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OBAMA DOCTRINE: Incompetent leadership or does some grand, if misconceived, idea stand behind the pattern?

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DANIEL PIPES: THE OBAMA DOCTRINE SERVES UP ONE DISASTER AFTER ANOTHER

Daniel Pipes reviews the wreckage of Barack Obama’s foreign policies:

Count the mistakes: Helping overthrow Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, leading to anarchy and civil war. Pressuring Husni Mubarak of Egypt to resign, then backing the Muslim Brotherhood, leading now-president Sisi to turn toward Moscow. Alienating Washington’s most stalwart ally in the region, the Government of Israel. Dismissing ISIS as “junior varsity” just before it seized major cities. Hailing Yemen as a counterterrorism success just before its government was overthrown. Alarming the Saudi authorities to the point that they put together a military alliance against Iran. Coddling Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, encouraging his dictatorial tendencies. Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan prematurely, dooming the vast American investment in those two countries.

And, most of all: Making dangerously flawed deals with the nuclear-ambitious mullahs of Iran.

As always, the question is: is Obama failing, or succeeding? As Glenn Reynolds keeps pointing out, that depends on what he is trying to achieve. Pipes continues:

Is this a random series of errors by an incompetent leadership or does some grand, if misconceived, idea stand behind the pattern? To an extent, it’s ineptitude, as when Obama bowed to the Saudi king, threatened Syria’s government over chemical weapons before changing his mind, and now sends the U.S. military to aid Tehran in Iraq and fight it in Yemen.

But there also is a grand idea and it calls for explanation. As a man of the left, Obama sees the United States historically having exerted a malign influence on the outside world. Greedy corporations, an overly-powerful military-industrial complex, a yahoo nationalism, engrained racism, and cultural imperialism combined to render America, on balance, a force for evil.

Being a student of community organizer Saul Alinsky, Obama did not overtly proclaim this view but passed himself off as a patriot, though he (and his charming wife) did offer occasional hints of their radical views about “fundamentally transforming the United States.” On ascending to the presidency, Obama moved slowly, uneager to spread alarm and wanting to be reelected. By now, however, after six full years and only his legacy to worry about, the full-blown Obama is emerging.

The Obama Doctrine is simple and universal: Warm relations with adversaries and cool them with friends.

Which implies that America’s adversaries are not Obama’s.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/04/daniel-pipes-the-obama-doctrine-serves-up-one-disaster-after-another.php

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It’s Getting Stupid on Iran

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From pretending only Republicans oppose a deal to pretending the U.S.’ reputation is in jeopardy, the stupid on Iran is reaching new highs.

Ed Krayewski|Apr. 6, 2015 12:15 pm

U.S., Iranian, and other negotiators from around the world are going to spend the next two and a half or so months hammering out a deal over Iran’s nuclear program. They spent the last several years hammering out the “outline” which the deal will follow but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal—within days of the announcement of an agreement on the outline of a deal, Iranian and U.S. officials exchanged accusations that the other side was lying about what exactly had been agreed to in the outline. With six countries, including Iran and the U.S., involved in negotiations, and powerful forces in the U.S. and Iran against a deal that could eventually rob them of their favorite respective stalking horses, a deal is far from certain. It could fail for a litany of reasons.

Domestic opposition to a deal, in the U.S., in Iran, or in any of the other countries participating in the talks is unlikely to scutltle a deal on its own, but would be politically useful to blame by a government reeling from a failure. Domestic opposition, of course, is real. In the U.S. a significant amount of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, oppose a deal. Liberals have tended to attribute domestic opposition solely to Republicans—Juan Cole laughably tried to connect billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson’s political activity to the prevailing anti-Iran atmosphere among Republican presidential candidates. Cole, like others on the left, are obsessed with Citizen’s United and corporations and other organizations of people spending money on political speech.

But the fact is an anti-Iranian mood has been around for longer than Adelson’s had an interest in presidential politics, and despite the popular media perception, is not exclusive to Republicans. Attributing Republican opposition to monied interests or to a hatred of Obama is intellectually lazy at best. If opposition to an Iran deal were limited only to Republicans then, even though Republicans now control both houses of Congress, it wouldn’t amount to much. When Fox News describes Obama and Congress on a “collision course” over Iran, that’s possible because of Democrat opposition to an Iran deal.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/04/06/its-getting-stupid-on-iran

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U.S. Rep. Scott Garret , U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance, and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey express skepticism about the framework for a nuclear deal with Iran

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By Tony Rhodin | The Express-Times

U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance said no sanctions should be lifted against Iran in a nuclear containment deal until the full agreement is scrutinized and approved by Congress.

Two other Republican members of Congress who represent the area say looking at Iran’s past and the country’s nuclear future require a skeptical view of any deal.

Iran has agreed in principle to a framework that would place significant restrictions on its nuclear program, extending the timeline for the creation of enough material for a nuclear weapon from two or three months to a year, the Associated Press reports. Negotiations will continue for another three months to hammer out a possible formal agreement.

“The political understanding with details that we have reached is a solid foundation for the good deal we are seeking,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in Lausanne, Switzerland, the AP reported.

Garrett says the framework doesn’t succeed

U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Warren, says the deal doesn’t achieve what any agreement must — keeping Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon.

“The framework that President Obama laid out … does not meet the most important priority for the United States and its allies during these negotiations — ensuring that Iran never obtains nuclear weapons,” Garrett said in a news release. “Secretary of State Kerry and negotiators from the global community must realize the implications of agreeing to a bad deal with a state sponsor of terrorism like Iran.

“Any deal that allows a nuclear-armed Iran — now or in the future — makes the world a more dangerous place, and is completely unacceptable.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2015/04/local_gop_members_of_congress.html

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Menendez to Obama: You must be kidding on Iran

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Menendez to Obama: You must be kidding on Iran
By Jennifer Rubin March 27

Thursday afternoon, following a slew of news reports about substantial concessions by the U.S. negotiators in the Iran nuclear talks, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) released a statement, which read:

If today’s news report from Lausanne is true, we are not inching closer to Iran’s negotiating position, but leaping toward it with both feet.  We have pivoted away from demanding the closure of Fordow when the negotiations began, to considering its conversion into a research facility, to now allowing hundreds of centrifuges to spin at this underground bunker site where centrifuges could be quickly repurposed for illicit nuclear enrichment purposes.  My fear is that we are no longer guided by the principle that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” but instead we are negotiating “any deal for a deal’s sake.”

An undue amount of trust and faith is being placed in a negotiating partner that has spent decades deceiving the international community; denying the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its facilities; refusing to answer questions about its nuclear-related military activities; and all the while, actively destabilizing the region from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen.  A good deal must meet our primary negotiating objective – curtailing Iran’s current and future ability to achieve nuclear weapons capability.  If the best deal Iran will give us does not achieve this goal, it is not a good deal for the United States or its partners.  A good deal won’t leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state.

It is extraordinary on many levels — that so many giveaways would be tossed at the Iranians’ feet, that it should be publicly revealed (many speculate, by the French, who object to the collapse), that a Democratic senator would tell the president his deal is going nowhere and that things have gotten this far out of whack without a vote from the Senate. In reality, no Republican and a great many Democrats will refuse to assent to a deal that, for example, leaves 6,000 centrifuges in Iran’s hands, allows Fordow to continue operations, does not provide for snap inspections, does not require revelation of past activities, does not continue in a meaningful way beyond 10 years and does nothing to address the catastrophe throughout the region, caused in large part by Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. Oh, and there may be no written document. As former ambassador Eric Edelman, tells me, “I think it is axiomatic that any deal that cannot be put down on paper is not a deal at all.” Considering all we are giving up, that may be the good news.

Indeed, with Iranian surrogates and allies destabilizing the entire Middle East, why are we lifting any sanctions or talking about a deal at all? Unless the deal is far different than has been reported, look for an overwhelming vote in April to inject the Senate into the process or to increase sanctions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/03/27/menendez-to-obama-you-must-be-kidding-on-iran/

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Iran deal worse than Israel feared, Netanyahu says

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Iran deal worse than Israel feared, Netanyahu says

PM warns of ‘Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis’; Defense minister warns of ‘tragedy for moderate regimes in Middle East and entire Western world’

By Jonathan Beck March 29, 2015, 12:57 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday against the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, as Iranian and Western officials in Lausanne, Switzerland were rushing to reach a framework agreement by an end-of-month deadline.

“After the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad axis, Iran is maneuvering from the south to take over the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, one of the last for his outgoing government. “The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is dangerous for mankind and must be stopped.”

Netanyahu told ministers that he had spoken with Republican leaders in the US Senate and “conveyed our serious concern regarding the arrangement with Iran at the nuclear talks. This agreement confirms all our fears and exceeds them.

“While [world powers] convene to sign this deal, Iran’s proxies in Yemen are conquering large swaths of land in an effort to overtake the Bab al-Mandab straits, so that they can change the balance of power in shipping oil,” he said, referring to recent unrest in Yemen.

Read more: Iran deal worse than Israel feared, Netanyahu says | The Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-deal-worse-than-we-thought-netanyahu-says/#ixzz3Vs7O6gfR

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Menendez gets support on legal costs; backers of Israel see political overtones to indictment leak

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Menendez gets support on legal costs; backers of Israel see political overtones to indictment leak

MARCH 26, 2015, 5:57 PM    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015, 11:41 PM
BY HERB JACKSON
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT |
THE RECORD

Sen. Bob Menendez, fuming over leaks about a looming corruption indictment, could see a surge of contributions to his legal defense fund because disclosures about a Justice Department probe came while he was having highly visible disputes with the White House.

Several pro-Israel activists said people were motivated by the possibility that anonymously sourced reports of Menendez’s facing criminal charges are linked to the Paramus Democrat’s criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of nuclear talks with Iran and relaxation of restrictions on Cuba.

“The majority of people I’ve spoken with feel he’s getting a bad rap, that the prosecution has political overtones to it,” said Ben Chouake, president of Englewood Cliffs-based NORPAC, a committee that raises money for Democrats and Republicans who support Israel. “On this particular matter, even Republicans will be supporting Bob Menendez.”

Menendez already raised nearly $900,000 for legal costs between April and December last year, and more than $100,000 of that came from ardent Israel supporters. As 2014 ended, the legal expense trust fund had $104,000 on hand.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/timing-of-potential-indictment-leak-could-spur-surge-of-donations-to-menendez-legal-defense-fund-1.1296703

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The Big Picture: Why Yemen Matters

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The Big Picture: Why Yemen Matters

Peter Brookes / March 28, 2015

While the United States moved out of Yemen last week, this week a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of a reported 10 mostly Arab states moved into Yemen with airstrikes aimed at the continuing chaos there.

The immediate—but not the only—target of the coalition air campaign is the Houthi rebels who recently swept out of northern Yemen, captured the capital, Sanaa, and are moving to push the recognized Yemeni government into the sea in the south.

While the conflict is currently an air campaign, seemingly designed to punish the aggressors, slow their advance and perhaps push them back to the negotiating table, an escalation involving coalition ground troops is possible.

Indeed, in a media gaggle  in Washington, D.C., the Saudi ambassador to the United States stated the coalition was ready to do “whatever it takes” to protect the government of Yemeni President Abed Raboo Mansour Hadi.

But while the direct target of the Saudi-led coalition is the Houthis, the indirect target is elsewhere. The (mostly) Sunni Arab intervention into Yemen is about Shia Persian Iran—1,500 miles away.

As we know, the Iran-backed (Shia) Houthis are taking it to the Saudi-supported (Sunni) Yemeni central government. The rebels may seize the city of Aden as well, Hadi’s displaced capital, possibly turning Yemen over to an ally of Iran.

While Tehran’s ties with the Houthi are murky, the rebels will need outside support if they take over the country and could deepen relations with the Iranians. In other words, an Iranian satellite state on the Saudi southern border is possible.

Since Riyadh (and others) see Tehran as not only ambitious in the Middle East and the Muslim world but as ascendant in the region (e.g., Iraq and Syria), expansion into Yemen spells “trouble.”

If Yemen becomes a client state of Iran, Tehran could send the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, intelligence and security forces there to assist the Houthis and advance its interests.

Iran’s naval forces could make port calls or even be stationed in Yemen, in close proximity to the Red Sea/Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea.

Equally troubling, Iran, with the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East, could also deploy these powerful military assets to Yemen, threatening regional land and sea targets and transit lanes.

Essentially, the Arabs and their partners here see the potential for plenty of Persian perfidy in Yemen.

The coalition is, of course, worried about the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, in light of the death and destruction they’re causing elsewhere, but? considering the threat felt from a major power like Iran, it’s likely secondary.

One can’t also help but sense the coalition feels a need to deal with Iran in Yemen because of declining levels of U.S. regional engagement, a possible warming between Washington and Tehran over a nuclear deal and increasing Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq.

One thing is clear though: Yemen isn’t only a terrorism tinderbox, it’s become a geopolitical one, too.

Originally published in the Boston Herald

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Barack Obama’s love bomb offensive

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Barack Obama’s love bomb offensive

By Wesley Pruden – The Washington Times – Thursday, March 26, 2015

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Obama says Rudy Giuliani was wrong. He does, too, love America. That’s good enough for me. He says he’s a Christian, despite his constant love bombs for Islam, and if that’s good enough for God it’s good enough for me, too. Conversations between believers and the Almighty are confidential, and have yet to be cracked by the National Security Agency (but we can be sure they’re working on it).

The president loves our allies, too. He sent the bust of Winston Churchill back to London, whence it came, only because it was cluttering up the Oval Office and getting rid of it had nothing to do with memories of snubs and affronts his Kenyan father passed down to him (though Churchill was an unrepentant colonialist). The president dearly loves Old Blighty.

He loves la belle France, too, and if it hadn’t interfered with a golf date — a good tee time on a good course on a sunny day must not be wasted — he would have hurried to France to march in step with other heads of the states of the West to pay honor to the slain of the radical Islamic shootouts in Paris.

The president even loves Israel, but in his way. It’s tough love to bring the Jews to heel. Just as Secretary of State John Kerry is topping up a deal to satisfy the mullahs in Iran, comes the news that the United States has declassified a 386-page report that reveals in minute detail Israel’s super-discreet nuclear program. Everybody knows Israel has one, but until now Israel, with American support, has never acknowledged it. To do so, all mature hands have agreed, could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The American declassification, first reported by the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva, was made public in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, when he warned that the deal envisioned by Mr. Obama would leave Iran with “nuclear breakout capabilities.”

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/26/wesley-pruden-obama-reveals-israels-nuclear-progra/#ixzz3ViXytdPX

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Obama’s Mideast ‘free fall’

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Obama’s Mideast ‘free fall’

Mounting chaos in the region puts the administration on the defensive.

By Michael Crowley

3/26/15 7:40 PM EDT

Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran.

The meltdown has Obama officials defending their management of a region that some call impossible to control, even as critics say U.S. policies there are partly to blame for the spreading anarchy.

“If there’s one lesson this administration has learned, from President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech through the Arab Spring, it’s that when it comes to this region, nothing happens in a linear way — and precious little is actually about us, which is a hard reality to accept,” said a senior State Department official.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/barack-obama-yemen-isil-middle-east-116440.html#ixzz3Vb3ssOFB

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Moments of terror, lifetime of questions; ‘No idea’ why co-pilot would crash airplane

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Moments of terror, lifetime of questions; ‘No idea’ why co-pilot would crash airplane

MARCH 26, 2015, 8:11 AM    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015, 11:59 PM
BY ANGELA CHARLTON AND DAVID MCHUGH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Passengers with moments to live screamed in terror and the pilot frantically pounded on the locked cockpit door as a 27-year-old German co-pilot deliberately and wordlessly smashed an Airbus carrying 150 people into an Alpine mountainside.

The account Thursday of the final moments of Germanwings Flight 9525 prompted some airlines to immediately impose stricter cockpit rules — and raised haunting questions about the motive of the co-pilot, whose breathing never wavered as he destroyed the plane and the lives of those aboard.

“We have no idea of the reason,” Marseille Prosecutor Brice Robin said, revealing the chilling conclusions investigators reached after reconstructing the final minutes of the flight from the plane’s black box voice recorder. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz’s intention was “to destroy this plane.”

French, German and U.S. officials said there was no indication of terrorism. The prosecutor did not elaborate on why investigators do not suspect a political motive; instead they’re focusing on the co-pilot’s “personal, family and professional environment” to try to determine why he did it.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/co-pilot-deliberately-slams-plane-into-alps-families-ask-why-1.1296513

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Bowe Bergdahl, once-missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion

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Bowe Bergdahl, once-missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion
By Dan Lamothe March 25 at 2:03 PM

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who slipped away from his patrol base in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held in captivity for five years, has been charged with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy, Army officials said Wednesday, setting the stage for emotionally charged court proceedings in coming months.

The charges were announced by the service at Fort Bragg, N.C., hours after the 28-year-old was handed a charge sheet, according to one of his attorneys. Bergdahl will next face a preliminary Article 32 hearing, which is frequently compared to a grand jury proceeding in civilian court.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/03/25/bowe-bergdahl-once-missing-u-s-soldier-charged-with-desertion/?hpid=z1

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Sen. Cotton: Believe Iran’s leader when he says, ‘death to America’

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“Saying ‘Death to America’ is easy,” Mr. Rouhani said in a speech in the city of Karaj, according to the state-run Mehr News Agency. “We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action. Saying it is easy.”

Sen. Cotton: Believe Iran’s leader when he says, ‘death to America’

By Jordain Carney

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Monday stepped up his opposition to the nuclear talks with Iran, warning that the regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should not be legitimized by the United States.

“The gravest threat to our national security is a nuclear-armed Iran, and this man, Ayatollah Khamenei,” Cotton said from the Senate floor.

The Arkansas Republican referred to a speech the Iranian official gave over the weekend in honor of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The crowd chanted “death to America” as Khamenei spoke.

“What was his response to that chant? He said, ‘Yes, certainly, death to America,’ ” Cotton said. ” ‘Death to America.’ Remember this is the leader whom with the United States is negotiating today.”

Cotton has been a vocal critic of the international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. He spearheaded an open letter, also signed by 47 Republican senators, to Iran’s leaders that suggested that any deal could be overturned after President Obama leaves office in 2017.

Obama released his own video message last week in honor of Nowruz. In that video, the president pressed Iranian officials to take “the best opportunity in decades” to bolster the U.S.-Iranian relationship by accepting a deal to roll back the country’s nuclear program.

Cotton said Obama’s remarks were “ill-advised.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/236633-ayatollah-khamenei-is-gravest-threat-to-us-security-says-senator

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Bibi Wins Big !

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Bibi Wins Big !
Mar 17, 2015

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, According to the AP , Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared victory after a tight national election appeared to give him the upper hand in forming the country’s next coalition government.

In a Twitter statement , Netanyahu says that “against all odds” his Likud party and the nationalist camp secured a “great victory.”

Despite rumors to the contrary final results indicated that Netanyahu will have an easier time cobbling together a majority coalition with hard-line and religious allies.