RUTHFULLY YOURS

From Thucydides’s Athens to 21st-century America, appeasement is not a winner.

The common bond among the various elements of the failed Obama foreign policy — from reset with Putin to concessions to the Iranians — is a misreading of human nature. The so-called Enlightened mind claims that the more rationally and deferentially one treats someone pathological, the more likely it is that he will respond and reform — or at least behave. The medieval mind, within us all, claims the opposite is more likely to be true.

Read Gerhard Weinberg’s A World at Arms or Richard Overy’s 1939, for an account of the negotiations preceding World War II, and you will find that an underappreciated theme emerges: the autocratic accentuation of the human tendency to interpret concession and empathy not as magnanimity to be reciprocated, but rather as weakness to be exploited or as a confession of culpability worthy of contempt.

“Genocide is underway in Darfur, Sudan. Already, 50,000 Muslims have been killed and 1.2 million displaced by the Sudanese Government militias and encouraged by Khartoum…We cannot, in good conscience, stand by and let this genocide continue.”

– Senator Barack Obama, 2004.

“The United States has a moral obligation anytime you see humanitarian catastrophes. When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Dafur, that is a stain on all of us, that’s a stain on our souls…and as president of the United States I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.”

– Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, 2007.

“The Government of Sudan has pursued a policy of genocide in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur, and the killing continues to this very day…”

– Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, 2008.

“The genocide in Darfur has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more displaced…Our conscience and our interests in peace and security call upon the United States and the international community to act with a sense of urgency and purpose.”

– President Barack Obama, 2009.

The Obama administration is definitely no longer acting “with a sense of urgency and purpose” when it comes to Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, the world’s most prominent fugitive from International Criminal Court (ICC) justice.

The ICC indicted Bashir in 2009 on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, an area in western Sudan, but has not been able to apprehend him. He is the only head of state on the ICC’s wanted list. But despite the international warrant for his arrest, the “Butcher of Darfur” is apparently planning, for the third time in three years, to visit the United Nations (UN) in New York.

Hardliners in the Islamic Republic are rejoicing over the Iran nuke deal.

Thanks to President Obama, radical Islam is the winner of the nuclear deal and the US emerges as the biggest loser when it comes to its national, economic, geopolitical and strategic interests. In addition, except for Israel and the United States, almost every country in the world (as well as Shiite militia groups) appear to be benefiting from the nuclear deal – economically, strategically, and geopolitically — as a result of rekindling relationships with the Islamic Republic. Not only does this deal damage the US and Israel’s national and economic interests, but it also strengthens the same forces and axis which have repeatedly sworn war and violence against Americans.

A strong argument can be made that one of the major birthplaces of fundamentalist Islamism, which at its core aims at opposing and fighting the United States, is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The mission of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism began heavily when the ruling mullahs of Iran, with the leadership of Ayatollah Rooh Allah Khamenei, came to power. This mission remains and will continue to remain the major pillar of the Islamic Republic as well as the keystone of the mullah’s political and ideological establishments.

Since then, the Islamic Republic, with IRGC and its proxies, has been attacking and slaughtering Americans. They also attempt to scuttle US foreign policy. The United States is not their sole target. They also interfere with the national and economic interest of several countries in the Middle East and beyond including Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, etc.

Without a doubt, this is a regime that breeds anti-Americanism and hatred towards Jewish and Christian people. So, what is President Obama’s solution to offset such a threat? Surrender — while continuing to give bonuses and gifts to the Iranian regime.

The quiet war Obama is waging on the economy and American families.

Progressives believe that they are the party of enlightenment and science. Conservatives, in contrast, are still enslaved to irrational religious beliefs and fossilized traditions. For progressives, a statement like “97% of scientists believe in global warming” is like saying “the earth revolves around the sun”––a proven fact that only the ignorant or evil will challenge. This belief in the proven reality of their ideological beliefs is why progressives want to concentrate power in like-minded elites, who will supposedly create policy based on “science” and evidence rather than irrational superstition.

No current policy debate better illustrates this dubious faith in technocratic expertise than climate change, the new brand name of global warming. While we have been distracted by Trump’s rhetoric and Hillary’s email scandal, the Obama administration has issued through the EPA the Clean Power Plan, which will force restrictions on coal-fired electric plants. These onerous regulations will drive up electricity costs and damage the economy, all to reduce over the next 15 years CO2 emissions by 32% from 2005 levels. The greater purpose is to slow down the alleged apocalyptic effects of global warming. Yet even if fully implemented, the EPA’s plan would reduce global temperatures by a scant 0.018 degrees Celsius by 2100, a statistical rounding error. But by dint of magical thinking, the EPA assures us that despite the negligible effect on warming, our noble example of damaging our economy for symbolic value will motivate China and India, the current drivers of CO2 increases, to follow our lead and damage their national and economic interests.

It’s not just about nukes. It’s about purging the party.

Even before 2016, the Iran deal has become a fifth election with national campaigns, big speeches, ads, polls and smear campaigns. Obama sees it as his last shot at a legacy, but it’s even bigger than that.The deal that will let Iran go nuclear encompasses every bad thing about him in one package.

Internally, there’s the campaign. Obama doesn’t just enact policies. He conducts domestic political warfare. It’s not enough for him to get his way, and he already made it clear to a Democratic congressman opposed to the deal that he will unilaterally remove sanctions even if Congress comes out against the deal, Obama has to turn everything into a larger political war that divides Americans.

Divisiveness is Obama’s strength. His political power is based on dividing and conquering Americans.

Four years after his disastrous attack on Libya resulted in the death of five Americans and ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda taking over entire cities, and a year after the failure of his Iraq policy forced him to go back, Obama sees the Iran deal as an opportunity to refight Iraq War debates.

A number of prominent Jewish organizations and publications, as well as some media outlets, have sharply criticized the manner in which the Obama administration has gone about defending the Iran nuclear agreement by attacking its critics.

Tablet Magazine accused certain proponents of the agreement of using “Jew-baiting and other blatant and retrograde forms of racial and ethnic prejudice” such as “[a]ccusing senators and congressmen… of being agents of a foreign power…” to smear their opponents. Similarly, Abraham Foxman, the former director of the Anti-Defamation League, attacked President Obama for fueling the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews as warmongers. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center also attacked the administration for bullying opponents of the deal with the “crock of dual loyalty.”

Pastor McConnell’s prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.

“I think this is an important issue of freedom of speech. I believe a prosecution like this introduces a chill factor into society where people feel that if they speak out on something that they believe passionately they could end up being dragged through the courts.” — Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson.

“The police tried to shut me up and tell me what to preach… They have the right to say what they believe in and I have a right to say what I believe… I have no regrets about what I said. I do not hate Muslims, but I denounce Islam as a doctrine and I make no apologies for that… My church funds medical care for 1,200 Muslim children in Kenya and Ethiopia…I’ve no hatred in my heart for Muslims, but I won’t be stopped from preaching against Islam.” — Pastor James McConnell.

“James McConnell didn’t incite hatred or encourage violence against any Muslim…H e simply expressed his views about another religion. Freedom of speech should mean that he has every right to lambast Islam, as Islamic clerics have to lambast him and Christianity if they so choose. Those who disagree with Pastor McConnell should challenge him and attempt to win the debate, rather than close it down… Freedom of speech isn’t only for polite persons of mild disposition airing their views within government-policed parameters. It’s about letting awkward, insulting and even offensive voices be heard too. And yet the silence from civil liberties and human rights organisations here has been deafening. In any democracy worth its salt, freedom of speech isn’t a luxury for your friends, it’s a necessity for your enemies. Defending Pastor McConnell’s right to say what he said doesn’t mean approving or embracing his sentiments.” — Suzanne Breen, an atheist journalist, Belfast Telegraph.

Introduction
Iran’s Supreme Leader is the Main Agitator for the Destruction of Israel

Sixteen years after his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s founding vision — that the eradication of Zionism is an inevitable precondition for redeeming contemporary Islam — keeps guiding the current generation of Iran’s religious, political and military establishment. To him the destruction of Zionism was an axiom never to be questioned or strayed from and an objective to be perpetually and actively pursued. According to this vision, Israel should be fought as part of a protracted global struggle between Islam and the West, which “planted intentionally the Zionist Entity in the heart of Islamic World.”

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was faithful to this doctrine, making it the centerpiece of his foreign policy; current President Hassan Rouhani, his successor for the last two years, is also faithful to this doctrine, just less obvious. Notwithstanding, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei bears the torch and is the chief agitator for the extermination of Israel, spreading this message worldwide over social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, books1 and addressing various target audiences in English, Arabic and Persian.

The Iranian religious, political, intellectual and military elite support and repeat Khamenei’s messages. Members of the Iranian Army high command (as opposed to the Revolutionary Guards) have even declared their willingness and capability to destroy Israel, once the leader’s order is given. Practically speaking, the regime’s intelligence and international subversion agencies, mostly the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, massively support anti-Israel terror groups and stage repeated conferences in Iran dedicated to denial of the Holocaust and to the deligitimization of Israel’s right to exist.

Ruthie Blum is the web editor of Voice of Israel talk radio (voiceofisrael.com).

Two pieces published on Monday illustrate the depth of the cognitive dissonance with which Western liberals are afflicted in relation to the nuclear agreement with Iran. One is a report in the Fars News Agency, a semiofficial mouthpiece of the Iranian regime; the other is Roger Cohen’s column in The New York Times, titled “Iran and American Jews.”

The Fars article covers Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s address to the so-called 8th International General Assembly of Islamic Radios and Televisions Union about the nuclear deal.

“Washington imagined that it could use this agreement whose fate is not clear yet … to find a way to wield influence in Iran, and this was their intention,” Khamenei said. “But we closed this path, and we will definitely keep it closed. We will not allow the U.S. to influence our economy, or politics or culture. We will stand against such penetration with all our power — that is, thank God, at a high level today.”

He went on to say, “[The Americans] seek to disintegrate the regional states and create small and subordinate countries … but the territorial integrity of the regional states, Iraq and Syria, is highly important to us.”

It’s not just scandal-mired IPCC chieftain Rajendra Pachauri, he of the roving hands and lustful emails, who makes you wonder about sleaze and sexism at the top of an organisation allegedly devoted to making the world a better place. When it comes to misogyny he has plenty of company
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, while chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2002 to February, 2015, was the darling of global academia and the media. He oversaw and signed off on the IPCC reports of 2007 and 2013, and stepped squared up at the crease in Norway in 2007 to receive the IPCC’s half-share in the Nobel Peace Prize. Those 2007 and 2013 IPCC reports ramped up the global climate-change industry to what is now a $US1.5 trillion business.

The West’s endeavors to reduce CO2 emissions – notwithstanding the 18-year halt to global warming – are now diverting $US4 billion a day from potentially worthwhile Third World causes such as malaria control, safe water, sanitation and food security. Just for old times sake, I looked up Pachauri’s speech at the Oslo Peace Prize ceremony.

He quoted approvingly, “We honor the earth; for bringing forth flowers and food and trees…” Lovely! He then went on to warn about accelerating loss of water supplies from Himalayan glaciers, relied on “by more than one-sixth of the world’s population”. Oops! That was the Fourth Report’s “all gone by 2035” howler (based on a newspaper cutting) which nearly saw him sacked by the InterAcademy Council in 2010, after he’d abused a genuine scientist for pointing out the error. Pachauri finished, “Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is now loud and clear?”