Who Are the Principal Violators of International Law? - Lawrence A. Franklin

by Lawrence A. Franklin

In failing to adhere to international law, the United Nations has, as its principle violator, primarily itself.
The real dispute is not about a "Palestinian State." It is about who has the right to the entire area. This is also the reason the Palestinians will never sign an "end of conflict" agreement.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to depict a world without Israel. This is to be done in stages, a "salami" tactic, by which any land acquired is to be used as a forward base from which to take the rest. The Phased Plan was never rescinded.
Hamas, with whom the PA is now aligned in a "Unity Government," takes the Phased Plan a bit farther. Hamas, in its Charter, advocates not only displacing Israel, but killing all the Jews worldwide as well, or genocide. This too has never been rescinded.
And now the PA and Hamas are to be rewarded for aggression? Such a move flies in the face of the UN's own international agreements -- signed by all parties under international law. They state that the Israel-Palestine dispute is to be resolved only by face-to-face negotiations.

There is an unspoken racist assumption that underlies the drive for a separate Palestinian Arab state: that no Jews should be allowed to live there. Presumably, this is why any land now resided on by Jews in the West Bank is called a "settlement." The assumption is apparently that the entire area is an illegal colony.

A map of Palestine published in an 1890 atlas by John Y. Huber & Co. of Philadelphia (click to enlarge).

What is less well known is that even though Jews have continuously lived in this region -- it is called Judea -- for nearly 4,000 years, to many Muslims, the entire State of Israel, not just the West Bank, is considered an "illegal settlement." Please look at any map of "Palestine." It is exactly this view that is the real source of the dispute. The real dispute is not about a "Palestinian State." It is about who has the right to the entire area. This is also the reason the Palestinian negotiators will never sign an "end of conflict" agreement. As we have seen with Syria and Iraq, "official borders," even and including the "pre-1967 line," do not matter any more.

Further, the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah as well as Hamas -- continues to educate the next generation of Arab Palestinians that Israel is destined to disappear. The PA continues to depict a world without Israel and a future without Israel -- a vision first embodied in the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) 1974 Ten Point Program, known as the "Phased Plan." Its stated goal -- never rescinded -- is the "liberation of all of Palestine." This is to be done in stages, a "salami" tactic, by which any land acquired is to be used as a forward base from which to take the rest.[1]

Hamas, with whom the PA is now aligned in a "Unity Government," takes the Phased Plan a bit farther. Hamas, in its Charter, advocates not only displacing Israel, but killing all the Jews worldwide as well, or genocide. This too has never been rescinded.

The fraudulent diplomatic charade now underway in the U.S. and Europe, treating Palestinian Arabs as the only victims, ignores the historical reality that a Jewish claim to these territories is at least as valid, if not more.

It is not the Jews or the Israelis who have rejected peace; they signed agreements, still in effect, with both Jordan and Egypt, and have offered the Palestinians opportunity after opportunity to do the same.

It was the Arabs and Muslims that rejected the Partition Plan internationally offered them in 1947.[2] It was the Arabs and Muslims that attacked Israel on the day of its founding -- as they did every war after that -- but were defeated.[3] The 1949 armistice line -- where the fighting stopped -- is now pointed to as the new border to which Israel must supposedly retreat.

And now they are about to be rewarded for aggression?

Speaking in October 1947 of the UN partition plan, Arab League Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Azzam (left) said the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades." Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, reading out Israel's Proclamation of Independence on May 14, 1948, said, "we call upon the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace and to play their part in building the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and permanent."

There are nearly two million Arabs with full and equal rights living in Israel to this day. Ironically, they enjoy greater rights than they would have in any other regional state, including seats in Israel's Parliament, the Knesset, from which many of them freely and loudly criticize Israel non-stop. Non-Muslims in many Islamic states do not enjoy full citizenship. Minorities in many Muslim states are treated as dhimmis, at best: "tolerated" second-class residents, who have to pay protection money (jizya) to live at the whim of their Muslim rulers.[4]

There has for years been a silent movement afoot -- a diplomatic sleight-of-hand -- which implies that "Israel," the name, may exist, but as a Muslim State, where Jews may live, as dhimmis. The same plan probably exists among many Muslims to rule over Catholics in parts of Spain. The notion of being treated as dhimmis in their own Biblically historic land has been met by Jews with less than enthusiasm.

To protect Israel from such a maneuver, some Israelis have suggested that its parliament pass a law that Israel be declared officially a Jewish state -- just as Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are officially Islamic states, and as England is officially an Anglican Christian state. Unlike the leaders of Iran or England, however, those who have suggested that Israel be officially a Jewish state have been denounced as racists.

The question that refuses to go away is: Why the double standard?

As mountainous evidence accumulates that any territory presently ceded by Israel at this time would be vulnerable to seizure by extremist Islamic terrorists, there seems to be another diplomatic movement afoot, among some Europeans, unilaterally to grant the Palestinians their own state. Presumably, it is all right with these Europeans if that state is ruled by Islamist terrorists, such as Hamas, or if it is taken over by terrorists worse than Hamas, such as ISIS. Presumably it is all right with these Europeans if the leadership remains repressive, lawless and despotic -- indifferent to human rights, the rule of law, and still promoting genocide. And these Europeans actually think they are being so good and moral?

So far, all diplomatic progress toward the emergence of a separate Palestinian state has happened only with the hypocritical non-binding endorsements of several EU member-state parliaments, namely Sweden, Ireland and France.

Such a move flies in the face of the UN's own international agreements -- signed by all parties under international law. They state that the Israel-Palestinian dispute is to be resolved only by face-to-face negotiations.

The decades-old failure of the UN to abide by its own diplomatic agreements has created an opportunity for Palestinians to manufacture a false narrative. Furthermore, the UN has arrogated to itself the entirely false air of legitimacy for establishing yet another Arab state.

In failing to adhere to international law, the United Nations has, as its principal violator, primarily itself.

Internationally binding post-World War I conferences and treaties, as well as the Mandate system of the League of Nations (LN), make no mention that any portion of the land of Palestine would be ceded to Arabs. On the contrary, all of these international documents delineate that the new state that would emerge from the LN's assignment of the Palestine Mandate to the United Kingdom would be a "Jewish National Home." Moreover, this Jewish National Home was also recognized as consisting of the historically recognized land of Biblical Israel, including Judea and Samaria, which are today often referred to as the "West Bank" of the Jordan River.


These documents contain no ambiguity, and no counter-narratives suggesting otherwise. In fact, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge enthusiastically affirmed in 1922 that it was official U.S. policy to recognize a planned future state for the Jewish people by his support for a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration.[5] There was also never any challenge to the historical reality that Jerusalem has always been the capital of Israel, and exclusively and entirely within the land of Israel.

This juxtaposition of internationally-certified, legally-documented, historical commitments, contrasted to the current Palestinian narrative as "victims of occupation," is simply another extreme example of "historical revisionism," a specialty of the Kremlin. Unless this false narrative is exposed for the fabrication it is, the future viability of international law -- and the continued U.S. funding of the United Nations -- should be in serious question.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

---

[1] The Palestinian Liberation Organization, at the 12^th meeting of the Palestinian National Council in Cairo, in 1974, presented their "Ten Point Plan," called the "Phased Plan" or "salami strategy" because of its endorsement of a step-by-step process until all of the territory held by Israel was captured by any means necessary.
[2] Arab League Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Azzam (Azzam Pasha) rejected the UN's 1947 Partition Plan.
[3] Israel had repeatedly said that any Arab who stayed would be welcome, as evidenced that there are within the borders of Israel today about two million Arabs.
[4] Dhimmitude: Jews and Christians under Muslim Rule, by Bat Ye'or, 1985.
[5] The resolution was later endorsed by 37 state governors.


Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5480/international-law-violators

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Experts: Iran Will be '3 Weeks from a Nuclear Weapon' - Ari Yashar

by Ari Yashar

Experts tell science magazine deal will let Iran get advanced centrifuges, meaning it will be a short sprint from a nuclear bomb.

 

Responding to the Iran nuclear deal sealed Thursday, one expert has revealed that the nuclear centrifuge research allowed by the deal likely will allow the Islamic regime to reach a point where it can make a dash for the nuclear bomb within three weeks.

Joe Cirincione, head of the American anti-nuclear proliferation group The Ploughshares Fund, told New Scientist that Iran currently has 8,000 kilograms of uranium enriched to the point where they can be used as nuclear fuel.

The centrifuges Iran has declared would be able to further enrich that quantity into a nuclear bomb within two to three months at present, he says.

But with the deal, during which Iran will be allowed to continue enriching at a reduced rate and conduct research that could let it improve its centrifuge technology, that breakout time will drop considerably.

According to Cirincione, with more advanced centrifuges achieved through the deal, Iran will be able to march to the bomb in a mere three weeks.

Aside from the danger of Iran getting enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the Islamic regime will also need to develop a warhead capable of containing the cataclysmic weapon.

Christopher Bidwell of the Federation of American Scientists told New Scientist that concerns about Iran's suspected warhead research are not even addressed in the framework deal, although he says the law requires that topic to be addressed in order for the US to lift sanctions.

"Sneak out" - worse than breakout

Iran has long operated its clandestine nuclear program, with many warning that it will deceive world powers and continue developing nuclear arms power covertly.

James Acton, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace located in Washington DC, gave further credence to those fears, saying that beyond nuclear breakout there is a greater threat of Iranian nuclear "sneak out."

A number of countries have tried to gain nuclear power since the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said, but instead of using breakout by which uranium is diverted from declared facilities, many have used "clandestine enrichment plants." One example of covert success has been North Korea.

Acton noted that both of Iran's enrichment plants started in exactly that manner.

In order for Iran to be blocked from secretly going nuclear, Bidwell said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors must also be allowed in to undeclared nuclear facilities.

That would require Iran signing the 1997 Additional Protocol of the IAEA, allowing inspectors to visit any site at short notice, monitor non-nuclear materials used in the enrichment process, and perform environmental sampling for leaked radionuclides, he said.

But back in 2006 Iran stated clearly it will not sign the protocol.

What's more, Acton says the current situation may require further steps not included in the protocol, such as interviewing nuclear scientists, and monitoring all new centrifuge components.

The Arms Control Association think tank in Washington DC has called for inspectors to also be allowed to weigh Iran's uranium from the mine all the way to enrichment, so as to strictly make sure none is whisked away for covert development.


Ari Yashar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193634#.VSAa-eGzd-8

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Arabs Blast "Obama's Deal" with Iran - Khaled Abu Toameh

by Khaled Abu Toameh

"This is a dangerous agreement... [it] provides Iran with what it needs most to pursue its wars and expansionism against the Arabs: funds." — Salah al-Mukhtar, Ammon News.
"Iran has tried to intervene in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and it is seeing that it's not paying any price... There is also a feeling in Tehran that the U.S. is avoiding a military confrontation with the Iranians." — Hassan al-Barari, Al-Sharq.
According to Hani al-Jamal, an Egyptian political and regional researcher, the deal means that the international community has accepted Iran as a nuclear power.

Many Arabs have expressed deep concern over the nuclear deal that was reached this week between Iran and the world powers, including the US.

Arab leaders and heads of state were polite enough not to voice public criticism of the agreement when President Barack Obama phoned them to inform them about it. But this has not stopped Arab politicians, political analysts and columnists reflecting government thinking in the Arab world from lashing out at what they describe as "Obama's bad and dangerous deal with Iran."

A happy moment for Iran. P5+1 leaders pose with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif after nuclear negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2, 2015. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

The Arabs, especially those living in the Gulf, see the framework agreement as a sign of US "weakness" and a green light for Iran to pursue its "expansionist" scheme in the Arab world.
"Some Arab countries are opposed to the nuclear deal because it poses a threat to their interests," said the Egyptian daily Al-Wafd in an article entitled, "Politicians: Obama's deal with Iran threatens Arab world."

The newspaper quoted Hani al-Jamal, an Egyptian political and regional researcher, as saying that the deal means that the international community has accepted Iran as a nuclear power. He predicted that the framework agreement would put Iran and some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt on a collision course.

Al-Jamal advised the Arab countries to form a "Sunni NATO" that would guarantee Pakistan's status as a nuclear power and Arab ally in face of the "Iranian and Israeli threat."

Jihad Odeh, an Egyptian professor of political science, said that Obama's "achievements are designed to dismantle the Arab world. Obama wants to make historic achievements before the end of his term in office by destroying Al-Qaeda, seeking rapprochement with Cuba and reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran."

Although Saudi Arabia, which is currently waging war on Iranian-backed Houthi militiamen in Yemen, "welcomed" the nuclear agreement, it has privately expressed concern over the deal.

Similarly, several Gulf countries that initially welcomed the agreement are beginning to voice concern over its repercussions on the region. For the past several months, the Arabs have been warning against Iran's ongoing effort to take control over their countries.

"The US surely does not want to see a more powerful Iranian hegemony in the region, but at the same time, it does not appear to mind some kind of Iranian influence in the region," said Nasser Ahmed Bin Ghaith, a researcher from the United Arab Emirates. "Iran has been seeking to reclaim its previous role as the region's police." Bin Ghaith said that it was clear that Western recognition of Iranian regional influence would come at the expense of the Gulf countries. "The Gulf states should build strategic partnerships with the regional powers of Pakistan and Turkey, who share the Gulf nations' fears of Iranian ambitions in the region," he added.

Echoing widespread fear among Arabs of Iran's territorial ambitions in the Middle East, political analyst Hassan al-Barari wrote in Qatar's daily Al-Sharq against the policy of appeasement toward Tehran:

"Iran has tried to intervene in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and it is seeing that it's not paying any price; on the contrary, there are attempts by the big powers to reach understandings with Iran. There is also a feeling in Tehran that the US is avoiding a military confrontation with the Iranians and their proxies. The Gulf countries have learned from the lessons of the past in various areas. The policy of appeasement has only led to wars. Any kind of appeasement with Iran will only lead it to ask for more and probably meddle in the internal affairs of the Arab countries and increase its arrogance."

Even Jordanians have joined the chorus of Arabs expressing fear over Iran's growing threat to the Arab world, especially in wake of the nuclear deal with the US and the big powers.

Salah al-Mukhtar, a Jordanian columnist, wrote an article entitled, "Oh Arabs wake up, your enemy is Iran," in which he accused the US of facilitating Tehran's wars against Arab countries.

Describing Iran as "Eastern Israel," al-Mukhtar said that the most dangerous aspect of the framework agreement is that it allows Iran to continue with its "destructive wars" against the Arabs. "This is a dangerous agreement, particularly for Saudi Arabia and the opposition forces in Iraq and Syria," the Jordanian columnist cautioned. "This agreement provides Iran with what it needs most to pursue its wars and expansionism against the Arabs: funds. Lifting the sanctions is America's way of backing the dangerous and direct wars against Arabs; the lifting of the sanctions also provides the Iranians with the funds needed to push with their Persian advancement. The US wants to drain Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf countries in preparation for dividing them."

Lebanon's English-language Daily Star newspaper also voiced skepticism over the nuclear deal. "For all the talk of this deal contributing to making the world safer, if Obama is truly concerned with his legacy, especially in the Middle East, he must now work with Iran to encourage it to become a regular member of the international community once again, and not a country which sponsors conflict, whether directly or via proxies, across the region," the paper editorialized. "Otherwise, this deal could just leave Iran emboldened in its expansionist designs."

In addition to the Arabs, Iranian opposition figures have also come out against the nuclear deal.

Maryam Rajavi, an Iranian politician and president of the National Council of Resistance, commented that,

A statement of generalities, without spiritual leader Khamenei's signature and official approval, does not block Tehran's path to a nuclear bomb nor prevent its intrinsic deception.
Continuing talks with religious fascism in Iran - as part of a policy of appeasement - will not secure the region and world from the threat of nuclear proliferation.
Complying with UN Security Council resolutions is the only way to block the mullahs from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Leniency and unwarranted concessions by the P5+1 to the least trustworthy regime in the world today only grants it more time and further aggravates the dangers it poses to the Iranian people, to the region and to the wider world.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5493/arabs-blast-obama-deal-with-iran

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Nuclear Breakout by Iran and North Korea - James Lewis

by James Lewis

In effect, the United States has given up the effort to prevent nuclear breakout.  Armageddon cults like the mullahs now have their weapon of choice.

Obama did not have to do this.  He wanted to.

This from Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post on April 3:

… we are now facing the unfolding disaster that Obama has wrought. … the US has just given the Iranians a green light to behave as if they have already built their nuclear umbrella. … [T]he US and its partners have just removed all significant obstacles from their path to nuclear capabilities. The Iranians know it. Their proxies know it. Their enemies know it.
… The surrounding Arab states led by Saudi Arabia are pursuing nuclear weapons.

Don’t look now, but North Korea is a nuclear power today, with missiles able to strike Japan, and soon Hawaii and California.

The Norks got a free pass, because Bill Clinton’s SecState, Madeleine Albright, faked an agreement with Kim Jong-il in 2000, supposedly to stop uranium enrichment and missile development.

Then the Norks violated it, as everybody knew they would.  Today North Korea has nuclear bombs and missiles.
Naturally, the media celebrated Albright’s “accord” with Kim Jong-il, and said nothing about the North Korean breakout.  

Obama is playing the same sucker game in collusion with the mullahs, and the biggest betrayal is against us – against Americans who want our nation and the world to survive.  Obama is copying Clinton’s kabuki script, kicking that nuclear can down the road, so that ultimately Republicans will have to deal with it.  Then the Democrats will scapegoat the Republicans when they try to deal with the fallout.  Bill Clinton had eight years to stop al-Qaeda before 9/11/01, but the media blamed George W. Bush.

But the biggest victims of Obama’s surrender are our former allies.  America’s nuclear shield protected the world from 1949 on, when Stalin exploded his first bomb.  Today, in response to the North Korean threat, Japan is rearming for the first time since World War II.  They don’t say if they are building nukes, but the North Koreans won’t take them seriously if they don’t.

Obama just pulled the same stunt with Iran.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt will now feel forced to get their own nuclear weapons – because we’ve left them exposed to Iran’s nuclear jihad.  Israel will cooperate with the Saudis and Egyptians because they face the same enemy.
Obama had a six-year window to stop Iran, using the same strategy that worked against Saddam: a trade embargo and a no-fly zone to render his air force useless.  Obama and Val Jarrett wasted six years in secret talks with the mullahs, while lying hundreds of times that “Iran will never get nuclear weapons.” 

Until the mullahs were past the point of no return.

The current agreement is therefore a pure sucker play.  It’s for the media only, since the facts are irreversible.
Obama has sacrificed the safety of our former allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the rest.  They are arming up as fast as possible.

America’s nuclear umbrella, which kept the peace between the big powers since 1949 – six decades – is now in tatters.  Nobody trusts us anymore, and there is no reason they should.

The duplicitous U.S. media will celebrate Obama’s surrender as a great victory.

A new nuclear arms race has already started in the Middle East.  It’s anybody’s guess whether ultimately ISIS or al-Qaeda will end up with nukes.  The Iranians are just as bad as ISIS, and they are so confident of their path to nuclear weapons that they are sending conventional forces into Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

When you have nukes, you don’t have to use them.  All you have to do is threaten.  Your home territory has become invulnerable, and you can just knock off any opposition by conventional means.  That’s what Iran is now doing in Yemen, right next to Saudi Arabia, and with the ability to throttle the entrance to the Red Sea.

In effect, the United States has given up the effort to prevent nuclear breakout.  Armageddon cults like the mullahs now have their weapon of choice.

Obama did not have to do this.  He wanted to.

Chances are that he sees this farce as his chance to run for U.N. secretary general.  His own glorious future will be bought by the proceeds of surrender.

North Korea is already selling weapons technology to other rogues, including Iran.  Iranian officers have been spotted observing nuclear bomb experiments in North Korea.  Future rogues no longer have to build their own super-bombs.  They can simply import them, which narrows the warning window to months rather than years.

All the nations threatened by Iran and North Korea understand these facts.

Here are some of the consequences.

1. Threatened nations will get their own nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles as soon as possible.  Pakistan is thought to be the source for Saudi nukes, and the Saudis may simply provide them to Egypt, which has the manpower to protect the vast deserts of Arabia.  The Iranians have just taken over the strategic chokepoint of Yemen, and while Arab powers are attacking, they will need boots on the ground to reconquer that territory.
    
2. Rogue powers can now attack.  Without an American nuclear umbrella, Eastern Europe and the Baltic nations are directly threatened by Putin, who now has nothing to fear.  In the Middle East, Iranian troops are already on the march, with the ultimate aim of conquering Mecca and Medina and overthrowing the Saudis, destroying Israel, and killing off the infidels unless they surrender.
    
3. For three centuries, since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, nation-states have controlled territories and societies, guaranteeing safety for their citizens against foreign attack.  Today, territory is no longer the name of the game, since rogue states can launch nukes with ICBMs that can reach anywhere in the world.  Bulgarian hackers can make Denial of Service attacks against American websites.  Borders and territory may lose much of their meaning. 
    
4. Anti-missile defenses will improve, but it will be years before defensive technology catches up with nuclear offense.
    
5. The temptation for pre-emptive strikes with cyber weapons or EMPs is therefore rising fast.
    
6. The biotechnology revolution is making many new powerful and hard-to-trace molecules that can be used in silent warfare.  For example, the MAO-A gene, called “the warrior gene,” produces a protein that directly affects aggressiveness.  Molecules can be designed to increase or decrease the expression of MAO-A.  Hundreds of other molecules could be used.
    
7. While chemical weapons have been prohibited for decades, as soon as decision-makers are forced to decide between total war and insidious molecular weapons, they may well choose molecules.  In Syria, Assad has been using chlorine bombs to suffocate and kill civilians.  The taboo against these weapons has already been breached.  Less murderous but more insidious molecules are now possible.
    
8. With the breakdown of privacy protections with Web 3.0, there are degrees of warfare that never existed before.

The future looks much more unstable.  It is the price of Obama’s blind pursuit of personal glory.

James Lewis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/nuclear_breakout_by_iran_and_north_korea.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Iran’s Takeover of Yemen - Arnold Ahlert

by Arnold Ahlert

No one ought to be more embarrassed by this latest development than the Obama administration, whose ongoing determination to label Yemen a counter-terrorist success story, now borders on Orwellian.

Adding an exclamation point to the folly of the “deal to make a deal” outcome of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Iran-backed Shi’ite rebels in Yemen seized the presidential palace in the coastal city of Aden.

Houthi rebels had fought their way through the commercial district of the city before taking over the Maasheeq palace, the former home of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi fled the country for Saudi Arabia last month, when it became apparent the Houthi advance was succeeding. Previously he fled to Aden from the rebel-held capital city of Sanaa.

Making the most of the ongoing chaos in Yemen, al Qaeda terrorists raided and captured the coastal city of al-Mukalla, freeing about 300 inmates held captive in a local prison. Senior al-Qaida operative Khaled Baterfi, who had been held since 2011, was one of the inmates liberated in the assault. Yemeni security forces also noted that al Qaeda has deployed its forces across major roads leading into the city, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from retaking it. Al-Mukalla is in the province of Hadramawt, most of which still remains controlled by forces loyal to the exiled president.

The palace’s takeover in Aden was viewed as a blow to the Saudi Arabian-led coalition comprised of Egypt, most of the Gulf states and Pakistan. They had been carrying out an air campaign they thought would halt the Houthi advance and that of their Saleh loyalist allies (forces loyal to Hadi’s predecessor, ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh). And despite the fact that those air strikes focused on Aden over the previous two days, they were unable to halt the invaders’ approach into the city’s east and north.

Hours after Aden’s central neighborhood known as the Crater was seized, additional unidentified armed men arrived by sea in a section of the city yet to be captured by the rebels. A Yemeni official denied the arrival of troops, and a port official insisted the men were armed guards from a Chinese ship who had come into the city to aid the evacuation of civilians. Nonetheless residents of Crater said the rebels assumed control of the city by mid-day yesterday, and that they had deployed tanks and foot patrols through empty streets. “People are afraid and terrified by the bombardment,” Crater resident Farouq Abdu told Reuters by telephone. “No one is on the streets. It’s like a curfew.” Another resident revealed that Houthi snipers had taken up positions on a hilltop overlooking the neighborhood, and were firing on the streets below. Houses struck by rockets were ablaze, and warnings relayed to residents over loudspeakers urged them to move to safer parts of the city.

Both sides weighed in on the fighting. “Saleh and the Houthis are keeping the pressure on Aden, which is the weak point in Saudi strategy,” said an unidentified diplomat in Riyadh. “I think the Saudis would put ground forces into Aden to recapture it if it falls. It is a red line for them.” Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdulsalam insisted Saudi Arabia’s intervention was an outright failure. “The victories in Aden today embarrass this campaign and silenced the aggressor states,” he declared.

No one ought to be more embarrassed by this latest development than the Obama administration, whose ongoing determination to label Yemen a counter-terrorist success story, now borders on Orwellian. The descent into ideologically-induced denial began last August when all non-essential U.S. personnel were ordered by the State Department to leave the country, and all other Americans were urged to leave because of “the continued potential for terrorist attacks.” One month later, President Obama insisted the “strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

In January, CNN wondered whether Yemen unrest that included the presidential palace in Sanaa being overrun by Houthi rebels, and Yemen’s minister of information describing the takeover  as the “completion of a coup” might throw a “monkey wrench” into Obama’s State of the Union message. Undeterred, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest doubled down. Yemen is “a place where the American counterterrorism strategy that has been put in place by President Obama has succeeded in degrading the threat that those organizations pose to the United States,” he insisted. “We intend to implement an analogous strategy against ISIL.”

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, March became the cruelest month. On March 17, the Washington Post revealed the Pentagon could not account for more than $500 million in military aid given to Yemen, “amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, revealed the political machinations behind the administration’s belief it could quell terrorist insurgencies absent American intervention. “The administration really wanted to stick with this narrative that Yemen was different from Iraq, that we were going to do it with fewer people, that we were going to do it on the cheap,” he explained. “They were trying to do with a minimalist approach because it needed to fit with this narrative . . . that we’re not going to have a repeat of Iraq.”

On Saturday March 21 the narrative took another beating when U.S. troops evacuated a Yemeni air base following al Qaeda’s seizure of a nearby town. On March 23, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf insisted it was of little consequence. “Although we have temporarily relocated our remaining U.S. government personnel from Yemen, we continue to actively monitor threats and have resources prepared in the region to address them,” she told reporters.

Two days later, President Hadi fled the country. Incredibly the narrative remained the same. “The White House does continue to believe that a successful counter-terrorism strategy is one that will build up the capacity of the central government to have local fighters on the ground to take the fight to extremists in their own country,” Earnest told reporters at the White House. “That is a template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat that we face from extremists in places like Yemen.”

The next day in an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Earnest remained just as earnest. “The goal of U.S. policy toward Yemen has never been to try to build a Jeffersonian democracy there,” he told incredulous co-host Mika Brzezinski. “The goal of U.S. policy in Yemen is to make sure that Yemen cannot be a safe haven that extremists can use to attack the west and to attack the United States.”

As of yesterday, Yemen appeared to be exactly that. The latest violence has claimed the lives of 44 people, including 18 civilians.

Saudi Arabia has not ruled out a ground invasion. Coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmad Asiri insists the operation to oust the rebels, known as Decisive Storm, would continue. He noted that coalition fighter jets had targeted rebel-controlled ballistic missiles, air defenses and weapons depots, along with troop positions engaged in the Aden fighting. But they refrained from doing so inside Aden to avoid civilian casualties. He further noted the coalition’s naval forces controlled waters surrounding Yemen and were setting up a blockade.

There are dire regional implications should the Houthis gain complete control of Aden and the critical naval chokepoint of Bab el-Mandeb, or Mandab Strait. This “Gateway of Tears” connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and is the access point to the Red Sea and a key route for Israeli and European trade. A Houthi takeover would give Iran a critically strategic port for its warships. Last December, Iran conducted a major naval maneuver on the other side of the Persian Gulf from Yemen, one Israeli news site Arutz Sheva characterized as “an expression of commitment by Iran to aid the Houthis, and demarcate its strategic aspirations in the region.” Aspirations that “could directly threaten the southern naval exit from Israel from the port of Eilat.”

Iranian aspirations were further buttressed yesterday by the announcement of a deal regarding nuclear negotiations. It was characterized by President Obama as one that would “cut off every pathway that Iran could take to a nuclear weapon,” even as chief Iranian negotiator Javad Zarif insisted none of the measures negotiated to scale back Iran’s nuclear program “include closing any of our facilities”—and even as Iraqi weapons inspector Charles Duelfer reminds us the weapon inspections that form the critical heart of this deal “can be no tougher than the body that empowers them—in this instance the UN Security Council. And herein lies the agreement’s fundamental weakness—and perhaps its fatal flaw. Do we really want to depend on Vladimir Putin?” he asks.

As the events unfolding in Yemen reveal, Obama’s judgment is infused with a level of denialism so profound, reality itself becomes irrelevant. It is astounding to note that in the space of the last few months, the administration has gone from backing Hadi, to making overtures to the Iranian backed-rebels, to subsequently backing a Saudi collation to topple the rebels when they rejected those overtures. All the while they bend over backwards to accommodate Iran and its regional ambitions—all of which are utterly inimical to the Saudi coalition. While such inane capriciousness might look good in the faculty lounges of elite Ivy League schools, it has engendered chaos, disaster and death in the Middle East and beyond. And it is chaos, disaster and death that will remain ongoing for as long as this administration remains in charge, chasing its self-aggrandizing “historic” legacy.

Arnold Ahlert

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/arnold-ahlert/irans-takeover-of-yemen/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Diplomatic Track to War - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

With this broad range of great power concessions already in its pocket, the question of whether or not a deal is reached has become a secondary concern. The US and its negotiating partners have agreed to a set of understanding with the Iranians. Whether these understandings become a formal agreement or not is irrelevant because the understandings are already being implemented.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The world powers assembled at Lausanne, Switzerland, with the representatives of the Islamic Republic may or may not reach a framework deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But succeed or fail, the disaster that their negotiations have unleashed is already unfolding. The damage they have caused is irreversible.

US President Barack Obama, his advisers and media cheerleaders have long presented his nuclear diplomacy with the Iran as the only way to avoid war. Obama and his supporters have castigated as warmongers those who oppose his policy of nuclear appeasement with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.

But the opposite is the case. Had their view carried the day, war could have been averted.
Through their nuclear diplomacy, Obama and his comrades started the countdown to war.
In recent weeks we have watched the collapse of the allied powers’ negotiating positions.

They have conceded every position that might have placed a significant obstacle in Iran’s path to developing a nuclear arsenal.

They accepted Iran’s refusal to come clean on the military dimensions of its past nuclear work and so ensured that to the extent UN nuclear inspectors are able to access Iran’s nuclear installations, those inspections will not provide anything approaching a full picture of its nuclear status. By the same token, they bowed before Iran’s demand that inspectors be barred from all installations Iran defines as “military” and so enabled the ayatollahs to prevent the world from knowing anything worth knowing about its nuclear activities.

On the basis of Iran’s agreement to ship its stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, the US accepted Iran’s demand that it be allowed to maintain and operate more than 6,000 centrifuges.

But when on Monday Iran went back on its word and refused to ship its uranium to Russia, the US didn’t respond by saying Iran couldn’t keep spinning 6,000 centrifuges. The US made excuses for Iran.

The US delegation willingly acceded to Iran’s demand that it be allowed to continue operating its fortified, underground enrichment facility at Fordow. In so doing, the US minimized the effectiveness of a future limited air campaign aimed at significantly reducing Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

With this broad range of great power concessions already in its pocket, the question of whether or not a deal is reached has become a secondary concern. The US and its negotiating partners have agreed to a set of understanding with the Iranians. Whether these understandings become a formal agreement or not is irrelevant because the understandings are already being implemented.

True, the US has not yet agreed to Iran’s demand for an immediate revocation of the economic sanctions now standing against it. But the notion that sanctions alone can pressure Iran into making nuclear concessions has been destroyed by Obama’s nuclear diplomacy in which the major concessions have all been made by the US.

No sanctions legislation that Congress may pass in the coming months will be able to force a change in Iran’s behavior if they are not accompanied by other coercive measures undertaken by the executive branch.

There is nothing new in this reality. For a regime with no qualms about repressing its society, economic sanctions are not an insurmountable challenge. But it is possible that if sanctions were implemented as part of a comprehensive plan to use limited coercive means to block Iran’s nuclear advance, they could have effectively blocked Iran’s progress to nuclear capabilities while preventing war. Such a comprehensive strategy could have included a proxy campaign to destabilize the regime by supporting regime opponents in their quest to overthrow the mullahs. It could have involved air strikes or sabotage of nuclear installations and strategic regime facilities like Revolutionary Guards command and control bases and ballistic missile storage facilities. It could have involved diplomatic isolation of Iran.

Moreover, if sanctions were combined with a stringent policy of blocking Iran’s regional expansion by supporting Iraqi sovereignty, supporting the now deposed government of Yemen and making a concerted effort to weaken Hezbollah and overthrow the Iranian-backed regime in Syria, then the US would have developed a strong deterrent position that would likely have convinced Iran that its interest was best served by curbing its imperialist enthusiasm and setting aside its nuclear ambitions.

In other words, a combination of these steps could have prevented war and prevented a nuclear Iran. But today, the US-led capitulation to Iran has pulled the rug out from any such comprehensive strategy. The administration has no credibility. No one trusts Obama to follow through on his declared commitment to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

No one trusts Washington when Obama claims that he is committed to the security of Israel and the US’s Sunni allies in the region.

And so we are now facing the unfolding disaster that Obama has wrought. The disaster is that deal or no deal, the US has just given the Iranians a green light to behave as if they have already built their nuclear umbrella. And they are in fact behaving in this manner.

They may not have a functional arsenal, but they act as though they do, and rightly so, because the US and its partners have just removed all significant obstacles from their path to nuclear capabilities. The Iranians know it. Their proxies know it. Their enemies know it.

As a consequence, all the regional implications of a nuclear armed Iran are already being played out. The surrounding Arab states led by Saudi Arabia are pursuing nuclear weapons. The path to a Middle East where every major and some minor actors have nuclear arsenals is before us.

Iran is working to expand its regional presence as if it were a nuclear state already. It is brazenly using its Yemeni Houthi proxy to gain maritime control over the Bab al-Mandab, which together with Iran’s control over the Straits of Hormuz completes its maritime control over shipping throughout the Middle East.

Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Eritrea, and their global trading partners will be faced with the fact that their primary maritime shipping route to Asia is controlled by Iran.

With its regional aggression now enjoying the indirect support of its nuclear negotiating partners led by the US, Iran has little to fear from the pan-Arab attempt to dislodge the Houthis from Aden and the Bab al-Mandab. If the Arabs succeed, Iran can regroup and launch a new offensive knowing it will face no repercussions for its aggression and imperialist endeavors.

Then of course there are Iran’s terror proxies.

Hezbollah, whose forces now operate openly in Syria and Lebanon, is reportedly active as well in Iraq and Yemen. These forces behave with a brazenness the likes of which we have never seen.

Hamas too believes that its nuclear-capable Iranian state sponsor ensures that regardless of its combat losses, it will be able to maintain its regime in Gaza and continue using its territory as a launching ground for assaults against Israel and Egypt.

Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq have reportedly carried out heinous massacres of Sunnis who have fallen under their control and faced no international condemnation for their war crimes, operating as they are under Iran’s protection and sponsorship. And the Houthis, of course, just overthrew a Western-backed government that actively assisted the US and its allies in their campaign against al-Qaida.

For their proxies’ aggression, Iran has been rewarded with effective Western acceptance of its steps toward regional domination and nuclear armament.

Hezbollah’s activities represent an acute and strategic danger to Israel. Not only does Hezbollah now possess precision guided missiles that are capable of taking out strategic installations throughout the country, its arsenal of 100,000 missiles can cause a civilian disaster.

Hezbollah forces have been fighting in varied combat situations continuously for the past three years. Their combat capabilities are incomparably greater than those they fielded in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. There is every reason to believe that these Hezbollah fighters, now perched along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, can make good their threat to attack and hold fixed targets including border communities.

While Israel faces threats unlike any we have faced in recent decades that all emanate from Western-backed Iranian aggression and expansionism carried out under a Western-sanctioned Iranian nuclear umbrella, Israel is not alone in this reality. The unrolling disaster also threatens the moderate Sunni states including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The now regional war in Yemen is but the first act of the regional war at our doorstep.

There are many reasons this war is now inevitable.

Every state threatened by Iran has been watching the Western collapse in Switzerland.

They have been watching the Iranian advance on the ground. And today all of them are wondering the same thing: When and what should we strike to minimize the threats we are facing.

Everyone recognizes that the situation is only going to get worse. With each passing week, Iran’s power and brazenness will only increase.

Everyone understands this. And this week they learned that with Washington heading the committee welcoming Iran’s regional hegemony and nuclear capabilities, no outside power will stand up to Iran’s rise. The future of every state in the region hangs in the balance. And so, it can be expected that everyone is now working out a means to preempt and prevent a greater disaster.

These preemptive actions will no doubt include three categories of operations: striking Hezbollah’s missile arsenal; striking the Iranian Navy to limit its ability to project its force in the Bab al-Mandab; and conducting limited military operations to destroy a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear installations.

Friday is the eve of Passover. Thirteen years ago, Palestinian terrorists brought home the message of the Exodus when they blew up the Seder at Netanya’s Park Hotel, killing 30, wounding 140, and forcing Israel into war. The message of the Passover Haggada is that there are no shortcuts to freedom. To gain and keep it, you have to be willing to fight for it.

That war was caused by Israel’s embrace of the notion that you can bring peace through concessions that empower an enemy sworn to your destruction. The price of that delusion was thousands of lives lost and families destroyed.

Iran is far more powerful than the PLO. But the Americans apparently believe they are immune from the consequences of their leaders’ policies. This is not the case for Israel or for our neighbors. We lack the luxury of ignoring the fact that Obama’s disastrous diplomacy has brought war upon us. Deal or no deal, we are again about to be forced to pay a price to maintain our freedom.

Caroline Glick

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/caroline-glick/the-diplomatic-track-to-war/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A new chapter in the Sunni-Shi’ite war - Jonathan Spyer

by Jonathan Spyer

With the announcement of the Saudi-led alliance for Yemen, the magnitude of the Middle East conflict has become plainly visible.

Shi'ite Muslim rebels in Sanaa, Yemen, March 26, 2013. (photo credit:REUTERS) 

The Saudi-organized coalition for Yemen and the announcement of a regional Arab force show that the Sunni states have finally picked up the gauntlet thrown down by the Iranians.

The assembling of a Sunni alliance to challenge the advancement of an Iranian proxy in Yemen, and the subsequent announcement in Sharm e-Sheikh of the formation of a 40,000 strong Arab rapid reaction force, are the latest moves in a war that has already been under way in the Middle East for some time.

This is a war between Sunni and Shi’ite forces over the ruins of the regional order. It is a war that is unlikely to end in the wholesale victory of one side. Rather, it will end when the two forces exhaust themselves. What the region will look like when this storm passes is anyone’s guess.

The two sides in this war differ in significant ways.

The Saudi and Arab League announcements constitute the Sunnis’ attempt to narrow the gaps in unity and effectiveness between themselves and their Shi’ite opponents.

The Shi’ite side is a united bloc, centered around the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranians are an overtly anti-Western and anti-status quo force, seeking a new Middle East order with themselves at the head. In their propaganda, they characterize themselves as an alliance of authentic Muslim forces, organized against the West and its hirelings.

In reality, they are a gathering of almost exclusively Shi’ite groupings, but a cohesive and united one.

It is possible that the traditions of clandestinity and cross-border communication of a long subaltern regional minority gives the Shi’ites an advantage in this regard.

In the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force, the Iranians possess an instrument perfectly designed for the current moment in the region. An army of professional revolutionaries whose specific trade is the mobilizing and direction of proxy political- military organizations.

The context of the current war is one in which states have collapsed and separated into sectarian components. In Yemen, Iraq, Syria and in a less kinetic way Lebanon, would-be “successors” to the state organized on a sectarian or ethnic basis are fighting one another.

In such a context, the existence of a state agency whose specific field of expertise is the creation and maintenance of sectarian political-military organizations is an enormous advantage. The Sunnis have no equivalent of the IRGC.

Its existence and its skills are behind Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon, the Assad regime’s survival in Syria, the current Shi’ite militia mobilization against Islamic State in Iraq and the Houthi offensive in Yemen. The Sunni side in this war has been, since its inception, a far more disparate, confused and cumbersome affair.

There are a number of reasons for this. There is no Sunni equivalent of Iran, no single powerful state that can gather and direct all forces under its wing.

For the last 40 years, the most powerful Sunni Arab states formed the key components of the regional alliance headed by the US. If Iran was the “guiding” hand behind the Shi’ite challenge to the regional status quo, then the organizing force behind the pro-status quo Sunni states was the US.

But in the last half decade of emergent sectarian war in the region, the United States has been absent, entirely unaware of the dynamic of events. So the Sunnis have been adrift.

The US has sought to appease both the Iranians and the radical, anti-Western element among the Sunnis – the Muslim Brotherhood. All this apparently as part of an effort to withdraw from the region and leave the keys with whoever seems most inclined to grab them.

What the events of the last week confirm, however, is that the “status quo” Sunni powers, the once-allies of the US, are now determined to organize themselves independently given the absence of an American guiding hand.

The commitment of nine Sunni-majority countries to the Saudi-organized alliance is the fruit of an ambitious attempt by Riyadh to create a new, regionally led counter-bloc to the Iranians.

Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Pakistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are on board. The drive to halt the advance of the Iran-supported Houthis is the first test of this new and unfamiliar coalition.

Success remains uncertain. Egyptian ships have been dispatched to the area. Air strikes have begun.

But the wars of the Middle East today are not high-technology affairs. Air power certainly plays an important role, but in the end, these are grinding contests, fought out on the ground.

In such a war, the Shi’ite Islamist and tribal guerrillas of the Houthis and their IRGC guides are likely to enjoy a certain advantage.

The difficult terrain of Yemen is likely to exacerbate this. This raises a further difficulty for the Sunnis.

So far, the experience of Iraq and Syria indicates that the only Sunni forces that have gone toe-to-toe with the Iran-backed element and held their ground are Islamists.

Note the recent conquest by a force led by the al-Qaida affiliate (and Qatar client) al-Nusra Front of Idlib in northwestern Syria.

Idlib is the second provincial capital to fall to the anti-Assad forces in four years of civil war. The first was Raqqa, further east. It’s now controlled by Islamic State.

What this means is that the pushback against the Iranians, as led by the Sunni Arabs, is likely to involve Sunni jihadis and the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas last week also declared its support for the Saudi initiative).

But the Saudi initiative hasn’t ended divisions among the Sunnis. The split between pro- and anti-Muslim Brotherhood forces has been only papered over. Last month, Qatar and Turkey, the main Brotherhood-supporting Sunni states, signed a separate military accord.

This mobilization contains nothing in it of regional reform. It is a sectarian alliance par excellence.

But for all the warnings and caveats, the emergence of the Saudi-organized coalition for Yemen and the announcement of the new Arab force to deploy in the region are developments of great, perhaps historical significance.

They represent the Sunnis picking up the gauntlet thrown down a while back by the Iranians. This war was a long time coming.

It emerged in stages. It has been here for a while. This week, with the announcement of the Saudi-led alliance, its magnitude has become plainly visible. A new chapter is beginning in the region.. 

Jonathan Spyer

Source: http://www.jpost.com/International/A-new-chapter-in-the-Sunni-Shiite-war-396047

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.