RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/more_iranian_nuclear_cheating_uncovered.html

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors held its quarterly meeting last week. The meeting was one of several events taking place simultaneously that provide outlets for dueling recommendations about how the international community should approach the Iranian regime’s nuclear development and other malign activities.

On Monday, March 1, European political and business leaders met virtually with Iranian counterparts for the Europe-Iran Business Forum, a three-day event sponsored by the European Union and aimed at expanding bilateral trade relations without regard for the unresolved tensions over such matters as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. 

The next day, a news conference organized by the main Iranian opposition exposed new information about a major Iranian nuclear site, called Abadeh. The latest report by the IAEA says that it has found anthropogenic uranium particles at two sites in Iran, including Abadeh in Fars province.

Former US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph and former member of the European Parliament Struan Stevenson also spoke at the press conference.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/putins_former_chief_of_staff_calls_trump_a_champion_against_new_world_order.html

Sergey Ivanov, Vladimir Putin’s former chief of staff, currently on the Russian Federation Security Council, has weighed in on the “historical scale of the personality and achievements of President Donald Trump” in an op-ed for Eurasia Daily.  I have changed not a word of what he has to say.  In his national ideology, Putin warns repeatedly of the dangers from the “Transnationalists” (Proekt Rossiya [Project Russia], EKSMO Press, 2014).  The Russians are joined by the British with their Brexit and the French with their Front National led by populist Marine Le Pen.  Populism actually straddles the Atlantic, and Donald Trump is regarded as its hero.  

As Ivanov observes, if Joe Biden, the American Deep State, and the world global elites have called Donald Trump the “worst president in U.S. history,” well, it is because they know best who is the worst — for them.

In contrast, those on the Russian side of the world itself correctly see Donald Trump as perhaps the best president in the history of the United States, a “modern George Washington.”  As Ivanov explains, if the first president of America fought to lay the foundation of the nation and state, the beginning of American freedom, then Trump fought, still fights to preserve the legacy of the founding fathers, to defend freedom, so that in the end, he will not come to be the last truly elected president of the United States.  He, like Washington, is of the flesh of his people, 100% American, a classic self-made man, a living embodiment of the American dream.  Trump is a successful entrepreneur, a man of action, and a man of his word.  He built up America all his life and became its true national leader.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17128/m-zuhdi-jasser-interview

The Obama Administration handed hundreds of billions of dollars to the theocrats as well as an insurance of security, as well as a future with a nuclear bomb. These, along with thousands of troops and the empowerment of the terror group Hizballah, gave Iran’s leaders a green light to spread terror into Syria.

Some may appropriately say that no real democracies evolved quickly [in the “Arab Spring”] after centuries of tyranny. In fact, there may be a need for multiple revolutions before democracy can take hold. Perhaps, though, there can be a more methodical transition towards modernity with steady benchmarks of reform and liberalization, as we have seen done so successfully with the 2020 Middle East agreements.

The challenge, as always, will be in keeping it from being too slow to the point of fiction—which has been “Plan A” for the tyrants across the Middle East since World War II. They lie to the West about reforms in order to placate each new administration with a five- or ten-year plan while transitions in power in the West along with our short-term, societal “attention deficit disorder” give them a pass.

Regardless of whether a state’s approach is top-down or bottom-up, if its raison d’être is based in Islam and the primacy of Islamic law rather than on individual rights and the protection of minorities, as in secular liberal democracies, it will always be anti-freedom and illiberal.

We will have to watch very closely if there will be new interpretations from the pulpits of the grand mosque in Mecca, or mosques in Medina and across the country. The fact that we heard this coming from the pulpits in the Emirates and Bahrain is what made the Abraham Accords a reality to believe rather than doubt.

As for Biden’s foreign policy, he is already signaling that the Pentagon will focus on diplomacy first and the military second. So, the Pentagon is a branch of the State Department? If that is not “leading from behind 3.0”, I don’t know what is. Sources say he wants to “de-emphasize the military” and lift up diplomacy. If that vision is by openly weakening our defense programming, that will signal a green light actually to usher in more war, not less. Peace through weakness doesn’t work against thugs like Khamenei and Assad across the planet. We are thus likely to see a re-emergence of Islamist belligerence and a testing of the waters as they try to make gains against Biden’s apparent appeasement strategy.

It is my hope and prayer that our work will contribute not to what the Islamists want—a revivalism of the old—but rather a genuine reform towards a Western model of Islam based in infinite diversity of thought and protection of individual inquiry and their universal human rights, rather than the oppressive collective and the proverbial Islamic state.

Canlorbe: Dear Dr. Jasser, thank you for joining me. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are the first two Muslim women to serve in American Congress. Do you think they representative of the mentality of the majority of Muslims in America?

Jasser: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) are simply byproducts of the Islamist teams that recruited them and trained them in the art of ideology and dissimulation. Those teams include the alphabet soup of Islamist organizations—”Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups”—that exist in the United States. These include, for instance, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Future politicians, media pundits, or the many demagogic imams, they all rise up from within the Islamist populist movement in the West by telling insular Islamist communities what they want to hear while claiming to speak for all Muslims.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/03/05/iranian-opposition-reveals-another-undeclared-nuclear-site-n1430326

A previously undeclared nuclear site was scrubbed by the Iranian government in July 2019 prior to the arrival of an inspection team at the site in August of this year, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) announced at a news conference on Tuesday. A report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on February 23 noted the presence of uranium particles at the site with no satisfactory explanation from Iran.

Ali Safavi, an NCRI foreign affairs committee member, told the media that the sanitized site was razed by the Revolutionary Guards but uranium traces were found, anyway.

Safavi also noted that this sanitization was noticeably similar to that which had been undertaken in 2004 and again in 2012 at two other sites that apparently had roles to play in the Iranian nuclear weapons program. In the first place, the regime received a request from the IAEA for inspection of the Shian-Lavizan site, but granted that request only after destroying onsite buildings and turning over the soil to depths as great as four meters, in an effort to conceal traces of nuclear material. In the second place, authorities began a thorough cleanup in 2012 for the Parchin military complex where they had installed an explosives testing chamber, then continued to hold international inspectors at bay until 2015.

In both cases, however, the presence of excess nuclear particles was nonetheless discerned by the IAEA. And now the process has repeated once again with respect to the Abadeh site. Safavi emphasized the repetitive nature of that process in Tuesday’s press conference and argued that it is part of a pattern of “duplicity, denial, deception, and cover-up” that has been ongoing for over 30 years and has proven to be “part of the regime’s DNA.”

The NCRI is the diplomatic wing of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an Iran-listed domestic terrorist group. While the U.S. removed the terrorist designation from NCRI, the Biden administration is believed to be reconsidering that decision.

The NCRI’s credibility is solid, however. They unmasked the Iranian nuclear program as far back as 2002, exposing several nuclear sites previously unknown to Western intelligence.

Fox News:

As part of its findings, the NCRI said the site was first built by companies controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and was part of a project named Marivan, which it said involved a group called METFAZ that was engaged “in the research and construction of nuclear high explosive-devices.”

Additionally, the group noted that Dr. Saeed Borji, a top explosives specialist, worked with Fakhrizadeh, the regime’s former nuclear chief. It said Borji continues to conduct research for the regime’s nuclear program.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/family-life-uks-lockdown-katie-hopkins/

It’s fair to say people don’t necessarily see me as the homely type. I am built like a stick insect with biceps. I never talk about my husband or kids in public. And through a recent short-haired phase of mine, I managed to convince most God-loving Americans I was a full-blown lesbian.

It is true in part. I have been a catastrophic failure at much of what mothering is supposed to be. My first marriage lasted less than a year, leaving me as a single mother with two children under the age of two and a job that spanned both sides of the Atlantic.

(The beady-eyed amongst you will have spotted that any notion of saving myself for the wedding night went out the window around the same time I learned to drive. According to my mother, you aren’t supposed to have a two-year-old when you have been married for less than a year).

I have never been asked to be a godmother, ever. None of my friends have thought me worthy or capable enough of being the person to care for their child if the worst should befall them. When you are looking for a safe, capable, and secure pair of hands, my name is not the first name on the list.

I tell you all this not out of self-pity (though the failure to be a godmother to any living thing is quite the indictment) but because lockdown has not impacted us all equally at all. And I recognize that cancer sufferers, COPD patients, and the very elderly have had a bit of a rough time with this flu.

But spare a thought for ball-breaking bitches like me. We were not designed to be at home. At no point did I gain 350lbs after my wedding and start home-baking meringue pie and wearing aprons with frills on. And I have zero interest in life hacks for cleaning the slats in my window blinds. If they see a vacuum cleaner once a year, they can consider themselves blessed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plays-up-ascendancy-over-west-as-it-sets-economic-path-11614854159?mod=world_major_2_pos4

HONG KONG—Fresh from declaring victories over the coronavirus and rural poverty, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is charting a new economic path aimed at sustaining China’s rise and entrenching his personal authority for years to come.

In recent weeks, state media has feted Mr. Xi as an astute and farsighted leader who has driven China’s success in eliminating poverty and anchored the nation’s stability while the U.S. and other Western powers reel from the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Xi and other officials have played up perceptions that “the East is rising and the West is declining,” underpinned by what they described as the Communist Party’s superiority in tackling crises and long-term challenges.

The image-building is set to continue over an annual legislative session that begins Friday, as Mr. Xi pivots from the poverty-alleviation drive to his next priority: building a modern, powerful nation by 2035.

In this “new expedition” to modernize China, the “risks and tests to be confronted will not be any less than in the past,” Mr. Xi told a group of midlevel party officials earlier this week. He renewed demands for fealty to his leadership, saying party members should show courage in enduring hardship and facing risks, and demonstrate their loyalty to the Communist Party through their actions.

Nearly 3,000 lawmakers are gathering in Beijing to review a new economic blueprint—known as the 14th five-year plan—and broad guidelines that would shape China’s growth model over the next decade and a half. Coming ahead of the party’s centenary celebrations in July, the weeklong conclave also offers Mr. Xi a platform for promoting the merits of his autocratic style over the foibles of Western democracy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/the-international-criminal-courts-latest-anti-israel-salvo/

The court’s politicization of war-crimes investigations harms the cause of international justice.

In a move singling out Israel, International Criminal Court head prosecutor Fatou Bensouda declared Wednesday that her office is beginning an investigation into “war crimes” committed in the West Bank and Gaza.

This investigation will ostensibly cover atrocities committed against Israelis as well, but Bensouda has for years shown a single-minded determination to take Israel to court, navigating numerous procedural hurdles to lay the groundwork for yesterday’s announcement.

“Israel has come under attack,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday in reaction to the announcement, calling it “undiluted anti-Semitism and the height of hypocrisy.”

Given the ICC’s record, one would be hard-pressed not to see a political motive to Bensouda’s decision. Even the Biden administration expressed its disappointment, reiterating its opposition to the February court ruling that granted the Palestinians standing to bring the case. “The ICC, as we have said, has no jurisdiction over this matter. Israel is not a party to the ICC, and it has not consented to the court’s jurisdiction,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “And we have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17138/arabs-biden-obama

The Biden administration, some Arab writers have said, “has adopted a policy of “antagonizing allies while appeasing enemies.”

[Syrian journalist Abduljalil] Alsaeid said he believed that former Obama administration officials, who are now part of the Biden administration, are intentionally trying to damage US-Saudi relations.

“The Obama wing inside the ruling Democratic Party accepts the Iranian regime and turns a blind eye to Iran’s terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.” — Abduljalil Alsaeid, Syrian journalist, Al-Ain, March 2, 2021.

“President Biden has the right to talk about America’s democratic values, but why have these values ​​not been expanded to hold Hezbollah accountable for the recent killing of [anti-Hezbollah Lebanese publisher] Loqman Slim or the slaughter of thousands of thousands of Syrians by pro-Iranian groups?” — Abduljalil Alsaeid, Al-Ain, March 2, 2021.

The Biden administration was “rewarding Iranian despotism while punishing Saudi Arabia.” — Emad El Din Adeeb, a prominent Egyptian businessman and famous political television show host, elsharkonline com, March 3, 2021.

The Biden administration was dealing harshly with Riyadh “because of one crime, the killing of Khashoggi, while rehabilitating Tehran, which has carried out a million crimes worse than Khashoggi’s crime.” — Emad El Din Adeeb, al-ain.com, March 3, 2021.

Adeeb pointed out that Iran was continuing with its human rights violations while Saudi Arabia has in recent years embarked on large-scale reforms.

According to al-Sawafi, the release of the report on the slain Saudi journalist was a sign that the Biden administration “stands against the aspirations of the Saudi and Gulf people in achieving reform and stability.

“Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was right when he asserted that the Iranian regime understands only the language of force.” — Zuhair Al-Harthi, Saudi columnist and political activist, Al-Arabiya, February 27, 2021.

The last three years of the Obama presidency were “catastrophic in every sense of this word,” al-Harthi said. “Will Biden fall into the same trap? Washington’s standing declined during the Obama presidency. Will Biden repeat Obama’s fatal mistakes? The US dealings at the time with regional issues were a source of ridicule, as Washington delivered Iraq and Afghanistan on a golden platter to Iran and supported the Muslim Brotherhood.” — Zuhair Al-Harthi, Al-Arabiya, February 27, 2021.

Prominent Arab political analysts and commentators are dumbfounded that the Biden administration has chosen to appease Iran and Islamists instead of working with Washington’s traditional and long-time allies in the Arab world.