Hillary's incompetency

Earlier this week, strategist Karl Rove attacked Clinton's health, suggesting she suffered traumatic brain injury from a 2012 fall.

Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, insisted she works out regularly and is in "better shape" than him. And while he said there was nothing to Rove's charge, the ex-president acknowledged a candidate's health is fair game in national campaigns. 

In addition, Clinton has been under attack for her handling of the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya and on her record on the terrorist organization Boko Haram, which kidnapped nearly 300 Nigerian teenaged girls from their school and threatening to sell them.

The State Department, under Clinton, refused to designate Boko Haram — which is affiliated with al-Qaida — as a terror organization. That designation was not made until last November, well after Clinton had resigned as secretary of state.

Clinton's age has also come under fire. She will turn 69 years old two weeks before the 2016 election. Late President Ronald Reagan, in comparison, was eight months older than that when he ran for office in 1980.

The former first lady's history will be an issue should she decide to run, said Priebus Sunday.

"I think Hillary is a known product," he said. "Actually, I think it's sometimes worse running against a blank slate. Hillary has decades of history for us to explore."

Priebus said her role in "Hillarycare," her push for health insurance reform while she was still first lady, will be brought up, as will her experience as a New York senator, "where there's nothing significant to point to." 

Further, Priebus said, Clinton's experience as secretary of state "is just not significant, but there's all kinds of problems with her."

And when she was asked questions about Benghazi and her response was "what difference does it make," Priebus said, "I assure you it will be an issue if she decides to run."

But Priebus said that despite calls for Rove to apologize for his comments, that will be "up to Karl Rove. He's a political operative."

But he thinks health and age is "fair game."

"It was fair game for Ronald Reagan. It's fair game with John McCain," said Priebus, noting that people attacked the Arizona Republican, saying he was "maybe psychologically not fit because he was a prisoner of war." 

But he's not sure there is "a graceful way to bring up age, health, and fitness for a candidate that wants to be president of the United States. I think the more important issue for me as leader of this party is what's the record of Hillary Clinton? What was her record as a secretary of state, Benghazi, Boko Haram, Syria. Those are the issues." 

Priebus, meanwhile, refused to speculate on Rove's claims.

"I'm not a doctor," Priebus said. "What I do know is the issue will come up as it does for any person running for president. What I think is going to make her rethink whether she should actually run for president... She's coming out with a book called "Hard Choices" or something like that. She's made a series of bad choices."

He also accused Clinton of trying to sweep Benghazi under the rug.

"If you want any evidence ask the families of people who lost their sons in Benghazi," he said. "They've talked plenty about what happened in Benghazi." 

IRS scandal deepens

Your tax dollar collectors at work– the IRS targeting scandal deepens Posted: 14 May 2014 09:59 PM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) New documents obtained by Judicial Watch demonstrate conclusively that the IRS policy of targeting tea party and conservative groups came directly from Washington D.C., not a rogue office in Cincinnati. They also show that Sen. Carl Levin was working with the IRS to make sure tea party and conservative groups were targeted for harassment. As to the first point, a July 2012 email from IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky confirms that tea party group applications for exempt status were being handled in Washington. Grodnitzky wrote: [We are] working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases. . .and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob. “Rob” is believed to be Rob Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in IRS’s Washington, DC, headquarters. Furthermore, a new email from Lois Lerner confirms that BOLO lists (“be on the look out”) were created specifically for tea party and other groups that focused on issues related to government spending, debt, taxes and “how the country is being run.” On April 2, 2012, Lerner explained: Because the BOLO only contained a brief reference to “Organizations involved with the Tea Party movement applying for exemption under 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)” in June 2011, the EO Determinations manager asked the manager of the screening group, John Shafer [IRS Cincinnati field office manager], what criteria were being used to label cases as “tea party ” cases. (“Do the applications specify/state ‘ tea party’? If not, how do we know applicant is involved with the tea party movement?”) The screening group manager asked his employees how they were applying the BOLO’s short–hand reference to “tea party.” His employees responded that they were including organizations meeting any of the following criteria as falling within the BOLO’s reference to “tea party” organizations: “1. ‘Tea Party’, ‘Patriots’ or ’9/12 Project’ is referenced in the case file. 2. Issues include government spending, government debt and taxes. 3. Educate the public through advocacy/legislative activities to make America a better place to live. 4. Statements in the case file that are critical of the how the country is being run. . . ” So, we believe we have provided information that shows that no one in EO “developed” the criteria. Rather, staff used their own interpretations of the brief reference to “organizations involved with the Tea Party movement,” which was what was on the BOLO list. Just to be safe, the IRS put red and orange alert symbols on tea party issues for heightened awareness. As to Levin’s involvement, the documents newly obtained by Judicial Watch show the IRS responding to a stream of “intense” requests from Democrat Senator Carl Levin to come down on conservative tax exempt groups. Levin communicated director with then-Deputy IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. Naturally, Levin was particularly concerned about groups working against his reelection campaign. Miller assured the Senator that IRS regulations were flexible enough to allow IRS agents to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for select 501(c)(4) organizations. On June 4, 2012, for example, Miller told Levin: There is no standard questionnaire used to obtain information about political activities. Although there is a template development letter that describes the general information on the case development process, the letter does not specify the information to be requested from any particular organization … Consequently, revenue agents prepare individualized questions and requests for documents relevant to the application. . . In other words, the IRS can pretty much do what it wants when it comes to picking which political action groups to subject to additional scrutiny and how much scrutiny to apply. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton concludes: These new documents show that officials in the IRS headquarters were responsible for the illegal delays of Tea Party applications. It is disturbing to see Lois Lerner mislead the IRS’ internal investigators about her office’s Tea Party targeting. These documents also confirm the unprecedented pressure from congressional Democrats to go after President Obama’s political opponents. The IRS scandal has now ensnared Congress. Indeed.

Is Harry Reid most corrupt/worst Senate leader ever?

Wretched Reid

Posted: 25 Apr 2014 05:19 AM PDT

(Scott Johnson)

It seems to me that in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid we have something new under the sun. He revives old-fashioned, LBJ-style corruption in office, as Adam O’Neal’s understated RCP column suggests. He brings pure partisan prevarication and hackery to his office, as Fred Barnes suggests in “Mudslinger in chief.” And he disgraces the institution that he leads, as Victor Davis Hanson judges in “A McCarthy for our time.”

Liberal commentators observe Reid’s shenanigans in the spirit of detached amusement. In this respect Chris Cillizza is representative. It’s the best he and they can do, but it is pathetic.

If that’s the best Cillizza can do as a supposed political junkie — if the chairman of the Republican National Committee is a truer guide to the Reid phenomenon than Cillizza — it’s time for him and his ilk to pursue other opportunities.

As Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid has brought his office to an unprecedented low. There is no lie he will not recite, no libel he will resist so long as it advances some narrow partisan purpose. As Majority Leader, he holds the mirror up to President Obama. They illuminate each other. It’s not a pretty sight.

If Reid had a shred of decency, he would be ashamed. But he doesn’t and he isn’t.

We have, finally, Reid’s nonstop defamation of, and lying about, the Koch brothers. Explored humorously in the video below, it is frankly contemptible and disgusting.

Video via Washington Free Beacon.

Is this the worst Obama lie?

Obama’s most dangerous lie

Posted: 25 Apr 2014 11:08 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Rank-ordering the lies of President Obama is a daunting task. But high on any sound list, though absent from most actual ones, is Obama’s claim that al Qaeda has been “decimated” and is “on the path to defeat.”

This claim was ripped to shreds yesterday at an AEI conference called “Getting it right: A better strategy to defeat al Qaeda.” You can watch that event here and I encourage you to do so.

I’ll discuss the “better strategy” later. For now, I want to focus on al Qaeda’s ascendency and President Obama’s willful failure to deal with our most dangerous and lethal enemy.

According to panelist Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies and a professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, al Qaeda is present and active in twice as many countries as it was six years ago (i.e., near the end of the Bush administration). Moreover, al Qaeda is not even “on the path to defeat” in Pakistan, where the Obama administration has concentrated its efforts. To the contrary, according to Hoffman it is resurgent there, having succeeded in recruiting well-educated, middle-class Pakistanis.

Meanwhile in Syria, al Qaeda fighters are enjoying their greatest successes since at least 2006, before the Bush administration’s surge routed them in Anbar province where, by the way, al Qaeda is also resurgent. Obama engineered a self-inflicted defeat in Iraq. And he refused to provide meaningful assistance to non-al Qaeda rebels in Syria, thus paving the way for al Qaeda’s dominant position in the rebellion.

Underlying the Obama administration’s failed approach to al Qaeda is its absurd, politically-driven definition of that organization. Mary Habeck, a visiting scholar at AEI and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, attempted to find that definition. It wasn’t easy. Team Obama, though talking frequently about al Qaeda, has been reluctant to declare publicly what it understands that term to mean. It prefers to hide the ball.

The Obama administration’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism deems the threat posed by al Qaeda to emanate from al Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents. But what is al Qaeda?

As near as Habeck can tell, the administration applies a definition that tracks the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) which gave President Bush the authority to wage war against al Qaeda and still defines the limits of presidential authority in this fight. Under that definition, al Qaeda would consist of “those nations, organizations, or persons [determined to have] planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. . . .”

Under this definition, and only this definition, Obama can honestly claim that al Qaeda has been decimated. It can also justify its primary strategy for dealing with al Qaeda — a war of attrition against specific individuals.

But the definition is absurd — sort of like defining the New York Yankees as Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Tino Martinez, Bernie Williams, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina and the rest of the 2001 team. Only Jeter remains from that team, but the Yankees soldier on.

Like the Yankees, al Qaeda has replenished its ranks, including its leadership. Given the levels of violence it has perpetrated in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and given the numerous al Qaeda terrorist plots that are continually being uncovered in Europe and the Middle East, it makes no sense to view al Qaeda as consisting of the men who planned 9/11 and the people who affiliate with or adhere to that particular crew. Most of these men are gone but their successors soldier on, and with increasing success.

Absurd as it is, Team Obama’s definition of al Qaeda is useful to the president. It enables him to claim victory over al Qaeda and, accordingly, to deescalate the fight with an eye towards withdrawing from it. The political utility of claiming victory was obvious during the 2012 election campaign. The political utility of withdrawal is also clear; Americans are tired of the fight.

Unfortunately, al Qaeda is not war weary. It is stronger than it’s been in years and arguably stronger than ever. The report of its near demise is, I would argue, the most dangerous lie of Obama.

Obama trying to control the press. Ever heard of the Bill of Rights?

[Is Freedom of the Press in jeopardy?; The Government apparently wants to dictate what news stories we see and hear. Is this an attempt to stifle political dissent and end free discourse? If a broadcaster or a program on a station disagrees with the Administration's policies will the station's license not be renewed - and ownership put in the hands of someone friendly to the Administration's views? Is this not tyranny of the first degree? Are we entering the era of a dictatorship? Scary stuff that needs to be opposed vehemently!]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304680904579366903828260732mod=trending_now_2

Analyst: Obama Secretly Hoping for New Alliance With Iran Tuesday, 11 Feb 2014 12:19 PM By Drew MacKenzie Share:

     Analyst: Obama Secretly Hoping for New Alliance With Iran

Tuesday, 11 Feb 2014 12:19 PM

By Drew MacKenzie

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Author and geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan believes that President Barack Obama is  reaching out to Iran to form a new alliance in the Middle East at the expense of existing allies.

Kaplan, an adviser with the Strategic Forecasting consulting firm, writes in an essay published at Real Clear World that the temporary nuclear treaty to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is "partly a pretext" by the Obama administration to obtain a strategic understanding with the country while turning its back on Israel.

The recently elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is seen "as a wolf in sheep's clothing" by conservatives and hardline Democrats who view the lifting of economic sanctions in the nuclear treaty with Iran as a sign of appeasement while deserting Israel, its main ally in the region.

Editor’s Note: Secret ‘250% Calendar’ Exposed — Free Video

But the Obama administration views Rouhani from a very different point of view in the long term, Kaplan writes.

The administration sees him as a Deng Xiaoping type, "someone from within the ideological solidarity system who can, measure-by-stealthy-measure, lead his country away from ideology and toward internal reform." Deng Xiaoping led China towards a market economy after the death of Mao Zedong.

The potential reforms in Iran could lead to "something that could, in turn, result in an understanding with the West," wrote Kaplan, adding that the White House sees such an allegiance with Iran as "the last best opportunity for negotiation before Iran embarks further down a road that might lead to a U.S. or Israeli military strike."

On the face of it, Secretary of State John Kerry and the president maintain that the sole purpose of the six-month accord with the Iranians is to prevent getting nuclear weapon capability.

But Investors.com's Michael Barone writes, "Kaplan's view provides a more convincing explanation of what they've actually been doing. It helps explain why Obama and Kerry remain equable in the face of Iranian officials' public statements that they have not given up their nuclear program."

Barone writes that Kaplan's opinion would explain Obama's and Kerry's fierce opposition to the sanctions bill supported by 59 senators and a large majority in the House — even though the proposed sanctions would only take effect if Iran faltered on its agreement to end its nuclear weapons program.

Obama is afraid that an Iran sanctions bill will lead to Iranians breaking off the talks and even leading to war in the Middle East. But Barone said "that makes little sense" because in his State of the Union address, Obama vowed that he would be the first to introduce new sanctions if the negotiations with Iran fell apart.

Kaplan also wrote that the White House is quietly attempting to create "a concert of powers that would include America, Iran, Russia, and Europe," all opposed to Sunni al-Qaida terrorists.

"The problem with a concert of powers is that it may wrongly assume both competence and good intentions on the part of the other members," Kaplan wrote

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Iran-diplomacy-Israel-nuclear/2014/02/11/id/552165#ixzz2tHp9i7Z3
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Obama's war on Aipac

on March 5, 2012. Photo by Joshua Roberts/ Reuters

Make no mistake: there's an organized campaign going on against AIPAC, and it is fueled by members of the Obama administration. So the plethora of articles and reports either calling to weaken AIPAC, or asking if AIPAC has already weakened, or reporting on the many recent failures of the organization – some real, some imaginary (AIPAC never opposed the appointment of Chuck Hagel) – is not a coincidence. It is a deliberate attempt to put the organization under stress, to force it to play defense, to keep it busy with having to take care of itself, rather than spending time on making life more difficult for the administration. The administration is busy with Iran negotiations and with an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it wants AIPAC off its back. That's the natural tendency of every administration – to want its hands freed from legislative pressure. The campaign in the press is one way of getting to such a result.

Of course, the reports aren't all off the mark: AIPAC was recently forced into making concessions in its battle to pass more legislative sanctions against Iran. "Its top priority, a Senate bill to impose new sanctions on Iran, has stalled after stiff resistance from President Obama, and in what amounts to a tacit retreat, AIPAC has stopped pressuring Senate Democrats to vote for the bill", the New York Times reported. One can look at this and see a huge failure of historic proportions, as some observers have, or merely acknowledge that in political life you win some and you lose some and that it's not over yet.

So yes, an alteration of the agenda is needed. But no, "the illusion of its invincibility" has not "been shattered", as Trita Parsi suggested. It wasn't "shattered" since such illusions of invincibility never existed. At least not in the mind of those with memories long enough to remember past achievements and failures. Running a lobby like AIPAC is like running a marathon; it takes patience, endurance, and the ability not to become breathless over every setback – quite the opposite of punditry.

The fight over Iran sanctions was a tough one to begin with. AIPAC was battling not just an administration but also the zeitgeist, the weariness of the American people of any sign of more conflict (this part Parsi gets right). Thus, AIPAC failed twice: once with the attempt to win votes for the approval of a strike on Syria, back in September – when it worked for the Obama administration. And once with the attempt to have stronger sanctions on Iran – when it worked against the Obama administration. The current tide of public opinion makes it hard for AIPAC to advocate for certain causes.

Whether it should support more sanctions on Iran (or an attack on Syria) is another matter. A worthy debate. Yet assuming that AIPAC lost these battles because of its tendency to support misguided policies would be ridiculous. And making such a claim is just part of the campaign to weaken AIPAC, a campaign fueled by the government and assisted by groups of Jews who have little understanding of the topics and even lesser understanding of the long-term consequences for the Jewish world if AIPAC is truly weakened. Those Jews are also organized and are encouraged by political advocates close to the Obama administration. This isn't the first time they prove to be the most useful tool against AIPAC.

Some of those Jews wrote a letter to the mayor of New York claiming that AIPAC "speaks for Israel’s hard-line government and its right-wing supporters, and for them alone; it does not speak for us". Well: that's an impressive number of erroneous statements in just one sentence. Firstly, because Israel currently doesn't have a "hard line" government. Centrist YeshAtid and Hatnuah are important members of the Israeli coalition. Additionally, the government doesn't have only "right wing supporters". In fact, the government is quite popular with the majority of Israelis, most of whom don't see an alternative to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Current polls give the Israeli left barely a quarter of the vote (about a third of the vote including the Arab parties). In other words: the Jewish attackers of AIPAC don't have an issue with a "hard-line" government – they have an issue with the people, with Israelis. To them, we are all "hard-liners" and hence, I assume, undeserving of their support. David Suissa was right to call this stance a "narcissistic chutzpah of the highest order".

Of course, the critics of AIPAC would argue that for the organization to retain its power it has to alter its policies and be more "representative" of the views of most Jewish Americans. I truly don't know what this means – AIPAC officially supports the two state solution, like most American Jews do. It supports Israel's demand to be recognized as a Jewish state, like most American Jews do. It supports sanctions on Iran, like most American Jews do. Look at the polls: a (small) majority of American Jews even support – support! – a military attack on Iran if talks fail. So I have my suspicions: for many critics of AIPAC an alteration of its policies means that AIPAC should change its mission from generally supporting what Israelis support and believe is good for their security, to opposing every move and every policy of the Israeli government. Still, one failure of AIPAC I'm willing to concede is its failure to be more attentive to the voices of dissenters within the Jewish community, and to have a better strategy for embracing them rather than alienating them. AIPAC wasn't smart enough to prevent its opposition from becoming the fashionable and hip posture.

Still, those Jews on a quest to weaken AIPAC should know better. They aren't just weakening the support for Israel, they are also weakening the communal power of the American Jewish community. This community has had great achievements when it acted with a unified voice – just read the story about the battle to free Russian Jews from their forced imprisonment within their country. But a community that is fractured, that doesn't speak with one voice, that is constantly attacking its own immune system, will be a weakened community. If AIPAC is the most visible manifestation of unapologetic, self-confident Jewish political power in America, weakening it would come with a price tag – and not just for those who want to see a robust Jewish support for Israel. It would come with a price tag for the American Jewish community.

Attackers of AIPAC are members of one of two groups: those who don't understand this simple fact – and those who don't much care for having a Jewish community. So yes, it is good news (reported by Jonathan Tobin) that some members of the "community"are looking to fight back

Obama’s War on Israel

February 13, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 34 Comments

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If the left’s foreign policy these days had a slogan, it would be, “Boycott Israel, not Iran.” The double standard, dishonest as it is ugly, is also the motto of Obama’s foreign policy, which benevolently blesses Iran’s nuclear program with one outstretched hand in the name of peace and chokes concessions out of Israel to the terrorists with the other also in the name of peace.
Both peace plans are going disastrously according to plan.

Iran has made it clear that it will dismantle nothing and that it will go on developing ballistic missiles and nuclear technology. Its military commanders threaten to attack the United States and boast that their ships are encroaching on America’s maritime borders.
The Palestinian Authority has shed the last vestiges of democracy as its leader begins the tenth year of a four-year term and its elected legislature has been discarded in favor of the PLO Council. Instead of a representative government, the Palestinian Authority has reverted back to what it always was; the PLO.
A Palestinian state has receded into the figment of a dream as elections have become a distant memory and Hamas continues to hold Gaza, leaving a PLO mafia in the West Bank to maintain its monopoly on cigarettes and other commodities while passing around Western aid money to its terrorist militias.
The more Kerry pressures Israel, the more bellicose PLO leaders have become. Fatah officials have accused Kerry of threatening to poison Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s current President-for-Life. The accusation is ridiculous, but the PLO, like Iran, is feeling emboldened by American weakness.
The softer American power gets, the harder its enemies hit.
Obama Inc. however has eyes only for Israel. Its officials and its allied media apparatus in New York and Washington have decided to hold Israel’s Prime Minister personally accountable for any criticism of Kerry and Obama not only by Israeli Jews … but also by American Jews.
An Obama Inc. official said that Obama and Kerry were disturbed over “Jewish activism in Congress” and that the administration had informed Israel of its displeasure over criticism of them by American Jews.  Holding Netanyahu accountable for the comments of American Jewish leaders is an ugly Alinskyite tactic in which Obama uses Israel as a hostage in order to silence domestic Jewish criticism.
“Shut up or the Jewish State gets it.”

The constant monitoring and suppression of Israeli criticism was so pervasive that Kerry’s handler, Jen Psaki, denounced a comedy video mocking his disastrous diplomacy put out by an Israeli political group, sight unseen, while discussing expectations that Israeli leaders would rein in criticism of Kerry.
Psaki described criticism of Kerry as “not an attack on him; that’s an attack on the process. And of course that kind of rhetoric we find unacceptable.” John Forbes Kerry had become the living embodiment of peace. The peace process, whether in Iran or Israel, had become reducible to peace. Opposing it meant opposing peace and supporting war. And Kerry had become reducible to the process and therefore to peace. Louis XIV had only claimed to embody the State. Kerry claims to embody peace.
Meanwhile Kerry makes poorly coded threats about international boycotts and intifadas to Israel while promising Jerusalem to the PLO.
The lack of options is the theme of both peace plans. Sanctions on Iran mean war, claims Obama. A failure to reach a deal that will let Iran keep its nuclear program also means war. And so, in true Chamberlainian fashion, the only alternative to war is to accept any offer that the enemy makes.
The willingness to accept any deal is the traditional negotiating posture of the losers of a war, but when any alternative to a peace deal is considered unacceptable, the peace negotiators come to the table as the losers of a war that was never even fought because they had already surrendered in all but name.
When the Senate attempted a little bit of bipartisan pressure on Iran, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes began denouncing the vast Jewish war conspiracy and the left-wing of an already left-wing media shrieked that we were about to be plunged into a war by the Zionist warmongerers. The same outlets that give a hearing to proposals to boycott Israel, chant in angry unison that any boycott of Iran is an act of war.
Every good progressive in Obama Inc. and in its media corps knows that Iran, which took American hostages and murdered hundreds of Americans, is a victim of American foreign policy, while Israel, which is being cut up into a completely indefensible, broken territory for a peace that will never come, is its beneficiary. The terrorist peace processes are unworkable, but they were never supposed to work.
The peace process with the Palestinian Authority has always failed because it was always meant to fail. Peace was the brass ring that Israel was supposed to reach for, but never actually get close enough to reach, carving itself to pieces under the bloody knives of the negotiators in the hopes of proving its moral worth to the world. Dying so that it might be allowed to live. The Iranian deal is more of the same.
Perhaps there is enough tie dye in Obama’s blood for him to genuinely want a world without nukes, but if the US is to retain its nuclear capability, then like Oppenheimer and the other scientists who helped the USSR get the bomb in the name of world peace, he wants Iran to have the bomb for world peace.
Prime Minister Netanyahu thought that he might be able to trade one peace process for another, but he hasn’t even been able to trade concessions to terrorists for sanctions on Iran. Instead he has made the worst possible bargain, trading a self-inflicted punch in the face for an enemy’s kick in the teeth. Israel has once again ended up with the worst of both worlds in the name of peace.
Obama’s dual peace processes have the same agenda. They are both meant to destroy Israel. If the PLO can’t get the job done with intermittent terrorism and negotiations, maybe a nuclear Iran will. The goal is to create enough threats to Israel that it either ceases to be a viable state or simply ceases to exist.
The destruction of Israel flows naturally from the destruction of American power. Israel has to be undone, just as Mubarak was undone, just as the United States military was undone, to heal the humiliations of the Muslim world. The United States had to lose in Afghanistan and Iraq, it had to destroy its allies in the Middle East, to make Muslims feel good about finally defeating the United States.

AIPAC and Iran’s war against America

Monday, February 10th, 2014

Caroline  Glick


For its decision to pull anchor last Friday on its bid to pass new sanctions on Iran, AIPAC has been accused of slavish devotion to bipartisanship. Although the criticism is not without foundation, it is probably undeserved in this case.

AIPAC did not cut and run from the Iran sanctions fight because it consecrates two-party initiatives. It walked away because it lost.

If the Republicans controlled the Senate, it’s possible that AIPAC would have maintained its support for the bill’s immediate passage even in the face of President Barack Obama’s pledge to veto any sanctions law. But since the Democrats control the Senate, the bill was dead without Democratic support.


Once President Obama coerced Senate Democrats into ending their support for the bill’s passage, he killed the bill. And he didn’t kill it by making it a partisan bill per se. He killed it by making it impossible to pass the bill through the Senate.

In truth, AIPAC’s retreat from the Iran sanctions bill is probably a good thing. The pro-Israel advocacy group’s high-profile role in the US debate about Iran’s nuclear weapons program has caused US policymakers to confuse the issue.

Due in part to AIPAC’s leadership role over the past decade in getting anti-Iran sanctions passed through Congress, most Americans perceive Iran’s nuclear weapons program as an Israeli security problem, not an American problem. Since AIPAC is a lightning rod for isolationists in both parties, and for anti-Israel forces in the Democratic Party, its leadership role in the debate reinforced that perception.

Certainly it is true that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is the most acute threat that Israel faces to its long term survival.

But it is also the most acute national security threat facing the United States.

The Obama administration exploits AIPAC’s high-profile role in the Iran sanctions debate to accomplish two goals. With the American public’s interest and patience for foreign affairs at a low point, the White House has used AIPAC’s central role in the Iranian nuclear issue to discredit AIPAC.

The administration views AIPA C, and the American Jewish community more generally as an adversary in its bid to reposition the US on the world stage, by among other things, downgrading the US relationship with Israel to the level of EU-Israel ties.

Since last November, when the administration forged the deal with Iran that clears the path for Tehran to complete its nuclear weapons development in peace, the White House has actively endorsed the claim that AIPAC, or “the Israel lobby,” is using its supernatural powers on Capitol Hill to pass legislation that will force the US into war, for Israel.

This message was so incendiary that it became the focal point of news coverage of the Iranian nuclear weapons story.

And that in turn advanced the administration’s second goal.

That goal is to obfuscate the fact that Iran is working to acquire nuclear weapons, both as a means to become a regional hegemon, and to carry out its goal of destroying its enemies, including the United States.

Until Friday, the administration faced two obstacles toward achieving that goal: the Congressional sanctions bid, and Iranian behavior.

The sanctions bill wasn’t important as a sanctions bill per se. The sanctions placed on Iran’s economy over the past decade had either no impact or a marginal impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The sanctions bill was important because it demonstrated that it was the will of the American people, through their Congressional representatives, to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. In other words, it said that Obama’s diplomatic fetish is not the be all and end all of American power.

By killing the bill, Obama did far more than weaken AIPAC. Indeed, the real impact so dwarfs whatever harm was caused to the hated Jewish group that it exposes the entire debate on AIPAC’s power or lack thereof as completely ridiculous.

By defeating the sanctions bill, Obama showed the mullahs that the domestic constituencies in the US that oppose Iran’s nuclear program are powerless to stop it. In other words, Obama told the Iranians that they have no reason to maintain even a pretense of good will or faith.

In truth, since Iran’s phony moderate Hassan Rohani was elected to the presidency last summer, Iran’s positive signals to the West have been so weak, that in a previous era, when reality played a greater role in US foreign policy, they would have been laughed off as pathetic feints.

But at least they were there.

No more.

Just hours after the Democrats withdrew support for sanctions, (and AIPAC declared defeat), Iranian television broadcast a documentary of a simulated military attack on Israel and on US military targets, replete with drone and missile strikes on the USS Abraham Lincoln, downing US aircraft, and striking US military installations in the Persian Gulf.

One of the interesting aspects of Friday’s broadcast of “The Nightmare of Vultures,” is that it follows a much shorter computer-simulated clip of Iranian attacks televised in early November.

That clip was broadcast a week before the conclusion of the interim deal, which enables Iran to complete it nuclear weapons program. Notably, the earlier clips only showcased Iranian strikes on Israeli cities.

The computer-simulated attacks on US targets were not included.

Friday’s dramatization of Iran’s war against America was followed on Saturday first with a verbal assault on the US by Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei.

In a speech before military officers, Khamenei referred to the US as Iran’s “enemy,” and he said that Americans are “controlling and meddlesome,” and that US officials are “lying” when they express friendship with the Iranian people and when they “tell our authorities that they are not after regime change in Iran.”

Hours after Khamenei rallied his military forces with his stirring “hate America” screed, Iranian Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Naval Fleet announced that the fleet was on its way across the Atlantic Ocean, headed for America.

In his words, “Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message.”

Then on Sunday, Iran dropped the bombshell.

Speaking to Iran’s ISNA news agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, said that Iran will not allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to visit the Parchin military nuclear complex.

Parchin is believed to be the site where Iran is combining the enriched uranium and other components of its nuclear program and building its actual arsenal.

Most recently, in August 2013, the private satellite imaging company Digital Globe published new photos of the Parchin facility. According to the Associated Press, those images indicated that Iran may be building nuclear bombs at the site.

One of the many flaws of the interim deal with Iran was that the US and EU did not insist on inspecting Parchin. Given that Parchin wasn’t included, there was no apparent reason for the Iranians to restate the known fact that Parchin was not part of the deal. And consequently, Kamalvandi’s statement cannot be viewed as posturing.

It has to be seen as a threat.

AIPAC’s withdrawal from the sanctions debate may or may not be good for AIPAC. But lawmakers – from both parties – would do their country a great service if they use the occasion of AIPAC’s departure to place the domestic US debate where it should have always been – on the dire threat Iran’s nuclear weapons program constitutes for the security of the United States of America.

The author’s new book, The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, will be released on March 4.