Obama's Nobel Prize: A blatant attempt to Europeanize US policy.

 

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

 

Tell me who are the committee members of the Nobel Prize for Peace, and I'll tell you why it was awarded to President Obama.

 

According to Alfred Nobel's will – and in contrast with other Nobel Prize committees – the members of the Nobel Prize for Peace committee are not experts, but politicians, members of the Norwegian Parliament.

 

The chairman of the committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Norway, is the Vice President and the Chairman of the Middle East Committee of the "Socialist International," known for its opposition to US and Israeli policies.  He is, also, the Chairman of the "Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights," which advocates a Dovish-Leftist world view, in cooperation with former President Jimmy Carter, who is close to President Obama and a role-model for the new Nobel Laureate.

 

Along with other members of the Committee, Jagland, represents a Parliament, which has called to recognize Hamas, to dialogue with Iran, to tolerate rogue regimes, to enhance ties with Moslem regimes, to condemn (what he terms) Islamophobia and to criticize systematically the policies of Washington (until Obama's victory) and Jerusalem.

 

Awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize – in spite of the fact that the deadline for nominations was February 1, 10 days into Obama's Administration – constitutes a transparent attempt by European politicians to bolster Obama's determination in the global arena and improve Obama's standing in the domestic arena. While Obama's stock have risen internationally, it has deteriorated internally, in light of his lack of success in the areas of unemployment, taxes, budget deficit, health insurance reform, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia and Al-Qaida.

 

Jagland and his colleagues are determined to provide Obama with a tailwind. They consider him the most UN-driven American President since Woodrow Wilson, who established the League of Nations in 1920. They are encouraging him to sustain his efforts to endear the UN to the American people and legislators and to highlight the UN as the key formulator of international relations. They identify with – and are eager to advance – Obama's world view, as they assess it: that the superpower role of the US is over; that moral equivalence – and not moral superiority – dominates relations between the US and non Western democracies; that the West must reconcile itself to the rise of the Moslem World; that the US must desist from unilateral political and military initiatives; that the US should advance multilateral initiatives which reflect values and attitudes shared by the majority of the UN membership; that there is no military option against Iran; that the battle against Islamic terrorism must be conducted diplomatically, economically and legally and not militarily; that there should not be a surge in Afghanistan; that retreat from Iraq should be accelerated; that the Palestinian issue is the core cause of Middle East turbulence and anti-Western Islamic terrorism, etc.

 

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama does not reflect respect, by the Nobel Price Committee, for the American President. It does not intend to express appreciation of the American legacy and American human and mega-billion dollar monetary sacrifice, which spared Europe defeat during World War I and World War II, produced victory over Communism and minimized Islamic terrorism in Europe. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee strives to improve Obama's image among Americans and to leverage his presidency, in order to Europeanize US policy, thus accomplishing the "wet dream" of US critics, rivals and enemies. Reservations expressed by most of the US public, legislators and media suggests that the Norwegian politicians may relive the Biblical episode of Balaam in reverse: They came to bless, but ended up cursing.    

 

 

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

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

 

Middle East Lunatics Run Asylum; West Hands Them The Keys.

by Barry Rubin

It's bad enough that lunatics are running the asylum but to make matters worse they're charging us rent! UN General Assembly chaired by Libya; EU chaired by Sweden; UN Human Rights committee run by Sudan. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received as a great statesman by the UN after stealing the election and repressing demonstrators. President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo and at the General Assembly. Yep that about sums it up.

So let's see what's happening in the Middle East today….

There have been several days of Palestinian riots in Jerusalem based on a false rumor of some Jewish radical assault on the Temple Mount when it was just a group of French tourists visiting the area. Wild rumors and lies create violence and hatred.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the radical Islamist Movement in Israel was convening under the slogan "Al Aqsa Is in Danger," rallying thousands. One of the movement's leader—President Barack Obama take note—said in a radio interview that it was unacceptable for "an [Israeli] Ethiopian policeman, a Negro, would ask a Muslim for his identity card" at the entrance to the Temple Mount compound.

Massive criticism and protests over this racism? Muslim groups lambast the Islamists for displaying racial prejudice? Guess not. Instead, violent demonstrations were organized by Fatah, Hamas, and Hizb al-Tahrir based on an untrue rumor.

So what did Fatah do after it helped provoke riots? Why it ran to the UN and demanded it intervene to keep Israel from escalating the situation in Jerusalem. The request was made by PA "foreign minister" Riyad al-Malki, a veteran leader of the terrorist PFLP group, though he is no longer with them..

What a wonderful metaphor. First, attack Israel; then complain that Israel is aggressive and committing war crimes. Of course, that's what Hamas did and the world has leaped to its defense, so maybe that works.

[Which reminds me, a couple of months ago I spoke at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. The representative of some Muslim group asked, "Why should anyone give you any more credibility [that is, the Israeli position] than to Hamas?" He was being generous. Hamas clearly has far more credibility even with the Europeans.]

Which brings us to the European Union's endorsement of the Goldstone Commission report. LINK Note that the EU's membership as a whole will almost certainly not support serious sanctions against Iran (even if Britain, France, and Germany do). Also note that the Swedish foreign minister, who chairs the EU, refused to condemn an article in Sweden's largest newspaper saying Israel deliberately murdered Palestinians to steal their organs.

Incidentally, you may think the Goldstone Commission report is just being criticized by some because it condemns Israel as having committed war crimes during the war in Gaza. Actually, if one totally ignores the specific topic, it is one of the most amazingly sloppy and irresponsible international documents I've ever seen. It is based on the unchecked testimony of Hamas officials and Palestinians who hate Israel, plus plagiarism from various reports by NGOs that have a roughly similar position.

There was no independent investigation or verification of facts. Compared to this, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a scholarly document.

But that doesn't mean PA and Fatah and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is happy. Oh, no. He has committed the dreadful sin of "moderation" in Palestinian eyes and so must repent (hence one of the reasons for his role in provoking the riots).

What did Abbas do wrong? First, he stood next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN because President Barack Obama asked him to do so. And second he agreed to withdraw the PA's being the main sponsor of the Goldstone resolution at the UN to accuse Israel of war crimes.

Why does he need to do anything? He can just let the EU do the job for him.

Not that Abbas is all "bad" from the radical standpoint that dominates Palestinian thinking. After all, he refuses to negotiate with Israel unless there is a total freeze of construction on settlements, despite the Palestinians accepting this in practice for 16 years.

And this is the man and movement that Nobel Laureate Obama would have us believe is about to make peace? He can't even do a small favor for Obama, much less make the big compromises necessary for real peace.

So how do you win popularity? Well, Hamas knows. Firing rockets and mortars at Israel, breaking the ceasefire, and using civilians as human shields have brought it big international gains. Now, Hamas, according to a Reuters report, is "enjoying a wave of popularity" because it got 20 female prisoners released in exchange for a video showing that Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit is alive.

Get that? Minor acts of moderation make you unpopular so you must repent by organizing riots and escalating extremist rhetoric. Violence and punishing your own people makes you popular.

Welcome to the Middle East!

One government that understands this is that of Turkey, which has now canceled participation in a joint U.S.-NATO-Israel-Turkey air force exercise, after participating for 15 rounds in the past. The authorities in Washington haven't caught on yet that the Turkish government is taking the country down the Islamist path and is bringing the armed forces there to heel as well. They still think it is a very model of a moderate Muslim government.

Ironically, the exercise was known as Anatolian Eagle but there will be no Anatolians.

The United States, however, is still participating in a big joint air defense exercise with Israel, a sign that bilateral relations continue to function smoothly.

Note also that the Turkish government has imposed a $2.5 billion fine (that is not a typographical error) on the Dogan Group, the largest company backing opposition media. This is a huge danger to freedom of the press in Turkey and a dangerous sign of where that country's government is going.

Sorry to go on so long. Blame the news, not me.

 

 

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

 

In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, succession looms.

 

by Jeffrey Fleishman

 

Egypt President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia King Abdullah, both in their 80s, have long played leading Mideast roles. Some worry that successors will complicate relationships.

 

Reporting from Cairo - They are a desert king and a military officer-turned-president. Drive through their capitals and their images glow from billboards and painted walls, old men with their eyes fixed everywhere, even as whispers grow about who will rise to replace them.

 

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are in their 80s, durable U.S. allies whose governments have crushed political dissent at home while playing leading roles across the Middle East. But these days, talk of succession reverberates as Washington, as well as Riyadh and Cairo, plans to navigate an era without two of the region's dominant personalities.

 

The men have given no indication that they will step down. Mubarak's term runs until 2011 and the king's reign lasts for as long as he sees fit. But Mubarak and Abdullah are frail.

 

In Egypt, there is incessant chatter that the president's younger son, Gamal, will follow his father, and in Saudi Arabia, several leadership scenarios are unfolding within the ruling House of Saud.

 

A senior State Department official said the U.S. believes that its relationship with the two countries is "deep enough and broad enough to withstand the strains of any kind of transition."

 

But the official, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, added that the eventual absence of Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, and Abdullah, who took the throne in 2005 but has run Saudi Arabia since 1996, when the since-deceased King Fahd suffered a stroke, raises concerns about the future of a jittery Middle East.

 

The imprints the aging leaders have left are indelible. Mubarak has kept peace with Israel -- at a stiff cost to his domestic credibility -- while pushing for a Palestinian state. Abdullah has transformed his kingdom's oil wealth into diplomatic power as Riyadh, the Saudi capital, has become influential from Beirut to Kabul, Afghanistan.

 

The pair have brushed aside historical animosities between their nations to cooperate in confronting what they regard as major threats to the Sunni Muslim Arab world: the prospect of a nuclear-armed Shiite Iran and the violence sparked by Islamic militancy extending from North Africa to Indonesia.

 

Their overall strategies, which complement U.S. interests, are not expected to be significantly altered by their successors, especially since new leaders will almost certainly come from the ranks of the ruling regimes. What will vanish are decades of experience and the visages the world has grown accustomed to: Mubarak, 81, with his oversized sunglasses and Air Force salute, and Abdullah, 85, with his endless entourages and jet black goatee.

 

It is likely that Iran, Syria and their Islamist allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will move quickly to provoke whoever follows the two leaders. At the same time, domestic reformers and opposition groups, especially the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, are expected to push for broader political freedoms and to stem state security networks that have been criticized by international human rights organizations and Washington for torture, imprisonment and other violations.

 

"The U.S. should be worried about the possibility of either of these two leaders leaving the scene. Iran and Syria will move to exploit the loss of Mubarak and King Abdullah," said Amr Hamzawy, a Middle East expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

 

But Nabil Fahmy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the U.S., said, "Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been strong supporters of an open relationship with the West -- and Washington in particular."

 

"I'm not as worried about the change of leadership as many in the West are," he said.

 

Topping the list of potential successors in Egypt are Mubarak's son Gamal, 45, and Omar Suleiman, who is in his early 70s, a longtime confidant of the president and head of the country's intelligence network. Gamal, a leading voice within the ruling National Democratic Party, lacks government and foreign policy experience but supports economic reform and appears more attuned to human rights than his father.

 

Suleiman has the institutional pedigree of Mubarak and previous Egyptian presidents and, as a chief mediator dealing with the Palestinians, has close ties with Washington. It is unclear, however, whether he wants to lead the country. He is also a reminder of a bygone Egypt, a time when Cairo, which is now slipping in stature, was the center of the Arab world.

 

Egypt's bonds with Washington, fueled by $1.2 billion in annual U.S. aid, have survived political transitions and tense relations.

 

"President Mubarak and George W. Bush didn't have great personal ties, but that never affected the strategic, military and security relations between the countries," said Diaa Rashwan, an analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

 

The successor scenario in Saudi Arabia is complicated by age, illness and a struggle within the royal family between moderates and hard-liners. Next in line for the throne is Crown Prince Sultan ibn Abdulaziz, but he is in his early 80s and has been ailing for years.

 

Following him could be Prince Nayef ibn Abdulaziz, 76, the Saudi interior minister, whom Abdullah elevated this year to second deputy prime minister. Nayef is close to fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics who have resisted the king's attempts at modest reforms to ease religion's grip on schools, courts and other institutions.

 

Riyadh's ties to the U.S. remain vital, but over the years, the kingdom's oil wealth has allowed it to widen its strategic interests, including to the emerging energy markets of India and China. Such shifts could alter the tenor of relations with Washington if personal connections fade as aging monarchs die or are replaced every few years by fellow members of a royal family that grows more difficult to decipher, a scenario likely to be encountered by either President Obama or future U.S. leaders.

 

"With the kingdom facing the prospect of enthroning a new king every two or three years (or even at closer intervals), the U.S. president faces the prospect of having to work with several Saudi monarchs during one term alone," noted a policy paper written by Simon Henderson, an expert on Saudi Arabia and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

 

Mubarak and Abdullah, and what awaits their successors, can be viewed best through the prism of domestic pressures. Mubarak rose to power after the assassination by Islamists of Anwar Sadat, who shortly before had made peace with Israel. Mubarak has kept Egypt under emergency law for nearly 28 years, grinding down political opponents while proving unable to improve the lives of his 82 million countrymen, more than 40% of them living on less than $2 a day.

 

Hamzawy of the Carnegie Endowment said that if the Egyptian regime can't agree on a post-Mubarak candidate, and economic and social anxieties spread, the country could enter a "chaotic succession . . . that the Muslim Brotherhood could exploit by using the street to demonstrate their influence."

 

Abdullah was named crown prince in 1982 and largely ran Saudi Arabia after Fahd, his half brother, became incapacitated. His attempts at reform won him early praise, but he has been criticized for not pushing hard enough against religious conservatives and not providing freedoms for women or opportunities for those younger than 25. The latter, who are poorly educated, make up half the population.

 

The oppressed of Egypt and the young of Saudi Arabia are angry and restless. They listened to Obama's June speech in Cairo, and many were disappointed by the lack of criticism of their nations' regimes, which often ignore American principles of democracy.

 

It is these sentiments -- expressed by laborers striking in the Egyptian textile city of El Mahalla el Kubra and by bloggers and filmmakers in Riyadh -- that new leaders will have to calm.

 

"Predicting what will happen in Saudi Arabia is very difficult," said Mohammad Fahad Qahtani, a reformer and assistant economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies.

 

"You live in an oil bonanza. The country is flush with money, but you have unemployment and 30% of the people living in poverty. Only 22% of families own their own homes.

 

"It's a gloomy picture. The regime is losing its credibility."

 

 

Jeffrey Fleishman

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington and Amro Hassan of The Times' Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.

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

 

An Open Question to Osama Bin Laden - or Any Other Islamist.

 

by Raymond Ibrahim

Ever since 9/11, when Osama bin Laden was thrust into the spotlight, he has made it a point to occasionally submit questions to Americans — questions which he apparently thinks are unanswerable.

In his last message "commemorating" 9/11, for instance, after rehashing the storyline that the jihad on America wholly revolves around U.S. support for Israel — former grievances cited throughout the years include America's "exploitation" of women and failure to sign the environmental Kyoto Protocol — bin Laden concluded with the following musing: "You should ask yourselves whether your security, your blood, your sons, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation are more dear to you than the security and economy of the Israelis."

In fact, bin Laden et al. have made it perfectly clear that should U.S. support for Israel cease, so too would Islamic terrorism cease. Hence, in this last communiqué: "Let me say that we have declared many times, over more than two and a half decades, that the reason for our conflict with you is your support for your Israeli allies, who are occupying our land of Palestine [emphasis added]."

Fair enough. Yet before responding to Osama, it must be noted that, in and of themselves, his communiqués beg a simple, logical question — one that, as shall be seen, responds to all his observations and questions by making them moot.

Before articulating this question, let us first establish much-needed context: As clearly demonstrated by Islam's doctrines and history — the former regularly manifesting themselves in the course of the latter — it is a historic fact that Islamic hostility for and aggression against non-Muslims transcends any and all temporal "grievances." In short, Islam, according to the classical — not "radical" — schools of jurisprudence, is obligated to subjugate the world.

From a traditional Muslim point of view, this troubling assertion is as open to debate or interpretation as is the notion that Muslims are obligated to pray. This is also why prudent non-Muslims have for centuries been finding the question of achieving permanent peace with the Islamic world a vexatious problem. Professor of law James Lorimer (1818-90) succinctly stated the problem over a century ago:

So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem. … For an indefinite future, however reluctantly, we must confine our political recognition to the professors of those religions which … preach the doctrine of "live and let live" (The Institutes of the Law of Nations, p. 124).

In other words, political recognition — with all the attendant negotiations and diplomacy that come with it — should be granted to all major religions/civilizations except Islam, which does not recognize the notion of "live and let live," as evinced by, among other stipulations, the Koran's commands to its adherents to "enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong," (e.g., Koran 3:110), that is, enforce Sharia law upon the earth.

Now while most Muslims may not go around evoking Islamic law's dichotomized worldview that pits Islam against the rest of the world — many may not even be aware of it — bin Laden, the "man of grievances," has. (This, of course, has long been an al-Qaeda tactic: convince the West, which is generally ignorant of Islam's bellicose doctrines, that jihad is a byproduct of foreign policy, while inciting Muslims to the jihad by stressing its obligatory nature.)

As for bin Laden and his communiqués: For all his talk of Israel being the heart of the problem, he exposed his true position in the following excerpt, which he directed to fellow Arabic-speaking Muslims not long after the 9/11 strikes:

Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?

So much for bin Laden's insistence that Israel is the "reason for our conflict with you." Now we see that the conflict ultimately revolves around whether Islam is obligated to dominate the world by force. Well, is it? Bin Laden continues:

Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)

This threefold choice, then — conversion, subjugation, or the sword — is the ultimate source of problems. All Islamist talk of jihad being a product of U.S. foreign policy is, therefore, false. When bin Laden asserted in this last message that it is the "neocons" who "impose the wars upon you — not the mujahideen [i.e., jihadis]," he lied. Islamic law, as he himself delineated, "imposed" war between Muslims and non-Muslims well over a millennium before the "neocons" — let alone the state of Israel — came into being.

Thus to all of bin Laden's grievances and questions, there is but one counter-question — one that, in bin Laden's own words, "demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice" — and it is: Even if all your grievances against Israel and America's support for it were true, why come to us — your natural-born enemies, according to your own worldview — looking for any concessions?

To better appreciate this position, consider the following analogy: Say your weaker neighbor has a border dispute with you. At the same time, however, you know for a fact that he sees you as his "eternal" enemy for nothing less than your beliefs/lifestyle, and nothing short of your total acquiescence to his beliefs/lifestyle will change that. Finally, you know that the day he grows sufficiently strong, he will undoubtedly attack you in order to make you live according to his beliefs/lifestyle.

Surely in this context, whether his border dispute with you is legitimate or not, making concessions to him while knowing his hostility for you will never subside — but rather become more emboldened and augmented with contempt — is sheer suicide. Yet this is precisely what happens whenever the U.S. makes any concessions to Islamists.

In sum, we, the "infidels" — Americans and Israelis alike — are de facto enemies. It is in this context that the question of U.S. support for Israel should be examined. Being hated and deemed the enemy for temporal grievances of a political nature must be viewed as peripheral to being hated for fundamental differences of an existential nature.

When the latter, much more important issue is redressed, then — and only then — should the veracity of the former be open to debate or even consideration. In the meantime, all "political" complaints must be seen as absolutely moot. It's a simple matter of priorities.

 

Raymond Ibrahim is the associate director of the Middle East Forum and the author of The Al Qaeda Reader, translations of religious texts and propaganda .

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

 

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize--What More Do You Need to Know to Understand Today's World?

 

by Barry Rubin

The news that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize seems like a prize bit of satire, like Chicago getting the Olympics. “Are you laughing or crying,” wrote a reader to me. “Neither. I’m thinking about what this tells us about the world today,” I responded.

Then I checked over and over and over again on the Internet and called up several people just to make sure that this wasn’t a satire, that some new type of computer virus hadn’t infiltrated my software that would make fools of anyone credulous enough to believe this hoax.

And then I realized that it makes perfect sense.

It was considered a big joke when people quoted Woody Allen, the American comedian and film director, as saying, that showing up is eighty percent of success. (Allen says he doesn’t remember ever having said that.) With Obama the percentage is considerably higher.

But after all the mocking or cheering, what this shows is that we live in the world now not of realism but of imagination and wishful thinking. The Nobel Committee even said that it gave the prize not because Obama has done anything but that they support him. They want him to do something.

In the past, the ancestors of Westerners had to work hard, most lived in grinding poverty, faced wars and famines. Remember the proletariat? Remember the slums?

But now they—or at least not only the elites who govern but also the masses of the upper middle class that make and shape the news—are living off the fat of the land. In America, even slum-dwellers usually have hi-tech music devices, expensive sports’ shoes among the young, and other consumer goods far beyond Third World living standards.

Is it an accident that according to the UN Human Development Index, Norway, once the home of starving farmers and fishermen, is number one in the whole world in terms of living standards. While the Norwegians did some of it themselves, a lot comes from the exploitation of oilfields off their coasts, unearned wealth.

And the left, no longer is champion of the actual poor and downtrodden, they just talk about it a lot, then party with the dictators who keep their people in those conditions. In good Marxian fashion they pursue their own interests: bigger government and grant programs to give them high-paying jobs and to provide for their needs; the feeling of being a good and moral person even when those they are supporting are terrorists.

To a large extent, too, those who govern—as in the times of aristocratic rule—don’t actually produce anything, or at least not anything but words, concepts, proposals, programs, and statements. The old American slang for this is that they’ve never met a payroll. Some of them have, but the money came from either government or foundations. They know about selling an idea but not manufacturing or selling three-dimensional objects.

Meanwhile, the resource base is narrowing, at least in Europe, and societies are living beyond their means. Crime is rising; terrorism and mass violence is peeking out. Proportionately large sections of proportionately large immigrant populations may not want to integrate. But to adjust to these facts makes the voters unhappy and so everyone pretends otherwise. Don’t worry, be happy is a theme which wins a lot of backing.

In all of this context, feeling good is more important than doing good. Doing good may involve doing gritty things, like building factories to employ people at higher wages (uh, oh, environment, man-made global warming, nasty developers demonized in films) or to work real hard in school or start a small business and slave away at it (what are you, Asian?) or to fight in wars against totalitarian foes (and what if you hit a civilian by mistake when your enemies are shooting them on purpose or hiding behind them?)

Films, music, and other forms of entertainment—the main shapers of popular ideas—portray constantly young people who have lots of money but have never worked for it. Instant success, instant fame, instant wealth. The hero is not the courageous soldier but the actor who plays a courageous soldier on the screen.

And so what better symbol for this is Barack Obama, the man who has never achieved anything except being elected president. (His earlier posts were mainly the gifts of the most corrupt political machine in America.)

He talks; everyone cheers and goes home.

Listen to the words of the Nobel Committee statement: “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

Really? But I would say all American presidents capture the world’s attention. As for giving people hope for a better future, which people? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Hugo Chavez?

Are peasants in their fields in China and India saying to their children: “Look little [insert appropriate name] Barack Obama will save us!”

It is one thing to believe in a messianic figure but doesn’t he have to do something first?

This is more like electing someone the world’s most popular parent because he let the kids stay up all night, not do their homework, throw parties, and consume large amounts of alcohol and drugs.

And then the committee said: "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The most obvious point is that whether he shares the values and attitudes of Americans, the country he leads, is of minor importance. But exactly what are these values and attitudes? Oh, I have it, that the United States has long been the world’s greatest villain.

And best of all, the head of the Nobel Committee stated that the prize was given, “because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve"

It’s sort of like giving the Nobel Prize for chemistry to a scientist who hasn’t discovered anything but seems like a nice person and is, after all, trying to cure cancer. So we support what he is “trying to achieve.”

But what if he is trying to achieve it badly, What if he is trying to achieve it in a way such that he is destined to fail and make things worse? By this standard British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain deserved the Nobel Peace Prize of 1938 for his efforts to achieve peace. That’s why Nobel Prizes—and sometimes presidencies—are given to people who have already done something. They have proven an ability to do so.

President Theodore Roosevelt, a man who, in comparison, makes Obama look like a microbe, received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese war. In comparison, Obama has helped set back the Israel-Palestinian conflict 20 years (to be fair, 18, that is before the Oslo agreement).

But yes that’s the measure of the world today: If you envision something then that makes it true. If you tell a smug elite what it wants to hear, not only do they applaud but they report in all their media that everyone else applauded also.

The biggest problem with all this is the following: The fate of the world may depend on whether Barack Obama is capable of learning. Yet if Obama keeps getting rewarded for doing nothing or doing the wrong thing he won’t learn. And things will get worse.

Recently, my son's soccer team lost a game 10-0. At the end of the game, rather than tell them the truth--they were doing terribly and they needed to improve their strategy and skills--their coach told them they were playing great. That team is like the Obama Administration; the media, and now the Nobel Committee, are just like that coach.

Doesn't look like it's going to be a good season.

Yes, we live in the real world ultimately, not the world of public relations and wishful thinking. There are prices to be paid. Impractical idealists can get people killed and make big messes as much as cynics. Let me amend that: far more than cynics.

Even Obama seems to sense a bit--and his critics are highlighting this point--that this is too much, too absurd, an embarrassing contrast between minimal achievement, maximum perception of success, and on top of that near-deification.

What sums up this situation best is a line from Tom Lehrer, the math professor who once wrote successful liberal satirical songs but then stopped and never did again. Asked why, he responded: When Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize it killed satire.

Poor satire is really in trouble now.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

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

 

If the World Won't Stop Iran's Genocide, Israel Must.

by Louis René Beres

 

Aggressors' intent has been made clear. So must Netanyahu's resolve and own nuclear means


The International Atomic Energy Agency is not especially worried about Iran's newly discovered uranium enrichment operation, and plans to inspect this once secret facility near Qom on October 25. No matter what this inspection reveals, however, sanctions will never be able to protect Israel from a nuclearizing Iran. The Iranian president's frequent and unhidden threats express a clear declaration of intent to commit genocide. Such intent is actually criminalized by binding international law.

Though supported by law, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu understands that the pre-emptive destruction of Iran's growing nuclear infrastructures would involve substantial difficulties. True, Israel has now deployed a system of ballistic missile defense, but even this superb system could not adequately protect Israel's civilians from a nuclear attack.

Even a single nuclear missile that manages to penetrate Israeli defenses could kill very large numbers. In addition, Iran could decide to share its nuclear assets with certain terror groups in the region, with enemies of Israel that could use automobiles and ships rather than missiles as launchers. These groups might also seek "soft" targets in selected American or European cities, such as schools, universities, hospitals, hotels, sports stadiums, etc.

While the IAEA fiddles, Iran continues to augment its incendiary intent toward Israel with a corresponding military capacity. Left to violate Non-Proliferation Treaty rules with effective impunity, Iran's president and his clerical masters might even be undeterred by any threats of retaliation. Such a possible failure of nuclear deterrence could be the result of a presumed lack of threat credibility, or perhaps of a genuine Iranian disregard for all expected harms. In the worst-case scenario, Iran, animated by specifically Shiite visions of "apocalypse," could become the individual suicide bomber writ large.

If Iran does become fully nuclear, Israel may then have to reassess its stance on nuclear ambiguity, and related policies of nuclear targeting. These urgent issues were openly discussed in the Project Daniel final report, first delivered by hand to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Jan. 16, 2003. Originally confidential, the report, titled Israel's Strategic Future , was the carefully informed product of a small group of senior American and Israeli figures drawn from the academic, military, and intelligence communities. Our major recommendation was that under no circumstances should Iran be allowed to "go nuclear."

In the end, Israel's security from Iranian attacks of mass destruction will depend considerably upon its selected targets, and on the precise extent to which these targets have been previously identified. It is not enough that Israel simply has "The Bomb." Rather, the adequacy of Israel's nuclear deterrence and pre-emption policies will depend largely upon the presumed destructiveness of these nuclear weapons, and on where these weapons are thought to be directed.

A nuclear war in the Middle East is not out of the question. Israel will need to choose wisely between "assured destruction" strategies and "nuclear war-fighting" strategies. Assured destruction strategies are sometimes called "countervalue" strategies or "mutual assured destruction." These are strategies of deterrence in which a country primarily targets its strategic weapons on the other side's civilian populations, and/or on its civilian infrastructures.

Nuclear war-fighting strategies are called "counterforce" strategies. These are systems of deterrence wherein a country primarily targets its strategic nuclear weapons on the other side's major weapon systems, and on that state's supporting military assets.

There are serious survival consequences for choosing one strategy over the other. Israel could also opt for some sort of "mixed" strategy. But, for Israel, any policy that might encourage nuclear war fighting should be rejected.

Israel, reasoned Project Daniel, should opt for nuclear deterrence based upon assured destruction. A counterforce targeting doctrine would be less persuasive as a nuclear deterrent, especially to states whose leaders could willingly sacrifice entire armies as "martyrs." If Israel were to opt for nuclear deterrence based upon counterforce capabilities, its enemies might also feel especially threatened. This condition could then actually enlarge the prospect of a nuclear aggression against Israel, and of a follow-on nuclear exchange.

Israel's decisions on countervalue versus counterforce doctrines will depend, in part, on prior investigations of enemy country inclinations to strike first, and on enemy country inclinations to strike all-at-once. Should Israeli strategic planners assume that an enemy state in process of "going nuclear" is apt to strike first and to strike with all of its nuclear weapons right away, Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads, used in retaliation, would hit only empty launchers. In such circumstances, Israel's only application of counterforce doctrine would be to strike first itself, an option that Israel completely rejects. From the standpoint of intra-war deterrence, a countervalue strategy would prove more appropriate to a prompt peace.

Should Israeli planners assume that an enemy country "going nuclear" is apt to strike first, and to hold some measure of nuclear firepower in reserve, Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads could elicit damage-limiting benefits. Here, counterforce operations could appear to serve both an Israeli non-nuclear pre-emption, or, should Israel decide not to pre-empt, an Israeli retaliatory strike. Still, the benefits to Israel of maintaining any counterforce targeting options are outweighed by the expected costs.

Regarding Iran, Israel's best course may still be to seize the conventional pre-emption option. Israel should reject any counterforce targeting doctrine. But if Iran is allowed to continue with its illegal nuclear weapons development, Netanyahu's immediate response should be to end Israel's controversial policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Notwithstanding IAEA assurances, the world has turned a blind eye to Iran's expressly genocidal intent toward Israel, and to Iran's nuclearization. There is no good reason to believe that Tehran would ever stop its plan for nuclear weapons solely because of assorted economic punishments. To Iran, both the U.N. and the U.S. should now finally understand, sanctions represent only a fly on the elephant's back.

No country can be required to become complicit in its own annihilation. Without a prompt change in the "civilized world's" appeasing attitude toward Iran, a law-enforcing expression of anticipatory self-defense may still offer Israel its only remaining survival option.

 

Louis René Beres is a professor of political science at Purdue University and the author of many books and articles dealing with international law, strategic theory, Israeli nuclear policy, and regional nuclear war. In Israel, he served as chair of Project Daniel.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Another Tack: Ban Israel's bomb.

 

by Sarah Honig

How sweet the vision: our world nuke-free and menace-free, enveloped in harmony and goodwill. Lofty sentiments without a doubt - assuming they are sincerely subscribed to and remotely attainable.

That's a whopping assumption, though.

Ban-the-Bomb appeared a praiseworthy cause at its cold-war 1950s inception. No doubt lots of fine folks genuinely trusted they were doing their best for mankind and life on earth. Not many suspected right off that they were played for suckers, that no authentic grassroots anti-nuke outcry was possible behind the Iron Curtain, that the endgame was to weaken western deterrent - and guess who wanted that to happen?

    In time, anti-bomb fervor subsided, but not deep within the anti-establishment subculture inhabited, among  others, by Barack Obama and assorted diehard radical cronies. In the name of that ideal of old, US President Obama pretentiously chaired the UN Security Council session which re-ignited the vision of nuclear disarmament. Yet again, intentions may have been noble.

Nevertheless the niggling question is whom are sponsors of the renewed Security Council morality-drive out to weaken? Some argue that high-minded pontification is but a thinly veiled campaign against the burgeoning, very potent Iranian nuclear threat.

But since this was obliquely left for the vast and varied UN membership to interpret according to entrenched self-serving predispositions, then anything goes. And it will. You can bet your bottom shekel that the resultant anti-nuclear ardor will be nothing like what it may seem or like what certain manipulators would like to make others believe that it seems.

PARDON THE jaded perception. Less starry-eyed, admittedly more world-weary observers saw it all before. Déjà vu. Most aspirations ceremoniously ballyhooed in august international forums sound commendable and honorable. Yet inescapably these virtuous standards will be applied to one country exclusively - little Israel.

The Human Rights Council, until recently infamous as the Human Rights Commission, concentrates all its energies on painting Israel as the planet's great repressive ogre. It was the HRC which commissioned the recent farcical Goldstone Report at the benign behest of such liberal paradigms as Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The UN after all once equated Zionism with racism. That was when it was headed by former Nazi Kurt Waldheim. It routinely singled Israel out for an exemplary set of unique restrictions. Israel alone is prohibited from responding to overt terrorist aggression. Decades before operations Defensive Shield and Cast Lead, all retaliatory raids of the Fifties and Sixties were identically condemned.

Unlike any country, Israel is obliged to fight - if at all - according to incongruent asymmetrical pacifist rules. Israel may not resort to weaponry allowed or overlooked in the case of other states. All hell breaks loose if "collateral damage" is incurred in any Israeli action, although Israel faces enemies given to hiding behind their women's skirts and tots' t-shirts. Schools, hospitals and the like are used as rocket launching pads against Israeli civilians. But Israeli civilians are expected to take it on the chin and not disturb the world's peace with interminable Jewish whines.

Israel's security fence, erected to hamper suicide-bombers, is raucously vilified in the name of freedom of movement. Yet this laudable principle isn't requisite for other UN members. Numerous governments fortify their borders via barriers of all sorts to obstruct the influx of economic migrants and foreign gatecrashers. It's quite acceptable for the US, to say nothing of Spain whose need to bar entry into Spanish Sahara goes unchallenged. Nobody minds that European Spain still has territory in Africa, which it still refuses to cede.

Spain, mind you, is hardly alone. Plenty of UN members, from the US, UK, Russia, Turkey and China - to name just one handful - occupy the territory of others without incurring extraordinary wrath or even a negligible demerit. Plenty establish settlements on usurped lands - the above handful comes to mind again, but not only it. Worldwide, untold millions of noncombatants were evicted, indeed entire ethnic populations. None of the dispossessors are expected to accept dislodged enemies or even innocuous refugees back. No way will Poles, Czechs and other Europeans take back expelled Germans (and rightly so). What's done is done.

Except in Israel's case. Israel is unique. Israel must abet its own extinction via inundation by millions of hostile Arabs, whose own belligerent forebears caused their displacement to begin with. Israel is the one testing ground for all disingenuous ethical experiments bombastically launched by the international community.

China may occupy Tibet with no ill-consequence. China has no justification for subjugating Tibet. It's land-lust and nothing but. Israel of course is weighed on different scales. Merely nine miles wide - enclosed by temporary armistice lines rather than recognized borders - Israel was forced into war in 1967 in order to avoid annihilation. It regained territory which was partly Jewish-owned and Jewish-inhabited just 19 years earlier and all of which constitutes its homeland.

THIS IS no faraway conquest motivated by greed and coercive realpolitik. If Israel cedes lowly hills overlooking its densest population center, one airport and exposed highways, it's a goner. Yet this is precisely what the international community, including professed friends, stridently clamors for.

China crowded out native Tibetans with Chinese settlers immeasurably outnumbering Israel's entire population, but their removal isn't a precondition for much of anything. Chinese settlement construction isn't even called that, as wasn't the Russian counterpart in the Baltics. We won't even get into the thorny subjects of the US or Britain (still in the Falklands, just a hop and a skip from Whitehall). Different strokes for different settlers.

Therefore, expect that eventually nuclear disarmament promoters will focus their sanctimonious zeal only on Israel - ever the global touchstone/scapegoat. The rallying cry will resound from all continents: Israel first. Nuclear disarmament's endgame will be to weaken Israel's deterrent and guess who wants that to happen?

This won't be the primary acknowledged goal for all countries. That said, no country plans to disarm but the "family of nations" will demand Israel disarm. There will be no distinction between nations which covet WMDs for openly hyped genocidal purposes and diminutive Israel - the only nation against which genocidal plots are currently hatched.

If tiny vulnerable Israel fails to cooperate, all nuke-stockpiling nations will posture resplendent in their self-righteousness and castigate it as the villain. Nothing new. For two millennia Christian Europe sermonized about turning the other cheek but invariably did the absolute reverse. It now demands the Jewish state abide by Christian precepts that obviously didn't ever bind Europe. Islam is altogether exempt because its motto is din Mohammad besayeff (Mohammad's law by the sword).

It's simply a matter of time - not much time, either - before the vision of a nuclear-free world is reduced to an ultimatum for a nuclear-free Israel. The mantra will be "Ban the Bomb." Its none-too-subtle subtext will be "Ban Israel's Bomb." •

Sarah Honig

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