycott movement, the Pope on a Palestinian "state," the Pew Poll on Christians, and the fate of Christians in the Middle East. On Ted Cruz at Harvard Law School:
"When you're going to be political at a place like Harvard Law School, you have to be better than everybody else if you're a conservative. You have to be smarter, you have to be more well-read, you have to be better-prepared, because it's you against a lot of people. And certainly he wouldn't have been the only conservative at Harvard Law School, but he would have been in a severe minority. And when you're in that situation, you have to be better. And that's what I see with a lot of politically active conservative students on campus... [Cruz] had to sharpen his skills because he's basically arguing with everybody or almost everybody. Whereas if you're in a liberal position at a school most people agree with you, you don't need to sharpen your skills and you don't get tested the way you do if you're a conservative."
On the anti-Israel boycott movement:
"We're dealing with people who really are just outright liars. And I say that all the time because that's what they are. And they just make stuff up, they twist facts, they ignore facts."
On Israeli-Palestinian negotiations:

A bill ensuring Congressional oversight on any proposed nuclear deal with Iran is headed to the President's desk. The bill passed through the House 400-25 after a hard-fought battle in the Senate earlier this month. It imposes a 30 day buffer preventing the President from waiving any congressional sanctions against Iran while Congress reviews the deal; additionally, if Congress disapproves of the deal, the President will be unable to waive certain congressionally-imposed sanctions. Opponents of the bill maintained that its provisions were not strong enough to provide an adequate buffer between the Obama Administration and a nuclear Iran; its supporters, however, argued that the bill would be the best chance for the American people to weigh in on the controversial impending nuclear deal. The legislation eventually passed the Senate 98-1, with only Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton objecting. President Obama is expected to sign the bill, giving Congress the power of initial rejection but ushering in a new round of contentious negotiations over the nuclear deal itself. The House vote came as Obama met with the leadership (though not necessarily the figureheads) of leading Persian Gulf states in a series of meetings "designed to narrow differences" over the impending nuclear deal:

A couple of remarkable news reports have been broadcast in recent days about the care given Syrians wounded in the civil war across the border. One - the more dramatic one - was at the Israeli news site Ynet (affiliated with the daily Yedioth Ahronot); the other at CNN. The Ynet article written and narrated by one of the paper's top journalists, Ron Ben-Yishai told of an injured man -likely a jihadist - who was severely injured by a bullet to the stomach and shrapnel wounds. Israel has "trusted intermediaries," on the other side  of the border who communicate when there is an injured person who needs treatment in Israel. Most of the injured are woman, children and the elderly. However there are also younger men, such as the subject of the article. In this case the Israeli were told that without a hospital the man would die. Despite having contacts in Syria, the Israelis know who's on the other side of the border on the Golan Heights, so they have to take care:
At around 8 pm on the day the wounded Syrian was transferred, parties on the Syrian side announced they were approaching the fence. The Israeli ambulance and paramedics readied themselves, while Givati troops received a briefing and then headed out to the fence area. Their role is to make sure that those who sent the wounded citizens to the area had not laden them with explosives, as well as to ensure that the wounded person was not bait in a scheme designed to lure IDF troops into an ambush. Considering the information Israel has on its new neighbors across the border on the Golan Heights – these extra precautions are necessary. Half an hour later, the commander of the forces stationed near the border gave approval to send out the armored vehicle carrying the paramedics to collect the wounded citizen, who was already waiting on the Israeli side.