GOP senators to Iran: Nuclear deal needs Congress’ sign-off to last - Foxnews.com

by Foxnews.com

Republicans and some Democrats want Congress to vote on any agreement, and are pushing a bill that would give Congress a say despite resistance from the White House.

Forty-seven Republican senators warned Iran's leaders on Monday that any nuclear deal needs congressional approval in order to last beyond President Obama's term, in a stark letter aimed at re-asserting lawmakers' role as talks near a key deadline. 

In an open letter to Iranian leaders, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and 46 other Republicans said they wanted to educate Iran about the U.S. Constitution. Namely, they pointed out that without congressional approval on a deal, all Tehran would be left with is a "mere executive agreement" between President Obama and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

"The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen," they wrote, "and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time." 

They added: "We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress." 

Though the letter is addressed to leaders in Tehran, it seems as much aimed at delivering a message to Obama. 

Republicans and some Democrats want Congress to vote on any agreement, and are pushing a bill that would give Congress a say despite resistance from the White House. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., though, has agreed to ease off a short-lived effort to fast-track that legislation, amid some Democratic concerns. 

Notably, the Republican co-sponsor of that bill, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., did not sign the most recent open letter to Iran's leaders. No Democrats signed the letter, either. 

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that a congressional vote is not what Obama envisions. 

"The fact is the president does not envision substantial sanctions relief for Iran right at the negotiating table," Earnest said during the daily White House briefing. 

The nuclear pact negotiators are working on does not require congressional approval because it is not a treaty, which would require a two-thirds majority Senate vote to be ratified. However, as the 47 Republicans noted in their letter, approval from a congressional majority would give the deal the force of a "congressional-executive agreement." 

The U.S. and other nations are seeking a pact that would let Western powers verify that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon. 

The next negotiations are scheduled for March 15, and wide gaps remain between the two sides. The deadline for an outline of a U.S.-Iranian deal is at the end of March. 

Iran has said its nuclear program is peaceful and is aimed at producing energy. 

There was no immediate Iranian government reaction to the letter or any discussion of it in Iranian media. 

Cotton is a freshman senator who serves on the Senate's Armed Service and Intelligence committees. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Foxnews.com

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/09/gop-senators-to-iran-nuclear-deal-needs-congress-sign-off-to-last/

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Israeli-Greek-Cypriot Alliance Challenges Turkey in the Med - Gedalyah Reback

by Gedalyah Reback

Economic issues in Athens and partnerships to extract natural gas keep far-left Greek gov't away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Greek Prime Minister and Syriza party head Alexis Tsipras

Reuters

 

Israeli-Greek relations have never been better. Turkey’s pressure on Greek-speaking Cyprus over natural gas drilling has pushed both the Cypriots and the Greeks into an unprecedented defense and economic relationship with Jerusalem. But the relationship could be challenged by Greece’s new far-left government.

After the Syriza party was elected, there was speculation in Israel that their Middle East policy could shift. It was a number of Syriza activists last summer who led demonstrations against Operation Protective Edge. Additionally, the party is composed of a number of extremely pro-Palestinian politicians. But other factors have impacted whatever influence those views might have had in reversing Greece’s growing relationship with Israel.

Arutz Sheva spoke to Ambassador Arye Mekel, former Israeli Ambassador to Greece and currently a researcher for the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, who explained that "Syriza is an alliance of 14 smaller far-left factions. One Deputy Minister even participated in one of the flotillas to Gaza."

Turkey Eclipses the Palestinians

Greece is very close to Cyprus, the Greek-speaking island nation also sitting on the same batch of natural gas fields as Israel. But the island is divided; in 1974, Turkey invaded and occupied the northern half of the island and created a separate enclave for the Turks that moved there.

Turkey’s claims that some gas fields belong to Northern Cyprus, a "state" whose independence only Turkey recognizes, threatens Cyprus’ ability to extract natural gas from the Mediterranean. With that in the background and relations between Israel and Turkey in the cold, Israel and Greece have expanded their military relationship.

Thanks to the inclusion of the right-wing ANEL party in the coalition, whatever fear people have had Syriza might roll back ties with Jerusalem has been alleviated.

At the end of February, ANEL’s party leader Panos Kammenos announced plans for new joint military exercises with Israel and Cyprus.

Kammenos said in February: "Defense planning should take into account friends and allies which seek defense cooperation in the region. And I clearly I mean eastward toward Israel."

Still, Ambassador Mekel did not see the tensions with Turkey as an overarching problem for Greece.

“There was a semi-crisis when the Cypriots found some gas and refused to share it with the Turkish Cypriots. The Turks sent warships to the area, but in the end it amounted to nothing and the Cypriots continued their drilling.”

“Kammenos himself is well known to us. Kammenos has always been friendly with us (Israel), especially some years ago when he was a Deputy Minister for Shipping when we had some problems in that area.”

“This past summer we stationed for the first time a military attaché, a Colonel, in Athens. I don’t see any deterioration any time soon.”

He did not address Kammenos’ comments that recent Turkish exploratory missions off the shore of Cyprus were the main motivation for the new exercises and whether or not they actually were significant to provoke the new exercises. What seems to matter more is that for Kammenos they certainly do matter.

Three-way Economic Agreements

Still, there is plenty of economic cooperation on energy that binds Israel and Greece. There has been talk of mutual drilling projects, pipelines and expansion of infrastructure in other areas linking Israel, Greece and Cyprus. One of them is the laying of a new 2,000-megawatt underwater cable that will link Cyprus’ and Israel’s electrical grids to each other and to Europe. The defense relationship is directly related to Turkey’s threats to cease gas fields from Cyprus on behalf of Northern Cyprus.

Israel signed a tentative understanding with Greece on natural gas back in 2011, but delays in the Israeli courts have kept that understanding from becoming a full-fledged agreement. A December 2014 decision by the commissioner of Israel’s Anti-Trust Authority to break up the cartel controlling the Leviathan gas field had caused stocks in Israel to plunge. When asked if that news had sent a ripple through Greece and upset the earlier understanding between the two countries, the Ambassador did not see it as agitating Greece.

“Right now there is no harm that can come because there is nothing to harm.”

“There was something very general that was signed. Uzi Landau signed something with the Greeks but it remained on paper.”

He emphasized that the discussions between Israel and Greece have continued for years, but the details have not been outlined in any type of major trade deal or treaty.

“The entire gas saga is not going anywhere for the time being. No one in Israel has decided how much to export, what to export and to whom to export and by what channels.”

“We had visits from Uzi Landau who was the Minister of Energy and then Silvan Shalom who later became Minister of Energy. I arranged for him a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister but no conclusions came of it. It was a subject of discussions, including when the Greek government held a G2G – government-to-government – meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu with his ministers.”

Going Forward

Tomorrow night, Ambassador Mekel will join a panel with author Dr. Aristotle Tziampiris to promote the launch of the doctor’s new book on Israeli-Greek relations. He says that for both Dr. Tziampiris and himself, their research has been impacted by the sudden change in government.

“The professor just published a book on Greek-Israeli relations over the last four years. Ironically the government collapsed just as it was coming out.”

With a hint for his optimism that the new Greek government will not be the trouble that some Israelis worried about, Ambassador Mekel said with a chuckle laugh that he was "inconvenienced" by the sudden change in Athens.

“I have been writing my own research on the topic right now. My plan until recently was to write only about the last four years – the great era. Then the government collapsed and Syriza came to power. Now I have to write a whole new chapter about the current government.”


Gedalyah Reback

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192357#.VP3CbOGzd-8

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

The E.U. Experiment Has Failed - Bruce Thornton

by Bruce Thornton

The 2008 Great Recession exposed the incoherence of the E.U.’s economic structure, particularly its single currency, which is held hostage by the diverse economic policies of sovereign nations. The data tell the tale. The E.U.’s GDP grew 1 percent in 2013, anemic compared to the U.S.’s 2.2 percent. In December 2014, unemployment in the E.U. averaged 11.4 percent, while in the U.S. it was 5.6 percent.

Originally published by Defining Ideas. 

The slow-motion crisis of the European Union is the big story that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Even an event like the recent terrorist attack in France that left 17 dead is often isolated from the larger political, economic, and social problems that have long plagued the project of unifying the countries of Europe in order to harness its collective economic power, and to avoid the bloody internecine strife that stains its history.

On the economic front, the E.U.’s dismal economic performance over the last six years was summed up in a December headline in Business Insider: “Europe Stinks.” The 2008 Great Recession exposed the incoherence of the E.U.’s economic structure, particularly its single currency, which is held hostage by the diverse economic policies of sovereign nations. The data tell the tale. The E.U.’s GDP grew 1 percent in 2013, anemic compared to the U.S.’s 2.2 percent. In December 2014, unemployment in the E.U. averaged 11.4 percent, while in the U.S. it was 5.6 percent. We are troubled by our labor force participation rate of 62.7 percent, a 36-year low. But in the E.U., it was 57.5 percent in 2013. Our recovery from the recession may be slow by our historical standards, but it is blazing compared to the E.U.’s.

The E.U.’s economic woes have many causes, but intrusively regulated economies and outsized government spending on generous social welfare transfers are two of the most important. Despite the rebuke of such policies delivered by the recession, government spending as a percentage of GDP has actually increased in the E.U., from 45.5 percent in 2007 to 49 percent in 2013, even as many Europeans decry the harsh “austerity” measures called for by countries like Germany. Greece, the E.U member increasingly in danger of being forced to exit the monetary union and thus risk its unraveling, has nonetheless raised its government spending from 46.8 percent in 2007 to 59 percent in 2013.

As Josef Joffe of Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper summarized in January, “These ailments are deeply embedded in economies that lag behind on investment, innovation and competitiveness . . . Europe as a whole is beginning to look like Greece writ large. But the long-term data whisper to Europe as well as to Greece: Reform or decline.”

Socially, the E.U. is troubled by two trends: demographic decline and the presence of concentrated populations of unassimilated and disaffected Muslim immigrants. Europe is an aging people; by 2030, one in four Europeans will be 65 years or older, reflecting the Europeans’ failure to reproduce. Not since the 1970s have European women averaged 2.1 children, the number necessary to replace a population. The rate in 2014 was 1.6. In countries with low retirement ages and generous benefits, an aging population means more and more money taken from the productive young and investment in the economy, further reducing competiveness, innovation, and growth.

And it means fewer workers, a factor in the influx of immigrants into the E.U. over the last several decades. As Ingo Kramer, head of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, put it, “We need immigration for our labor market and to allow our social system to function.” Large numbers of these immigrants have come from Muslim countries, bringing with them a religion and social mores radically different from Europe’s. Yet European countries have done a poor job of demanding assimilation of immigrants into the cultures of their new homes.

The result has been large concentrations of immigrants segregated in neighborhoods like the banlieuesof Paris or the satellite “dish-cities” of Amsterdam. Shut out from labor markets, plied with generous social welfare payments, and allowed to cultivate beliefs and cultural practices inimical to liberal democracy, many of these immigrants despise their new homes and find the religious commitment and certainty of radical Islam an attractive alternative. And like the two French-Algerian brothers who attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, some turn to terrorism.

Such violence, along with cultural practices like honor killings, forced marriages, and polygamy, remind Europeans of just how alien many immigrants are. They are stoking a political backlash against Muslims, the political consequences of which will be disruptive, if not dangerous. Populist parties, for example, opposed to unfettered immigration, angry at sluggish economies, and chafing against E.U. regulatory encroachments on national sovereignty, are growing across Europe. And there are signs that there is a constituency for these parties.

In France, which has 5 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in Europe, a recent bestseller is Éric Zemmour’s Le suicide Français, about the erosion of French national identity and sovereignty. After the attacks in Paris, novelist Michel Houellebecq’s new novel Soumission, which imagines a France ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, became an instant bestseller. These literary successes make sense given that according to a 2013 poll in the French newsweekly L’Express, 74 percent of the French said that Islam “is not compatible with French society.”

Similar sentiments and political reactions can be found across Europe. The United Kingdom Independence party in England, the National Front in France, and the “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident” (PEGIDA) in Germany are united in their Euroskepticism. They are all calling for renewed pride in Western civilization and their national identities, and demand that immigration be limited and Muslim immigrants compelled to assimilate. If these parties continue to strengthen their membership, they will be able to join coalition governments. At that point, they will be able to affect policy in ways—like restricting immigration—that will lead to greater political conflict and perhaps civil violence.

All these economic, social, and political problems are no secret. But the proposed solutions to them usually focus on policy changes or technical adjustments to the structure and functioning of the E.U. Yet this begs the fundamental question that has troubled European unification ever since it began with the Treaty of Rome in 1957: What comprises the collective beliefs and values that can form the foundations of a genuine European-wide community? What is it that all Europeans believe?

Europe and its nations were forged in the matrix of ideas, ideals, and beliefs of Christianity, which gave divine sanction to notions like human rights, the sanctity of the individual, political freedom, and equality. Today, across Europe Christian belief is a shadow of its former self. Fewer and fewer Europeans regularly go to church, with weekly attendance in most European countries in the low double digits. Churches are being shuttered across the continent; the Church of England closes about 20 churches a year and the German Catholic Church closed 515 in the past decade, according to the Wall Street Journal. It is common for many European cathedrals to have more tourists during a service than parishioners. This process of secularization––already well advanced in 1887 when Nietzsche famously said, “God is no more than a faded word today, not even a concept”––is nearly complete today, leaving Europeans without it historical principle of unity.

Nor over the last century have the various substitutes for Christianity managed to fill the void. Political religions like communism and fascism failed bloodily, leaving behind mountains of corpses. Nor has secular social democracy, with its utopian ideals, provided people with a transcendent principle that justifies sacrifice for the greater good, or even gives people a reason to reproduce. A shared commitment to leisure, a short workweek, and a generous social safety net is nothing worth killing or dying for. Neither is the vague idea of a transnational E.U. ruled by unaccountable Eurocrats in Brussels and Strasbourg.

More important, from its beginning, the idea of the E.U. depended on the denigration of patriotism and national pride, for these were seen as the road to the exclusionary, blood-and-soil nationalism that fed Nazism and fascism. Yet all peoples are the product of a particular culture, language, mores, histories, traditions, and landscapes. The “postmodern” abstract E.U. ideal of transcending such parochial identities was destined to collide with the real cultural differences between European nations. These differences have become obvious during the economic crisis of the last decade, when hard-working, thrifty Germans have been loath to subsidize what they see as indolent, improvident Greeks, suggesting that there is more that separates than unites those two peoples. That sense of belonging to a community defined by a shared identity cannot be created by a single currency.
National pride and amour propre were not eliminated by the E.U. and the ideology of its bureaucratic elites, only driven underground for a while. With Christianity moribund, and patriotism stigmatized as neo-fascist, it is unsurprising that Europe has failed to find a unifying principle beyond mere material comfort, resulting in the continent-wide malaise that manifests itself in the various failed policies threatening the E.U. project today, what Pope Francis last November called “a general impression of weariness and aging, of a Europe which is now a ‘grandmother,’ no longer fertile and vibrant”—a culture “weary with disorientation.”

We Americans should not indulge the schadenfreude aroused by watching our sometimes-condescending older cousins slip farther and farther behind us in global importance and power. Europe is still collectively the world’s largest economy, and its travails will impact the whole globe. More importantly, many of the trends weakening Europe today are active in our own country. The scorning of national pride and American exceptionalism, the decline of Christianity in the public square, multiculturalism and its ethnic separatism and divisive identity politics, and the preference of many Americans for greater social welfare spending, redistribution of wealth, and dirigiste economic policies all point us to a fate like Europe’s.

Self-doubt about the goodness of one’s way of life and living just for today’s pleasures are luxuries a great power cannot afford. In a world of violent ideologies and aggressive autocrats, a free people must have something beyond this world that they believe is worth killing and dying for. Europe seemingly has lost those ideals and beliefs that made it the nurse of freedom, democracy, and human rights. America has taken on that global role, but if we go the way of Europe, if we too no longer know what we believe, who will take our place?

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/bruce-thornton/the-e-u-experiment-has-failed/

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

From the Extreme Left: 'Netanyahu is Right on Iran' - Hillel Fendel

by Hillel Fendel

A strong critic of nationalist-camp policies, author David Grossman, says 'we need to listen to Netanyahu' regarding the Iranian threat.

David Grossman

Moshe Shai/Flash 90

 

Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica over the weekend, prize-winning Israeli author David Grossman expressed his support for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's position on the Iranian nuclear program.

As quoted in the Israeli daily Israel Hayom, Grossman – an outspoken critic of Netanyahu and his policies – said, "Iran threatens the entire world; this time Netanyahu is right."

Grossman had harsh words for the American position led by President Barack Obama, terming the American approach toward Iran's nuclear program "criminal naiveté." He emphasized that he does not want Netanyahu to win the elections on March 17, but said that world leaders should listen to Netanyahu on this matter just the same.

The author, whose son was killed during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, said that Netanyahu's speech last week in the US Congress might end up being a "tragic mistake," but its content was correct.

Iran's nuclear plans are "an expanding danger in the region which could soon pose a threat not just to Israel but to the entire free world. We need to listen to Netanyahu," the writer said.

One of Grossman's three children, Uri, was an IDF Armored Corps fighter when he fell in the course of duty. It happened only two days after the author and two other outspoken writers – Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua – held a press conference in which they demanded that Israel's government accept a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Two months later, Grossman delivered the keynote speech at the memorial rally for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in which he sharply and famously criticized the Likud leadership. 

The renowned author told the Italian newspaper, "what Netanyahu says about Iran and the destructive part it is playing in the Middle East cannot and should not be ignored. He is right when he says that according to the emerging deal there is nothing to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear bomb once the deal expires in another 10 years, and on this matter there is no difference in Israel between Left and Right."


Hillel Fendel

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192343#.VP3DsuGzd-8

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

Iran's New Missile Puts Israel 'in Range' - Yaakov Levi

by Yaakov Levi

The Iranian military on Sunday announced that it had developed a new long-range cruise missile with a range of some 2,000 kilometers.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards fire a Saegheh missile (illustration

Reuters

 

As the US and its allies continue to discuss limiting Iran's nuclear program with Tehran, the Iranian military on Sunday announced that it had developed a new long-range cruise missile with a range of some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) – putting Israel well within its reach, Israeli sources said. The missile, called the “Soumar,” features “different characteristics in terms of range and pinpoint accuracy in comparison with the previous products,” Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said at the unveiling of the missile Sunday.

The missile, Dehqan said, was developed based on the needs of the Iranian Armed Forces, and is “a crucial step towards increasing the country’s defense and deterrence might.”

On Saturday, an Iranian military official said that the country would be unveiling yet another missile system will be unveiled on April 18, when the country marks National Army Day. That system, called the Talaash-3, is based on the Russian S-200 missile system, the official said.

In his speech in Washington last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that while the world is capitulating to Iranian demands to allow it to continue with its nuclear development program, the issue of its delivery systems – the advanced missiles it is developing – has not even been placed on the agenda yet, because Iran refuses to discuss it at all. Commenting Sunday, Iran's Aerospace Division head Amirali Hajizadeh said that Tehran “will never negotiated the country's defense capabilities, including the development of its ballistic missiles.”

In a statement, Iran's state-controlled Press TV quoted government sources as saying that “Iran has repeatedly assured other countries that its military might poses no threat to other states, insisting that the country’s defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence”

The new Soumar missile is named for a city on the Iraqi border whose inhabitants were nearly all wiped out by an Iraqi chemical attack during the Iran-Iraq war.


Yaakov Levi

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192293#.VPxgr-Gzd-8

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

Hillary’s War - Kenneth R. Timmerman

by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Hillary Clinton and her supporters in the national media are counting on our short memories to allow them to tout her “successes” as Secretary of State as they gild her chariot for a ride to the White House in 2016.
And therein lies reason #1 why Mrs. Clinton will do everything in her power to keep the public from seeing her email — at least, an unsanitized version that would provide the full record of her tenure as Secretary of state.

 

What short memories we have.

Just three weeks ago, gloating ISIS terrorists beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach. The Catholic Church proclaimed them “martyrs.” Former Virginia Republican Congressman Frank Wolf, now at Baylor University, called for the creation of a safe haven for Middle East Christians.

And then, the world moved on. The body of yet another beheaded Coptic Christian was found in Libya on Wednesday. But by then the media had turned their gaze elsewhere so the outrage was gone.

Hillary Clinton and her supporters in the national media are counting on our short memories to allow them to tout her “successes” as Secretary of State as they gild her chariot for a ride to the White House in 2016.

And therein lies reason #1 why Mrs. Clinton will do everything in her power to keep the public from seeing her email — at least, an unsanitized version that would provide the full record of her tenure as Secretary of state.

“We came, we saw, he died.”

Anyone remember that one? That was Hillary Clinton, joking with a reporter just days after visiting Libya on October 18, 2011 when she was told that Qaddafi had just been killed. She immediately burst out into the famous cackle. But since she was not a Republican, Mrs. Clinton did not have to declare, “I am not a witch.”

She learned of Qaddafi’s demise when her aide, Muslim Brotherhood royal Huma Abedin, passed what appeared to be her personal Blackberry to her boss. One can only wonder who sent that message to Ms. Abedin. Was it a government official who used an official email account? Or was it some nebulous “informant” – perhaps the same one who convinced Mrs. Clinton on the night of the Benghazi attacks that a shadowy video they wrongly claimed was made by American right-wingers was at fault, when there was nary a trace of that “information” in the official reporting channels from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, the defense attaché in Tripoli, the CIA station chief, the CIA sub-station in Benghazi, or the State Department Operations Center.

Why can I say that? Because we have been told repeatedly that all the official reporting on the night of the Benghazi attacks has already been produced to multiple congressional committees. That’s why Media Matters and the Hillary Media Brigades continue to insist there is no story. It’s all a hoax. Move on.

I believe the question of where the YouTube video-is-the-culprit story originated lies at the core of the Benghazi scandal. I have called it the original “sin,” which led to the original “spin” by Susan Rice and others, including President Obama and of course Mrs. Clinton herself.

What prompted Mrs. Clinton to advance a story she knew was a fiction and to think she could get away with it? What real story was the fiction papering over?

Until now, although the State Department has said repeatedly they have produced every document and communication Congress has requested in a timely manner, we still don’t have any record of why Mrs. Clinton gave the stand down order to the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), an inter-agency rapid reaction force, with a substantial special operations component, that was created precisely to respond to the type of emergency that was taking place in Benghazi and is on call 24/7.

We still don’t know what instructions Mrs. Clinton gave her subordinates in preparing the infamous talking points for Susan Rice that blamed the attacks on a YouTube video and claimed preposterously that they were a demonstration gone wild. Nor do we have any inkling of the communications between Mrs. Clinton and her ambassador, Chris Stevens – although Steven’s #2, Gregory Hicks, has testified that they communicated directly. (Indeed, it would have been extraordinary if they had not).

We don’t know if she instructed him to head to Benghazi to circle the wagons with the CIA and the Turkish Consul General, to tamp down the growing scandal over the Entisar, a Libyan fishing boat carrying 400 tons of weapons sent by jihadi groups in Benghazi to the Syrian rebels whose presence in the Turkish port of Iskenderun had attracted the attention of Western reporters.

We should have had answers to all of those questions within three months of the attacks, when the Hillary-appointed Accountability Review Board delivered its “definitive” report.

But as the co-chairmen later testified, they never interviewed Mrs. Clinton during their “definitive” investigation, nor did they cite a single email from Mrs. Clinton. And no one understood enough to call the foul.

What about those pictures of Mrs. Clinton posing with jihadi fighters in Tripoli, who had come to welcome her U.S. Air Force C-17 in October 2011? How many of them have since joined up with al Qaeda or ISIS? How many of them took part in the murder of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi?

For with our short memories, we forget that Libya was Hillary’s war.

In separate tell-all accounts, former Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta agreed that Mrs. Clinton dragged President Obama into this war kicking and screaming. She saw the fight against Qaddafi as a perfect opportunity to illustrate the wisdom of her new national security dogma, Responsibilty To Protect.

The Obama White House eventually bought into it hook, line and sinker, even touting their version of Hillary’s war by saying they had defeated Qaddafi by “leading from behind.”

Where has Hillary’s War left us?

Libya is a disaster. Jihadi militias who took part in the U.S.-backed rebellion against Qaddafi seized control of Tripoli this past summer, turning the international airport into a sand heap, forcing the evacuation of the remaining U.S. diplomats in Tripoli, shutting down much of Libya’s oil production, and driving the elected government into internal exile.

Today, two rival governments continue to jockey for power, while groups who have pledged loyalty to ISIS have taken over much of the eastern part of the country, including Derna and Benghazi.

Hillary’s War not only ended any attempts at mediation between Qaddafi and his opponents, which we have since learned were favored by the U.S. military and had a reasonable chance of success. It also ushered into power a jihadi state that has pledged its support to ISIS with the goals of launching terrorist attacks against the United States and of establishing a world-wide Islamic caliphate. And it sent a terrible message to dictators the United States might try to woo into giving up their weapons of mass destruction willingly, as Qaddafi did.

With successes like these on her account, who knows what failures those secret emails might reveal?

Kenneth R. Timmerman

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/kenneth-r-timmerman/hillarys-war/

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

Sisi's religious revolution gets underway - Michele Antaki

by Michele Antaki

Sisi knew that in requesting the revisiting of the "corpus of texts and ideas” that had been “sacralized over the years" and were "antagonizing the entire world," he was taking enormous risks and not endearing himself to the radical fringes of his people. And indeed, voices calling out for his death were quickly heard on programs broadcast by Turkey-based Muslim Brotherhood channels

Last week, the news spread across the web that Egypt’s President Al-Sisi had “cancelled Islamic education” in all of Egypt. Was it in fulfillment of his New Year call for a religious revolution?  Was that dramatic announcement for real or a just a wild rumor?

Bonjour Egypte, a French-language online publication, announced on February 20th that Al-Sisi's Ministry of Education had “published a manual of values and ethics, for all levels of education, after canceling the program of Islamic education.” It added: “The decision is explained by the lack of moral values in the Egyptian street. Sisi, a champion of secularism and an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood, has canceled the teaching of Islam in the schools of Egypt.”

The same word-for-word announcement had already been made by a different publication on 26 June 2014, only to be denied as a fake in an online forum one day later.

On February 22, in the Saudi holy city of Mecca where a counter-terrorism conference was held in the aftermath of the slaughter of 21 Copts by the Islamic State, Grand Imam Ahmed Tayyeb called for a radical reform of religious education to prevent the misinterpretation of the Quran by extremists. "The only hope for Muslim nations to restore their unity is to deal with this Takfiri trend [accusing other Muslims of being unbelievers] in our schools and universities." He offered no indication whether this reform had been effected in Egypt and to what extent.

When Sisi called for a religious revolution on January 1st, 2015 before an assembly of ulema and clerics at prestigious Al-Azhar University, the world caught its breath. Could it be that the leader of a great Muslim nation, seat of the foremost Sunni Islamic learning center, was truly intent on carrying out such a historic and unprecedented reform?

Sisi knew that in requesting the revisiting of the "corpus of texts and ideas” that had been “sacralized over the years" and were "antagonizing the entire world," he was taking enormous risks and not endearing himself to the radical fringes of his people. And indeed, voices calling out for his death were quickly heard on programs broadcast by Turkey-based Muslim Brotherhood channels: “Anyone who kills Egyptian President Abdel Al-Fattah Al-Sisi and the journalists who support him would be doing a good deed,” said Salama Abdel Al-Qawi on Rabea TV.  On Misr Alaan TV, Wagdi Ghoneim clamored that “whoever can bring us the head of one of these dogs and Hell-dwellers” would be “rewarded by Allah.”

In calling for a ‘religious revolution,’ Sisi also knew that he was up against tremendous odds, owing to Al-Azhar’s educational curricula that had been promoting a radical Salafist and Wahhabist brand of Islam for quite some time.

On Jan 4, the popular satellite TV host Ibrahim Issa showed, with book in hand, that what Al-Azhar taught in its curricula was exactly what Daesh [ISIS] practiced. To wit, that “all adult, free and able men” were to “kill infidels,” and do so “without so much as a prior notice or even an invitation to embrace Islam.” Issa, in his characteristically refreshing and funny style, chided his audience for being so deeply in denial. “So you find Daesh horrible, don’t you? Oh dear, oh dear! But why, when Daesh does exactly what Al-Azhar teaches?” He added that there was “no hope that Al-Azhar would ever lead the “religious revolution’” requested by Sisi, unless Al-Azhar was first willing to “reform itself.”  For how could an entity that was “part of the problem be also part of the solution?”

As Sisi had done, Issa made the distinction between religion/doctrine/belief (deen/ akida) on the one hand, and the thinking/ideology (fikr) on the other. He further explained that what was meant by the latter was the body of interpretative and non-core texts -- such as Bukhari’s Hadith, for example, which narrated violent episodes taken from the lives of the Prophet’s companions. Those were amenable to re-interpretation in terms of contextual relevance.

In an earlier, Dec.14 program, Al-Azhar refused to consider the Islamic State as an apostate. On Dec.11, Al-Azhar had called the Islamic State criminal while insisting that “No believer can be declared an apostate, regardless of his sins.”  Nonsense, opined Issa. Apostasy had been declared many times against believers. The real reason for the reluctance was simply that ISIS’s practices were based on Al-Azhar’s teachings,[i] which had been allowed to stand for decades with the regrettable connivance and complicity of the State. Consequently, if ISIS was now declared an apostate, so should Al-Azhar. 

Issa’s views echoed those of Sheikh Mohammed Abdallah Nasr, a former Al-Azhar student and a leading figure of the “Azhariyyun” Civil State Front, which is opposed to political Islam. “Although many consider Al-Azhar a representative of moderate Islam, its curricula incite hatred, discrimination and intolerance, and are a doctrinal reference for the Islamic State,” he said to MCN direct.

It is to be remembered that soon after his New Year’s bombshell, Sisi had created another commotion on Jan.7, by becoming the first Egyptian leader ever to visit the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral during mass, to wish his Christian compatriots a Merry Christmas. His overtures towards the Copts were a bold gesture that went against conventional wisdom. As stated by Ibrahim Issa, religious radicalism and supremacism were “deeply embedded in the minds of some Egyptians contaminated by pollutants inherent in the Brotherhood’s ideology.” The contamination “endured despite Egypt’s massive rejection of the MB rule in 2013,” he believed. Those people would not take kindly to Sisi’s move.

And sure enough, a leading Takfiri Salafist by the name of Yahia Rifai Suroor launched into inflammatory rhetoric that spread across Facebook and was also reported by Copts Today. Suroor posted that unless Christians clearly renounced “the war waged by the Church on Islam,” shedding their blood would be “a religious duty.” As for Muslims who were “Sisi’s supporters,” they were automatically “renegades” and their blood was also fair game.
A few days later at Davos, however, Sisi appeared to have taken a step back in his carefully worded address where he described Islamic terrorism as the action of a “minority” that “distorted religion,” instead of his previous strong language on the need for a “religious revolution.”

But his speech was delivered in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks and subsequent violent protests that had swept the Muslim world; the timing was probably not right for him to come down too hard on Islam.

On Jan. 31, he was back on track when a wave of deadly attacks rocked the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. 

Responsibility was claimed by a group of extremists previously called “Beit al-Maqdis,” who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and morphed into the “Province of Sinai.” The new terror acts presented Sisi with an opportunity to forecefully renew his commitment to fighting terrorism and to also tackle its root cause, religious extremism. He reiterated his undertaking on Feb.1st before a huge gathering of leaders of the Armed Forces, Islamic and Coptic clerics, and government members.  He said he was aware of how sensitive the subject of religion was, yet he had to confront it head on because he would be “accountable before God” for his stewardship of the country. In a dramatic tone, he added that he was ready to “lay down his life” for the completion of his mission -- perhaps a veiled allusion to the fate of late assasinated President Sadat. He reminded the assembly that Egyptians had mandated him to lead their fight against the enemy [the Muslim Brotherhood, which he never named other than by “them”], adding that “they” had declared armed jihad on Egypt on their official website as of that very day. Therefore, it was war and Egyptians needed to brace themselves for it. This said, he emphasized he would not lead them against their will because he had to respect their freedom of choice. 

This freedom, he said, extended to the religious sphere, for freedom was God-given gift to the human species. There were three aspects to religious freedom, which he enumerated. “First, the freedom to embrace a religion or none at all. Second, the freedom to choose which religion. Third, the freedom to do the right thing based on the teachings of that religion or to stray away from the path of righteousness.” Fourteen minutes into his address, Sisi called moderate Sheikh  Ali al-Jifri in the assembly, and pleaded with him half-jokingly: “Sheikh Ali al-Jifri, the world is so tired of us...Can we please, please have some tolerance and moderation?” Turning next to Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb, he assured him that he would not interfere with the technical aspect of the reform process entrusted to him, adding that the the religious problem as a whole was indeed a shared concern for all Egyptians. Both statements drew a round of applause.

On 3 Feb, Egypt’s Imams came out in a massive show of support for the President, chanting pro-Sisi and anti-Muslim Brothers slogans.

The Feb.15 massacre of 21 Egyptian Copts that took place in Libya at the hands of ISIS was a further test of Sisi’s resolve. At Christmas mass on Jan.7, he had told the Coptic Christian congregation that all of them were “Egyptians, without distinction.” And he proved true to his word by immediately launching punitive strikes against ISIS’s positions in the wake of the mass slaughter, in coordination with the Libyan government.

Sisi returned to the Coptic cathedral to present his condolences in person to the congregation and decreed 7 days of national mourning for the victims. This went far beyond what governments of Christian-majority Western countries ever did to honor their own nationals targeted by terrorist attacks. He also acknowledged to all 21 Copts the status of “martyrs,” an unprecedented move in a country that previously denied its victimized Copts such recognition -- deemed incompatible with the uncertainty on whether they would end up in hell or paradise, owing to their condition of  “kufar.”  He finally granted a generous financial compensation to the victims’ families -- bereaved and deprived of their breadwinner -- both as one-time cash payments and yearly income.

In doing so, Sisi did not fear arousing again the ire of the “Ikhwan” [Muslim Brotherhood].  And sure enough, ex-Muslim Brother Wagdy Ghoneim started his ranting against Copts from his exile in Turkey. He justified their killing by arguing that they behaved as though they owned the country. On his public Facebook page, he also lashed out at those who had expressed condemnation for the beheadings, including the Church.

In a statement uploaded to his personal YouTube channel on February 19, he accused the Coptic Pope of having “staged a coup” for the removal of former MB President Morsi in 2013, saying that “treachery run in the blood of Copts.”

Ibrahim Issa held another episode of his 25/30 TV program on that same day, where he blamed the religious education infused with a Wahhabi and Salafist ideology -- taught in schools and at Al-Azhar University -- for the radicalization that boomeranged now against Egypt. He said that Egypt was only reaping what it had sewn for  30/40 years by allowing its students to be poisoned by notions of religious supremacy and hatred of non-Muslims.  It was sheer hypocrisy to feign being scandalized by the slaughter of these 21 Christians, knowing that ISIS’s legal and religious justifications for their killings found their origins in the teachings of Al-Azhar.

On a more positive note, the Copts’ massacre was perhaps the catalyst that allowed Grand Imam Ahmed Tayyeb to be persuaded to modify his stance on religious education. Previously, his position had been that the teachings dispensed at Al-Azhar reflected the true and immutable word of God -- as he stated in his closing remarks at the Al-Azhar meeting of Jan.1st, 2015.

Ibrahim Issa had analyzed them as meaning that Sisi’s initiative of a “religious revolution” was doomed to be indefinitely shelved. In Issa’s opinion, those remarks by the Grand Imam effectively closed the door on exegesis or ijtihad [also called intellectual jihad].

Yet, in a dramatic turnabout after the Copts’ massacre, it was the same Grand Imam who called for a radical reform of religious education while speaking at a Mecca conference on “Islam and counter-terrorism.”

Just as one was wondering where Egypt stood exactly with this on-again, off-again reform of the religious discourse and education, the “cancelation of religious education” reported by Bonjour Egypte appeared to have been misstated. On Feb. 23, Dar al-Akhbar reported not a cancelation, but a revision, was stillo worked on. The media representative of the Education Ministry, Omar Turk, said that efforts, focused on “generating a spirit of tolerance,” were part of “a 3-year strategy for intellectual security established in response to Sisi’s repeated calls for a religious revolution.”

Some people on social media expressed doubts the revision would ever take place. But as the project seemed pushed back to a distant future -- if not downright taken off the table -- an article suddenly appeared last Monday in the Egyptian publication Youm7 showing the first amendments made to Al-Azhar’s educational manuals. It was immediately shared and profusely commented upon on Facebook’s public pages. Jihad was not abrogated -- because it could “merge with the protection of the homeland” -- but postponed to the last 3 years of high school (ages 15-18 years); the crime of “terrorism” replaced that of “spreading [moral] corruption on earth,” perhaps to prevent the latter expression from covering atheism or “polytheism” [Christianity].  And the distribution of war booty among the victors was suppressed as being incompatible with modern warfare.

Last but not least, a former license to cannibalise enemies was also removed as being incompatible with modern mentalities. Comments under the Facebook post revealed readers’ genuine outrage and disbelief at discovering what had been taught for all these years under their nose -- with the exception of a minority who attempted to find excuses.

A special Nov. 26, 2014 Youm7 investigative report predating the start of the reform analyzed the main contents of Al-Azhar’s educational books in some detail.  It revealed that late Grand Imam Mohammed Tantawi was very much aware of how “catastrophic” the Al-Azhar curricula were, and that is why he had removed certain texts deemed ill-adapted to our day and age. But his successor, current Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb, yielding to pressure by some groups, had reinstated them.

The report added that Al-Azhar had always professed to promote an “Islam for all times and places,” truly “in the service of mankind,” as was “the purpose of all revealed religions.”

Al-Azhar, touted as a “bastion of moderation in the Muslim world,” had clearly not walked the talk, said the report. In deciding to sponsor archaic texts, revolting for modern minds, it had instead produced a generation of  “extremists” who also suffered from “psychological and behavioral troubles, and a sense of alienation from others,” as confirmed by the interviewed psychologists and sociologists. 

These texts “could have been studied as part of a ‘history of religion’ curriculum without any problem, but not as a source of 21st century doctrine,” the report went on to say, least of all in an embattled country “fighting for its prosperity, and against terrorism and extremism.”  It was important, concluded the report, to make proposals “in a dispassionate spirit,” for “the substitution of all articles inciting violence and hatred against non-Muslims and against women, for others reflecting true Islam.”

Recent examples of horrific acts probably inspired by Al-Azhar’s anachronistic teachings come to mind. Such as the video of an FSA fighter, showing him eating the heart of an Assad loyalist back in 2013. Or this week’s repulsive story of a mother fed the flesh of her kidnapped son when she came to enquire about him with ISIS members.
In light of the apocalyptic convulsions shaking our world, never had the reform of the Islamic religious discourse been of more consequence and urgency than now. Sisi warned this would take time. One can see why, but he is to be applauded for keeping the pressure on in order to remove resistance to his initiative. The reform, which had known several false starts in the past, is now firmly underway.
 

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[i] “All infidels inside the country and everywhere else are killed without exception or excuse, to get them to convert. If they refuse, both to convert and to pay the jizya (protection money conferring the status of dhimmi - protected, second-class citizen), death is their fate, “including by immolation.” Infidels slated to be killed have “their weapons, clothes and horses confiscated, their lands burned. If the Imam entered a town by force, he could decide to distribute the booty among the looters [his men]. He could also decide to kill or enslave prisoners.  Those allowed to pay the jizya, have first to be subdued and humiliated.”

Michele Antaki was raised in Egypt and France. LLM of Law - France. PG Diploma of Conference Interpretation - UK. She was a UN interpreter in NY for 27 years in 4 languages - Arabic, English, French, Spanish.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/sisis_religious_revolution_gets_underway.html

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

Scene from an Execution: Iran Executing Six Sunni Men - Shadi Paveh

by Shadi Paveh

"No one had any idea that the executions were to be taking place right away, not even the men themselves... The men were in iron cages, with shackled hands and feet." — Sister of the Dehghani brothers, to the Roozonline News Agency.
The charges against all six men were "enmity of God," punishable by death in Iran's penal code. They were among the 33 Sunni men currently on death row in Iran.
"The Iranian authorities are executing them over charges that appear to be fabricated and after grossly unfair trials." — Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"Ever since the rise of ISIS, the regime has become more brazen and stepped up executions. They do not have a care in the world; not many countries are paying attention to Iran's human rights much any more." — Iranian activist.
"We have had our own ISIS here for 36 years now." — Iranian activist

Despite prolonged efforts by human rights organizations, six Sunni men were hanged in the early morning of March 4, 2015 at Rajai Shahr Prison in Iran.

Hamed Ahmadi, Kamal Molai, Jamshid Dehghani, Jahangir Dehghani, Sedigh Mohammadi and Seyed Hadi Hosseini all belonged to the Sunni sect of Islam, which is much persecuted by the mostly Shi'a Islamic Republic of Iran.

The sister of Jamshid and Jahangir Dehghani stated to the Roozonline News Agency that the families were unexpectedly summoned by prison authorities for their last visit with their loved ones. "The call was most unexpected; no one had any idea that the executions were to be taking place right away, not even the men themselves. We were told to go to the prison for our very last visit, so we went... The men were in iron cages, with shackled hands and feet... we saw them for 10 minutes only -- from afar... We just looked at them, we could not touch them. That was our last visit."

Their families and supporters had gathered outside the prison in hopes of halting the execution, as they had also done last June. One supporter wrote on her Facebook:

"I was outside prison with the families starting at 1:00 a.m. that night.... Mrs. Dehghani, the mother of two of the men, was praying and crying. Guards were trying to get us all to leave. At dawn, when everyone was getting ready for morning prayers, an ambulance suddenly came out of the prison. It was terrifying. Were the lifeless bodies of the men in that ambulance? The families attacked the ambulance and tried to stop it to see inside. No one believed that they had actually hanged the men already; we thought it was a trick to get us to leave so they could carry out the hangings. Prison authorities told us that the bodies were being taken to the cemetery and that we should just follow the ambulance, he also threatened Mrs. Mohammadi, the mother of one of the men.... We got into our cars and started following the ambulance, but were violently forced out of the car. I was taken for interrogation and Mr. Norizade [a well known human rights activist] was beaten badly."
Many came and brought us food and blankets, but I wish many more had come so maybe the regime would have not killed those innocent men."

Sadegh Mohammadi and Seyed Hadi Hosseini both suffered from various psychological illnesses, requiring medications. Their execution had been overturned in 2013 due to their illness, and the courts promised new trials. Instead, their death sentence was confirmed in May 2014.

The other four men -- Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani and Kamal Molai -- were accused of killing a senior Sunni cleric in September 2009, but they claim they were arrested several months before the killing.

"The Iranian authorities are executing them over charges that appear to be fabricated and after grossly unfair trials," said Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is well known for persecuting, torturing and even executing members of religious minorities with no adverse consequences, despite outcries from international governments and human rights organizations around the world.

The charges for all six men were "enmity of God," punishable by death in Iran's present penal code. They were among 33 Sunni men currently on death row in Iran. All of the men maintain that they were targeted solely because they practiced or promoted their faith, such as taking part in Sunni religious seminars, distributing Sunni religious reading materials and participating in religious gatherings.

One human rights activist from Iran, interviewed exclusively for Gatestone, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated: "Ever since the rise of ISIS, the regime has become more brazen and has stepped up executions. Before, at least they would not announce them regularly, but now they do. They do not have a care in the world; not many countries are really paying attention to Iran's human rights much anymore. We have had our own ISIS here for 36 years now."

Hamed Ahmadi and his daughter Mohannah.

Mohannah Ahmadi drew a picture of her father's upcoming execution at the age of four, in 2014. It shows her mother holding hands as her father is hanged in the background of the drawing.

Top from left: Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Sedigh Mohammadi. Bottom left: Kamal Molai, Jamshid Dehghani, Hadi Hosseini (Jahangir and Jamshid Dehghani are brothers).

Shadi Paveh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5344/scene-from-an-execution-iran-executing-six-sunni

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