Support builds in GOP for government shutdown over Obama immigration orders - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran


Momentum is building in the House in the GOP caucus to attach a rider to the Continuing Resolution that would fund the government until the end of the fiscal year that would defund agencies charged with implementing President Obama's coming executive orders on immigration.

The amendment would almost certainly be unacceptable to Democrats in the Senate. This would set up a showdown with the White House, giving President Obama and the Democrats the option of failing to fund the government past December 12, leading to a shutdown. 

The Hill:

“I am insisting on that [rider] because the president is violating his executive privilege,” GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who represents the border state of Arizona, said in an interview Friday.
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) called the plan to block the executive action through the government-funding bill “a great idea.” Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who defeated then-Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the June GOP primary in part by accusing his opponent of supporting “amnesty,” said he also backed the proposal.
Asked if a government shutdown would be worth halting Obama's immigration action, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) replied: “When you take an oath to uphold the Constitution, it is not appropriate to contemplate the political consequences. You should uphold the Constitution come what may.”
The call to arms by conservatives is a challenge for GOP leaders in both chambers, who also oppose executive action by Obama but acknowledge they have not settled on a plan to stop it.
“There’s no decision on the strategy, but we know for one thing that the president should not move forward,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Friday.
It’s unclear what Obama will do, but reports this week that he is considering expanding an existing program that defers the deportation of children who entered the U.S. illegally to both their parents and additional children have provoked outrage on the right.
Obama’s proposals could give legal status to 5 million people, some reports suggest.
Republicans say there’s no consensus in the broader GOP conference about how to respond when Obama issues his executive order as early as next week.
Just a year ago, conservative Republicans led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz closed the government for 16 days in a failed bid to defund ObamaCare. GOP leaders taking over the Senate would like to avoid a repeat of that scenario.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed Thursday that Republicans would not shut down the government or default on the nation’s debt.
But hours later, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), fresh off winning another two years in the top spot, said the GOP would “fight tooth and nail” to stop Obama and that all options remained on the table.
Senior GOP aides said the Republican response could be a combination of blocking executive-branch nominees when Republicans take over the Senate next year and expanding a GOP lawsuit against Obama to cover his immigration action.

The divide appears to be between the realists and the ideologues. The realist position, as stated by Rep. Cole:

“I don’t blame people for being mad and proposing ideas,” Cole said. “I personally think it’s just a losing strategy. It didn’t work for ObamaCare. There’s no way it’s going to work here… My view is shutting down the government is never the appropriate remedy.”

The ideologues don't care if it can be done, or what the politics of the tactic would be. They want the GOP on record saying that the executive orders are unconstitutional.

It's probable that Boehner will be able to whip a clean CR through the House, although he will allow a vote on the amendment to defund agencies involved in implementing the coming executive orders. He knows that proponents of the rider don't have 217 votes, so allowing a symbolic vote on agency defunding would satisfy at least some of the conservatives who are agitating for a shutdown.


Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/support_builds_in_gop_for_government_shutdown_over_obama_immigration_orders.html

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

Israel’s New National Cyber Operations Center - Amir Rapaport

by Amir Rapaport

A first glimpse at the new operations center known as CERT 1.0. Nir Peleg, senior division head at the National Cyber Bureau explains how the new center operates

In the cyber world, boundaries are blurred and the issue of prompt cooperation is critical,” says Nir Peleg, while presenting the national cyber operations center, established in a trial version during the month of August 2014, for the first time.

At this stage, the cyber operations center is physically located in a standard-size room at the National Cyber Bureau which resides in a standard high-tech office building in northern Tel-Aviv. There are no signs outside the building to indicate the activities taking place inside. In about a year, the operations center will reside at Cyberpark (the cyber environment combining technological incubators, start-up companies, established IT companies, the Ben-Gurion University and in the future – units of the IDF Intelligence and C4I Directorates that had relocated to the south). The cyber operations center will employ dozens of computer specialists, operating around the clock.

The threats are very real: Nir Peleg told us that during Operation Protective Edge, for example, the State of Israel was under a constant cybernetic attack. That attack caught the new cyber operations center just as it was setting up the trial version, known as CERT 1.0.

“We have seen the trend of increase in the number of attacks against Israel as a state and against Israeli websites,” says Peleg. “We have also seen the diversity of the attacks. During Operation Protective Edge, which was a fairly long campaign, many offensive efforts were made, and I think the major challenges are still ahead of us, as it is an evolving, asymmetrical combat zone with no boundaries. Cooperation must be international as well as local, between corporations and organizations. That is the only way in which we will be able to cope with the extensive range and diversity of cybernetic threats that keep growing all the time.

“This particular space presents a low level of risk to the attackers. The ability to catch and damage them – just like in the physical world – is limited. This encourages the attackers to keep on attacking. At the same time, despite the large number of attacks during Operation Protective Edge, eventually there were no highly irregular incidents, or incidents that had an effect on the functional continuity at the state level. This says something about our situation, as in some areas we provides effective solutions, however we are not looking at the threats of today, but at those we can expect in two to three years from now.”

Israel’s National Cyber Bureau

The National Cyber Bureau, established in early 2012 by the Prime Minister, operates along the "seam" between the covert and overt worlds, although the bulk of its activity takes place in the civilian sector. Heading the Bureau is Dr. Evyatar Matanya, formerly the commander of the "Talpiot" program of the IAF and a former senior executive of the Weapon System & Future Infrastructure R&D Administration at IMOD.

The National Cyber Bureau relies on a dedicated government budget with the objective of developing Israeli cyber industries as a primary lever of the local economy as well as to leverage activities that promote cyber education and training at various educational institutions, from high schools to academia. This year, the National Cyber Bureau supported the establishment of two national research centers in the field of cyber, at the Ben-Gurion University and the Tel-Aviv University.

Since the National Cyber Bureau was established, the number of high-school students enrolled in cyber programs has increased dramatically (the “Magshimim” program, in cooperation with the Rashi Foundation and IMOD, will soon include not less than 1,000 students). More than 100 start-up companies have been established (many of whom have already raised investments amounting to millions of dollars each, from Israeli and overseas investors). At the CyberTech conference produced by Israel Defense last January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the National Cyber Bureau promotes his vision and that Israel is a cyber superpower.

According to Nir Peleg, the establishment of the national cyber operations center as part of the National Cyber Bureau was also intended to improve the efficiency of the defenses against cybernetic attacks at the national level.

How will it Work?

“In the context of the activities of the National Cyber Bureau, a three-tier national defense concept was consolidated. The first tier involves the reinforcement of organizational defenses, with the emphasis on regulation tools and on the improvement of the protective measures of the various organizations.

“The second tier involves the state-level defenses, and the third tier involves international cooperation, as cyber is global. We develop connections between states, opposite international corporations, including corporations and superpowers in the field of cyber, such as Google, Microsoft and others, in order to jointly establish a potential for cooperative alliances and exchange of information.”

Peleg serves as a senior division head at the National Cyber Bureau, in charge of encouraging and promoting technologies, including the establishment of the CERT 1.0 operations center. He told us that the idea for the operations center was taken from non-cyber realms, and that in fact, the center consists of a national-level computer emergency response team (CERT is an acronym for Computer/Cyber Emergency Response Team).

How does the CERT operations center fit into the three-tier defense concept?

“At the state tier, the national CERT is a platform intended to be a reliable central point – to share information and cooperate on cybernetic incidents. This platform has analytical and first-response assistance capabilities. It constitutes a liaison element between the internal elements and organizations that address it up to the level of large organizations and complete sectors. At the international level, it constitutes an infrastructure for exchanging information and for managing crisis situations and incidents of a global nature.

“When you look at the challenges we face, which guide and determine the development of an entity like CERT – we see a constant routine of attacks by various elements: from the world of activists to the world of cybernetic crime. State-sponsored groups or elements operating on behalf of states – that is the first axis of the attack routine. The second axis is associated with the asymmetry of the attacker opposite the defender: namely – it is easy to duplicate attacks and inflict severe damage on complete sectors.

“The third challenge is the rate of complexity and the dependence of cyberspace. In cyberspace, things happen very quickly. Regarding the complexity of the systems, the intention is that in every type of organization – from heavy industry to the high-tech worlds – the dependence on computer systems is substantial.

“In view of these three challenges, we think that the response at the state level should be to advance from a world of prevention and border defense to an effort aimed at increasing the national strength, namely – developing the ability to resist the attacks instead of just waiting for them passively, with nothing to rely on but a firewall.”

“Cyber is alive and has entered our lives, so we must know how to manage the risks in this world. Another thing is to develop cooperation and information realms that are reliable – in a secure manner.
“The direction we follow involves the concentration of national capabilities and resources, as the government can reduce the balance of terror between the defender and the attacker. From inter-organizational platforms, such as, for example, at the sector level, all the way to a national CERT – which calls for investment by the state in order to develop an infrastructure that would provide solutions to civilian organizations.

“We did not invent CERT. It already exists worldwide and progresses intensively in some countries. In those countries, too, it involves a state-sponsored center for initial response and assistance when incidents take place. The American CERT, for example, has been in operation for 11 years in various sectors, under their Department of Homeland Security, and we maintain close contacts with them.

“The European Union has also entered this field – after having issued a directive to all of the European countries, instructing them to establish such organizations that would enable inter-state cooperative alliances inside Europe. At this point in time, most of those countries either have a CERT or are in the process of establishing it. We have seen it in the East, too – Japan and Southern Korea have active CERT centers. There is also a union of several CERTs from around the world, known as FIRST – the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.”

Does Israel have agreements with the other CERTs?

“Yes. A part of what we do in developing our cooperation with other countries is associated with the development of our ability to share information, naturally – based on mutual trust. In some cases we even need to develop special tools for transferring that information. Additionally, the CERTs hold monthly discussions regarding specific incidents. There are periodic summaries, joint case studies – these capabilities are being developed continuously.”

In 2014, the establishment of new cooperative alliances in the field of cyber, with England and Italy, was announced. Are these alliances associated with the exchange of information at the national CERT level?

“Yes. Countries with whom we have friendly relations, notably the USA, England and other European countries, have significant CERTs. We develop cooperative alliances with them so as to manage incidents and expand our space of threat identification and recognition in a lateral and international way. In the world of cyber, these are the rules of the game. “For instance, one of the examples of international cooperation from the last year has to do with a weakness known as Heart Bleed. It is a major weakness that has affected the entire infrastructure of the Internet.

“In fact, it is a security weakness in an encryption mechanism used extensively by Internet infrastructures. Initially, it was detected within a very limited forum (analysts from a Finnish company and from Google were the ones who detected it), and as soon as the circle of partners aware of this weakness expanded, it became globally necessary to act very promptly, because as soon as you are aware of a weakness, you can develop a tool to hack passwords laterally which provides the opportunity to steal information items on a massive scale from websites and from information available on the web. In fact, as soon as this information was detected, CERTs around the world conducted group discussions and consolidated ways for coping with the weakness. A race against time began to close the loophole before it could be exploited by criminal elements.”

Cooperation with Giant Corporations

According to Nir Peleg, international cooperation is reflected even in times when coordinated DDOS attacks are staged against a certain country, as in the case of the attacks staged by the Anonymous organization with the intent of immobilizing traffic in the objectives being attacked (Israel is attacked by Anonymous once every few months. One such attack took place during Operation Protective Edge).

In such cases, the CERTs of the various countries can share information about servers out of which numerous attacks are being staged. If necessary, the CERTs call in enforcement agencies or contact the communication companies that own those servers, in order to assist in blocking the attacks that come out of those servers.

The CERT is not regarded as an enforcement agency or as a directing authority (like ISA, which issues directives to several dozen national infrastructure companies regarded as critical on how to defend themselves against cybernetic attacks), but any organization or entity may contact it and obtain advice and assistance – even private individuals.

Peleg told us that once the national CERT has completed its running-in stage, a website containing extensive information about protective measures and methods will be launched, and a direct telephone number to the national cyber operations center will be published.

“In fact, the CERT offers three service categories. The first category includes the reactive services, which are essentially responsive services, namely – management of incidents. The second category includes proactive services, where the CERT contacts an organization at its own initiative and issues specific alerts that pertain to it. The third category includes high-quality communication services. This category creates risk management tools and analytical tools for improving awareness at the level of the organizations, which help to measure themselves and acquire the ability to evaluate the organization before it comes under attack.

“These are tools and methods the CERT develops as a knowledge hub, and it should help organizations by providing them with the tools and with the ability to cope and effectively evaluate their situation with regard to defense.”

Will the CERT acquire services from existing companies in the cyber protection industry?

“Apparently, the CERT acquires knowledge and services and also develops long-term agreements with strategic corporations. The agreements provide unique access to databases which not every entity can afford. Through the international cooperative alliances, a reliable sharing network is established, which enables the users to share information regarding global incidents. Managing the information vis-à-vis various organizations is of the utmost importance, as a company or organization that share certain information with the CERT may not be interested in that information being passed on to other parties. Consequently, the knowledge sharing agreements with the various organizations are of the utmost importance.”

According to Nir Peleg, during the year 2015, CERTs for specific sectors will start operating in addition to the national CERT in Beersheba. The first two sectors that would have their own CERTs are the energy sector (led by the Head of Security at the Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources, Tamir Schneiderman) and the government ministry sector.

“We are currently at the beginning of the process of specifying a cyber defense center for the government sector, in cooperation with the government C4I,” says Peleg. “The objective is to serve all of the ministries laterally and centrally. Today, the government ministries have an ‘Available Government’ system that regulates the use of the Internet, but there is no one to provide a solution or assistance for internal incidents on the web, mainly at the smaller and medium ministries.”

During Operation Protective Edge, some Israeli websites were shut down, but we generally escaped the fighting in cyberspace relatively unharmed. So, is it possible that the threat is not so severe?

“The fact that we managed to go through one incident unharmed means nothing. In the world of cyber, the rate at which changes take place is mind-boggling – much faster than the time required in order to develop such weapon systems as aircraft, missiles and other kinetic threats. Consequently, we must be prepared to deal with the threats lurking around the corner, not just with the ones that have already appeared on the scene.”



Amir Rapaport

Source: http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=3211

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

Truthy: The Tax-Funded Speech Monitoring and Suppression Project - Arnold Ahlert

by Arnold Ahlert

Leftist speech suppressors are at it again, but this time they’re apparently being subsidized by the American taxpayer. On Monday, House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) sent a letter to the head of the National Science Foundation (NSF), demanding information about the nearly $1 million spent on the “Truthy” data-mining project that monitors political speech on Twitter. “The committee and taxpayers deserve to know how NSF decided to award a large grant for a project that proposed to develop standards for online political speech and to apply those standards through development of a website that targeted conservative political comments,” Smith wrote to NSF Director France Cordova.

The letter continues:

While some have argued that Truthy could be used to better understand things like disaster communication or to assist law enforcement, instead it appears Truthy focused on examples of “false and misleading ideas, hate speech, and subversive propaganda” communicated by conservative groups.

Then comes the kicker that should infuriate Americans who believe in the First Amendment. “Whether by amazing coincidence or on purpose, it appears that several media accounts that were highlighted by Truthy were subsequently terminated by the owners of the social media platforms, effectively muzzling the political speeches of the targeted individuals and groups.”

Smith also references a book, The Death of the Internet, co-written by Filippo Menczer, professor of Informatics and Computer Science at Indiana University. Menczer is the project’s lead researcher. The book was released in 2012 and contains a chapter titled “Abuse of Social Media and Political Information,” in which Menczer notes that “Truthy was originally deployed in the run up to the 2010 US midterm elections with the explicit purpose of detecting and tracking political astroturfing attempts in real time.” According to Menczer, astroturfing is the employment of “deceptive tactics” that can be used to “gain a large numberers of followers and obtain a voice of importance within the community.”

For Menczer and his ilk, the idea that Americans should have the freedom to determine which messages are true or false is a bridge too far: he writes how he and his team managed to get Twitter accounts suspended.

The Washington Free Beacon reveals the original scope of the project, noting that “Truthy tracked up to 8 million tweets per day in the run up to the 2010 midterms, and stored 600,000 political tweets in their database.” Menczer denied that database’s existence. “The headlines are saying something that is completely false and fabricated,” he insisted. “We are not defining hate speech. We are not tracking people. We don’t have a database.”

The project began in 2011 at Indiana University following the awarding of $919,917 grant “aimed at modeling the diffusion of information online and empirically discriminating among models of mechanisms driving the spread of memes. We explore why some ideas cause viral explosions while others are quickly forgotten….Additionally, we will create a web service open to the public for monitoring trends, bursts, and suspicious memes. This service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate.”

False and misleading idea, hate speech and subversive propaganda, according to whom? Menczer’s personal political activity shows support for radical leftist groups, including Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority. And he has admitted that Truthy was inspired by the Twitter bombing campaign against Senate Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in 2010. Coakley lost that election.

Furthermore, in presentations to academic groups, Menczer has highlighted his research efforts focused on conservative groups, individuals and hashtags. Examples include the conservative Heritage Foundation’s use of #obamacare, pro-Sarah Palin tweets, and tweets using the hashtag “#tcot,” which stands for “Top Conservatives on Twitter.”

Menczer’s self-stated goal? To detect the dissemination of particular memes (transmitted cultural ideas, symbols, etc.) “early before damage is done–that is what we’re trying to do.” He also insists that while the project is non-partisan, “almost all of the most popular hashtags, the most active accounts, and the most tweeted URLs, are from the right. We looked really hard for any ‘truthy’ memes from the left.”

Columnist Michelle Malkin cuts right through that ridiculous assertion, citing the #StopRush smear campaign where a total of 10 Twitter users accounted for 70 percent of the campaign-related tweets to advertisers that were amplified by “illicit software.” And the Beacon cites two accounts Truthy got suspended. One was that of health insurance broker C. Steven Tucker, who used the hashtag “American Patriots,” or #ampat, and the other was @PeaceKaren_25, an account suspended after expressing support for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Tellingly, this story has reached critical mass at the same time President Obama revealed he is intent on regulating the Internet, reclassifying it as a utility in order to bring it under the increasingly tighter yoke of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). “To put these protections in place, I’m asking the FCC to reclassify internet service under Title II of a law known as the Telecommunications Act,” Obama said in a statement released Nov. 10. “In plain English, I’m asking [the FCC] to recognize that for most Americans, the internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life.”

Obama and his followers also support “net neutrality,” which is the idea that every “packet” of information sent across the Internet be treated equally, regardless of source, destination, or content—with very limited exceptions made for illegal, malicious, or unwanted transmissions. The public utility model would require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to wire up every house in the country irrespective of cost, with the FCC granted the power to set prices offsetting the additional regulatory burdens, and allowing the ISPs to make money.

In other words, the Internet would no longer be subject to market forces of supply and demand. Obama and his supporters ostensibly don’t want that to happen, but legal obstacles abound, the foremost of which should sound quite familiar to most Americans:

“In its proposed rules the FCC is essentially doing what can only be proposed by Congress: invent a new legal regime for broadband.”

Reason.com’s Grant Babcok reveals why the Obama administration is obsessed with getting more control over the Internet, noting that “the federal government is attempting to use the Internet to build a global Panopticon, capable of accessing everyone’s personal information at any time for any reason or no reason,” and that “securing the cooperation of private companies” is part of that effort. He explains the government bullying that would be necessary to obtain that cooperation has happened before during the financial crisis, when the Federal Reserve forced banks to take TARP money they didn’t want. “The threat to Internet freedom is government control,” he concludes. “That means that if you care about liberty, you should oppose Net neutrality and Title II reclassification.”

Despite all denials to the contrary, the objectives of Truthy and net neutrality—and let’s not forget the IRS’s targeting scandal as well—bear a striking resemblance to each other: suppression of speech on one end of the equation, buttressed by greater government control over one of the foremost engines of that speech dissemination on the other.

Tellingly, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has labeled net neutrality as “ObamaCare for the Internet.” That would be the same ObamaCare that relied on “the stupidity of the American voter” to secure its passage, according to MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, one of its chief architects.

Americans need to be very clear here: leftists like Menczer, Gruber and Obama, along with countless others who share their bankrupt ideology, have nothing but contempt for their fellow Americans. It is a contempt buttressed by unrelenting arrogance that drives all of them towards imposing ever-increasing amounts of government control over the “benighted” masses they see as fundamentally incapable of making rational decisions on their own.

Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/truthy-the-tax-funded-speech-monitoring-and-suppression-project/

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

Obama Desperate for a Deal with Iran at any Price - Isi Leibler

by Isi Leibler

Despite their statements to the contrary, the Obama Administration appears determined to achieve an “agreement” with Iran and seems willing to breach their repeated undertakings that they would never countenance Iran becoming a nuclear power. With the Mullahs increased intransigence as they sense the desperation of the Americans to avoid a confrontation, the November 24 deadline will probably be extended, enabling the centrifuges to continue spinning whilst the P5+1 countries engage in fruitless negotiations with the duplicitous Iranians.

The Iranians have mocked Secretary of State Kerry’s overtures, including his secret appeals to them to coordinate with the U.S. in opposing ISIS. Speaking from a podium bedecked with banners blazing “America cannot do a damn thing,” Ayatollah Khomeini boasted that the “Great Satan’s” efforts to bring Iran to its knees had failed, and that President Obama lacked the courage for a military confrontation. Ali Younesi, senior advisor to “moderate” President Rouhani, referred to Obama as “the weakest of US presidents” whose six years in office were “humiliating”.

Nevertheless, the administration continues to grovel in an effort to appease the Iranians. It is widely believed that the unprecedented hostility recently directed against Israel, especially the statement that Israel had lost the opportunity of exploiting the military option to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power, were primarily for the benefit of the Ayatollah.

The London Times claimed that American and Iranian officials have even been discussing the opening of the US trade office in Tehran.

The frenzied, initially covert, efforts to engage the support of Iran in the struggle against ISIS - despite Iran being designated by the U.S. as a terrorist state - has further undermined the little credibility the US retains with the moderate Sunni states, considered until recently as staunch allies.

Obama’s deception of his allies was exemplified when it was disclosed that he had written a secret letter to Ayatollah Khomeini pleading with him to reach to an accommodation. This, the fourth letter he had written to the Ayatollah – all of which were ignored - was an explicit breach of undertaking to his allies that any independent initiatives would be preceded by consultations.

Even one of Obama’s favorite in-house journalists, Jeffrey Goldberg, felt impelled to remark that the “most recent letter was delivered at an unfortunate moment in the run-up to the putatively climactic negotiations between Iran and the world powers” when the Obama administration had already conceded to many of the demands of Iran. Goldberg concluded his column by stating “the Iranians originally came to the negotiating table because US-led sanctions were hurting them badly. I understand the need for give and take negotiations, but I’m getting worried that the US is focused too much on the first half of that equation”.

The U.S. administration has already given approval to Iran to enrich uranium, effectively making them a nuclear threshold state. While the global powers agreed to enable the Iranians to have1000 centrifuges to process material required to create nuclear fuel, the Iranians have outrightly refused to dismantle any of the 19,000 centrifuges they have already accumulated. It is understood that Iran is already in the position to accrue sufficient enriched fissile material to become a nuclear power within a few months, if it so desired. The US has indicated that it would be willing to sign off on a deal which would extend this breakout phase to one year, hardly reassuring to the region.

The Iranians also displayed utter contempt towards the U.S. by violating the interim accord, and failing to disclose an enrichment facility in Qom and even denying access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to military sites and nuclear scientists engaged in research. Clearly, the duplicitous Islamist regime would continue to circumvent any agreement which is not rigorously monitored and enforced – a procedure that the Iranians have already made clear they will never accept.

While the outcome of this issue will have immense global implications, especially in the Middle East, Israel is the country most affected. The Iranian regime’s hatred of Israel is Messianic. It openly proclaims its commitment to destroy the Jewish state. Coinciding with Obama’s groveling letter to him, Ayatollah Khomeini posted a Twitter stating that the only way to stop the “Israeli crimes”, was to annihilate” the “barbaric, wolf like and infanticidal regime of Israel”. Israel cannot accept the prospect of such a fanatical terrorist regime becoming a nuclear threshold state.

Under pressure, following the release of his letter to the Ayatollah, Present Obama has stepped back, stating that there is still a big gap and that “we may not be able to get there”. He added “our number one priority with respect to Iran is making sure they don’t get a nuclear weapon”. Even his closest associates would question their President’s credibility when he expresses such views.

The question is whether at this advanced stage, the P1+5 nations, desperate to appease and reach an accord with the terrorist state at any price, can still be deterred from capitulating.

The key rests with the United States. The extraordinary landslide victory by the Republicans at the midterm elections – clearly a vote of non-confidence in Obama - provides some hope.

Yet it should be noted that within the American political system, the president assumes the primary control of foreign relations. The Republican controlled Congress and Senate can certainly pass resolutions, but that will not necessarily limit the White House in this arena of foreign policy. In addition, realizing that on the domestic scene his hands will be restricted by Congress, Obama might even decide to intensify his foreign policy activities. The principal areas are likely to include the embrace of the Iranians and possibly trying to impose a settlement on the Israelis with the Palestinians.

However in relation to Iran, the president must persuade Congress to rescind the sanctions it originally legislated. Obama may constitutionally override the congressional sanctions and unilaterally suspend enforcement, but that could lead to a major confrontation with Congress.

Needless to say, if a reasonable agreement was achieved it would be endorsed by Congress. But all indications suggest that Obama is promoting an Alice in Wonderland deal with the Iranians which Congress would reject.

The potential incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already stated unequivocally that the Senate will review any deal with Iran and ensure that “any comprehensive agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program, both protects the national security of the United States and recognizes Israel’s own defense as a security partner of our country.”

At this critical time, American Jews and friends of Israel should exert all their influence to convince the administration and a bipartisan Congress that appeasing the Iranian mullahs will have horrific long-term consequences and must be avoided. They should mount a powerful public campaign to demonstrate the catastrophic blunder the government would make should it appease this evil terrorist regime, which in the absence of becoming a nuclear state, is likely in time to implode internally because of the growing opposition from own its young people and the middle class.

This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom


Isi Leibler may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com  His website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.

Source: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5385

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

A Turkish Quest to "Liberate" Jerusalem - Burak Bekdil

by Burak Bekdil

Both Turkey's President Erdogan and its Prime Minister Davutoglu have declared countess times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia, and the Maghreb) are Turkey's "domestic affairs."
In truth, there is no mention of any city's name in the Qur'an.

Turks have a different understanding of what constitutes an occupation and a conquest of a city. The Turkish rule is very simple: The capture of a foreign city by force is an occupation if that city is Turkish (or Muslim) and the capture of a city by force is conquest if the city belongs to a foreign nation (or non-Muslims).

For instance, Turks still think the capture of Istanbul in 1453 was not occupation; it was conquest.

In a 2012 speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then Prime Minister) said: "Just like Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul are cities of the Qur'an." In truth, there is no mention of any city's name in the Qur'an. Never mind.

"Conquest," Turkey's top Muslim cleric, Professor Mehmet Gormez, declared in 2012, "is not to occupy lands or destroy cities and castles. Conquest is the conquest of hearts!" That is why, the top Turkish cleric said, "In our history there has never been occupation." Instead, Professor Gormez said, "in our history, there has always been conquest." He further explained that one pillar of conquest is to "open up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an." [Editior: the Arabic word for "open" is identical to the word for "conquer":
     "fatah"فتح]
It is in this religious justification that most Turkish Islamists think they have an Allah-given right to take infidel lands by the force of sword -- ironically, not much different from what the tougher Islamists have been doing in large parts of Syria and Iraq. Ask any commander in the Islamic State and he would tell you what the jihadists are doing there is "opening up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an."

Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have declared countless times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia and the Maghreb) are Turkey's "domestic affairs."

This author wrote in this journal on Oct. 30:

In reality, with or without the normalization of diplomatic relations between Ankara and Jerusalem, the Turks have never hidden their broader goals in the Arab-Israeli dispute: that Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state; and that Israel should be pushed back to its pre-1967 borders. Until then, it will be 'halal' [permitted in Islam] for Erdogan to blame Israel for global warming, the Ebola virus, starvation in Africa and every other misfortune the world faces.

As if to confirm this whimsical view, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan has blamed Israel for democratic failings in the Arab world. "Israel works with [undemocratic] regimes and keeps its ship afloat." So, it is because of Israel that Arab nations have never established democratic culture -- before or after 1948; or before or after the Arab Spring revolts. But fortunately, Palestinians have a new "protector."

From Prime Minister Davutoglu's public speech on November 7:

Al-Aqsa [mosque in Jerusalem] will one day be liberated. The Israelis should know that the oppressed Syrians have a protector. The oppressed Palestinians too have a protector. That protector is Turkey. Just as Bursa [the Turkish city where he spoke] ended its occupation, the honorable Palestinians, honorable Muslims will end the [Israeli] occupation. Just as Osman Gazi [a sepulchre in Bursa] was liberated, al-Aqsa too will be liberated. Al-Quds [Jerusalem] is both our first prayer direction and has been entrusted with us by history. It has been entrusted with us by Hazrat Omar. The last freedom seen in Jerusalem was under our [Ottoman] rule. Al-Quds is our cause. It is the occupying, oppressive Israeli government that has turned the Middle East into a quagmire.

Echoing that view, President Erdogan said that protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission (for his government), and bluntly warned that any attack against the al-Aqsa mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca.

Spot the difference: In the eyes of Turkey's political and religious leadership, Istanbul and its Hagia Sophia (once a Greek Orthodox Basilica) were legitimately "conquered" by the Muslim Ottomans, while Jerusalem and its al-Aqsa mosque (built atop the ruins of the Jewish Temples) are illegally "occupied" by Israel. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)

No doubt, after Gaza, al-Aqsa (and Jerusalem) has become a powerful Turkish obsession, and a treasure-trove of votes, especially in view of Turkey's parliamentary elections next June. And do not expect the Turkish leadership only to corrupt facts. Plain fabrication is a more favored method. All the same, someone, sometimes, would unwillingly reveal the truth often when trying to corrupt other facts.

Since Davutoglu claimed that "Jerusalem has been entrusted with the Turks by Hazrat Omar," it may be useful to refresh memories. Hazrat Omar is Omar bin Al-Khattab (579-644), one of the most powerful and influential Muslim caliphs in history. Within the context of "conquest vs. occupation," he was referenced by the top cleric, Professor Gormez in a 2012 speech:

After Hazrat Omar conquered al-Quds [Jerusalem], he was invited to pray at a church [as there were no mosques yet in Jerusalem]. But he politely refused because he was worried that the [conquering] Muslims could turn the church into a mosque after he prayed there.

Since medieval historical facts cannot have changed over the past two years, the top Turkish ulama [religious scholar], referencing a most powerful Muslim caliph, is best witness that when the Muslims had first arrived in Jerusalem there was not a single mosque in the city. Why? Because Jerusalem was not a Muslim city. Why, then, do Turkish Islamists claim that it is Muslim? Because it once had been "conquered." Would the same Turks surrender Istanbul to the occupying forces that took the city after World War I because its capture in 1920 made it a non-Turkish city? No, that was not conquest, that was occupation!

Had Messrs Erdogan and Davutoglu been schoolchildren, such reasoning might have been called bullying and cheating.


Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4867/turkey-jerusalem

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

Brookings Institution’s New Idea: Try Failed Solutions Again - Robert Spencer

by Robert Spencer

Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Institution’s Intelligence Project, published a piece in the Daily Beast last Sunday with the provocative title, “Why’s Al Qaeda So Strong? Washington Has (Literally) No Idea.” That is certainly true, but Riedel’s recommendations for how the political establishment can get a clue and finally defeat the jihadis are nothing but tired retreads of analyses that have been tried and have failed again and again. Coming from a think tank as influential as Brookings, this goes a long way toward explaining why neither party seems able to reevaluate and discard political points of view and plans of action, no matter how many times they lead to disaster.

Riedel rightly faults the U.S. for not meeting the ideological challenge that groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State pose, but then he advocates essentially what mainstream analysts on both the Left and the Right have advocated for years: establishing a State of Palestine, supporting “reform and justice” in Muslim countries, and working to end Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism. These solutions have been tried, repeatedly, and every time they failed abysmally.

While Riedel is correct that the U.S. hasn’t countered the ideology of jihad groups, he shows no sign of knowing what that ideology really is. In fact, he demonstrates that he shares the same false premises that have led the U.S. government to its abysmal failure to understand why jihad groups are so strong and how they can be countered. Both Riedel and Washington policymakers assume that the appeal to Muslims of the stated goals and motivations of jihad groups — establishment of the caliphate, destruction of non-Sharia regimes, and ultimately global Islamic dominance — can be blunted, if not extinguished altogether, by essentially giving jihadis and Islamic supremacists some of what they want. They assume that in that event, the larger aggregate of Muslims will respond the way Westerners in secular democracies would respond: by accepting the compromise and rejecting more extreme solutions.

We have the record of the last thirteen years and more to show that this assumption is false.
First and foremost among Riedel’s faulty analyses is his scapegoating of Israel for the failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians. “Unfortunately,” Riedel laments, “for six years the Obama team has tried to push the two-state solution without any success. It rightly blames both Israeli and Palestinian intransigence for its failure. But the core issue is Israel’s refusal to end the occupation of the West Bank.”

One word exposes the falsity of this analysis: Gaza. Anyone who still thinks after the Gaza withdrawal that a Palestinian state would bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians (and yes, I know they are legion, and in both parties, and in all the corridors of power in the U.S. and Europe) hasn’t been paying attention. We were told in 2005 that “occupation” was the problem, and if Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Gazans would turn to peaceful pursuits. Only a few people, including me, warned that Gaza would just become a jihad base for newly virulent attacks against Israel. Events proved us correct.

Now Riedel wants Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, and assures us that this withdrawal from this “occupation” is really the one that will finally bring peace and take the wind out of the jihadis’ sails. A Palestinian state, he says, will “severely undermine” al-Qaeda’s appeal “and over time dry up its base” — and he claims this even after acknowledging that “Israel’s destruction” is al-Qaeda’s goal.

Why would the establishment of a Palestinian state now, after the Arab Muslims rejected it in 1948 and the “Palestinians” rejected it in 2000 (and other times) bring peace when the goal of Israel’s total destruction, which Hamas has repeatedly and recently reiterated, would remain? Why would another Israeli withdrawal accomplish what earlier Israeli withdrawals — not just from Gaza, but also from Sinai and southern Lebanon — did not?

Riedel doesn’t consider these questions. He can’t, because any honest answer would show his analysis to be false and based on wishful thinking.

Then Riedel goes on to advocate another failed remedy, claiming that “the extremists’ narrative argues that only violent jihad can bring about change and justice in the Islamic world. They argue the Arab spring proves that peaceful protests and demonstrations, elections and democratic change don’t work in Arabia and the world of Islam. The failure of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt is cited as evidence that ‘moderate’ Islam is too weak to fight the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy and it’s [sic] Quisling allies like Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian army.”

Consequently, he says, “chaos and failed states, not democracy, are what the foreseeable future holds for Arabia. But a Western policy that is blind to the urgent need for reform and justice is certain to end in catastrophe. More immediately, it cedes the ideological battle to al Qaeda’s simple solution that only jihad brings change. Close attachment to autocratic regimes by the West pays short-term dividends but will antagonize generations of Muslims.”

Yet this was precisely the Obama Administration’s policy when it turned against Hosni Mubarak and warmly endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. This was the analysis Obama was following when he aided the Libyan jihadis against Gaddafi and the Syrian jihadis against Assad (although in the latter case the rise of the Islamic State has exposed his Syria policy as confused and incoherent).

Riedel mentions the fall of the Ikhwan regime in Egypt as part of the jihadis’ recruitment rhetoric, but he misses its real import: when the U.S. followed his recommendations and stopped backing dictators in Muslim countries, favoring instead popular revolutionaries and the “democratic process,” the result was not stability and the weakening of jihad groups, but chaos and anarchy in Libya, unrest and instability in Egypt, and the strengthening of jihad groups the world over. The Brotherhood regime in Egypt fell because many secular Muslims don’t want to live under Sharia oppression. However, Sharia advocates are numerous in Egypt and other Muslim countries — so the result of backing “democracy” in Egypt and other Muslim countries was not the establishment of peaceful, stable Sharia regimes (which would not be a desirable outcome anyway, cf. Saudi Arabia and Iran), but more violence. 
The dictators were bloody and reprehensible; the “democratic process” in all too many Muslim countries has resulted in regimes that are scarcely less bloody and far less stable.
Nonetheless, Riedel says, “Full speed ahead.” What would he say if there were a free election in Iraq and Syria now and the Islamic State won, or even got a significant percentage of the vote? He seems to assume, as George W. Bush and so many others assumed, that elections in Muslim countries would lead to the establishment of pro-Western, secular, stable republics. It has never happened. Why will it happen next time?

Riedel then offers yet another faulty analysis: “The extremist message also encourages sectarianism and intolerance. The Shia are portrayed as false Muslims and brutally attacked to encourage Sunni-Shia hatred. Sectarian strife now empowers the civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and Al Qaedaism flourishes in the chaos. The West says far too little about the cancer of sectarianism.”

Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this about it in 2007: “There’s still a tendency to see these things in Sunni-Shia terms. But the Middle East is going to have to overcome that.” The Bush Administration tried in numerous ways to help them overcome it in Iraq. It held one-person, one-vote elections that resulted in a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad — an outcome that was absolutely predictable, since Shi’ites are a majority in Iraq. That regime was supposed to include Sunnis. It was absolutely predictable also that it did not manage to do so, both because it didn’t want to and Sunnis didn’t want to participate anyway.

The Sunni-Shi’ite divide is 1,400 years old. The history of Islam is filled with occasions when it erupted into violence. The idea that the non-Muslim West can heal this or should even try to do so is as hubristic as it is myopic, and shows that Riedel (and Condoleezza Rice, and myriad others) have no idea of the history or beliefs of either group.

That is no surprise. The real reason why the U.S. and the West in general haven’t confronted the ideology of jihad groups is because they refuse to admit that it even exists. They insist that Islam is peaceful and that groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have nothing to do with Islam. They don’t have any curiosity about how this supposed misunderstanding of Islam came to be so widespread and powerful, and they have never pressed Muslim groups that ostensibly reject it to do anything to blunt its appeal for young Muslims.

So Riedel is right: Washington has no idea why al-Qaeda is so strong. Neither does he. And a strong indication of why is Riedel’s affiliation with Brookings, a Qatar-funded group that publishes justifications for jihad terror and gives jihad terror supporters and enablers access to the world’s most powerful people. It also is strongly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel.

Brookings is responsible to an immense degree for the application of these failed policies over the last few years. It should be recognized for what it is and not allowed to lead the U.S. over the cliff yet again.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We're In, is now available.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/brookings-institutions-new-idea-try-failed-solutions-again/

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

Amid Declining US Influence, China's Mideast Footprint Grows - David P. Goldman

by David P. Goldman



The implosion of America's geopolitical position has placed risks and opportunities at China's doorstep, to Beijing's great surprise.
A year ago, Chinese officials privately reassured visitors that their country would "follow the lead of the dominant superpower" in matters relating to Middle East security, including Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. For the past several decades, China has allowed the US to look out for the Persian Gulf while it increased its dependency on Persian Gulf oil. By 2020, China expects to import 70% of its oil, and most of that will come from the Gulf.

The Chinese view has changed radically during the past few months, in part due to the collapse of the Syrian and Iraqi states and the rise of Islamic State. It is hard to find a Chinese specialist who still thinks that the US can stand surely for Persian Gulf security. Opinion is divided between those who think that America is merely incompetent and those who think that America deliberately wants to destabilize the Persian Gulf.

Now that the US is approaching self-sufficiency in energy resources, some senior Chinese analysts believe it wants to push the region into chaos in order to hurt China. One prominent Chinese analyst pointed out that Islamic State is led by Sunni officers trained by the United States during the 2007-2008 "surge" as well as elements of Saddam Hussein's old army, and that this explains why IS has displayed such military and organizational competence.

The complaint is justified, to be sure: General David Petraeus helped train the 100,000-strong "Sunni Awakening" to create a balance of power against the Shi'ite majority regime that the US helped bring to power in 2006. How, the Chinese ask, could the Bush administration and Petraeus have been so stupid? To persuade the Chinese that they were indeed that stupid is a daunting task.

The decline of American influence in the region from which China obtains most of its oil is not a happy event for Beijing.

China's attitude towards Washington has turned towards open contempt. Writing of the mid-term elections, the official daily newspaper Global Times intoned: "The lame-duck president will be further crippled ... he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. US society has grown tired of his banality."

But the decline of American influence in the region from which China obtains most of its oil is not a happy event for Beijing.

China did not anticipate the end of the free ride from the Americans, and it isn't sure what to do next. It has tried to maintain a balance among countries with whom it trades and who are hostile to each other. It has sold a great deal of conventional weapons to Iran, for example, and some older, less-sophisticated ballistic missiles.

But China has sold Saudi Arabia its top-of-the-line intermediate range missiles, giving the Saudis a "formidable deterrent capability" against Iran and other prospective adversaries. China obtains more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country, although its imports from Iraq and Oman are growing faster. Because the latter two countries are closer to Iran, China wants to strike a balance.

Chinese opinion is divided about the implications of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons: some strategists believe that the balance of nuclear power in the region will suffice to prevent the use of such weapons, while others fear that a nuclear exchange in the Gulf might stop the flow of oil and bring down China's economy. China has joined the P-5 plus 1 negotiations (involving the UN Security Council permanent five members plus Germany) on Iran's nuclear status, but has not offered a policy independent of President Barack Obama's.

Meanwhile the rise of Islamist extremism worries Beijing, as well it should. At least a hundred Uyghurs reportedly are fighting with Islamic State, presumably in order to acquire terrorist skills to bring back home to China. Chinese analysts have a very low opinion of the Obama administration's approach to dealing with IS, but do not have an alternative policy. This is an issue of growing importance. Instability threatens the Silk Road project at several key notes.

China has no sympathy whatever for what analysts there like to call "political Islam". America's flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood - both from the Obama administration and from mainstream Republicans such as Senator John McCain - strikes the Chinese as incompetence, or worse. But China has no capability to go after the Islamists, except for a very limited deployment of marines off the coast of Somalia.

China's policy-making is careful, conservative and consensus-driven. Its overriding concern is its own economy. The pace of transformation of the Middle East has surprised it, and it is trying to decide what to do next.

Its pro forma policy is to join the Iran talks, and offer to join the Quartet (the UN, the US, the European Union, and Russia) talks on the Israel-Palestine issue, but neither of these initiatives has much to do with its actual concerns.

What China will do in the future cannot be predicted. But it seems inevitable that China's basic interests will lead it to far greater involvement in the region, all the more so as the US withdraws.


David P. Goldman is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the Wax Family Fellow at the Middle East Forum. His book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, It's Not the End of the World - It's Just the End of You, also appeared that fall, from Van Praag Press.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/4886/the-sino-american-comedy-of-errors-excerpt

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