RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-ayatollahs-anxiety-is-showing/

Whether the uprising in Iran is leading to the ultimate collapse of the 40-year reign of the ayatollahs remains to be seen. But there is reason to believe that, unlike the protests of 2009-10 and 2017-18, the current unrest has weakened the regime’s grip irreparably.

One good sign is that today’s demonstrations have spread to rural areas of the enormous country, beyond the cities. And though they are being met with the same kind of violence as those that were quelled in the past, they do not seem to be abating. Indeed, even the mass arrests and gunning down of thousands of protesters by mullah-led militias and police have not succeeded in extinguishing the fire in the hungry bellies of the populace.

Another indication of cracks in the Islamic Republic’s armor is the panic that it has been exhibiting in relation to the assault on its hegemonic agenda by the United States and Israel.

The White House withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the disastrous nuclear deal pushed through at all cost by the previous administration in Washington—and simultaneous increase in sanctions has made it more difficult for the Islamic Republic to keep up the pace of its spinning centrifuges without emptying its till and the pockets of its citizenry. Which is why the latter took to the streets on Nov. 15 in the first place, initially to decry a government hike in gas prices.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15262/norway-koran-translation

This 2013 Norwegian-language “Koran” is available online. A perusal of key passages, however, shows that it bears little or no resemblance to the actual Koran.

Let us hope that the word gets around that the book they are being handed is not really the Koran at all.

To borrow a phrase from Lewis Carroll, the news about the aftermath of a public Koran-burning in Kristiansand, Norway, on November 16, keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

As explained in previous pieces here, the 30 or more police officers who were on hand at the event, which was organized by a group called Stop the Islamization of Norway (Stopp Islamiseringen av Norge – SIAN) were under secret orders from the chief of the Norwegian police, Benedicte Bjørnland, not just to douse any flaming Koran but to keep SIAN members from setting fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in the first place. Bjørnland had maintained that the so-called “racism clause” of Norway’s criminal law gave her the power to issue such orders, while the Minister of Justice, Jøran Kallmyr, made the puzzling comment that while burning the Koran was legal, it could “become” a crime, a statement that made no more sense in Norwegian than it does in English.

To be sure, Bjørnland and Kallmyr, when confronted on a TV debate program on November 25 by politicians of the left and right as well as by a jurist, pulled back on their claims and acknowledged the primacy of free expression – although Bjørnland, apparently unable to shake off the idea that the intactness of any given copy of the Koran should be more sacred than free speech, clung to her line that the situation was “complicated.”

Nonetheless, the case seemed to be closed. Alas, not for long. Afterwards, Deputy Foreign Minister Jens Frølich Holte felt obliged to weigh in. He wrote an op-ed in which he condemned SIAN’s Koran-burning in the name of the Norwegian government and explained that whereas Norwegians do indeed have the right to say what they wish, their government also has the right to condemn what they say. The question Holte did not address in his op-ed was this: why, in a country with more than its share of newspaper op-ed pages, online news and opinion websites, and news discussion programs on TV and radio, does the government only feel obliged to refute publicly a private citizen’s point of view when that point of view concerns the topic of just one religion?

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/12/vladimir-bukovsky-the-dissident-who-won/

Vladimir Bukovsky, the great anti-Soviet dissident, died on Sunday, November 4. Five days later the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated throughout Europe but especially in the cities of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and points east whose liberation had been entrenched by that symbolic event on November 9, 1989. 

Some of Bukovsky’s obituarists saw a poignancy in the near coincidence of the two dates because they believe the democratic promise of 1989 has not been fully realised in a “Europe whole and free”. But I don’t think Bukovsky, whom I was fortunate to know as a friend, felt quite that sentiment.

He undoubtedly believed strongly that the promise of 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated had been illusory. Admittedly, the USSR was no more, its constituent republics had regained their independence, the Communist Party had been defeated and discredited, and a revived Russian national state under Boris Yeltsin was restoring democratic government. All these, especially the independence of the Baltic republics (which has been sustained), obviously delighted him.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/jew-hate-germany-stephen-brown/

Last month, a woman was attacked in Bavaria for being Jewish. A man heard her two sons speaking Hebrew and recognized them as being Israeli. He then yelled in Arabic “Jew” and threw a rock, striking the woman in the head. Fortunately, the woman was only lightly injured.

A similar incident occurred before a discotheque in Germany. A man was speaking Hebrew with friends when a stranger, for no apparent reason, punched him in the face. The attacker fled. 

“On the continent things are happening we haven’t seen any more since 1933,” said Berlin lawyer Nathan Gelbert before a committee of the Israeli parliament in a special sitting, as reported in Die Welt newspaper.

According to a study by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), which represents a hundred countries, “every fourth German harbors…anti-Semitic thoughts.” But the study does not break down by ethnic group or religion those who think thus.

In July last summer, the study polled 1,300 people. Other results include 41 per cent think Jews talk too much about the holocaust, 28 per cent believe Jews have too much power in the economy, 26 per cent believe they have too much power in world politics and 48 per cent believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Germany.

According to the study, “there is a growing anti-Semitism perceived in the overwhelming majority of the population.”

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/article/bullets-for-bodies-a-sick-twist-in-iran

There are protests and riots across Iran, brutally put down by Iranian security forces and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC); the government is charging families for the bullets used to kill their loved ones before releasing bodies to them. Inflation is rampant and economic growth is negative. Sanctions on Iranian oil shipments have led Iran to steal Iraqi oil, one cause of the anti-Iranian riots across Iraq.

Yet, Iran continues to arm its proxies and allies with missiles that can strike Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and Israel. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, controlled by Iran’s Quds Force, are being spread across the region.

The Quds Force, commanded by Major General Qasem Soleimani, is part of the IRGC that works with Houthis in Yemen, with pro-Iranian government and government-recognized Shiite militias in Iraq, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

While all of this aggressiveness may be the outward explosion of a regime in trouble, the transfer of these missiles and drones threatens not only some of America’s closest friends but threatens American forces in the region. Iranian general Allahnoor Noorollahi says Iran has 21 US military bases directly in its sights.

According to Axios, US bases in the Middle East include:

• Bahrain: More than 7,000 US troops, mostly naval forces, are there to maintain Persian Gulf security.
• Iraq: About 5,200 US troops were in the northern part of Iraq as of January, per the Defense Department. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they were there help combat ISIS. The number may drop as the Iraqi military has said US troops have to leave.
• Jordan: About 2,795 US troops support operations to defeat ISIS and promote regional stability.
• Kuwait: Over 13,000 American troops are stationed in Kuwait and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) forward headquarters is there as well.
• Oman:   The country has hosted US operations since 1980 and has assisted the US in combating ISIS. A few hundred Americans are there now.
• Qatar: As many as 13,000 US troops are in Qatar, with plans to expand. The Gulf nation supports US efforts to combat regional terrorism.
• Saudi Arabia: The Trump administration announced on Nov. 19 that approximately 3,000 US troops will be deployed to Saudi Arabia to protect the region “against hostile action by Iran and its proxy forces.”
• Syria: CENTCOM does not disclose the current number of troops, but DOD has said about 2,000 US service personnel were in Syria, and the Military Times reportsapproximately 800 might still be there to protect oil resources.
• Turkey: The number of US troops in Turkey is unclear, but the country’s strategic location makes it valuable for transporting arms and people. The US has air bases in Izmir and Incirlik as part of NATO.
• United Arab Emirates: 5,000 US troops are stationed at air and naval bases.