Saturday, November 27, 2021

Iranian Terror Group Protected by Biden Aided Him in 2020 Election - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

DOJ indictment uncovers Iranian cyberwafare scheme to defeat President Trump.

 


In 2007, Joe Biden became one of only 22 senators to vote against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. The IRGC is Iran’s central terror hub, organizing, funding, and training terrorists around the region and the world. 

Including terrorists who murdered Americans.

Biden was so proud of his IRGC vote that he used it to attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for being insufficiently pro-Iran, and then brought it up during the Democrat debate.

After Senator Mike Gravel defended two of the IRGC’s terror groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, contending, “these people are fighting for their rights”, Biden joined in with colleague, claiming that the “moment that declaration was made, every one of our friends, from Iraq to Pakistan, felt they had to distance themselves from us because it appears to be a war on Islam.”

The IRGC clearly appreciated Biden’s support and tried to pay it forward in the 2020 election.

Unlike most election interference news, the DOJ’s latest announcement has received very little media coverage because the interference was coming out of Iran and was helping Biden.

An indictment charged two Iranians over a "cyber-enabled disinformation and threat campaign designed to influence the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election."

Many conservatives already knew that Iranian hackers had tried to pass themselves off as members of the Proud Boys in a false flag operation designed to increase Democrat turnout and generate an election backlash to President Trump. One example of the Iranian campaign involved sending emails to "tens of thousands of registered voters" that threatened them "with physical injury if they did not change their party affiliation and vote for President Trump."

The importance of the indictment though is that it shows the campaign came from the IRGC.

The DOJ statement only notes that the hackers had “worked as contractors for an Iran-based company formerly known as Eeleyanet Gostar, and now known as Emennet Pasargad”. The official sanctions designation at the Treasury Department however explains why the company keeps changing names. “Emennet was previously designated under its former name, Net Peygard Samavat Company” for its work with the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Electronic Warfare and Cyber Defense Organization (IRGC-EWCD). The company rebranded itself to evade U.S. sanctions and continue its disruptive cyber operations against the United States.”

The false flag operation was actually being conducted by Iran’s terrorist cyberwarfare corps who had been previously tied to various cyberattacks, including ransomware. Unlike these more obvious financial schemes, there was nothing financial for the IRGC’s hackers to gain from impersonating Trump supporters. This was a deliberate effort by Iran to defeat President Trump.

The organization in question had already been caught trying to “implant malware on the computer systems of current and former U.S. counterintelligence agents.”

There was little question that the Shiite Islamic terror regime in Tehran wanted Biden.

Two days after the election, President Rouhani of Iran blasted President Trump as a "person in the White House who brutally intensified sanctions", but expressed hope that "the next American administration will surrender to the Iranian nation."

It did indeed.

The Biden administration lifted the terror designation on the IRGC’s Houthi terrorists in Yemen. The Shiite terrorist group, whose motto also includes, “Death to America”, has since gone on to attack the U.S. embassy in Yemen and take local staff as hostages. This comes after Biden pulled anti-missile batteries out of several countries targeted by Iran: including Saudi Arabia.

This is unsurprising behavior from Biden, who, when addressing the American Iranian Council, had argued, "We cannot simply dismiss Iran's security concerns.”

Since taking office, the Biden administration has allowed the Tehran terrorists to benefit from billions of dollars in sanctions relief. A regime paper boasted that $4 billion had been freed “without much negotiation”. The administration is currently floating an “interim nuclear deal” that would provide even more sanctions relief to Iran. And that’s even before the real negotiations.

The IRGC’s investment in Iran has already paid billions in dividends. It expects billions more.

While Democrats and the media used the Steele Dossier hoax to falsely claim that President Trump was in bed with Russia, Biden has extensive and deeply troubling ties to Iran. 

After September 11, Biden proposed, "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran." While the check never materialized, the Obama-Biden administration would send billions, not millions, to the Islamic terror state.

Before then, Biden prepped for a presidential run by doing a tour of Iran lobby groups.  

At a 2003 Senate hearing, Biden suggested that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons because it felt “isolated”, and that its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with Islam.

During the 2008 election, Biden wanted to reopen a US diplomatic presence in Tehran. He proposed cutting off Radio Liberty broadcasts that provided a voice for Iranian dissidents. And behind the scenes,he tapped into the Iran Lobby’s fundraising apparatus, raising tens of thousands, which, by the 2020 election had turned into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Right before the election, Biden released his list of fundraising bundlers. In an exclusive story, Front Page Magazine’s investigation revealed that they included Jamal Abdi, the executive director of NIAC Action. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), often described as the Iran Lobby, claimed its members had run phone banks and donated $385,000 to Biden.

NIAC Action had endorsed Biden and declared, “our long, national nightmare is almost over. AP has called the race for Joe Biden”.

Biden's pick for Secretary of State, Tony Blinken was, like his future boss, an opponent of designating the IRGC a terrorist group, cautioning, “If there's a formal designation as a terrorist organization, I think there is going to be blowback."

The IRGC got its dream team in Washington D.C. and now it’s taking advantage of it.

Biden had denied the IRGC’s terrorist operations arguing that, “the vote to declare the Qods Force and the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization was not a view that could be established without question.” It’s not a coincidence that the same terrorist group he had intervened to protect helped his campaign in the 2020 election with a false flag operation.

The same media that pushed the Russiagate hoax has shown no interest in Biden’s ties to Iran, the impact of those ties on his pro-Iran policies, or the IRGC attempts to help his campaign. But as Biden continues to reward Iran, we should be prepared for more IRGC election interference. 

There’s too many billions at stake for Iran not to try to keep Biden in the White House.

 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center specializing in investigative reporting on the Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/iranian-terror-group-protected-biden-aided-him-daniel-greenfield/

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Palestinian hybrid warfare is a strategic threat to Israel's security - Dan Diker

 

​ by Dan Diker

Defense Minister Benny Gantz’ exposes there are operational and financial links between Palestinian terror organizations and civil society- “human rights” groups -funded largely by European countries

 

IDF thwarting a a massive Hamas terrorist network in the West Bank, November 22, 2021.  (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
IDF thwarting a a massive Hamas terrorist network in the West Bank, November 22, 2021.
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

The recent international reaction to Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s decision to designate and outlaw six Palestinian civil society organizations as terror groups points to two important lessons learned: The Palestinian leadership’s ongoing success in prosecuting an international political war against Israel, and Israel’s failure to expose and counter the Palestinian leadership’s hybrid warfare strategy. 
 
Gantz’s statement, based on years of hard evidence provided by research organizations and the Israeli government, exposed operational and financial links between Palestinian terror organizations and civil society- “human rights” groups -funded largely by European countries. The declaration should have been an open and shut case both in Israel and the West. The evidence is overwhelming, and most of it is publicly available. However, the international outrage Gantz's designation triggered towards Israel reflected his failure to present the evidence, context, and Israel’s legal right of response to the Israeli and international public. He thereby undermined his and Israel’s strong case, which fallaciously positioned him and by extension, the government, and the people of Israel, as enemies of liberal democracy and its cherished principles of freedom and human rights.
 
For years, research institutions, including the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and NGO Monitor, have exposed the direct links between terror organizations and so-called Palestinian civil society groups. The Jerusalem Center’s BDS Unmasked, published in 2016, and its 2019 publication The PACBI Deception: Unmasked, revealed  the association of Palestinian terror groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as full members in the BDS National Committee (BDS Movement) in Palestinian Authority-governed Ramallah.Following years of research revelations, in 2018, Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs issued "Terrorists in Suits", a major detailed report exposing the incontrovertible ties between the PFLP terror group and the above mentioned “human rights” organizations. 
 
The broad condemnation of Gantz’s statement by groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, and J Street raises serious questions about their intellectual, moral, and professional integrity. 
 
Here are two examples of the convergence of Palestinian terror and human rights groups: Khalida Jarrar, former vice president of the human rights group Addameer, was sentenced to two years in prison in March 2021 for her activities in the PFLP. Another illustration is provided by the case of Shawan Jabarin- a convicted and formerly incarcerated PFLP member who has served as Executive Director of Al-Haq, one of the Palestinian civil society organizations designated by the Ministry of Defense.  
 
The decision against making a public case against the “human rights” groups - terrorist intersection is the latest example of a deeper problem that has plagued Israeli governments since the Oslo accords in the 1990s. 
 
Israeli governments over the past 30 years have failed to expose the Palestinian leadership’s strategy of politically-driven “Hybrid Warfare,” which combines terrorism on one hand and political deception, disinformation, demonization, and delegitimization of Israel on the other. By doing so, the Palestinian leadership adopted the Cold War strategies of the Soviet and Chinese regimes. 
 
Over the past decade the free world has come to recognize the danger inherent in the hybrid warfare threat. In 2014 the NATO Summit summary document recognized political deception and disinformation as components of Hybrid Warfare employed by Russia in its occupation of Crimea and by Hezbollah in Lebanon and ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. The PLO has also been using this strategy effectively for decades; Arafat and his Soviet backers led the 1975 UN campaign that resulted in the adoption of the infamous UN Zionism is Racism resolution with Arafat and the Palestinian leadership intensified the crusade prosecuting  a political warfare campaign branding Israel as an apartheid regime at the UN sanctioned World Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has sustained this political warfare against Israel using demonizing and delegitimizing rhetoric libeling Israel as an “apartheid” entity in his Durban IV speech in September 2021. 
 
In fact, the apartheid libel has today become the internationally accepted lingua franca regarding the only Jewish State: at the UN, by some members of the U.S. House of Representatives, in some European Parliaments, in the international media, and across Western academia. These statements of intentional, calculated disinformation are acts of war no less than those fought in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982 and the Palestinian and Iranian-backed Hybrid Warfare against Israel that continue today.
 
This Palestinian strategically driven ideological war requires an immediate response for the sake of Israel’s national security. It is essential that Israel dedicate the necessary resources to establishing a national security council effort to counter Palestinian hybrid warfare. There is precedent in the West. Great Britain and the United States established political warfare offices as part of their wartime efforts in defeating the Nazis and the Soviet Union, respectively. It is now time that Israel garners the resources and mobilize the collective political will to overcome the decades-long PLO, PA and Hamas’ led Hybrid War to dismantle Israel as a Jewish-Democratic state. 
 
Dan Diker is a research fellow and the director of the program to counter political warfare and BDS at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). He previously served as the secretary general of the World Jewish Congress (WJC).
 
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Dr. Shmuel Katz 
 

Dan Diker

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/palestinian-hybrid-warfare-is-a-strategic-threat-to-israels-security-686975

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Nine of 10 most popular governors are Republicans, Biden less popular than least popular governor - Andrew Mark Miller

 

​ by Andrew Mark Miller

The most popular Republican governor in the country comes from a deep blue state

Biden approval plummets as Democrat infighting stalls spending bill

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy has the latest on 'Special Report.'

A recent poll shows that nine out of ten most popular governors in the United States are Republicans while President Biden’s approval rating is lower than the country’s least popular governor. 

Vermont Republican Phil Scott is the most popular governor in America and holds a 71% approval rating, according to a recent Morning Consult poll that shows Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont as the only Democrat to register in the top 10.

President Biden speaks about the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Biden speaks about the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

AT JUST 36% SUPPORT, BIDEN SLIPS TO A RECORD LOW IN A NEW POLL

The list of governors in order of popularity in order from one to ten includes: Scott, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Mark Gordon of Wyoming, Jim Justice of West Virginia, Lamont, Kay Ivey of Alabama, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Spencer Cox of Utah.

Rounding out the bottom as the least popular governors list were Democrat Kate Brown in Oregon, Republican Doug Ducey in Arizona, and Democrat David Ige of Hawaii.

MORE AMERICANS WANT GOP RATHER THAN DEMOCRATS TO CONTROL HOUSE AND SENATE: POLL

Brown’s last place approval rating of 43% was seven points higher than Biden’s approval rating in a recent Quinnipiac poll.

Kate Brown, governor of Oregon, speaks during an interview in Portland, Oregon, U.S. on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. Brown, a Democrat, joined the state House of Representatives in 1991, was later elected to the Senate and served as secretary of state since 2009, before taking over as governor in February. Photographer: Meg Roussos/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kate Brown, governor of Oregon, speaks during an interview in Portland, Oregon, U.S. on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. Brown, a Democrat, joined the state House of Representatives in 1991, was later elected to the Senate and served as secretary of state since 2009, before taking over as governor in February. Photographer: Meg Roussos/Bloomberg via Getty Images

By a 46%-38% margin, those questioned in the poll said they would want to see the Republican Party win control of the House if the midterms were held today, with 16% not offering an opinion. And by a 46%-40% margin, those surveyed said they'd like to see the GOP win the Senate majority, with 15% not offering an opinion.

"An ominous double whammy for the Democrats with midterms less than a year out. The Senate and the House will be up for grabs and voters want the GOP to win the jump ball," Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy emphasized.

DETROIT, MI - NOVEMBER 17: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant on November 17, 2021. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images) 

DETROIT, MI - NOVEMBER 17: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant on November 17, 2021. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)  ( (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images))

The release of the poll, which was conducted Nov. 11-Nov.15, came less than a week after an ABC News/Washington Post survey that grabbed national headlines as it indicated that Republicans had a 10-point advantage over the Democrats on the generic ballot question. 

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

 

Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nine-of-top-10-most-popular-governors-republicans-biden-less-popular-least-popular

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The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

It’s time to tell the truth about the black racism, crime and terror that came to Waukesha.

 


[Order David Horowitz's new book, I Can't Breathe: How a Racial Hoax Is Killing America: HERE.]

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center specializing in investigative reporting on the Left and Islamic terrorism.

“There's Nothing More Frightening in America Today than an Angry White Man,” a CNN op-ed headline blared after the Rittenhouse verdict. And then Darrell Brooks, a black racist, career criminal, and convicted sex offender with two open felony cases, intentionally drove into the Waukesha Christmas Parade, leaving bloody children strewn like crumpled flowers.

Baby strollers and battered wheelchairs lay on the street in the aftermath of this racist rampage, while the media tries to cover up his black racist agendas. If a white racist had slammed his car into a black parade, there would be little doubt and less question about his motives.

But black racists always get a pass by a media that’s happy to enable their racism. While white racism is denounced as disgraceful, black racism is embraced as revolutionary.

Milwaukee BLM leader Vaun Mayes, who has appeared alongside local Democrat politicians, responded to the horrifying atrocity by suggesting, "It sounds possible that the revolution has started in Wisconsin. It started with this Christmas parade."

How better to start the Marxist revolution than by running down some Dancing Grannies? This is sick. But it is enabled by the collusion of well-meaning people who don’t want to acknowledge that blacks can be mass murderers and racist monsters just like everyone else.

Black Lives Matter had adopted a quote from black nationalist fugitive cop killer Assata Shakur as its slogan, "It is our duty to fight for our freedom". That chant has appeared at Democrat Party events and even corporate anti-racism sessions.

The phrase just before the chant is, “We must gain our liberation by any means necessary”. People who say things like this are criminals and race haters ready to commit the worst kinds of  atrocities. And those who enable them should be held accountable.

Shakur's slogan was dedicated to black nationalist terrorists, including Mark Essex, a racist killer who opened fire on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans killing, among others, a honeymooning couple. Betty Steagall was shot in the back of her head while embracing her murdered husband. Essex left a Black Liberation flag lying near the corpses of the doctor and his wife.

That’s what “by any means necessary” means. It’s the murderous black racism the Left enables.

When Vaun Mayes was arrested on a burglary charge, leftist Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm refused to pursue charges. It was also Chisholm who freed Brooks on $500 bail even after the monster had been accused of running over the mother of his child.

“Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment programs, who’s going to go out and kill somebody?” Chisholm had previously admitted. “You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”

The combination of black racism and leftist support for black criminals led to the parade horror.

"If the solutions were easy, we would have solved the challenge long ago, but they are not," Chicago's Mayor Lori Lighfoot argued in response to complaints that she wasn't letting the police fight crime. "The root causes of community violence are deep, complex, and generations in the making." This is code for blaming black criminality on systemic racism and on white people, the creed of racial hate that fuels our current crisis while rejecting black responsibility.

The actual root cause, a corrupt welfare state that treats crime like a civil rights movement, is easily visible in Chicago, Milwaukee, and countless Democrat cities. Black Lives Matter perfectly blends crime, racism and revolution until it’s impossible to tell the difference.

Communist revolutions begin as crimes with robberies, murders, and bombings. And that makes leftists into criminals and criminals into leftists. The Bolsheviks called the bank robberies they used to finance their revolution, “expropriations”. BLM looters are just following in their footsteps by “expropriating” the shelves of neighborhood grocery stores for their racist revolution.

Are gangs of looters clearing out stores to protest the Rittenhouse verdict or to make money?

When crime is a civil rights cause and criminals are martyrs, crime is a revolutionary act. Every major BLM martyr in recent years has been a thug with a long criminal record. Brooks, like countless other career criminals, benefited from leftist calls to shut down the justice system.

How do leftists justify glamorizing criminals? Racism. Hating white people.

Every criminal is the victim of systemic racism. The only way to justify crime is to demonize crime victims as white racists. As the book In Defense of Looting argued, private property is “innately, structurally white supremacist” and looting it is an act of racial liberation.

Black Lives Matter racializes crime and turns every criminal act into a hate crime against white people. That’s how you end up with Black Lives Matter taking ownership of a racist thug ramming his car through a Christmas parade, leaving children and grandmothers bleeding on the ground in his wake, into a revolutionary act of political terrorism against whiteness.

The system that coddles black criminals like Brooks, enabling them to kill, is the true form of systemic racism. No justice system in this country punishes people because of their race, but some Democrat cities indisputably give criminals a pass because they have racialized crime.

What motivated Darrell Brooks’s rampage of death? The career criminal had absorbed the black nationalist ethos of BLM that criminals were victims and police were the real criminals. A thousand media outlets, politicians, and activists had warned that violence would follow if Rittenhouse were set free. The looters who struck luxury boutiques and the black supremacist racist who drove through a Christmas parade just followed up on the media’s incitement.

Sometimes BLM’s career criminals fight systemic racism and the white supremacist idea of private property by looting malls, other times by running over kids at a Christmas parade.

If white people are evil, then any and every attack on them becomes innately justifiable.

As pampered racist Ibram X. Kendi wrote "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination."

Black racism, like black crime, becomes just another means of achieving “equity”. The ends of equity justify all means from discrimination to violent crime. Racism against black people is a tool of systemic racism, but racism against white people is a means of systemic equity.

And no amount of black racism can ever be considered too much.

Look no further than black nationalist poet Amiri Baraka whose deranged hateful verses include such stirring lines as, “We are all beautiful (except white people, they are full of, and made of s__t),” The former poet laureate of New Jersey raved. “Come up, black dada / nihilismus. Rape the white girls. Rape / their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats."

Baraka’s poetry has been recited at the Museum of Modern Art, he was eulogized by The Nation and praised by The New Yorker. Kirsten Clarke, Biden’s racist pick for assistant attorney general, even circulated one of his essays.

“The specter of the angry black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince white folks that a big, bad black man is coming to get them and their daughters,” the CNN op-ed complained.

But it’s the leftist radicals, white and black, who celebrate black criminality, transforming even the worst crimes into a leftist revolution by degrading both black perpetrators and white victims. As Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver wrote, “rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man's law, upon his system of values.”

As Cleaver had practiced “on black girls in the ghetto”, Brooks had practiced on his former girlfriend, running her over, before running over women and children at the parade.

Like bombing, murder, and rape, it’s only the latest revolutionary episode in black racism.

America is consumed with discovering white microaggressions while even the most grotesque forms of black racism from the Black Hebrew Israelites to Black Lives Matter, hate groups the killer supported, are celebrated as a reckoning with a false history of American racism.

When the issue of black racism is raised, leftist apologists typically argue that black racists have “no power”, that they are “punching up”, and that the whole thing is a non-issue.

The dead and dying in the streets of Waukesha might disagree.

 

Daniel Greenfield

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/hate-dare-not-speak-its-name-daniel-greenfield/

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'Biden has done everything to undermine regional defense pact against Iran' - Arutz Sheva Staff

 

​ by Arutz Sheva Staff

'Coalition that was formed with the encouragement of Trump, which was essentially an unofficial regional defense pact with American backing between Israel and the Gulf states, has evaporated,' senior UAE official tells Israel Hayom.

 

Joe Biden
Joe Biden
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Over the past few months, essentially since the administration of US President Joe Biden entered the White House, officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have adopted a new strategy in terms of their foreign policies regarding Iran and renewing diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic, Israel Hayom reported.

Initially, it was the Saudis who held a series of clandestine meetings in Baghdad with senior Iranian officials, attended among others by the Saudi ambassador to Iraq, Israel Hayom noted. Then the Emiratis opened a dialogue with the Iranians, even appointing former foreign minister Anwar Gargash to spearhead the efforts.

Gargash, who met with Ali Bagheri, Iran's deputy foreign minister and the man in charge of the Islamic republic's nuclear program, declared after the meeting in Abu Dhabi that its purpose "was to stabilize relations and reduce tensions with Iran." The senior Emirati diplomat added that a senior UAE delegation would soon reciprocate with a visit to the Iranian capital.

The United Arab Emirates did not just renew dialogue with Iran, however. After the telephone conversation between Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Emirati Foreign Minister was sent to Damascus to meet with al-Assad - despite Washington's warning that the UAE may face sanctions for doing so.

At first, the UAE said the reason for these meetings was claimed to be improving relations in the region and eliminating conflict, as well as helping the Syrian government extract itself from Iran's grip.

However, now, senior officials in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have admitted that the main reason for the change in policy was that the regional anti-Iran coalition, formed with former US President Donald Trump's encouragement and by the Abraham Accords and which included Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, has fallen apart and essentially no longer exists.

"It's true that we recently held joint military trainings and exercises, which were also intended to send a clear message to Tehran," a senior official in Abu Dhabi told Israel Hayom. "But the coalition which was formed with the encouragement of Trump and his administration, and which was essentially an unofficial regional defense pact backed by the Americans between Israel and the Gulf States, who are concerned that the extremist Ayatollah government will achieve nuclear weapons - has evaporated."

 

Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317638

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France: Is Éric Zemmour an Anti-Semite? - Yves Mamou

 

​ by Yves Mamou

For French people, actually, the most important question is not if Zemmour is racist or antisemitic, but if France as they know it -- "with the history, the customs, the way of life" -- will continue to exist.

  • Of course not. What is actually happening in France is a liberation of freedom of speech. For the first time in 40 years, topics such as immigration, Islam, and the preference of the elites for unvetted mass-migration are being spoken about openly on radio and television.

  • Being French and defending French culture apparently made you a Nazi. Anyone who dared to criticize Muslim immigration and Islam was immediately branded a racist "close to Jean-Marie Le Pen", vilified by the media and even taken to court.

  • Le Pen was the first to criticize Muslim immigration and raise questions about Islam, but regrettably, he did so in a way.... that it was not difficult... to demonize him -- and often also the very real problems the National Front addressed, such as the identity of the country, the role of secularism, competition in the job market, and the status of women.

  • During the French Revolution in 1789, and then under Napoleon, Jews became "emancipated". They were granted all the personal rights accorded to other French citizens in exchange for their abandonment of communal rules, such as compulsory marriage between Jews and respect for religious laws ahead of respect for the laws of the Republic. Zemmour is bewildered that these rules, which successfully assimilated Jews into French society, have been abandoned for Muslims.

  • "[Zemmour] has the merit of putting the question of France at the heart of the debate.... He takes on the existential anguish of a growing number of French people who wonder if France will remain France, if their right to historical continuity will finally be respected or if it will continue to be scorned." — Alain Finkielkraut, author and philosopher, Europe1, October 24, 2021.

  • For French people, actually, the most important question is not if Zemmour is racist or antisemitic, but if France as they know it ...will continue to exist.

Is Éric Zemmour (pictured), a likely candidate in France's upcoming presidential election, really a racist? Is France on the verge of tipping over into fascism? Of course not. What is actually happening in France is a liberation of freedom of speech. For the first time in 40 years, topics such as immigration, Islam, and the preference of the elites for unvetted mass-migration are being spoken about openly on radio and television. (Photo by Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images)

The rumor that a Jew making racist and anti-Semitic remarks could be a candidate in France's presidential election of spring 2022 has crossed the country's borders. Worse, the rumor is that this supposedly racist, anti-Semitic Jew, Éric Zemmour, is buoyed by polls that forecast him as a very possible second-round candidate against France's current President Emmanuel Macron.

Sacrebleu! How could such a thing have happened? Is Zemmour really a racist? Is he carried by a wave of the extreme right, as many on the left suggest? Is France on the verge of tipping over into fascism?

Of course not. What is actually happening in France is a liberation of freedom of speech. For the first time in 40 years, topics such as immigration, Islam, and the preference of the elites for unvetted mass-migration are being spoken about openly on radio and television.

The reason all these topics are finally on the table is because Zemmour brought them there, to the media. Before Zemmour, if you talked apprehensively about migrants, it was considered "racist". Anyone concerned about the rapid change in France's identity was labelled as a member of the extreme right. Being French and defending French culture apparently made you a Nazi. Anyone who dared to criticize Muslim immigration and Islam was immediately branded a racist "close to Jean-Marie Le Pen", vilified by the media and even taken to court.

Zemmour's achievement is to have broken the wall of shame, with the help of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of a far-right National Front party. Le Pen was the first to criticize Muslim immigration and raise questions about Islam, but regrettably, he did so in a way so caricatured and racist that it was not difficult for the media and leaders of the Socialist Party to demonize him -- and often also the very real problems the National Front addressed, such as the identity of the country, the role of secularism, competition in the job market, and the status of women.

When the historian Georges Bensoussan addressed the issue of Muslim anti-Semitism on the radio in 2016, he was instantly prosecuted by "anti-racist" associations and taken to court. Although he was acquitted three times, the intimidation had its effect. Who, after such a legal marathon, would have the courage once again to address the complex question of the place of Islam in a Western society in general, and in France in particular?

The accusation that Zemmour is a racist arises not only from subjects related to immigration, but also from the numerous lawsuits that Islamist organiaztions, "anti-racist" organiaztions and some partisan elected officials have brought against him. Most of the time, the judges have acquitted Zemmour, but sometimes not. Judges have occasionally convicted him. In 2011, he was sentenced for claiming that "French people from immigrant backgrounds are stopped by the police more than other [people are] because most of the traffickers are Black and Arabs.... That is a fact". Zemmour was convicted not because he was lying, but because such an assertion was impossible to prove. Ever since World War II, French law has prohibited any mention of ethnicity in official statistics. In 2020, Zemmour was also convicted for "provokimg hate."

The accusations of racism and anti-Semitism leveled against Zemmour come also from the Jewish establishment. The chief rabbi of France recently declared Zemmour to be "Antisemitic certainly, racist obviously." Francis Kalifat, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) called on Jews not to vote for him.

The Jewish establishment has accused Zemmour of rehabilitating Marshal Pétain and the Vichy regime, both of whom collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII. Zemmour has said that Pétain "protected French Jews while handing over foreign-born Jews to the Nazis in a necessary compromise to occupation. According to Zemmour, "The figures speak for themselves... in France, 40% of foreign Jews were exterminated and 90% of French Jews survived."

The thesis, however, is that of Alain Michel, a rabbi and Jewish historian of French origin now living in Israel. According to Michel, Zemmour should have said that "between 90 and 92%" of French Jews had survived. In addition, Michel claims that:

"contrary to what Serge Klarsfeld [president of the Organization of Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France] asserts.... these figures cannot be attributed solely to the action of the 'Righteous Among the Nations'. It was the policy applied by the Vichy government, which slowed down the application of the 'Final Solution' in France."

Michel and Zemmour do agree that it is extremely difficult for historians in France to question the popular view that the Vichy regime could not have been anything other than a clone of the Nazi regime.

No one quite understands why Zemmour is bringing up Vichy and the Second World War, but the ferocity of the accusations against him does not prevent him from remaining extremely popular within the Jewish community.

Zemmour does not deny his Jewish origins and goes regularly to synagogue. He makes it clear that he is not a Zionist, but makes it equally clear that he is not anti-Zionist. Zemmour says he belongs first to French culture and French civilisation. He seems to be a "Napoleonic" kind of Jew who considers that his religious identity should be confined to the private sphere, at home or in a synagogue.

During the French Revolution in 1789 and then under Napoleon, Jews became "emancipated". They were granted all the personal rights accorded to other French citizens in exchange for their abandonment of communal rules, such as compulsory marriage between Jews and respect for religious laws ahead of the laws of the Republic. Zemmour is bewildered that these rules, which successfully assimilated Jews into French society, have been abandoned for Muslims.

To save France, Zemmour asserts France has to return to a policy of assimilation. He would like to see Muslims "assimilatd" and more like long-established French citizens. "We must encourage them (all these Muslim migrants who come to France) to become the same," he said, "appropriate the history, the customs, the way of life, the tastes, the literature, savor the words, the language the landscape."

Zemmour puts so much emphasis on his desire to save France and to be a French citizen that he has sometimes verged on the discourteous. In his last book, he unnecessarily hurt people who had been hit hard by Islamist terrorism. He wrote that families of the children murdered in 2012 at a Jewish school near Toulouse were behaving like foreigners for having buried their children in Israel instead of in France. "Anthropologists have taught us that we are from the country where we are buried," he wrote, seemingly applying the same pro-French standards for Jews as for Muslims. Jewish families in France, however, who do not want to risk having the graves of their sons and daughters be desecrated by anti-Semites, may have felt offended.

Zemmour, not yet an official candidate for the 2022 presidential election, will be able to survive politically over the next six months only if he is considered a viable candidate by the media, and that will happen only if he is able to create a "buzz".

The buzz, however, can become unpleasant, not to say vicious. The philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, who admits to some differences with Zemmour, nevertheless regrets the "anathemas" launched against him, and said of Zemmour: "He is the object of an obsessive vindictiveness. It is counterproductive." Finkielkraut added:

"[Zemmour] has the merit of putting the question of France at the heart of the debate.... He takes on the existential anguish of a growing number of French people who wonder if France will remain France, if their right to historical continuity will finally be respected or if it will continue to be scorned."

For French people, actually, the most important question is not if Zemmour is racist or antisemitic, but if France as they know it -- "with the history, the customs, the way of life" -- will continue to exist.

 

Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17968/eric-zemmour-antisemitism

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To Biden Admin: Do Not Give Away US Leverage Against Iran - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

Iran's mullahs particularly love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal soon expires.

  • Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness.

  • The Biden administration needs to understand that the Iranian regime is desperate for the revival of the nuclear deal due to the significant financial and sanctions relief that the JCPOA offers the ruling clerics.

  • Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper surprisingly acknowledged on November 20, 2021: "No country, neither China nor Russia, will be able to save our economy. We must try to lift the sanctions. The way out of the internal pressures and the heavy (bad) economic situation is to get rid of the issue of sanctions and it will be solved with the JCPOA."

  • Iran's mullahs particularly love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal soon expires. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness. Pictured: Mohammad Eslami (right), head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), attend the IAEA General Conference in Vienna, Austria on September 20, 2021. (Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iranian regime will be resuming "nuclear talks" with the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) next week. It is crucial that the Biden administration not give away the leverage that the former administration built against the Islamic Republic through sanctions. The deal is not yet dead: the Biden administration and the EU are still trying to resurrect it.

China and Russia, because of their shared geopolitical, strategic and economic interests, are likely to align themselves with Iran's leaders and their demands. Iran's new president, Ebrahim Raisi, recently spoke with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, regarding the upcoming nuclear talks and the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). China, Russia, and the Islamic Republic, according to a statement released by the Chinese government, have apparently already reached "a broad consensus" on the deal

Since the Biden administration evidently is insisting on negotiating with a predatory regime such as Iran, at least it should not enter the negotiations from a position of weakness.

The Biden administration needs to understand that the Iranian regime is desperate for the revival of the nuclear deal due to the significant financial and sanctions relief that the JCPOA offers the ruling clerics. The deal that Iran and China recently signed has not yet substantially benefited Tehran financially; it is spread out over 25 years of Chinese investments in Iran's gas and oil industries. Iran may not see any profits from the deal for a long time.

It has become evident in the last three years, since the Trump administration pulled the US out of the nuclear agreement, that China, Russia, or even the European Union cannot completely shield Tehran from US sanctions. In fact, Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper surprisingly acknowledged on November 20, 2021:

"No country, neither China nor Russia, will be able to save our economy. We must try to lift the sanctions. The way out of the internal pressures and the heavy (bad) economic situation is to get rid of the issue of sanctions and it will be solved with the JCPOA."

Since the Raisi government entered office, it has been attempting to increase Iran's leverage in the negotiations by escalating uranium enrichment to come close to weapons-grade levels and by rapidly advancing the country's nuclear program. The reality on the ground is that the regime needs to revive the nuclear deal in order to lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after it pulled out the US of the flimsy nuclear deal, which by the way, Iran never signed.

Iran's militia groups are receiving less funding to pursue their terror activities because of the Trump administration's sanctions, which are still in place but will be lifted if the nuclear deal is revived. This shortfall may be why, for the first time in more than three decades, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, made a public statement asking people to donate money to his group, saying: "I announce today that we are in need of the support of our popular base. It is the responsibility of the Lebanese resistance, its popular base, its milieu," to battle these measures. The Yemeni militia group, the Houthis, has also been sending people SMS text messages asking for donations.

Iran's ruling mullahs also need to revive the nuclear deal because it will enable Iran to rejoin the global financial system with full legitimacy -- allowing billions of dollars to flowing into the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its expanding militias across the Middle East.

The regime also needs the nuclear deal and sanctions relief because it is running a major budget deficit of $200 million per week.

Based on a report released by the Financial Tribune, the Iranian regime's budget deficit is "on course to reach 4,640 trillion rials ($16.79 billion) in the fiscal 2021-22 while the government is also facing an unfunded deficit of roughly 30%, or 3,830 trillion rials ($13.86 billion)." The regime also recently asked the US to unlock $10 billion.

Iran's mullahs particularly love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal soon expires. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.

If the Islamic Republic's huge deficit continues, it will cause increasing inflation and contribute to further devaluation of the currency. This will, in return, add to the frustration of the people against the ruling clerics, which could trigger another nationwide uprising and endanger the theocratic establishment's hold on power.

Raisi has formed a Cabinet full of members of the security services -- the Quds Force and the IRGC -- offering yet another indication that the regime is afraid of further uprisings.

In addition, the regime seems extremely concerned about its regional isolation and how the geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East is tipping the balance of power against Tehran -- particularly by the recent development of better relations between Israel and some of the Arab Gulf states. From the perspective of the Iranian leaders, the nuclear deal will address such concerns, because it will give Tehran global legitimacy, acceptance in the international community, and reintegrate Iran in the global financial system. As Iran's state-controlled Arman-e-Meli newspaper recently warned:

"We must take care of the security circles around the country. Recently, the Zionist regime has been trying to form a regional and international coalition against our country (regime). These threats should not be ignored. It should not be taken lightly, but it can be very serious. A front is forming in the region with four main members: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt. The Prime Minister of the Zionist regime has announced that the anti-Iranian alliance in the region will take a stronger shape. This front can be dangerous and a threat to us. Negotiations must begin peacefully."

 

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17969/us-leverage-iran

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Why Iran's Mullahs are Slow-Walking a Nuclear Deal, Even With Joe Biden - Hamid Enayat

 

​ by Hamid Enayat

It has nothing to do with the U.S. or Israel.

As the situation within Iran continues to deteriorate, why is the Iranian regime dragging its feet on negotiations with the U.S. on its nuclear program? After all, successful completion of those could lead to the lifting of sanctions on the mullah regime and have actual economic benefits for the Iranian people.

But the mullahs have chosen to slow-walk the matter, despite the eagerness of the Biden White House to get another nuclear deal done.

The first clue can be found in Iran's politics.

In a speech on the eve of the Iranian New Year, the mullahs' Supreme Leader said, "I have repeatedly stated that I believe in and hope for a young and Hezbollah-minded government. ... Some (individuals), although old, are young at heart, hard-working and cheerful, such as the great martyr Qassem Soleimani [the eliminated commander of the terrorist Quds Force]."

In the 2021 sham presidential election in Iran, a host of candidates, including the former speaker of parliament and Khamenei's advisor, Ali Larijani, were disqualified, thus paving the way for the selection of Khamenei's handpicked candidate, Ebrahim Raisi. In Khamenei's mind, a young and Hezbollah-minded government is a government completely under his control. Khamenei pushed aside the so-called "reformists" or "moderates," who had helped the regime prolong its lifespan for decades. This 'moderate' faction facilitated the policy of Western appeasement by creating false hopes of change or 'reform' within the regime. Khamenei, in short, has decided to go extreme.

Becoming a "One Voice" Government

Why did Khamenei cast aside the so-called moderates, who had been such an important ally of his regime?

Well, he did this primarily to fulfill his desire to create a "one-voice" entity, meant to address the regime's legitimacy crisis, both internally and internationally.

A "one-voice" policy is meant to counter possible uprisings while not refraining from nuclear and missile programs, regional warfare, and international adventures.

The two national uprisings of 2018 and 2019, which were curbed only by the bloody repression of the insurgent youths, deepened the regime's crisis of illegitimacy. These significant and unprecedented uprisings, initiated by ordinary people suffering from high inflation, staggering unemployment, and deteriorating living conditions, took the entire regime by surprise. Similar uprisings are destined to be repeated more extensively and ferociously.

Khamenei installed Ebrahim Raisi as his new president using a manipulated election. According to Amnesty International and the United Nations, Ebrahim Raisi was heavily involved in the massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard called Raisi's victory "a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran," and urged an investigation of "his involvement in past and ongoing crimes under international law."

Raisi's appointment is meant to intimidate the Iranian people by prohibiting and discouraging any future uprisings. Most of Raisi's cabinet members have held extensive roles in Iran's repressive machinery, and more than 30 of his administration members are functionaries of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Despite ongoing efforts of intimidation and the oppressive efforts of the regime, the number of insurgent youth forming Resistance Units has increased throughout Iran, both in the numbers and the reach of their campaigns, especially after the widespread November 2019 uprisings. Let's just say Khameini has problems.

These units in fact are a mullah's nightmare: They are advocating for the separation of religion and state and strongly support gender equality. The Resistance Units also advocate for the Ten Point Plan of Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi. As they gain in popularity, especially among the youth, the Iranian people support these groups in a variety of ways. Khamenei and other regime officials truly fear the formation of such a powerful resistance front in Iran.

Iran's Resistance Units are engaged in writing anti-regime graffiti, organizing protests, and distributing leaflets. In this way, they urge the Iranian society to revolt against religious theocracy. In a report after the 2019 uprising, a regime interior ministry official acknowledged that the Resistance Units were instrumental in forming that uprising.

An Unbalanced and Unfair Confrontation

After the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, a theory emerged within the Iranian regime that superpowers could be challenged through asymmetric warfare. Based on this theory, the mullahs' regime pivoted towards building a nuclear bomb, intensifying terrorist activities in the region, and expanding its regional influence in neighboring countries and beyond.

Due to its medieval religious dogmas, this regime cannot meet the people's essential social and economic needs. Khamenei is facing an explosive and fragile situation inside Iran. Naturally, the regime's leadership turned to internal repression of the people and creating tensions and conflicts in the region. The regime also believes a nuclear weapon can guarantee its survival and has invested heavily in this endeavor. In short, they don't want to give up their bomb through some negotiation with Joe Biden, nor even give the appearance of giving it up.

In the minds of the mullahs, they might just lose power.

Now let's turn to how the mullahs view actual nuclear weapons as their key to holding internal power.

In August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revealed Tehran's clandestine nuclear weapons program. This shocking revelation was a big blow to the theocracy's nuclear ambitions. To compensate for its nuclear setbacks, Tehran increased its regional influence and accelerated the development of ballistic missiles.

According to an Iranian analyst close to government circles, "What can guarantee the JCPOA's [Iran nuclear deal] survival is a show of Iran's national power." He defines national power as follows:

- Maintaining nuclear capabilities so that if the Americans decide to abandon the JCPOA again, Iran will move toward producing 90 percent enriched uranium

- Maintaining the country's defensive power (missile and drones development program)

- Reducing vulnerability to sanctions

Another source close to the Iranian regime believes what could prevent the U.S. from abandoning the JCPOA again is to announce that "if the deal is violated, it (Iran) will build its own bomb and set Saudi Arabia on fire."

Regime theorists believe that if Western countries find Iran in a weak position, they will destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, reduce its missile power, and demand Iran's unconditional withdrawal from the region's countries.

Such analysis assumes that Iran is a lightweight while the P5 + 1 is a heavyweight. So "no one expects a lightweight boxer to win, but if he can resist and buy time, his opponent will get tired, and his strength will increase over time. In this confrontation, we must increase our resistance and, above all, strengthen the economy. I am convinced that what allows the regime to continue to breathe is first the economy, then its defense capacity, and finally the amount of enriched uranium."

Resumption of Nuclear Talks

All signs indicate that the parties involved in the recent round of the JCPOA negotiations are losing hope for reaching an agreement. The parties involved have not modified their positions.

Iran does not consider its missile programs and regional behavior to be negotiable. It is not satisfied with anything less than lifting all sanctions and tangible positive consequences for Iran's economy.

On the other hand, the United States considers any concessions to Iran to be contingent on changes to its missile programs and menacing regional intransigence. Furthermore, both Washington and the European Troika agree that Iran's advancements in its nuclear programs and lack of cooperation with the IAEA have further complicated the negotiation process.

Tehran has agreed to join the next round of talks with the P4+1 (i.e. excluding the U.S.) scheduled for Nov. 29. A vexing issue for Tehran remains sanctions, which the United States, and not Europe, has imposed and enforced. In that respect, negotiations with Europe alone will not necessarily address the regime's main demand, namely the lifting of U.S.-led sanctions.

Europe, like Washington, has shared its serious concerns regarding Iran's missile program and its destabilizing behavior in the region, stating that it considers Iran's nuclear and missile program to be a potential threat to itself and its allies.

Perhaps the most critical sign of the potential failure of the Nov. 29 talks and any subsequent negotiations lies in Iran's continuation of its hostile activities in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. The drone assassination plot against the Iraqi Prime Minister conducted by Iran-backed proxies using Tehran's weaponry, the seizure of oil tankers, and conducting dangerous military maneuvers, magnify Tehran's clear message that it has absolutely no intention of modifying its regional behavior. It is worth noting that such actions are meant to portray a powerful image in the eyes of loyal forces within the regime.

The remarks of Fereydoun Abbasi, a member of the Energy Commission of Iran's Parliament, fully confirm the above assessment. "The current government believes in detente, which is rooted in resistance," he said. And detente means lifting all sanctions related to the JCPOA and other sanctions related to human rights and terrorism.

"If people want independence and want to solve their economic challenges, they should know that hard power supports soft power in negotiations," he added. That is a thinly veiled reference to a nuclear weapon.

At present, Iran's economy is held hostage to the regime's foreign policy, which itself is captive to the progress of nuclear negotiations. If the Iranian regime fails to equip itself with a nuclear bomb, its bargaining power will decrease substantially. Obligating itself to the terms and conditions of Western governments will mean that it will be forced to subsequently address human rights abuses and accept a retreat in regional meddling and missile development.

Even though refusing to negotiate is contrary to the Iranian people's welfare and future, the regime believes that it must continue the current path to the end, leading to a nuclear bomb. Abbasi believes that "deterrence should be further extended beyond Iran's neighboring countries. Iran's deterrence should emerge in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Antarctica. Therefore, we must work on factors influencing the nuclear arena (i.e. obtaining the bomb) because the symbols of power for any country, including the Islamic Republic, is to establish a serious presence in certain arenas."

 

Hamid Enayat

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/why_irans_mullahs_are_slowwalking_a_nuclear_deal_even_with_joe_biden.html

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The Profound Junk Science of Climate - Norman Rogers

 

​ by Norman Rogers

Once money and status started flowing into climate science because of the disaster its denizens were predicting, there was no going back.

Climate change prophecy hangs its hat on computer climate models. The models have gigantic problems. According to Kevin Trenberth, once in charge of modeling at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “[None of the] models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate [of the Earth].” The models can’t properly model the Earth’s climate, but we are supposed to believe that, if carbon dioxide has a certain effect on the imaginary Earths of the many models it will have the same effect on the real earth.

The climate models are an exemplary representation of confirmation bias, the psychological tendency to suspend one’s critical facilities in favor of welcoming what one expects or desires. Climate scientists can manipulate numerous adjustable parameters in the models that can be changed to tune a model to give a “good” result. Technically, a good result would be that the climate model output can match past climate history. But that good result competes with another kind of good result. That other good result is a prediction of a climate catastrophe. That sort of “good” result has elevated the social and financial status of climate science into the stratosphere.

Once money and status started flowing into climate science because of the disaster its denizens were predicting, there was no going back. Imagine that a climate scientist discovers gigantic flaws in the models and the associated science. Do not imagine that his discovery would be treated respectfully and evaluated on its merits. That would open the door to reversing everything that has been so wonderful for climate scientists.  Who would continue to throw billions of dollars a year at climate scientists if there were no disasters to be prevented? No, the discoverer of any flaw would be demonized and attacked as a pawn of evil interests. Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer come to mind. There are many more skeptical scientists keeping quiet in varying degrees.

Testing a model against past history and assuming that it will then predict the future is a methodology that invites failure. The failure starts when the modeler adds more adjustable parameters to enhance the model. At some point, one should ask if we are fitting a model or doing simple curve fitting. If the model has degenerated into curve fitting, it very likely won’t have serious predictive capability.

A strong indicator that climate models are well into the curve fitting regime is the use of ensembles of models. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) averages together numerous models (an ensemble), in order to make a projection of the future. Asked why they do this rather than try to pick the best model, they say that the ensemble method works better. Why would averaging worse models with the best model make the average better than the best? This is contrary to common sense. But according to the mathematics of curve fitting, if different methods of fitting the same (multidimensional) data are used, and each method is independent but imperfect, averaging together the fits will indeed give a better result. It works better because there is a mathematical artifact coming from having too many adjustable parameters that allow the model to fit nearly anything.

One may not be surprised that the various models disagree dramatically, one with another, about the Earth’s climate, including how big the supposed global warming catastrophe will be. But no model, except perhaps one from Russia, denies the future catastrophe.

There is a political reason for using ensembles. In order to receive the benefits flowing from predicting a climate catastrophe, climate science must present a unified front. Dissenters have to be canceled and suppressed. If the IPCC were to select the best model, dozens of other modeling groups would be left out. They would, no doubt, form a dissenting group questioning the authority of those that gave the crown to one particular model. With ensembles, every group gets to participate in a rewarding conspiracy against humanity.

Fitting the model to climate history comes up against the fact that past climate history is poorly documented or unknown. There are scientific groups that specialize in examining and summarizing the vast trove of past climate history. Their summaries improve on the original data in ways that always seem to support global warming catastrophe. The website realclimatescience.com specializes in exposing this tampering with climate history.

Because so much of climate history is unknown, for example, climate influencing aerosols, the modelers have to make up the missing history. Each modeler is free to make up his own history, so the various models fit different assumed past climates. It would be very surprising if modelers weren’t manipulating their fabricated climates to make their models behave better.

Scientists are always cautioned not to fall in love with a theory or method. If they do, they will lose their objectivity. Facts that support their love will be celebrated, facts that cast doubt on their love will be ignored or forgotten. But if you spend years, or decades, married to a modeling methodology, divorce becomes less and less likely.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization in Washington, DC that touts itself as the science advisor to the government. Their advice has some common threads. They never criticize the scientific establishment and they always promote spending more money on science. Like the teachers’ unions, they pretend to support the common good but actually promote their constituency’s special interests.

The Academy sponsored a report on the future of climate modeling. They apparently saw nothing wrong with staffing the study committee with professional climate modelers. The report advocated more money for climate modelers and urged hiring professional public relations people to present results to the public.

The purported climate catastrophe ahead is 100% junk science. If the unlikely climate catastrophe actually happens, it will be coincidental that it was predicted by climate scientists. Most of the supporting evidence is fabricated. There Is no out-of-the-ordinary climate change taking place. The constant comparisons of the current climate with preindustrial climate are nonsense because according to climate theory and the models, the effect of CO2 was extremely minor before 1975. Since 1975 nothing points to a climate catastrophe or a new long-term trend.

The fake climate catastrophe has spawned a fake energy paradigm – replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar electricity. Wind and solar are claimed to be cheaper than traditional sources of electricity but non-fake accounting reveals that wind or solar electricity costs five or even ten times more than traditional electricity, exclusive, of course, of government subsidies and mandates. The reason it costs so much is that the erratic nature of wind and solar requires maintaining the traditional electricity generating system intact and ready to operate when wind and solar fail. Solar fails every night, every cloudy day, and more often in winter. Wind fails at random times, or somewhat predictable times, and often has a seasonal cycle. If the renewable energy advocates were logical, they would be advocating for nuclear. Nuclear is reliable and does not produce CO2.

Climate change and wind and solar electricity are a snipe hunts, diverting the country from serious problems in favor of imaginary problems with imaginary solutions that enrich the promoters and their political friends with status and money.

Photo credit: Pixabay license

 

Norman Rogers spent 10-years studying climate change and climate change scientists. He is the author of the book Dumb Energy, about wind and solar energy. He is on the board of the CO2 Coalition and was formerly on the board of the National Association of Scholars. He holds a master’s degree in physics.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/the_profound_junk_science_of_climate.html

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