IRGC Cyber Division confirms Khamenei’s claim that ‘demons’ are assisting Iran’s enemies - MEMRI

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by MEMRI

2016 American film “Suicide Squad” shows the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence apparatuses “using demons in order to steal classified documents from the Iranian Defense Ministry” • Khamenei: America “being accused” of creating COVID-19 virus.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends the Great Conference of Basij members at Azadi stadium in Tehran, Iran, on Oct. 4 2018. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

 Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a recent live television address that the United States “is being accused” of having created the COVID-19 virus, and that “demons” are assisting the enemies of Iran. Iranian news agencies omitted the latter quote from their coverage of the speech.

Following criticism of this omission, the Telegram channel of the Cyber Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) posted, on March 22, a full video of Khamenei’s statements. As support for his assertions about the demons, the Cyber Division also posted video clips of two two seminary lecturers who are well-known in regime-affiliated ideological circles, Ali Akbar Raefi-Pour and Hojatoleslam Valiollah Naghi-Pour, claiming that Israeli and American espionage agencies are using “demons” to carry out intelligence operations against Iran and against the resistance organizations affiliated with Iran. 

Associates of Khamenei have previously accused Jews of using sorcery. Mehdi Taeb, a close Khamenei associate and the head of the Ammar Headquarters think tank that advises the supreme leader, said in 2013 that the Jews’ sorcery is the most powerful in the world and that they are using it to attack Iran. Also in 2013, the Rasanews website, which is associated with the seminaries in Iranian city of Qom, published an article arguing that the Jews hand down their knowledge of sorcery from generation to generation in order to use it to control the world, nature and even God’s decisions. 

In Islamic and Iranian folklore, the world’s sentient beings are divided into ins ­(mankind) and jinn (demons). Jinns, which are mentioned in the Koran, are supernatural beings with free will, and can be either good or evil; evil jinns can lead humans astray. According to Shi’ite tradition, when the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam, is revealed, he will bring all the jinns under his command.


MEMRI

Source: https://www.jns.org/irgc-cyber-division-confirms-khameneis-assertion-that-demons-are-assisting-the-enemies/

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Arab world on verge of collapse as Gulf States blame Iran - Eitan Divinsky

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by Eitan Divinsky

With the Arab world enveloped in a struggle for survivual, local regimes' biggest fears are coming to fruition.

30/5000 Disinfection of mosque in Iran from the coronavirus                                        Reuters

According to a report that appeared in Israel Hayom today, The Arab world has seen its fair share of the international scourge known as coronavirus. It's enough to take a look at the catastrophe taking place in Iran, where the virus, according to stats published by the regime, has already infected over 35,000 individuals with the death toll currently at 2,500 and climbing, to comprehend the scope of the calamity.

Experts have estimated, however, that actual numbers of infected and diseased in the Islamic Republic are significantly higher and that the regime has claimed thus far, intentionally covering up the full scope of the tragedy out of fear that chaos and anarchy will ensue if the general public learns of the extent of the disaster. With most Arab states just a few years removed from the traumatic events of the Arab Spring, alarm over regime stability remains the common thread across the Middle East when it comes to facing the pandemic.

It is not without reason that the regional director of the World Health Organization in the Middle East, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, declared that much of virus-related data in the Arab world has been poorly communicated in the best case scenarios, and intentionally covered up at worst. The latest reports, he said, point to contradictory data that doesn't add up. Additionally, Arab nations have demonstrated a lack of responsibility in their efforts to curtail the spread of the deadly virus.

Fear of regime change has led to a delayed response in the coronavirus fight. In Lebanon, for example, flights from China, Iran and Italy were suspended only as of March 11, provoking social unrest and accusations against Hezbollah for taking orders from Tehran. Neighboring Syria, still mired in a nine-year civil war, finally ordered a partial lockdown in recent days, along with a curfew in only some provinces after the local health system reported the first virus infection in the country. Jordan seems to be the only Arab nation that took necessary steps for avoiding catastrophe on par with those ravaging Italy and Iran, closing borders, declaring a general lockdown, imposing curfew, and placing soldiers at entrances and exit points to the capital and other major cities in the kingdom.

Throughout the Arab world, healthcare systems are shaky at best, suffering from severe medical shortages when it comes to critical equipment such as: respirators, test kits, and essential drugs for providing life-saving functions. Collapse of health systems and local economic in wake of the pandemic would likely amount to angry crowds taking to the streets demanding immediate ouster of their leaders. In some Arab states, senior government officials have already begun making attempts to deflect blame for their inability to cope with the virus. Government-organized protests have been staged in Egypt, Jordan and other countries raging against the "American-Zionist corona conspiracy".

As the pandemic spreads throughout the region and the number of infected and dead continues to climb, a marked difference can be noted between the wealthy Gulf kingdoms that can afford large-scale acquisitions of respirators, test kits and life-saving medicines, and Arab states failing due to a virtual void in public health. On top of that, Gulf states have begun pointing the finger at Iran for flaming the outbreak as a result of the regime's poor approach to handling the virus while concealing crucial information.

Then, there are those who believe the global pandemic will put an end to the long-standing conflicts in the region, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict, thanks in part to close cooperation between Israel and the PA, as well as the one between Jordan and Egypt, as efforts to curtail the virus lead to closed borders and increased internal security.


Eitan Divinsky

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/277973

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Leftists' Latest Lies Against Trump and American Capitalism - Joseph Klein

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by Joseph Klein

Trump and businesses don't care about American lives? Really?

At this Wednesday’s press briefing by President Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force, President Trump was asked one of the most insulting questions that he has ever been asked during his presidency – and that’s saying something. A “reporter” wanted to know, “how many deaths are acceptable?” The president’s response was firm and direct: “How many?  None.  Okay?  How many deaths are acceptable to me?  None.  Okay?  None, if that’s your question.”

The pretextual reason for this sinister question was to follow up on the extent of testing of Americans for the coronavirus that would be considered necessary before allowing people to go back to work. President Trump rejected the idea of testing 350 million people or requiring the testing of all persons within a state that has virtually no problem to date:

“We have some big problems, but it’s confined to certain areas, high-density areas.  So why would we test the entire nation — 350 [million] people? With that being said, I’m going to say it again: We tested far more than anybody else.  We are — we have the ability to test — I mean, we’ve come a long way from an obsolete, broken system that I inherited.  We have now tested, with the best test, far more than anybody else.  And when I say “anybody else,” I’m talking about other countries.  No country is even close.”

The question is sinister because it is a thinly veiled way of pushing the left’s latest false narrative against President Trump – he is more interested in prematurely pumping up the economy to bolster his re-election campaign than he is in saving lives. The message also is that greedy capitalists care more about profits than human life. For example, in an article entitled “Trumpworld Embraces the Death Wish Economy,” published by the New Republic on March 25^th , the magazine staffer Matt Ford wrote that the president and his allies “have concluded that the loss of human life is acceptable and the decline in corporate earnings is not.” He added, people “will suffer and die if Trump’s nihilistic vision of crisis management prevails.”

Fortunately, most Americans have common sense and reject the outright lies the left is spreading to advance its sick socialist agenda. According to a Gallup poll released on March 24^th that specifically looked at how President Trump has been handling the coronavirus crisis, “Americans give the president generally positive reviews for his handling of the situation, with 60% approving and 38% disapproving. Ninety-four percent of Republicans, 60% of independents and 27% of Democrats approve of his response.”

Leftists believe that even talking about beginning to open portions of the country by Easter or perhaps soon thereafter exposes the “evil” of capitalism – i.e., profits over lives. The national affairs correspondent for The Nation, Jeet Heer, wrote an article entitled “Trump Toys With a Let-Them-Die Response to the Pandemic.” Heer lashed out at what he called “a kind of cult capitalism.” Heer added, “The existing system is viewed as so sacred that it is worth sacrificing innumerable human lives to keep it going. Even nonrevolutionary changes to the system are anathema.” Heer’s apocalyptic claim, so emblematic of the left’s deranged hate-Trump, hate-capitalism echo chamber, crumbles under the lightest feather of facts.

The “existing system” has been turned upside down to save as many lives as possible and the livelihoods of millions of Americans when they are finally able to go back to work. Perhaps Heer should count to 2 trillion before the next time he goes to sleep – the cost of the truly revolutionary congressional deal to rush economic relief to Americans, businesses and the health care industry who are all coping with the human costs of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s all about keeping workers employed and paid, and keeping the companies (big and small) that employ people afloat long enough to remain in business when the crisis significantly abates. And it’s about enhancing the nation’s health care system to save as many lives as possible while the pandemic continues to afflict Americans. President Trump and his administration worked tirelessly with leaders of both parties in Congress to move this legislation through the Senate in record time. Even Democrat Socialist Bernie Sanders ended up voting for the Senate bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has predicted that the legislation will pass the House of Representatives on Friday with bipartisan support. Meanwhile poor Joe Biden imagines himself as being too busy to think about any more debates because his “focus” is “just dealing” with the pandemic crisis. Who knew? Biden is disappointed because student loan forgiveness and “my Green Deal” will have to wait until “the next round [of congressional economic aid].”

While Congress was spinning its wheels, President Trump acted early and forcefully to address the pandemic crisis on multiple fronts. His travel restrictions have played a big part in preventing the crisis we are now facing from potentially turning into a catastrophe on par with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which cost about 675,000 American lives. The progressives’ hero Woodrow Wilson made matters worse by failing to heed medical advice during the Spanish flu outbreak. Wilson hid the truth about the outbreak from the public. He had also rammed through Congress the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to report anything that could negatively affect the war effort during World War I. As a result, the press did not adequately warn the public about the disease and the dangers of large social gatherings. The death toll in Philadelphia alone was about 14,500, following a huge war bond parade in the fall of 1918 that led to an explosion of the disease in the city within 48 hours.  

President Trump has listened to his medical advisers and followed their advice on instituting strict social distancing guidelines, supplemented by mandatory stay-at-home edicts in the most critically affected states. The Trump administration has supported those states, regardless of the immediately devastating economic consequences. The president and other administration officials have made it clear that the most affected areas will not return to normal for a considerable period of time. Under President Trump’s close direction, his task force, led by Vice President Pence, and many other parts of his administration have overseen dramatic increases in the manufacture, distribution and supply of tests, medications, masks and life-saving medical equipment, such as ventilators. The private sector has stepped up to the challenge. The president has been extraordinarily transparent – so much so with his daily in-person briefings that the left wing press is complaining.

The New York Times carried a story by the Associated Press on March 24^th that purported to be a “fact-check” against President Trump’s claim that "People get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies.” According to the so-called fact-checkers, “There's no evidence that suicides will rise dramatically if nationwide social-distancing guidelines that have closed many businesses and are expected to trigger a spike in unemployment stay in place.”

In fact, there is historical evidence correlating horrible economic conditions with a rising suicide rate. First, there was an increasing suicide rate during the Great Depression, which the New York Times article downplayed. A study of the period between 1928 and 2007 found the following: “The largest increase in the overall suicide rate occurred during the Great Depression (1929–1933), when it surged from 18.0 [per 100,000] in 1928 to 22.1 (the all-time high) in 1932, the last full year of the Great Depression. This increase of 22.8% was the highest recorded for any 4-year interval during the study period.” The study added, “The overall suicide rate also rose during 3 other severe recessions: the end of the New Deal (1937–1938), the oil crisis (1973–1975), and the double-dip recession (1980–1982).”

There is also evidence of increased suicides during the Great Recession that began in 2008. “Three recent studies with data from single countries—England, Italy, and the United States —found a significant rise in suicide during the 2008-10 recession,” BMJ reported.

The left wants President Trump to fail and for the U.S. capitalist economy to collapse so that desperate Americans will embrace socialism. The socialist Jacobin Magazine published an article lauding the Soviet Union’s “fully socialized health-care system” established during its early days. “In a way few would have imagined, the coronavirus has, in recent weeks, severely challenged the dynamics of global capitalism by bringing the economy to a halt — perhaps even dragging it toward an unprecedented depression,” the authors wrote. “But surely, in this moment, we should think big — not only about health care as a collective right, but about the way capitalism has managed our existence. COVID-19 has shown that the world is willing to make dramatic changes and economic sacrifices to save lives. We should demand that the principles for collective health-care solutions also apply for other issues, such as food security and combatting climate change. The Spanish flu in 1918 brought lasting societal changes made possible through strong action taken by the state and the public realm. The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 provides a unique opportunity to change the world once more — and shows us that the necessary tools are within reach.”

American must firmly reject such charlatans even in the worst of times. Socialism is dangerous snake oil that would kill our constitutional republic and the liberties it is supposed to protect.

Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/leftists-latest-lies-against-trump-and-american-joseph-klein/

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Turkey's Syria Intervention Serves Israeli Strategic Interests - Dmitri Shufutinsky

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by Dmitri Shufutinsky

Turkey’s invasion of Syria to protect Idlib will bog it down in a war it cannot win.

Map of Idlib ceasefire as of March 6, 2020, map by OpenTopoMap and MilitaryMaps via Wikimedia Commons

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,508, March 29, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey’s invasion of Syria to protect Idlib will bog it down in a war it cannot win. At the same time, it severely weakens the Assad regime and could help oust Iran from Syria. 

Turkey’s war with the Assad regime in Syria brings to mind the words of the late PM Menachem Begin during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War: “We wish both sides the best of success.”

Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria was aimed not at the Kurds, for a change, but at the Assad regime as well as its supporters from the “Axis of Resistance.” The ceasefire announced between Ankara and Moscow is unlikely to last. Previous Russian attempts at finding a diplomatic solution in Syria have all ended in failure. Furthermore, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needs to achieve a complete victory on behalf of the rebellion in Idlib if he wishes to remain in power.

Turkey’s airstrikes in Syria killed nine members of Hezbollah, several Shiite militiamen supported by Iran, and dozens of Syrian troops. In response, Iran warned Ankara against targeting its people, noting that Turkish bases are in Tehran’s “range of fire.” It also sent more militiamen to aid the regime in recapturing Idlib.

Turkey’s attacks were viewed as justified by much of the international community. They came after Syrian-Russian airstrikes on Idlib massacred hundreds of innocent civilians and killed dozens of Turkish soldiers.

Turkey has NATO’s second-biggest army, and it is well-positioned to deal severe damage to the Syrian regime. Given that both Assad and Vladimir Putin are widely despised, it is unlikely that Turkey’s venture into Syria—which has damaged Damascus’s tanks, air defenses, jets, and military bases—will come under censure.

At the same time, it is unlikely that Ankara will go so far as to provoke Russia by killing Assad or directly engaging Russian troops. Turkey, while a formidable military power in its own right, cannot challenge Russia. Nor would its more influential or stronger NATO partners allow it to take such steps. Nobody wants a third world war, particularly over the likes of Syria. It is, however, possible that the West and Israel would provide diplomatic support and perhaps arms or intelligence to Ankara, as they all share common goals: to degrade Assad’s regime, prove that Russia is still relatively powerless in the region, and evict Iran from Syria.

Iran and its proxies are in an unenviable position. President Donald Trump’s sanctions campaign has left its economy in a terrible recession. Unless the coronavirus crisis upends his prospects, Trump is unlikely to be removed from office in November, meaning that in all likelihood, the sanctions will stay and even intensify. Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed by a US drone strike in January, along with its leading commander of the Iraqi Shiite militias, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner, widespread protests within the country, and the coronavirus outbreak have worsened Iran’s isolation, further crippled the economy, and sapped the regime’s internal legitimacy.

The Islamic Republic does not have the funds to continue waging war in Syria. In its “near-abroad,” its forces are being targeted in the south by the Israelis (Syria), in the north by the Turks (Syria), in the west by the Americans (Iraq), and perhaps soon from the east by the Taliban.

The American deal with the Taliban is likely to see the group refocus its attention on its historic enemy—Shiite Iran. The Iranian government may soon have to redeploy its Shiite Afghan mercenaries from Syria to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and other Sunni jihadists there, further undermining its ability to fulfill its goals in Syria.

No matter how many personnel Iran transfers from Iraq or Lebanon, they will continually be targeted by enemy forces. The regime has neither the money nor the manpower to sustain this kind of indefinite upkeep, especially with anti-Iranian sentiment continuing to simmer in Beirut and Baghdad.

With the spread of coronavirus in both Iraq and Lebanon, the economic paralysis in Lebanon, and the Iran-related sanctions weakening Hezbollah, the Iranian regime will have limited capability to enter into a war with Israel anytime soon—giving the Jewish state more time to improve its capabilities and prepare for such a war in the future.

A combination of economic, diplomatic, and health threats—as well as the Turkish invasion of Syria—is distracting the attention of the Iranians, Russians, and others, which is giving Israel cover to continue attacking Iran-related sites in Syria and Iraq. This aligns with Israeli defense minister Naftali Bennett’s stated goal of extirpating the Iranians from Syria by the beginning of 2021.

While  the Turks are busy pursuing Assad and his Shiite allies, they will have less latitude to pursue their goals in Libya or Kurdistan. The Kurds, like Turkey and Israel, are interested in seeing a weakening of the Iranian presence in Syria and Iraq. If the Turkish army is otherwise engaged, it’s possible that the Kurds will be able to claw back some of their territory that was occupied by Ankara. With Russia and Assad weaker and more distracted, the Kurds might be able to either demand more from them in a deal in which they join a new Syria, or assist the Syrian army against the Turks. Theoretically, this could lead to Kurdish autonomy or a promise of equal rights in a united Syria, though this is unlikely unless extremist Shiite forces are completely expunged from the region or unequivocally defeated.

Given that Ankara is facing the entire Axis of Resistance and must prepare for the possibility of a widening of the conflict to include Russia, it cannot expand its plans for Libya or the Kurds. General Khalifa Haftar is likely to take advantage of this situation and seize as much territory as he can from the Turkish-backed forces from Syria and Libya with whom he is battling. The fact that Turkey is backing jihadist elements loyal to ISIS and al-Qaeda means it is not likely to receive any concrete Western military aid in that operation—indeed, it is more likely to face greater international scrutiny as the operation drags on and human suffering increases.

Turkey’s expulsion of Syrian refugees from its territory into Europe—which has so far been blocked by the Greek military and police—is unlikely to gain it much sympathy in Brussels. It is more likely to turn Europeans against Ankara and promote the advancement of the kinds of far-right governments Erdoğan rails against.

In the end, it is possible that a combination of Israeli and Turkish military force, as well as external factors, will severely weaken the Assad regime, degrade and destroy Hezbollah and Shiite mercenaries in Syria, and force the Iranians out of the country. However, the Turks will probably be forced out as well. The world will not tolerate Ankara’s backing of extremist elements, nor allow it to drag Russia and NATO into a world war.

It is likely that Turkey will leave Assad in power for fear of provoking Russia too much and then leave, having failing to redesign Syria and Kurdistan in line with its neo-Ottoman aspirations. More Turkish troops will come home in coffins on behalf of a regime that is shunned by its own people as well as in the UN. The country’s ailing economy won’t allow for victory in Libya either. Russia will have done its job of keeping Assad alive, probably to retake Idlib from jihadists in the future and allow for the repatriation of refugees.

True, Assad will be loathed by the world after having committed terrible atrocities. His economy will be destitute and he will have little real power, leaving him reliant on Moscow for protection. Russia, too, will be seen as a country that could not use diplomacy to achieve its aims and had to resort to violence and war crimes. This will most likely propel the Arab Gulf countries back toward the US and Europe.

Whatever the international community might think about it, Moscow will likely end up with sole dominion over Syria, having evicted Turkey and Iran—its two historic imperial rivals—from the country. This should prevent a Syrian-Israeli war and could even, in theory, lead to peace between the two countries. It could also lead to more rights for the Kurdish people in Syria—including autonomy—unless they become united enough to push for independence once again.

The Turkish intervention has the potential to bring down both neo-Ottomanism and the radical Shiite revolution that Iran has been trying to spread. Again—let’s wish both sides the best of success.

View PDF

Dmitri Shufutinsky is a graduate of Arcadia University’s Masters program in International Peace & Conflict Resolution. He lives in Kibbutz Erez, Israel as a Lone Soldier in the Garin Tzabar program. He was drafted into Michve Alon on December 15.

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/turkey-syria-israel-interests/

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Uncertainty in a Bleak Moment - Amir Taheri

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by Amir Taheri

If the best we hoped for a few months ago didn't happen, there is no reason why the worst that we now fear may come to pass. The beauty of uncertainty is that it works both ways.

• Uncertainty may also be affecting politics in Iran, where the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei may have slowed down his bid for exclusive hold on power, in the hope that Hassan Rouhani, the hapless president, will end up carrying the can for the disaster caused by the pandemic.
• On positive note, the pandemic may have slowed down India's tragic rush towards a major Hindu-Muslim civil war that threatened to tear its democracy apart.
• If the best we hoped for a few months ago didn't happen, there is no reason why the worst that we now fear may come to pass. The beauty of uncertainty is that it works both ways.

(Image source: iStock)

Regardless of its denouement, the current coronavirus crisis may end up affecting the authority of the political, economic, media and scientific elites who shape world public opinion. The function of the elites, and their claim to legitimacy, has been linked to their ability to create certainty, in defiance of all and sundry Cassandras.

However, the current crisis, which struck like thunder out of the blue, has reasserted the evanescence, even the uncertainty, of human affairs. Just a few weeks ago the received wisdom was that stock exchanges will continue to move upwards while US President Donald J. Trump would sail to a second term and the post-Brexit European Union would settle for a period of anemic growth on the edge of recession. Globally, the elites peddled the certainty of business as usual.

And, yet, what we now have is uncertainty on a degree not seen in recent memory. Already the Brexit agenda in Europe is delayed, if not actually derailed, as British Premier Boris Johnson's stiff upper lip is less impressive under a surgical mask. With French airplanes ferrying abandoned Brits back home from the four corners of the globe and British aircraft providing the same service to European tourists, the old union, cursed by the Brexiters, does not look as dead as Boris hoped.

In Britain itself, Boris has been forced to postpone local and mayoral elections for a whole year, adding to the sense of uncertainty.

The political process is also slowing down in the United States, as both parties are forced to put the presidential campaign in a low gear. With President Trump losing his chief claim to success, the robust health of Wall Street, his re-election is no longer as certain as pundits pretended. There is also uncertainty in the camp of the Democrats. Will enough Americans be seduced by the "end of capitalism" mantra to go for Bernie Sanders and a Socialist America or will they choose Joe Biden, another septuagenarian who represents the back to the future option?

In China, the birthplace of the virus, uncertainty is illustrated with the postponement, sine die, of the Communist Party congress, which was slated to trigger a massive purge and consolidate President Xi Jinping's position for at least another decade.

In France, Emmanuel Macron has used the coronavirus as an excuse to virtually abandon the key reforms that were to make his presidency different from the self-indulgent and ineffective terms of his three predecessors. He also postponed the second and crucial round of municipal and mayoral elections that could have seen his En Marche (Marching On) party trounced at the polls.

In Japan, the controversial amendment of the Constitution, to allow the nation to re-arm and if necessary, fight foreign wars, has been put on the backburner. Uncertainty is also casting its shadow on constitutional wizardry to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin in power as long as the Angel of Death allows.

In Italy and Spain, the two European nations most affected by the pandemic, shaky minority governments are using uncertainty to prolong their lives.

Uncertainty may also be affecting politics in Iran, where the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei may have slowed down his bid for exclusive hold on power, in the hope that Hassan Rouhani, the hapless president, will end up carrying the can for the disaster caused by the pandemic.

Slowdown in the power struggle is also noticeable in Iraq, where fear of facing the pandemic has dampened the enthusiasm of many ambitious figures, allowing the shaky status quo to endure. Shaky status quo is also prolonged in Afghanistan where the latest round of the Pahstun-Tajik power struggle has lost much of its intensity while the curious "deal" the US has signed with the Taliban fades into the background.

On positive note, the pandemic may have slowed down India's tragic rush towards a major Hindu-Muslim civil war that threatened to tear its democracy apart.

The uncertainty in question has also made some "unthinkable" decisions inevitable, including the postponement of the Olympics in Tokyo. There is also talk of postponing or re-locating the Football World Cup in Qatar, with the excuse that the cancellation and/or postponement of most tournaments, including the European Cup, have upset the entire global sporting calendar.

Another "unthinkable" that has come to pass is the absence of the United States from a leading role in curbing and defeating the pandemic. China, Russia and Cuba have tried to fill at least part of the vacuum thus created and, hopefully, burnish their tarnished images as despotic regimes.

Global elites have always built their predictions on the law of causality, the association of a cause with every effect and the temporal sequence of cause and effect. Since Immanuel Kant and Pierre Simon Laplace, researchers and scientists have assumed that if one knows the exact position of a particle at any given time, one can predict its exact position and velocity at any given time in the future.

From the mid-1920s, a number of European scientists, among them Bohr, Born, Jordan, Pauli and Dirac, challenged that certainty, arguing that study of phenomena should take into account the possibility of jumps and discontinuity. Werner Heisenberg took that thesis a notch further with his concept of uncertainty. He wrote:

"The law of cause and effect asserts that if we know the present, we can calculate the future. It is not the conclusion that is wrong, but the premise."

It is no surprise that Heisenberg arrived at his thesis during the crisis of uncertainty that struck Germany under the Weimar Republic while the rest of the so-called civilized world coped with the global economic crash.

Should the global system rethink its fascination, not to say obsession, with speed and appreciate the individual and collective slowdown imposed by the pandemic? The question is not impertinent if we consider that we often confuse haste with speed as we aspire after permanence when our reality is one of evanescence, not to say precariousness.

Uncertainty, jumps and discontinuity; key words in a new vocabulary we ought to ponder. They help rein in our hubris but could also temper any despair we might feel at this bleak moment. If the best we hoped for a few months ago didn't happen, there is no reason why the worst that we now fear may come to pass. The beauty of uncertainty is that it works both ways.

This article was originally published by Asharq al-Awsat

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15813/uncertainty-bleak-moment

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America's Superb, Unappreciated President - John Perazzo

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by John Perazzo

A close look at what Trump has done to combat the current pandemic -- amid constant Democrat assaults.

It has been a very long time since Americans last saw such a clear distinction between the considerable leadership qualities of their president, and the shameless political maneuverings of an opposition party constantly lusting for power. Let us review exactly what has happened in this country over the past two months, vis-a-vis the coronavirus pandemic.


On January 29, President Donald Trump created a White House Coronavirus Task Force to coordinate the federal government's response to the virus outbreak and to keep the American people as informed about it as possible.


At that time, you might recall, congressional Democrats were giving precisely ZERO attention to the coronavirus threat. They had not held even a single hearing — for even a single moment — about the matter. Instead, they had spent the preceding four months entirely obsessed with one agenda item: impeaching President Trump and trying to remove him from office. The Senate impeachment trial, which had commenced on January 21, was still in high gear. Since the previous September, the faces of Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Jerrold Nadler, Adam Schiff, and a host of other Democrats had become fixtures on every television screen in America as they salivated over the smell of political blood. They talked about nothing but impeachment, as their normal legislative duties were all but forgotten. Coronavirus was, quite literally, the last thing on any of their minds.


Two days later, on January 31, President Trump formally declared coronavirus to be a public health emergency and he implemented a ban on travel from China to the United States. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci later noted that “the very timely decision on the part of the president to shut off travel from China” had “absolutely” gone “a long way” toward limiting the number of coronavirus infections in the U.S.  “We did it early,” said Fauci, “and as it turned out, there were relatively few cases, in the big picture of things, that came in from China. Unfortunately … in European countries they didn't do that [ban travel from China], and they got hit really hard.... When the infection burden shifted from China to Europe, we did the same thing. We shut off travel from Europe, which again was another safeguard to prevent influx from without, in.” Also by Fauci's telling, the Trump administration's “coordinated response” to the crisis — dating back to “the beginning [when] we [first] recognized what this [virus] was” — had been undeniably “impressive.” “I can't imagine that, under any circumstances, anybody could be doing more,” said Fauci.


But Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden failed to recognize any value in Trump's actions. Instead, he saw a golden opportunity to inject his campaign with a bit of life by doing what he does best: branding a political opponent as an out-of-control bigot. On February 1 — just one day after Trump had announced his China travel restriction — Biden depicted the president as a racist whose heart was filled with hatred for Asian people. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering,” said the former vice president.


Notably, it would not be until four days later — on February 5 — that the Democrats' failed impeachment trial in the Senate would finally draw to a close. That was the same day that the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs held its very first coronavirus hearing.


In subsequent weeks, President Trump announced further travel restrictions on certain global hot spots where coronavirus was becoming increasingly widespread — namely Iran, South Korea, and eventually, all of Europe. American citizens returning from travel-restricted countries began to be routed to specific airports, where they could be properly screened and, if necessary, isolated. Eventually, in March, the president officially closed both the southern and northern borders of the United States, so as to prevent the unnecessary influx of any further coronavirus cases from Mexico or Canada.


But at that very same moment in time, a host of Democrats and their supporters suddenly became quite enamored of a talking point that had recently been floated by Communist China's foreign ministry: the notion that it was somehow “racist” for anyone to make reference to coronavirus as a phenomenon of Chinese origin. Joe Biden, true to form, latched on to the Beijing propaganda and suggested that Trump's decision to describe the pathogen as “a foreign virus” or “a Chinese virus” was evidence of the president's … yes, you guessed it, racism and xenophobia. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jumped aboard the bandwagon as well: “The president is turning to racist rhetoric to distract from his failures to take the coronavirus seriously early on, make tests widely available, and adequately prepare the country for a period of crisis.”


In conjunction with the Trump administration's around-the-clock efforts to accelerate the development of coronavirus diagnostic capabilities, treatments, and vaccines, on February 29 the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency approval for the development of new commercial coronavirus tests. To enable this goal to be realized as quickly as possible, President Trump instructed the agency to dramatically cut the bureaucratic red tape that traditionally had stood in the way of swift action. Meanwhile, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) provided large sums of money to help accelerate the production of diagnostic tests. Trump also issued emergency orders that allowed HHS “to immediately waive provisions of applicable laws and regulations to give [all] healthcare providers maximum flexibility to respond to the virus and care for patients.” And on March 16, the National Institutes of Health announced the start of a clinical trial aimed at creating a coronavirus vaccine — representing one of the fastest vaccine-development launches in the history of medicine.


But alas, Joe Biden was unimpressed. “The Obama-Biden Administration set up the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense,” he boasted, “to prepare for future pandemics like COVID-19” — the disease caused by the coronavirus. “Donald Trump eliminated it [the Directorate], and now we're paying the price.” Trump's “draconian cuts,” said Biden, were now costing people their lives.


Not surprisingly, Biden's very serious charge caught the media's attention on a grand scale. Too bad it was an unadulterated lie. Former National Security Council (NSC) official Tim Morrison, who was the senior director for counter-proliferation and bio-defense at the NSC when Trump's “draconian cuts” had supposedly occurred, explains that the office in question was simply combined with others in a reorganization that “left the bio-defense staff unaffected.” “What actually happened,” says the American Spectator, “was that the president streamlined the bloated NSC, reorganizing some sections to accomplish that goal. In that process, three departments with roughly the same mission were consolidated.” Morrison painstakingly laid out these facts in an op-ed published by the Washington Post, where he not only praised the president for his efforts to “finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive bio-defense system,” but also derided critics for having “misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented” the facts regarding Trump's action.


On March 4, HHS announced that it was going to purchase 500 million N95 respirators for the Strategic National Stockpile. A week later, President Trump signed a memorandum directing his administration to make general-use face masks available to healthcare workers. And six days after that, on March 17, the Department of Defense, in response to a request by the president, announced that it would be providing 5 million additional respirator masks as well as 2,000 specialized ventilators.


But Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg lamented that many Americans would tragically have to “pay a heavy cost” for “the president’s management incompetence.” Former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine likewise derided Trump for his “massive missteps that have led to the United States being so far behind other nations in the world” in responding to the crisis.  


On March 5, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) created new billing codes for coronavirus tests, so as to facilitate accurate tracking of the public health response. The following day, President Trump signed legislation securing $8.3 billion for coronavirus response efforts — money that would cover the costs of things like public lab testing, isolation and quarantine initiatives, the sanitization of public areas, and vaccine research. And a week after that, Trump officially declared a national emergency, which freed up an additional $42 billion to fund the cause.


But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer decided that the best way they could now help the American people rally their energies to fight the pandemic, would be to release a joint statement declaring that “President Trump continues to manufacture needless chaos within his administration, and it is hampering the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.”


In an effort to be responsive to the needs of American businesses and their employees, President Trump met with executives from the banking, health insurance, pharmaceutical, airline, grocery store, and retail store industries, among others. On March 10, he urged Congress to pass a payroll tax cut. That same day, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) — in fulfillment of “a top priority for President Trump and this Administration” — announced new flexibilities that would allow meal-service programs to remain active even while schools were closed due to coronavirus. And CMS, after meeting with President Trump and Vice President Pence, announced that Medicare Advantage and Part D plans could now waive co-payments for coronavirus tests and treatment.


But according to recent Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer, “Trump’s incompetence” in dealing with the pandemic was akin to “a neon sign going like, ‘I stink at my job. Yeah, I am a dummy! Ok?’ by Donald Trump.”


On March 11, The Trump administration announced that health savings accounts could be used to cover coronavirus testing and treatment without co-payments. That same day, the president directed the Treasury Department to allow coronavirus-impacted individuals and businesses to defer the payment of taxes that they owed.


But in the words of former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat: “We got a guy in the White House who doesn’t know anything about patriotism, doesn’t know anything about empathy.”


On March 12, Trump instructed the Small Business Administration to make available some $50 billion in low-interest disaster loans for businesses impacted by the virus.


That was the same day that Joe Biden parroted an already-debunked Democratic talking point when he said: “By cutting our investment in global health, this administration has left us woefully unprepared for the exact crisis we now face.” Biden was referring to the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), to which the United States had contributed $600 million in 2015. The Washington Free Beacon explains: “As the initial funding dwindled in early 2018, reports emerged suggesting the Trump administration would scale back GHSA operations in all but 10 countries. But the cuts never happened, and the Trump administration’s proposed 2021 budget includes an increase in the GHSA’s annual appropriation.”

 
Did Mr. Biden ever apologize for his premeditated, malicious lie? Don't be ridiculous. For Biden's purposes, his lie about Trump and the GHSA achieved its objective with flying colors: Many Americans who heard him articulate the falsehood will undoubtedly never find out that not a single syllable of it was true. They'll just remember the urgent-sounding tenor in Biden's voice. What more could a lifelong congenital liar ask for?


On March 12 as well, the Trump administration increased the flexibility of unemployment insurance programs, so as to allow workers impacted by the coronavirus to benefit from them.


At that point, Hillary Clinton decided that she could raise the bar of statesmanship to new heights by tweeting sarcastically: “I know this is all hard for you, @realdonaldtrump, so let me spell it out.” She then proceeded to list a series of anti-coronavirus measures that, contrary to her false implication, President Trump had already enacted. Finally, Mrs. Clinton informed Trump that he might do a better job of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic if he were to try, for a change, “giving a damn” about the American people. That same day, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell pronounced in the gravest of tones: “More people are sick in America tonight because Donald Trump is president. More people are dead and dying in America tonight because Donald Trump is president.”  


On March 13, President Trump authorized HHS to waive its existing rules and regulations so that healthcare providers could respond to the crisis with as few restrictions as possible. That same day, he directed the Energy Department to purchase — at a very favorable price — large quantities of crude oil for the National Strategic Reserve. Trump likewise directed the Education Department to waive interest payments on student loans held by the federal government. On March 14, the administration negotiated legislation to provide tax credits for businesses that chose to give paid leave to employees affected by the virus. And four days later, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would temporarily suspend foreclosures and evictions affecting families whose mortgages were insured by the Federal Housing Administration.


But according to Michael Bloomberg, President Trump had thoroughly “failed to prepare for a deadly pandemic — leaving Americans deeply unsettled” as a result.


The Trump administration has provided every state in the Union with increased flexibility to approve the establishment of coronavirus testing laboratories as well as drive-through testing sites. On March 14, it was announced that the administration was working with Google to develop a website designed to help Americans learn learn coronavirus prevention procedures, determine whether or not they needed a test, and, if so, where they could get one. Four days later, the administration launched a partnership with the Ad Council, various media networks, and a number of digital platforms to produce public service announcements about the coronavirus. In March as well, CMS dramatically expanded access to telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries, thereby enabling more patients to consult with their doctors remotely while avoiding potential exposure to the virus.


But Joe Biden, in tones that were at once somber and outraged, lamented on March 15 that the World Health Organization had “offered the testing kits that they have available and to give it to us now,” but Trump “refused them.” Unfortunately for Mr. Biden, this latest claim was no truer than any of his other malicious lies. Kaiser Health News quotes World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Margaret Harris as follows: “No discussions occurred between WHO and CDC [Centers for Disease Control & Prevention] about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the United States.” 


On March 18, the Trump administration announced that the U.S. Navy would soon be deploying two medical ships to help support areas impacted by coronavirus. On March 19, the president signed into law a bill to not only ensure paid leave benefits to many Americans, but also to make free coronavirus testing available to anyone in need, including the uninsured. Moreover, that same bill supported nutrition programs such as the food stamp system.


But during a speech on the Senate floor that very same day, Senator Tim Kaine chastised the president for engaging in “inflammatory China-bashing” and “weeks and weeks of tweeting lies and misinformation about the virus, while the leaders of other nations were taking steps to make sure their populations could be safe.” Former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took time to weigh in as well, condemning Trump's “failure as a leader” and depicting the president's supporters as nothing more than “cult members” who “mindlessly follow a stern dictatorial father-figure who tells them what to do and think. Like, well, Nazis.”
 
On March 21, the FDA announced that it had approved a rapid coronavirus test that would require no training to administer and would yield results in less than an hour. On March 22, Trump asked multiple car companies to mass produce ventilators to help combat the pandemic.


On that very same day, however, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio — another Democrat who had recently sought his party's presidential nomination — accused President Trump of refusing to “lift a finger to help his hometown” (New York) deal with with the coronavirus outbreak. “I can’t be blunt enough,” said de Blasio. “If the president doesn’t act, people will die who could have lived otherwise.”
 
In a March 22 interview, Fox News host Mark Levin said to Dr. Anthony Fauci: “There is this statement put up, [by] some in the press, [by] some in the opposition party of the president, that the president doesn't follow the science. Is the president following the science?” After replying that in the daily Coronavirus Task Force meetings “we make all of our decisions and recommendations that are based on the science,” Fauci said:

“I have never in that room had a situation where I said, scientifically, this is the right thing to do and they said, don't do it. Or [I have never said] scientifically, this is the wrong thing to do, and they did it anyway. Then we get up and we present it to the president. And he asks a lot of questions. That's his nature. He is constantly asking the question, and I never, in the multiple times that I've done that ... He has never overruled me.”
 

And yet, on that very same day, New York magazine's Jonathan Chait published an article titled “Trump Is Back to Waging War on Science, at the Worst Possible Moment.” The piece concludes with this stinging indictment of the president: “Public-health professionals have had nothing to offer him but facts and science. They never had a chance.”

 
The coordinated campaign of premeditated lies and smears that the Democrats and their media mouthpieces have been waging against President Trump ever since the word “coronavirus” first entered the American people's consciousness, has been obscene. But there is something else that also needs to be addressed. Have you noticed that even now — after the life-and-death dangers inherent in the Democrats' open-borders, catch-and-release immigration policies have been thoroughly laid bare by the current crisis — Democrats in public office have been utterly silent about those dangers? Have you noticed that they have not ventured even to speculate that perhaps President Trump's pre-coronavirus warnings about the need to regulate our nation's borders were well-founded and had absolutely nothing to do with racism?


This is because the Democrat narrative never changes in any significant way. It merely makes minor adjustments for the sake of political expediency. So because right now it would be politically inconvenient to link racism to the type of border security that is very obviously a matter of life-and-death for many Americans, the Democrats have simply found a new way of framing their tried-and-true “racism” charade. Thus have we heard one Democrat after another intone their latest mantra-of-the-moment: the notion that Trump's use of the term “China virus” is damnable proof of his “racism.”


The Democratic Party has devolved into something quite diabolical. Its very considerable energies are now spent on little more than a constant stream of frenzied efforts to cover their political foes in rhetorical bird droppings. Aside from that, the party has nothing to offer the American people.

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

John Perazzo

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/americas-superb-unappreciated-president-john-perazzo/

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