Bye Bye Suleymani - Kenneth R. Timmerman

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by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Trump takes out Iran's terror-meister.

The killing of Iranian terror-meister Qassem Suleymani in a targeted U.S. air strike in Baghdad on Thursday will have a dramatic impact on Iran’s ability to conduct oversea terrorist operations and the stability of the Iranian regime.

But the real impact, one can legitimately wager, will be quite different from what you’ve been hearing so far from most of the U.S. and international media.

Rather than engendering some massive Iranian “retaliation,” as many talking heads have been warning, I believe this strike will throw the Iranian regime back on its heels, as wannabe successors contemplate their careers vaporizing in a U.S. drone strike and Iran’s civilian leaders fret that they have been exposed as emperors without clothes.

Put simply, the aura of the Iranian regime’s invincibility is over.

They have pushed us and our allies repeatedly, and have been encouraged by the modest response from U.S. political and military leaders until now.

But with this strike, the gloves are off. And the leadership in Tehran – and more importantly, the people of Iran – can see it.

Suleymani was not some run-of-the-mill terrorist. He was worst of the worst; a man with more blood on his hands than even Osama bin Laden. Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, 9/11, Benghazi: all of them were his doing.

But he was also the most respected and the only charismatic military leader to have emerged since the 1979 Islamist revolution in Iran.

No other leader in Iran today even comes close to Suleymani for sheer star power.

This is a huge loss for the Tehran regime; bigger, indeed, than if the Supreme Leader himself (who actually is a nobody) died or was killed.

I’ve been watching the Iranian regime for 40 years. The only military leader who even comes close to Suleymani was the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohsen Rezai.

Rezai was respected because he was a man of the troops. He respected his men. He refused to throw them into combat for purely political purposes, as his political masters repeatedly demanded during the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war.

And because of his loyalty to the troops, many of his troops and commanders remain loyal to him even today, more than twenty years after he resigned as IRGC commander.

But Rezai failed miserably when he entered the political arena as a presidential contender, failing in three attempts to break ten percent. He never had the star power that Suleymani engendered – not from lack of trying.

We have two historical parallels to compare to Thursday’s events: Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988, when U.S. naval forces sank 1/3 of the Iranian navy in a matter of hours after repeatedly catching them dispersing naval mines against international oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; and the presumed Israeli assassination of Iranian-Lebanese terrorist Imad Mugniyeh in Damascus in February 2008.

In both cases, we were told Iran and their proxies were going to counter-attack with devastating lethality. Hundreds of Americans and Israelis were going to die. Thousands! The entire region was going to explode.

In the end what happened? Absolutely nothing.

That’s what I predict here as well.

The Iranians have been lulled into thinking they can act with impunity in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

Finally, the United States has drawn a firm hard line on their bad behavior.

This is exactly what we needed to do.

I believe the Iranian people will draw the obvious conclusion that this once powerful regime has feet of clay. Expect bigger anti-regime protests inside Iran in the coming weeks, and popular revolts against Iranian interference in Lebanon and Iraq as well.

To me, the biggest question remains: is President Trump ready for the revolution he has unleashed? With this single act, the United States has set in motion big historical forces for positive change. Are we prepared to help the forces of freedom against tyranny and oppression?


Ken Timmerman is the New York Times best-selling author of Deception: The YouTube Video Hillary and Obama Blamed for Benghazi and other books on Middle East politics. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for his work on Iran in 2006 and lectured on Iran at the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Intelligence Training Academy in Quantico, Va, from 2010-2016.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/bye-bye-suleymani-kenneth-r-timmerman/

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Iran Can No Longer Rely on Shia Militias to Fight its Wars - Con Coughlin

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by Con Coughlin

By launching a series of air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night, the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it will no longer tolerate Tehran's denials of its involvement in attacks against the US and its allies.

• The President's robust response to the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East certainly appears at odds with the perception that he has no interest in conducting military operations in the Middle East, and that his main objective is to reduce Washington's military presence in the region ahead of this year's presidential election contest.
• And it should also send a clear signal to Tehran that its reliance on Shia militias to carry out attacks on its behalf will no longer be tolerated.

After Washington accused Iran of being responsible for the attacks against the US Embassy in Baghdad that followed US air strikes, Tehran is risking a direct military confrontation with the US if it persists with the underhand tactic of employing proxies to carry out attacks on its behalf. Pictured: Members of the Hashed al-Shaabi militia try to break into the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq on December 31, 2019. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)

The intense pressure Iran is facing over its continued meddling in Iraq is the key factor behind the recent upsurge of violence in the Middle East that has resulted in American warplanes carrying out their biggest attack in a decade on Iran-backed militias.

Ever since the ayatollahs came to power more than 40 years ago, they have sought to distract attention away from their domestic unpopularity by getting Iran-backed Shia militias to carry out high profile attacks.

From the devastating car bomb attacks the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia carried out against American bases in Beirut in the 1980s to the more recent attacks on Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil facilities in October 2019, the Iranian regime has repeatedly used its proxy Shia militias to great effect to distract attention away from its domestic travails.

The beauty of this arrangement, so far as the ayatollahs are concerned, is that, by relying on Shia militias to do their dirty work, whether it is firing missiles at Israel or carrying out assassinations in Europe, Tehran is able to deny any involvement in wrongdoing.

No longer. By launching a series of air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night, the Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it will no longer tolerate Tehran's denials of its involvement in attacks against the US and its allies.

Moreover, after Washington accused Iran of being responsible for the subsequent attacks against the US Embassy in Baghdad that followed the air strikes, Tehran is risking a direct military confrontation with the US if it persists with the underhand tactic of employing proxies to carry out attacks on its behalf.

US officials believe the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq has been caused by Iran's desire to distract attention from the wave of anti-Iran protests that have taken place recently in the country over its continued meddling in the Iraqi government's affairs.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump certainly left no one in any doubt that he held Tehran directly responsible for the American Embassy attack earlier this week, when hundreds of protesters breached the outer wall of the embassy compound in the heavily fortified green zone.

In a chilling echo of the attack on the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 that resulted in the long-running American hostage crisis, protesters chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", set fire to a sentry box, pulled security cameras away from walls and hurled projectiles, including Molotov cocktails.

Writing on Twitter shortly after the attack, Mr Trump declared that Iran was responsible for carrying out the attack:

"....Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat..."

Nor has the President been taken in by Iran's claims that it had nothing to do with last week's rocket attack against a military base used by American and Iraqi troops on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, in which one American contractor was killed.

The actual attacks were carried out by the Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah, which operates in both Iraq and Syria, and the Pentagon's military response was directed at destroying a number of the militia's bases.

Mr Trump, however, has blamed Iran directly for carrying out the Kirkuk attacks, writing, "Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will..."

The President's robust response to the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East certainly appears at odds with the perception that he has no interest in conducting military operations in the Middle East, and that his main objective is to reduce Washington's military presence in the region ahead of this year's presidential election contest.

It should also send a clear signal to Tehran that its reliance on Shia militias to carry out attacks on its behalf will no longer be tolerated.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15368/iran-shia-militias-iraq

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The Alarming Escalation of African American Attacks Against Jews - Joseph Klein

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by Joseph Klein

Are full-fledged riots and mass massacres next?

Anti-Semitic attacks have reached epidemic proportions in the New York metropolitan area. A shooting early last December at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City left several people dead, including two Hasidic Jews. A policeman was also killed by the same shooters nearby. The killers aimed to kill as many Jews as possible before they were struck down. Last Saturday night, five Jewish people were stabbed by a Jew-hater wielding a machete at a Hasidic rabbi’s house in the suburb of Monsey, New York. One of the victims suffered serious head injuries, which has left him in a coma and may result in permanent damage to his brain. Orthodox Jews residing in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg are living in constant fear, triggered by a slew of anti-Semitic incidents that were a near daily occurrence during December and have continued into 2020.

These were not violent crimes committed by white nationalists. While white supremacists continue to pose a major threat to the lives and well-being of Jews and other minority groups nationwide, the alarming series of recent anti-Semitic attacks in the New York metropolitan area were conducted primarily by African Americans.

Anti-Semitic propensities among some African Americans have been simmering for years, as documented by a survey conducted back in 2013 by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and a second survey conducted by the ADL in 2016. The 2016 survey noted that over the past four years, “Anti-Semitic views among the African American population have remained steady and are higher than the general population.” As compared to the white population, anti-Semitic propensities among African Americans as measured in 2016 were more than double that of whites - 23% versus 10% respectively. This survey also found that Hispanic Americans born outside of the U.S. have even higher anti-Semitic propensities (31%) than African Americans. The anti-Semitic propensities of U.S. born Hispanics were measured at 19%, higher than whites but lower than African Americans.

It is the simmering anti-Semitism within the African American population that is now spilling over into rampant violence against Jews. The attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York City, particularly in Brooklyn, have not stopped with either the end of Hanukkah or the close of 2019. On New Year’s Day, two women attacked a Hasidic man in South Williamsburg, yelling “I will kill you Jews.” As the victim tried to use his cellphone to take a photo of his attackers, one of them snatched the phone out of his hand. After pushing their victim to the ground, one of the women broke the phone and threw it in his face.

Why do they keep doing this to us?” asked one Hasidic woman after the New Year’s Day incident that occurred close to her home. “We mean them no harm, yet they’re always cursing at us and hitting us.”

Part of the answer is rooted in a hate-filled black supremacist ideology that has influenced some African Americans willing to move from militant rhetoric to violence.

The Jersey City murderers were Black Hebrew Israelites, a sect which includes black supremacists who believe that they are God's true chosen people as the real descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible. They dismiss whites who call themselves Jews as imposters.

The accused Monsey machete slasher reportedly kept journals that were filled with anti-Semitic rants reflective of this ideology and that referred specifically to “Hebrew Israelites” in one passage.

Even the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed 144 Black Hebrew Israelite groups as “hate groups because of their anti-white and antisemitic beliefs.” SPLC noted that these Black Israelite groups “believe that, as members of the 12 Tribes of Israel – consisting only of African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans – they are God’s ‘chosen people.’” They regard Caucasians and members of the LGBTQ community as ‘devils.’

“Extreme Black Hebrew Israelites believe that individuals outside the movement are deserving of slavery or death,” SPLC added. Remember that this assessment is coming from the same organization that finds white supremacists and Islamophobes lurking everywhere.

But extremist ideology is not the entire answer for the escalating violence by African Americans against Jews. Some African American leaders have stoked anti-Semitic accusations that Jews possess too much economic and political power in the United States, which Jews are supposedly exploiting against African Americans who live in the same neighborhoods. African Americans believing such false accusations turn their anger into self-justifications for violence. Hasidic Jews wearing religious garb living in these neighborhoods stand out as the most vulnerable targets.

Following the murder of Jews in Jersey City, a black school board member named Joan Terrell-Paige posted on Facebook a diatribe against Jews who have moved to the city. She pooh-poohed the concerns expressed by some political and religious leaders over the anti-Semitic killings.

 “Where was all this faith and hope when Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the jewish community,” Terrell-Paige wrote. “Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the Black communities of America?” she added, displaying shocking indifference to the slaughter of innocent Jews as well as of a policeman.

Terrell-Paige said that she did not regret her post. While some New Jersey government leaders called for her resignation, a House candidate John Flora viewed her post as a teaching moment. “To me her remarks were an invitation for the entire city to discuss honestly what led up to such a horrific event," Flora said Tuesday. "There is a lingering resentment in certain transitioning neighborhoods that I’m not sure repeated sit-downs with the same community leaders will ever resolve.” He announced a vigil in support of Terrell-Paige on Thursday.

The Hudson County Democratic Black Caucus said that while it did not agree with “the delivery of the statement made by Ms. Terrell-Paige we believe that her statement has heightened awareness around issues that must be addressed.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran responded to such outrageous excuse-making in an op-ed article entitled “Not-So-Good People.” He wrote:

“No, dear Caucus, the only issue that must be addressed is black anti-Semitism.

That phrase, of course, isn’t intended to implicate the larger African-American community, any more than the phrase ‘white anti-Semitism’ implicates all Caucasians.

It simply acknowledges the sad reality that Jew-hatred exists not only in the fever dreams of racists who hate blacks but also in the delusions of some of those they hate.”

Progressives leading the Democratic Party leftward, along with their friends in the mainstream media, refuse to acknowledge this reality. They shrink from speaking out forcefully against the violence of black racists, while using every opportunity they can to denounce white supremacists. Heaven forbid that they upset the narrative of “white privilege” and white “oppression” of minorities, which casts Jews as part of the oppressor class and people of color as always the victims.

Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib even blamed “white supremacy” for the Jersey City murders by the black supremacist Hebrew Israelites. “This is heartbreaking. White supremacy kills,” she wrote in a tweet. Tlaib has since deleted this absurd tweet, but it reflects her clear anti-Semitic bias.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reverted to form last Sunday when he blamed the recent spike in anti-Semitic attacks in New York on an "atmosphere of hate" that has been “emanating from Washington.” He mentioned only President Trump by name. While placing some of the blame on divisiveness in Congress, he did not call out the leading anti-Semites in Congress, Representatives Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The epidemic of anti-Semitic attacks in the New York metropolitan area are emanating from within the local African American communities themselves. The attacks are rationalized or ignored by leftists who believe that only “privileged” whites commit hate crimes.

Misguided policies that coddle criminals are making it easier for the violence against Jews to spread, because word gets around that the perpetrators face no serious consequences. Indeed, the irresponsible no-bail catch and release policy in New York, which technically went into effect on January 1^st,  has already put an anti-Semitic offender back on the street to continue her rampage. The get-out-of jail card will likely mean the quick release of most of the other offenders as well. What good are the increased police patrols in Jewish neighborhoods promised by Mayor de Blasio and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo if the attacks against Jews are treated like petty crimes?

Will there be a repeat of the anti-Jewish riot in Crown Heights that occurred in 1991? Are massacres of Jews resulting in many deaths and injuries inevitable if nothing is done to stem the current level of violence? It’s a distinct possibility. The seeds of African American anti-Semitism have already been sown. The fertilizer contributing to their potential fruition into full-fledged riots or mass massacres consists of a radicalized left obsessed with “white privilege,” lax criminal laws, and government leaders unwilling to directly confront the scourge of African American anti-Semitism. Hopefully, there is still time to turn the tide.

Joseph Klein

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/alarming-escalation-african-american-attacks-joseph-klein/

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"Calm, Cool & Collected": How Trump's Risky Decision To Kill Soleimani Unfolded - Tyler Durden

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by Tyler Durden

“We’ve known every minute of every day where Soleimani is for years—there’s no moment of any given day where five or six intelligence agencies can’t tell you where he is,” according to Politico

Multiple similar accounts have now come out over the inside the Situation Room decision-making process concerning the risky move to take out the IRGC's Gen. Qasem Soleimani, as well as how the drone attack operation played out at the airport. 

By all accounts, as Soleimani traveled to and through Baghdad airport US intelligence seized upon the “target of opportunity” and moved fast to brief President Trump, who was at Mar-a-Lago. Defense sources explained to Bloomberg that Soleimani wasn't being monitored before it was known he was coming through Baghdad's international airport. 

Defense and intelligence officials believed the Revolutionary Guard Quds force leader was plotting attacks on Americans inside Iraq and the region — this based on an "intelligence assessment" — the contents of which haven't been made public.

Via Kevin McCarthy/Instagram, and Daily Mail: "President Trump ate ice cream and meatloaf with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday when the Pentagon confirmed that a top Iranian general was killed in an airstrike. From left: Trump aides Hogan Gidley and Dan Scavino; McCarthy; and Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night."

From the moment Trump was briefed on the matter it was only known to a tightly restricted group of aides within the cabinet, as even White House communications officials "were excluded from the planning," notes Bloomberg. And further Bloomberg's sources reveal that:

The White House opted against notifying Congress ahead of the attack out of concern for security, a person familiar with the matter said. The Department of Homeland Security, which is partially responsible for deterring potential Iranian retaliation on U.S. soil, was only notified of the Soleimani strike after the fact. 

However, select "friendly" Congressional leaders were let in on the discussions, most notably South Carolina Republican and outspoken Iran hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham. 
Bloomberg continues:

Inside ornate Mar-a-Lago suites commandeered as makeshift situation rooms, Trump hosted top advisers and certain friendly members of Congress on Tuesday to discuss a strike taking out the commander of Iran's security and intelligence services.
In between rounds of golf and dinners with his family over the next 48 hours, he was updated on specific intelligence showing multiple threats to Americans from Iran in the region -- and on the expected movement of Qasem Soleimani to Baghdad, where he was taken out by an American drone on Thursday.
Top advisers and military brass also sought to offer Trump a view of what the kill might mean for the region, for the United States and for his presidency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been urgently flown in from Washington to advise the president based on the new intelligence. 

Trump on New Year's Eve. Image source: CNN via Getty Images

The ensuing debate over whether to act centered on the endless unforeseen consequences and "escalation risk" that assassinating Iran's most influential military leader and close friend to the Ayatollah and Iranian president might entail. 

"The morning after the strike, Trump abandoned plans to play a round of golf and instead spent time surveying his orbit of advisers on the kill order. He was defiant, according to some of the people he spoke with, and defensive," Bloomberg reports. "But he also appeared to be freshly aware of the gravity of his role and the power he wields, unsure of how Iran would respond."

During the whole affair, others who had attended holiday and New Year's events with the president described him as “calm, cool and collected.” According to Politico, conservative radio host Howie Carr, who'd been among the first to speak to Trump at Mar-a-Lago moments after the news first broke, said “I had no idea there was anything out of the ordinary going on until I got home.”




Concerning initial questions of how Soleimani could have been traveling so visibly and "out in the open" through Baghdad's large international hub, one Republican foreign policy analyst had this to say: “We’ve known every minute of every day where Soleimani is for years—there’s no moment of any given day where five or six intelligence agencies can’t tell you where he is,” according to Politico. “It’s been one of his talking points: The Americans can find me any time, they just don’t dare hit me.”

This despite Israeli officials and media for the past two years touting that Tel Aviv has given a 'green light' for his assassination should the opportunity present itself. 

Via Associated Press, Iraqi Prime Minister's office

As Politico aptly summarizes: "That calculation proved misguided in the wee hours of January 3 in Iraq, where Soleimani landed amid spiraling tensions between U.S.- and Iranian-allied factions."

A senior defense official concluded, “He arrived at the airport and we had a target of opportunity, and based on the president’s direction, we took it.”


Tyler Durden

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/calm-cool-collected-inside-trumps-risky-decision-kill-gen-soleimani

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Iran’s Undivided and Indivisible Regime - Caroline Glick

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by Caroline Glick

The fallacy of the ‘moderate’ hope.

For forty years, Western policymakers have been lying to themselves about the nature of the Iranian regime and basing their Iran policies on the lies they tell themselves. The main lie has been that there is an ongoing, existential struggle for power and control within the ranks of the regime’s leadership.

Regime brutally repressed the countrywide protests last month.

On the one hand, the fantasy goes, you have the “hardliners.” They are the ones behind all the terrorism. They are the ones working to develop nuclear weapons and the warheads to deliver them. They are the ones who call out “Death to America, Death to Israel.”

Facing them are the “moderates.” If the moderates seize the reins, the Iranians will eschew terror. They will walk away from their nuclear program. And the aspiration for an Islamic global empire will become no more than a children’s fairytale.

The conceptual framework for American and Western policy relating to Iran since the 1979 revolution has been that all you need to do to end the conflict with Iran and bring it back into the family of nations is to find the right mix of concessions to enable the moderates win their power struggle against the hardliners.

On Monday, Reuters published a report about how the regime brutally repressed the countrywide protests last month that put paid this delusional notion. Based on accounts from four Iranian regime sources, Reuters reported that on November 17, the second day of the protests, when the demonstrations spread to Tehran, the demonstrators called openly for the regime to be overthrown and for the late Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi to return to Iran and lead a post-Khomeinist republic, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held a meeting to discuss how to handle the demonstrations. It was attended by President Hassan Rouhani, several members of his cabinet and senior security officials.

1,500 demonstrators, including 400 women and at least 17 teenagers were killed by regime forces.

After seeing pictures of protesters burning his photo and destroying a statue of the republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, Khamenei reportedly yelled, “The Islamic republic is in danger. Do whatever it takes to end it. You have my order.”

Khamenei also said that “he would hold the assembled officials responsible for the consequences of the protests if they didn’t immediately stop them.”

The participants at the meeting were made to understand that “those rioters should be crushed,” Reuters reported

And they were. According to Reuters’ sources, within two weeks, 1,500 demonstrators, including 400 women and at least 17 teenagers were killed by regime forces.

In other words, there is no epic struggle between hardliners and moderates in Iran. The leader of the “moderates,” Rouhani is just as responsible for the brutal repression of the protesters as supposed “hardliners.” They were all at the meeting. They all agreed that the protests had to be brutally crushed.

“A rejection of regime strategy by the bulk of the Iranian people”.

Since Rouhani was first elected to the presidency in 2013, Western leaders have extolled him as the moderate we were all waiting for.

The Obama administration, together with the Europeans insisted that with Rouhani at the helm of Iran, the West could make a nuclear deal that would give the regime a glide path to a nuclear arsenal inside of a decade and $150 billion in sanctions relief.

Even Israel’s security chiefs embraced the dream. In an interview with the Times of London on the eve of his retirement from the Israel Defense Forces last January, then Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Eisenkot repeated the standard talking points.

There is a “power struggle in Iran between the Revolutionary Guards faction, led by [Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem] Soleimani, who is exporting the Islamic Revolution, and the more moderate faction led by President Hassan Rouhani, who wants to invest in the tottering economy rather than wars abroad,” Eisenkot insisted.

As Iran scholar Michael Ledeen wrote in response to Eisenkot’s remarks, the dynamic in Iran doesn’t involve “a power struggle between a radical and moderate faction. It’s a rejection of regime strategy by the bulk of the Iranian people.”

Obama administration’s political, economic and military support for Iran.

Thanks to the Obama administration’s political, economic and military support for Iran, when President Donald Trump entered office in January 2017, Iran had effectively consolidated its control over an empire that stretched from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. Yemen had also become an Iranian colony. With Trump’s decision in May 2018 to withdraw the US from Obama’s nuclear deal and reinstate US sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration began destabilizing Iran, at home and throughout its colonies. The protests, which began in Lebanon and Iraq in October and spread last month to Iran, are rooted in economic privation and dislocation fomented in large part by the US sanctions.

The regime’s brutal repression of last month’s protests – like its repression of the protests in Iraq where its forces and proxies have reportedly killed nearly 500 anti-Iranian demonstrators – show that in lieu of money, the Iranians – fake moderates and hardliners alike – are perfectly willing to rule through the jackboot.

The implication of this bitter, but the obvious truth is that the only goal that should guide Iran’s foes – and first and foremost, Israel and the US – is the goal of overthrowing the regime. That doesn’t mean that Israel or the US needs to send an invasion force into Iran tomorrow. But it does mean that all efforts in relation to Iran should have a component that destabilizes the regime both at home and throughout its empire.

This then brings us to Lebanon. This week, the mask came off in Lebanon twice. Whereas the myth that has guided Western policymaking regarding the regime in Iran has been the existence of a power struggle between moderates and hardliners, the myth relating to Lebanon has been that the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces are moderate actors that are independent and opposed to Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

Over the past week, this myth has been exposed as a lie twice. First, the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese parliament elected Hezbollah’s candidate, Hassan Diab, to serve as Lebanon’s next prime minister and form its next government. Diab is entirely controlled by Hezbollah. There is no way that a government he leads will act independently of Hezbollah.

Iran said – and not for the first time – that it controls Lebanon.

Second, following airstrikes against Iranian assets and personnel south of Damascus this week that were attributed to Israel, Khamenei’s top security adviser Ali Akbar Velayati threatened to respond by waging war against Israel from Lebanon.

In his words, “The Zionist entity will regret its actions. We will respond sooner or later with the resistance in Syria and Lebanon. Hezbollah will harm Israel in its territory if it dares to strike in Lebanon.”

In other words, Iran said – and not for the first time – that it controls Lebanon. Through Hezbollah, it can and will attack Israel from Lebanon.

Since the first Iranian war against Israel from Lebanon in 2006, US policy has been to pretend that the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Lebanese government are independent entities that oppose Hezbollah and operate independently of Hezbollah. The fact that Lebanese military forces provided logistical and targeting assistance to Hezbollah forces during the 2006 war made no impression on then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she announced and began implementing a policy of massively funding, arming and training the LAF. The fact that the Lebanese government served throughout the war as Hezbollah’s foreign ministry also made no impression as the US massively expanded its economic assistance to the Lebanese government. Indeed, the US increased its funding of the Lebanese government after Hezbollah won the 2007 elections and began exercising formal control over the Lebanese government following its mini-coup in 2008.

Israel, for its part, recognizes that Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah and also recognizes that the goal of its actions against Iran must play on and exacerbate the destabilization of the regime’s grip on power at home and throughout its colonial possessions.

In a speech on Wednesday, Eisenkot’s successor Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi set out Israel’s plan for fighting Lebanon in the next war with Iran. He made clear that Lebanese infrastructure and urban centers would be targeted because they serve Hezbollah’s war machine.

Israel’s military goal in its operations in Syria has apparently shifted in recent weeks. Until now, the purpose of Israel’s military operations in Syria was to prevent the shipment of advanced, precision-guided munitions to Hezbollah. But now, judging from public statements and the reported attacks on Iranian assets, Israel’s policy in Syria is a combination of aggressive strikes and attrition aimed at turning Syria into Iran’s Vietnam.

Israel’s concept is right. But it may be alone in recognizing the nature of the challenge that Iran poses at home and through its proxies. The Europeans support Iran to all practical purposes. Despite the fact that Iran has now enriched twice the amount of uranium it is permitted to enrich under the nuclear deal, and has opened its heavy water reactor at Arak in material breach of the agreement, the Europeans refuse to restore UN sanctions even though, under the nuclear deal, they were supposed to automatically “snap back” the minute Iran breached the deal.

The Americans for their part are divided. The official position of the Trump administration – restated this week by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at a conference in Doha – is that the US seeks to negotiate a better deal with the regime.

So too, last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered the release of $130 million in economic aid to the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese government.

Dennis Ross, an elder statesman of Washington’s fantasy-based foreign policy elite, penned an article in Foreign Policy this week where he recommended that the Democratic Congress budget massive aid to Lebanon to show the Lebanese people that America has their back and Iran doesn’t. For Ross, the fact that Iran controls the Lebanese government that would receive all that money is neither here nor there.

Israel is the only one fighting Iran militarily today. It can manage alone, but only so long as the Americans don’t go wobbly and the Europeans feel pressured to change course on Iran. Along these lines, it is imperative that Israel ensure the Americans and Europeans understand the significance of Rouhani’s involvement in the repression of last month’s protests, Diab’s election, and Velayati’s threat this week to wage war against Israel through Lebanon.

The Iranian regime is unified in its commitment to maintain its control over Iran and its empire. If they consolidate their Obama-era gains and complete their nuclear weapons program, it will be a strategic disaster for Israel and the world as a whole.

Iran must be fought relentlessly on all fronts until its regime is consigned to history.

Caroline Glick

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/irans-undivided-and-indivisible-regime-caroline-glick-0/

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Trump's Baghdad is not Hillary's Benghazi - Daniel John Sobieski

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by Daniel John Sobieski

The attack on our embassy in Iraq was supposed to be Trump’s Benghazi. Instead it may prove to be Iran’s Waterloo.

The second the first Apache attack helicopter appeared over the sovereign American territory that is the American Embassy in Baghdad, one knew that things would be different this time. We would see the difference between a President Obama resting for a fundraising trip to Las Vegas the next morning and a President Trump, having avenged the killing of an American contractor, dispatching Iran’s top general and commander of its Quds Force before he could kill any more Americans.

Instead of a Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignoring repeated warnings from her ambassador and not answering his pleas for more security, we had a Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announcing that members of the 82^nd Airborne and support forces were being dispatched to within striking distance. There would be Marines on the ground, not contractors fighting on a CIA-annex roof, waiting for in vain for their government to send aid to them and their dying ambassador. This time it would be different. There would be no “Benghazi.” At this point, what difference does it make to have a President Trump instead of a President Obama or, God help us, a President Hillary Rodham Clinton? A world of difference, as the drones flying overhead this time were not there to send back useless pictures of American carnage, but to target the missiles of America’s swift sword and end the life of the terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq and the maiming of thousands with the precision explosives he provided Iran’s sock-puppet militias in Iraq.

President Trump’s crippling sanctions are rightfully intended to thwart Iran’s apocalyptic ambitions and are having a crippling effect on the Iranian economy and an Iranian state nearing collapse from the weight of its own oppression on its own people. Trump knows these madmen waiting for the 12th Imam can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and the panicked mullahs thought maybe once again, as with Bill Clinton in Somalia and Barack Obama at Benghazi, American will could be tested and found wanting, that we would retreat at the sight of the first body bag. So they attacked with their proxies only to find Donald Trump to be wide awake and not resting for a campaign trip. As Fox News reported:

The U.S. military carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday -- days after a U.S. defense contractor was killed at a military compound in a rocket attack.
Military jet fighters conducted "precision defensive strikes" on five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, Jonathan Hoffman, a spokesperson for the Pentagon told Fox News. Two defense officials added that Air Force F-15 jet fighters carried out the strikes…
U.S. officials have blamed the militia for a rocket barrage Friday that killed a U.S. defense contractor, wounded four U.S. troops and two members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq….
Five locations -- including three Kataeb Hezbollah areas in Iraq and two in Syria -- were targeted, Hoffman said in a statement.

This time our U.N. ambassador would not be dispatched to the Sunday talk show circuit to repeat verbatim five times the obscene talking point that American deaths had resulted from an inflammatory video. This time Iran would not be rewarded for its state-sponsored terror and its nuclear threats with $150 billion and pallets of cash dropped on an Iranian tarmac in the middle of the night.

The murder of the U.S. contractor and the subsequent attack on our embassy in Baghdad were bought and paid for by the money President Barack Hussein Obama, who could not utter the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” and fresh from his “apology tour,” gave to Iran. The Iranians played Obama like a fiddle. President Trump marches to a different drummer.

Is it mere coincidence that Obama dismissed the Islamic State as the “JV team” and sat while it grew and expanded and festered in its caliphate which Trump destroyed? Trump killed al-Baghdadi. He never invited him to the White House for a photo-op while greenlighting nuclear weapons for Iran. Obama seemed to have a warm spot for terrorists. As the Washington Times: noted in 2011:

Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administration and the early months of the George W. Bush administration, said it was shocking that Mr. al-Maliki would include Mr. al-Amiri in his visit to Washington.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been involved in “countless acts of terrorism, which are acts of war against the United States,” Mr. Freeh said in an interview.
Mr. al-Amiri served as a commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Badr Corps, a battalion that was tasked with operations in Iraq. He remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
The FBI linked the Revolutionary Guard to the attack on the Khobar Towers in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, 1996. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed by a bomb blast at the towers, which were housing American military personnel.
“As a senior leader, [Mr. al-Amiri] would have to have known about Khobar, and he would know Gen. [Ahmad] Sherifi, who was the IRGC general that conducted the operation,” Mr. Freeh said.
He added that the “FBI would love to sit down and talk to him, show him photographs and ask him questions” about the fugitives named in the Khobar Towers indictment.

President Obama was not so curious apparently. President Obama was not so keen on capturing or killing terrorists and we may be thankful that President Trump has no such reservations and when he had the shot to kill Qassem Soleimani, he pulled the trigger. Soleimani is a real piece of work and a mortal threat to America and Americans, as noted by Fox News:

In April 2019, the State Department announced that Iranian and Iranian-backed forces led by Soleimani were responsible for killing 608 U.S. troops during the Iraq War.
Soleimani, who took over the external operations wing of the IRGC in 1998, was known as one of the most powerful military leaders in the Middle East, and the State Department believes he was the masterminded behind the major military operations, bombings and assassinations that accounted for at least 17 percent of all U.S. personnel deaths in Iraq between 2003 and 2011…
Soleimani was first designated a terrorist and sanctioned by the U.S. in 2005 for his role as a supporter of terrorism. In October 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department tied Soleimani to the failed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States at a popular restaurant in Washington, D.C.
Beyond militias in Iraq and the pariah government of Syria, Soleimani is considered to be chiefly responsible for propping up proxies ranging from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen and even has a foothold with elements of the Maduro regime in Venezuela….
Under Soleimani’s vision and leadership, analysts say, he carefully purported to carve out a “Shi’a Crescent” in long-held Sunni territory throughout the ISIS battle. The crescent is essentially a land path that runs from Tehran through Baghdad to Damascus and then to Beirut -- where it is considered to be a direct threat on Israel’s doorstep.

And now he is dead, like al-Baghdadi. His attack on our embassy in Iraq was supposed to be Trump’s Benghazi. Instead it may prove to be Iran’s Waterloo.


Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/trumps_baghdad_is_not_hillarys_beirut.html

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Palestinian 'Moderates' Celebrate Terror - Bassam Tawil

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by Bassam Tawil

One thing remains clear... Abbas and the Fatah leaders who are talking about a two-state solution are at the same time endorsing the strategy of their military wing to destroy Israel.

• It is worth noting that the published statements made in the past few days by the Fatah group in the Gaza Strip are almost entirely consistent with the Hamas ideology [of replacing Israel with an Islamic state through violent jihad (holy war)].
• "We will continue the struggle until the liberation of the entire Palestine lands from the filth of the Zionist occupation." – Fatah, Kataeb Shuhada Al-Aqsa - Liwa' Al-Shaheed Nidal Al-Amoudi, November 13, 2019.
• Those who continue to refer to Fatah as a "moderate" Palestinian faction need to take into account that it speaks in different voices in Arabic and English and sends conflicting messages as to its true intentions.
• Either... Fatah members in the Gaza Strip are convinced that the talk about a two-state solution is purely a ploy to gain international funding and sympathy, or because they want to ensure that Abbas continues to provide them with financial aid....
• One thing remains clear... Abbas and the Fatah leaders who are talking about a two-state solution are at the same time endorsing the strategy of their military wing to destroy Israel.

The Palestinian ruling Fatah faction is celebrating the 55th anniversary of its first terrorist attack against Israel by reminding everyone that it remains committed to the "armed struggle as the only way to liberate Palestine." Pictured: Fatah supporters in Gaza City at a rally marking the 55th anniversary of its first terrorist attack against Israel. (Photo by Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty Images)

The Palestinian ruling Fatah faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is celebrating the 55^th anniversary of its first terrorist attack against Israel by reminding everyone that it remains committed to the "armed struggle as the only way to liberate Palestine."

Thousands of Fatah supporters took to the streets in the Gaza Strip on December 29, 2019 to celebrate the anniversary. The celebration was organized by the armed wing of Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Nidal Al-Amoudi Battalion, a rogue Fatah splinter group. Hundreds of masked Fatah gunmen dressed in military uniforms marched through the streets of Gaza City. Some carried rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.

The military parade could not have taken place without the consent of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007, when its members overthrew the regime of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA). Since then, Hamas and Fatah have been at each other's throats – a fight that has resulted in the emergence of two separate Palestinian entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas, it appears, perceives Fatah as a major threat to its rule over the Gaza Strip, which is presumably why it arrests and harasses Fatah members there on a regular basis. Similarly, the PA security forces and Fatah seem to consider Hamas a real threat to their rule over parts of the West Bank; they, too, have long been cracking down on Hamas members and supporters there.

Why did Hamas allow Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to hold a military parade in the Gaza Strip? The Fatah group operating in the Gaza Strip shares the ideology of Hamas, which defines itself as the "Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood." Both Hamas and the PA seek to replace Israel with an Islamic state through violent jihad (holy war). The Hamas covenant, published in 1988, defines jihad as its highest priority for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of an Islamic Palestine "from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River."

It is worth noting that the published statements made in the past few days by the Fatah group in the Gaza Strip are almost entirely consistent with the Hamas ideology.

One statement by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Nidal Al-Amoudi Battalions, boasted that Fatah was the first Palestinian group to launch a terrorist attack against Israel, on January 1, 1965. Then, Fatah members attempted to bomb the Israeli National Water Carrier. "Fatah launched the armed struggle and triggered the Palestinian revolution," the statement read. "We greet our people on the anniversary of the launching of the glorious revolution, and we promise to follow in the footsteps of the revolutionaries and freedom fighters until the liberation of Palestine."

Abu Ahmed, one of the commanders of the Fatah group, said in a speech during the military rally in the Gaza Strip that "the time will prove that the armed struggle is our path to liberate Palestine." He added:

"We are proud of the history of Fatah and the glories of its leaders. The reality requires all of us to stand together behind a Palestinian leadership that believes in the confrontation and maintains the flame of the conflict with the Zionist enemy."

For Hamas, any Palestinian who talks about the destruction of Israel and refers to Israel as the "Zionist enemy" is a friend and ally. Hamas leaders, who often demonstrate severe intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with their ideology or dares to challenge their policies, seem to embrace the Fatah members who operate in the Gaza Strip. The words of these Fatah members sound as if they are taken directly from the Hamas covenant, particularly regarding the "liberation of all Palestine."

Another reason Hamas appears to be satisfied with its friends in Fatah is the involvement of the Fatah military wing in terrorist attacks against Israel.

In the past few years, the Gaza-based Fatah group has repeatedly claimed responsibility for firing rockets at Israel. The most recent attacks took place in November 2019, following Israel's targeted assassination of senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata.

According to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Nidal Al-Amoudi Battalions, three of its senior members were killed by the Israel Defense Forces after they fired rockets at Israel. The group identified the three as Wael Abdel Nabi, Rani Abu Nasr and Jihad Abu Khater – all members of its "rocket unit" in the Gaza Strip. The three men were killed in Israeli airstrikes while they were "carrying out their national duty," the Fatah group said in a statement. "We will continue the struggle until the liberation of the entire Palestine lands from the filth of the Zionist occupation."

For the sake of clarification: "national duty" is the term Palestinian groups use to label their terrorist attacks against Israel. Targeting Jewish civilians with rockets, in other words, is seen by Hamas and its allies as a "national duty" for Palestinians.

Fatah is often described by some Westerners as "the more moderate Palestinian party, particularly because some of its leaders continue to say that they support the two-state solution. "The only game in town is the two-state solution," senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub was quoted as saying in 2017.

Fatah officials such as Rajoub, however, do not represent the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip, an organization that seems to have forged an alliance with Hamas. The two-state solution term does not exist in the lexicon of the Fatah armed group in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The only solution this Fatah group and its members espouse is one that would see the annihilation of Israel.

Those who continue to refer to Fatah as a "moderate" Palestinian faction need to take into account that it speaks in different voices in Arabic and English and sends conflicting messages as to its true intentions.

The Fatah group in the Gaza Strip makes it clear through its statements that it remains loyal to Abbas and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank despite its reported commitment to the two-state solution.

Why? Either because the Fatah members in the Gaza Strip are convinced that the talk about a two-state solution is purely a ploy to gain international funding and sympathy, or because they want to ensure that Abbas continues to provide them with financial aid, notwithstanding their alliance with Hamas.

One thing remains clear, Abbas and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank have never uttered a word against their own loyalists in the Gaza Strip. By keeping silent Abbas and the Fatah leaders who are talking about a two-state solution are at the same time endorsing the strategy of their military wing to destroy Israel.

Bassam Tawil, a Muslim Arab, is based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15364/palestinian-moderates-celebrate-terror

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