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How Naked Is the Iranian Emperor? By Shoshana Bryen

The clock appears to be ticking on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); more than some may think, less than others may hope. Whatever President Donald Trump decides to do with the unsigned, unratified, unagreed-upon text of the untreaty, it should be clear that the agreement did not moderate Iran’s ambitions — nuclear or otherwise — and pretending will not make it so.

The JCPOA was not designed to end Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability.

One reason there is no agreed-upon text is that the sides were negotiating different ends: the U.S. wanted to constrain Iran’s enrichment and other nuclear weapons-related capabilities for a period of time during which President Obama and others said/hoped Iran would become a constructive regional player. Iran was negotiating the terms under which it could continue to enrich uranium with an international imprimatur. Deal supporters acknowledge as much. Paul Pillar of Georgetown University recently wrote, “If there were no JCPOA, then instead of Iran being free of some restrictions on its nuclear activity 10 or 15 years from now, it would be free from those same restrictions right now.”

It wasn’t presented that way, of course. President Obama presented Congress and the American people with a binary choice — the JCPOA or war. The threat of war is so powerful that JCPOA supporters still use it. Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, wrote last month, “If the Trump administration kills the deal with Iran… [that] the rest of the international community is highly satisfied with, it should forget about peacefully settling the nuclear standoff with North Korea.”

Vaez threatens the United States with war in Asia, not for attacking Iran, but for exposing the emperor’s nakedness.

How naked is Iran? For a country that was supposed to moderate its international behavior in light of Western acceptance, money, and trade, Iran has behaved more like a country determined to pursue its own ends with little concern for the opinions of the West.

There is ample evidence of illicit missile trade with North Korea. The infusion of Western money has allowed Iran to field proxy Shiite militias in Iraq; Somali and Afghan mercenaries in Syria – including children, according to Human Rights Watch — along with its Hizb’allah allies; pursue its ballistic missile program in defiance of UN sanctions; arm Houthi rebels in Yemen in defiance of UN arms sanctions; plan billions in military equipment purchases; hold four (or five) Americans without rights (or charges in two cases); harass American ships in the Persian Gulf; and generally deny its own people civil liberties, including freedom from arbitrary arrest or torture. Iran executed at least 567 people in 2016, making it one of the top three in the world.

Iran’s behaviors threaten large parts of the world and many of its most vulnerable citizens even before the question of whether Iran is actually making progress on its nuclear weapons capabilities now — cheating on the deal it never signed.

For understandable reasons, the IAEA is loath to say it doesn’t have the access it should have to Iran’s military sites to fully understand what the regime is doing. But remember two things: shortly after the deal was agreed (though not signed) the IAEA made a separate deal for Iran to inspect its own facilities at Parchin and other military sites. And, the IAEA does not certify Iran’s compliance, as the inestimable and indefatigable Mark Dubowitz at FDD reminds us:

The IAEA’s mandate with respect to the JCPOA primarily entails monitoring and reporting on Tehran’s nuclear-related actions (or lack thereof) pursuant to the JCPOA’s provisions. The determination of whether Iranian conduct constitutes compliance with the JCPOA remains the prerogative of the individual parties to the agreement: China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Iran, with the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy.

Ireland Falls for a Lousy T-Shirt The Irish commemorate Che Guevara on a special stamp.

Education often means relearning old lessons, which means fighting for historical fact against political mythologists. That’s especially true these days as millennials indulge a romantic view of socialism having never having seen its consequences. So it’s excruciating to see the nation of Ireland, a capitalist democracy that should know better, fall for the myth of Ernesto “Che” Guevara Lynch.

On Friday the Irish post office released a special stamp to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Guevara, who became Fidel Castro’s right-hand man. The stamp features a black, white and red drawing of the Argentine-born medic and is accompanied by an envelope with a quote from Che’s father: “in my son’s veins flowed the blood of Irish rebels.”

We can understand how untutored Dublin undergrads might wear one of those T-shirts with Che’s face for social cachet in coffee shops. But on an Irish national stamp?

The struggle for Irish independence was about equality under the law, property rights and political self-determination. Guevara represents none of that. He hailed from an upper-middle-class family and became a Marxist revolutionary who murdered an unknown number of political opponents during and after the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Guevara was captured and shot by the Bolivan military in the Andes while attempting to spread the revolution. During the Cold War the global political left used a photo of his corpse to make him a martyr to the socialist cause, but his real legacy continues in the suffering and privation of the Cuban people. Irish democrats of all parties should be embarrassed.

Germany: The Progressives’ Post-Election Meltdown by Vijeta Uniyal

On election night, around 400 leftist agitators gathered outside the Cologne’s central railway station, chanting, “Whoever is silent, is complicit.”

The irony of this moment should not be overlooked. The German left was not only silent when thousands of migrant men raped and sexually assaulted 1,200 women on New Year’s Eve of 2016, but also, during the weeks that followed, when they tried to bully the female victims into silence by calling them racists and liars for daring to identifying their attackers as migrants.

With the AfD in the Bundestag, the country’s political landscape finally reflects the actual political mood of the country. It is a view that has been completely missing since Germany’s self-inflicted migrant crisis began two years ago.

The German voters certainly spoke in last month’s general election, but the establishment in Berlin is having a difficult time coming to terms with what they said.

The right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), winning 12.6 percent of the vote, became the third-largest party in the German parliament by securing 94 of the 700-odd Bundestag seats. In states that used to be East Germany, the AfD got 20.5% of the vote, second after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

The election result was not only a big breakthrough for the AfD — created just four years ago — but also a historic debacle for the two major parties that have dominated the country’s post-war political landscape for almost seven decades.

Chancellor Merkel’s conservative CDU, with 33% of the vote, suffered its worst election result since 1949, and so did the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the world’s oldest Socialist party, with 20.5% of the vote.

News of the AfD’s strong electoral showing triggered far-left protests across Germany. On election night, the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported:

“The crowd [in Berlin] was continuing to grow outside the building where the AfD were celebrating their historic election result. Protestors chanted slogans such as, ‘Racism is not an alternative,’ ‘AfD is a bunch of racists,’ and ‘Nazis out!'”

Far-leftists protest the election gains of the Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), in Berlin, on September 24, 2017. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

Also on election night, around 400 leftist agitators gathered outside the Cologne’s central railway station, chanting, “Whoever is silent, is complicit.”

The irony of this moment should not be overlooked. The German left was not only silent when thousands of migrant men raped and sexually assaulted 1,200 women on New Year’s Eve of 2016 on that very place, but also, during the weeks that followed, when they tried to bully the female victims into silence by calling them racists and liars for daring to identifying their attackers as migrants.

Multiculturalism Is Splintering the West by Giulio Meotti *****

Multiculturalism is leading to the “partition”, the separation of European societies. – Alexandre Mandel, author of the new book Partition: A Chronicle of the Islamist Secession in France.

Under European multiculturalism, Muslim women lost many rights they should have had in Europe. Multiculturalism is, in fact, based on the legalization of a parallel sharia society, which is founded on the rejection of Western values, above all equality and freedom.

The European establishment closed its eyes while Muslim supremacists were violating the rights of its own people.

The European Union’s official statistics on terrorism are dramatic:

“In 2016, a total of 142 failed, foiled and completed attacks were reported by eight EU Member States. More than half (76) of them were reported by the United Kingdom. France reported 23 attacks, Italy 17, Spain 10, Greece 6, Germany 5, Belgium 4 and the Netherlands 1 attack. 142 victims died in terrorist attacks, and 379 were injured in the EU. 1,002 persons were arrested for terrorist offences in 2016”.

These countries all tried to integrate Muslim communities, but all came to the same dead end. “As long as that continues, the failure of integration will pose a mortal threat to Europe”, the Wall Street Journal wrote after a suicide bombing that killed 22 people in Manchester. According to a new book by the French reporter Alexandre Mandel, Partition: Chronique de la sécession islamiste en France (“Partition: A Chronicle of the Islamist Secession in France”), multiculturalism is leading to the separation of European societies.

It is also leading to constant waves of terror attacks. Last August, on a single day, Islamists killed 20 Europeans in Barcelona and Finland. A month later, they slaughtered two girls in Marseille, and in Birmingham a Shiite boy was brutally wounded. That is the deadly harvest of Europe’s multiculturalism. It is the most romanticized, seductive European ideology since Communism.

There is an “increasingly permanent chain of ‘suspended communities’ nesting within nations throughout the West”, the American historian Andrew Michta recently wrote.

“The emergence of these enclaves, reinforced by elite policies of multiculturalism, group identity politics, and the deconstruction of Western heritage, has contributed to the fracturing of Western European nations”.

Only twenty minutes separate the Marais, the elegant quarter of Paris where Charlie Hebdo’s offices were located, and Gennevilliers, a suburb that houses 10,000 Muslims, where the Kouachi brothers, who gunned down Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists, were born and raised. In Birmingham there is a suburb, Sparkbrook, which has produced one-tenth of the England’s jihadists. All of Europe’s biggest cities have separated enclaves where Islamic apartheid now proliferates.

There, Burqas and beards mean something. Dressing has always symbolized loyalty to a lifestyle, a civilization. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Caliphate in Turkey, he forbade beards for men and veils for women. The proliferation of Islamic symbols in Europe’s ghettos now demarcates the separation of these suburbs. The new leader of England’s UK Independence Party (UKIP), Henry Bolton, recently said that the Britain is “buried” by Islam and “swamped” by multiculturalism.

Merkel’s Bloc Agrees to Limit Number of Refugees Entering Germany Christian Democrats set cap at 200,000 annually in a largely symbolic concession to her Bavarian allies By Andrea Thomas

BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc agreed to limit the number of refugees allowed to enter Germany annually, in an attempt to bridge differences on migration and form a much-needed united front in coalition talks.

Sunday’s agreement comes two weeks after national elections brought a victory but also the worst turnout in nearly 70 years for Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their Bavarian Christian Social Union allies, who are also the most vocal in-house critic of her migration policy.

The bloc agreed to limit to 200,000 annually the number of people allowed to enter Germany for humanitarian reasons. The conservatives pledged at the same time that people wouldn’t be turned back at the German border, expressing their support for the right to seek asylum in Germany and for the Geneva refugee convention.

“We continue with our efforts to permanently reduce the number of people fleeing to Germany and Europe,” the draft agreement seen by The Wall Street Journal said. “We want to ensure that the total number of admissions out of humanitarian reasons…doesn’t exceed 200,000 people a year.”

This limit would be amended if an international crisis warrants it, the paper said.

Roughly 890,000 asylum seekers entered Germany in 2015 alone, followed by 280,000 in 2016. An annual upper limit of 200,000 is unlikely to be reached this year, according to recent estimates from the interior ministry, because fewer than 125,000 asylum seekers entered Germany this year through the end of August.

“We have a common understanding that we have to set a limit because we are otherwise overburdening a society,” Jens Spahn, a prominent critic of Ms. Merkel’s migration policy and member of her party’s executive committee, told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. CONTINUE AT SITE

Thousands Rally in Barcelona Against Catalan Independence High turnout represents rare show of strength for pro-union movement By Jeannette Neumann and Giovanni Legorano See note please

WHAT IS VARGAS LLOSA DOING IN CATALONIA OPPOSING INDEPENDENCE? HE IS A PERUVIAN WRITER WHO UNSUCCESSFULLY RAN FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF HIS COUNTRY…..HE LOBBIES AND WRITES ANTI=ISRAEL SCREED FOR PALARAB INDEPENDENCE…WHY NOT CATALONIA? AS FOR HIS NOBEL PRIZE READ HIS MEDIOCRE NOVELS…..RSK
BARCELONA—Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards gathered in Barcelona on Sunday to decry Catalonia’s secessionist push, a bid by pro-union groups to build momentum against a unilateral declaration of independence that could come as soon as this week.

The demonstration in central Barcelona, the capital of Spain’s Catalonia region, is a rare show of strength for the pro-union movement, whose gatherings have typically attracted several thousand protesters in recent years, compared with the hundreds of thousands routinely mobilized by pro-independence groups.

On Sunday, though, Barcelona’s streets were filled with an atypical sight: people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags, unfurled alongside Catalan regional flags.

“For some time now, nationalism has been wreaking havoc in Catalonia and that’s why we’re here, to stop it,” Nobel Literature Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa told the 930,000 people gathered, according to organizers. Local police in Barcelona put that figure at closer to 350,000. Such discrepancies are common.

“We are fed up with this situation. We haven’t been out on the street until now, but this time around has been so surreal, so unfair, that we had to do something,” Juan Maldonado, a 52-year-old electrician from Barcelona said, as people chanted “here are the other Catalans.”

Polls by the region’s survey agency indicate that more than a third of Catalans support an independent Catalonia, although sentiment could have shifted following the Oct. 1 independence referendum, which was marred by clashes between police and voters and declared illegal by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is expected to address Catalonia’s regional parliament on Tuesday and could make a declaration of independence.

“We will prevent independence from materializing,” Mr. Rajoy said in an interview published Sunday by top Spanish daily El País. “I can say with absolute frankness that it won’t happen.” He said he didn’t rule out invoking constitutional powers that would allow him to seize control of the regional Catalan government. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Czech Donald Trump “I have stopped believing in multiculturalism.” by Soeren Kern

Andrej Babis, one of the Czech Republic’s wealthiest people, presents himself as a non-ideological results-oriented reformer. He has pledged to run the country like a business after years of what he calls corrupt and inept management. He is demanding a return of sovereignty from the European Union and rejects the euro.

Babis’s anti-establishment party ANO (which stands for “Action of Dissatisfied Citizens” and is also the Czech word for “yes”) is centrist, technocratic and pro-business. ANO, which rejects political labels, has attracted voters from both left and right, pulling support away from the established parties.

“The West European politicians keep repeating that it is our duty to comply with what the immigrants want because of their human rights. But what about the human rights of the Germans or the Hungarians? Why should the British accept that the wealth which has been created by many generations of their ancestors, should be consumed by people… who are a security risk and whose desire it is not to integrate but to destroy European culture?” — Andrej Babis, candidate for prime minister of the Czech Republic.

A “politically incorrect” billionaire businessman opposed to further EU integration is on track to become the next prime minister of the Czech Republic.

Andrej Babis, a Slovak-born former finance minister who has been sharply critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy, is leading the polls ahead of general elections, set for October 20.

Babis, one of the country’s wealthiest people, presents himself as a non-ideological results-oriented reformer. He has pledged to run the Czech Republic like a business after years of what he calls corrupt and inept management. He is demanding a return of sovereignty from the European Union and rejects the euro; he argues that it would “be another issue that Brussels would be meddling with.” He has also said he plans to cut government spending, stop people from “being parasites” in the social welfare system, and fight for Czech interests abroad. Babis is often referred to as “the Czech Donald Trump.”

Babis’s anti-establishment party ANO (which stands for “Action of Dissatisfied Citizens” and is also the Czech word for “yes”) is centrist, technocratic and pro-business. ANO, which rejects political labels, has attracted voters from both left and right, pulling support away from the established parties. Babis has said that ANO aims to replace left and right with “common sense.”

A recent poll shows that support for ANO has grown to 30.9%, while the support for the Czech Social Democrats has dropped to 13.1%. The pro-Russian Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia has 11.1%; the nationalist Civic Democratic Party 9.1%. TOP 09, the only openly pro-EU party, will not pass the 5% barrier of entry into Parliament; it is supported by only 4.4% of Czech voters.

Babis’s approach to the EU is pragmatic: “They give us money, so our membership is advantageous for us.” He does not want the Czech Republic to leave the EU, but he is opposed to the country joining the eurozone:

“No euro. I don’t want the euro. We don’t want the euro here. Everybody knows it’s bankrupt. It’s about our sovereignty. I want the Czech koruna, and an independent central bank. I don’t want another issue that Brussels would be meddling with.”

The Kerfuffle Before the Storm By Claudia Rosett

With the phrase “the calm before the storm,” President Trump on Thursday evening kicked off one of the biggest media kerfuffles since his late-night tweet in May about “the constant negative press covfefe.” That mysterious locution produced a spate of stories speculating sardonically on what the president meant. We’re now hearing a similar round of mockery. But this was no late-night typo in a tweet, and while offended members of the media default to derision, it’s worth considering that the president quite likely sent a useful message to an audience that extends way beyond the White House press corps.

The setting was a dinner for top U.S. military commanders and their spouses, hosted by Trump in the White House State Dining Room. Trump invited reporters in for a brief photo-op. Flanked by military officials who have dedicated themselves to defending America and winning its wars, all gathered with their spouses under a big portrait of President Lincoln. Trump asked the reporters, “You guys know what this represents?”

“Tell us, sir,” said one of the reporters.

“Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” said Trump. A reporter asked, “What storm?” Trump gave the oblique reply, “We have the world’s greatest military people in this room, I will tell you that.” A reporter asked, again, “What storm?” Trump said, “You’ll find out.”

The entire exchange lasted about 30 seconds. The reporters were thanked and dismissed. The media were left to speculate on whether the “storm” referred to impending military action again North Korea, or maybe plans to back away from President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, or something else, or nothing at all. Asked again by reporters on Friday what he meant by “the calm before the storm,” Trump again declined to clarify, saying again, “You’ll find out.”

This has been playing as a crazy-Trump story. CNN came out with the headline: “Trump is treating a potential war like a reality show cliffhanger,” and warned, “This is no reality show… His words — whether he means them as a tease, a threat or something in between — can have very real consequences.” Esquire called Trump “Our Reality TV President” and asked, “Will the season finale involve nuclear war with North Korea?” The New York Times called Trump’s comment “ominous.” NBC called it “provocative.” Politico called it “unprompted.” The Huffington Post, in a headline, called it “Bizarre.”

I’d call it smart. We don’t know precisely what the president had in mind. But we do know — or we ought to know — this: In world politics, there is a gathering storm that threatens America and our allies. There is a rising network of tyrannies hostile to American interests and values, including most prominently Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The U.S. superpower can face down any one of these actors if it must, but the disturbing trajectory is that for years now — whatever their differences — they have effectively been making common cause against America and the requirements of a free and peaceful world order. They do illicit business together; they often back each other diplomatically, and they learn from each other just how much it is possible to get away with. Russia and China have been carrying out joint military maneuvers. North Korea, longtime weapons dealer to Iran, is cultivating an arsenal of nuclear missiles. The threats compound.

This trend accelerated dramatically during the years of America’s policies of retreat, appeasement, and surrender under President Obama. China, as part of its military buildup, sped up its construction of artificial islands topped with military bases clearly designed to threaten freedom of navigation along vital shipping routes in Southeast Asia. Russia snatched Crimea from Ukraine, and got away with it. Terrorist-sponsoring Iran extended its reach in the Middle East, and is currently benefitting from a rotten nuclear deal that paves its way to the bomb, accessorized with ballistic missiles. Syria disintegrated into war, which opened the way for both the rise of ISIS and military inroads by Vladimir Putin’s Russia into the Middle East. Libya, with America leading-from-behind, disintegrated into terrorist-infested chaos.

Gunman Attacks Saudi Royal Palace; 2 Guards Killed Three other Guard members were wounded; gunman was killed at the scene

—A gunman opened fire outside a Saudi royal palace on Saturday, killing two members of the Saudi Royal Guard, an official Saudi news agency reported.

The gunman exited a vehicle and attacked the western gate of the Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah early Saturday morning, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the security spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Three other Guard members were wounded, and the gunman was killed at the scene, the report said.

The ministry identified the attacker as Mansour bin Hassan bin Ali bin Al Fahid al-Amri, a 28-year-old Saudi national, the report said.

Sweden: Land of Double Standards by Judith Bergman

Both books are aimed at 3-6 year-olds. The first book is about “Asli, who has never been to Somalia, but now she is going there with her father to meet her four grandmothers”. Swedish children, evidently, are supposed to learn that the Islamic practice of polygamy — illegal in Sweden — is completely normal.

Swedish libraries are evidently not concerned that books normalizing the misogynist practices of Islamic polygamy and covering women from top to toe, aimed at Swedish toddlers and children, might also be considered “offensive”, not to mention criminal.

How curious, then, that the Swedish government laments Nazi marches in the streets of Gothenburg, yet is happy to spend large sums of Swedish tax payer money on those who agree with the Nazis on the streets of the Middle East.

The country that censors “offensive” words from children’s books — Swedish publishers and libraries have censored, among others, the classic Astrid Lindgren books about Pippi Longstocking — has apparently found politically correct replacements.

Farfar har fyra fruar (“Grandad Has Four Wives”) and Mormor är inget spöke (“Grandma Is Not a Ghost”), two books written by the Swedish author Oscar Trimbel, were featured at the book fair in Gothenburg recently. Both books are aimed at 3-6 year-olds. The first book is about “Asli, who has never been to Somalia, but now she is going there with her father to meet her four grandmothers”. Swedish children, evidently, are supposed to learn that the Islamic practice of polygamy — illegal in Sweden — is completely normal.

The second book, “Grandma Is Not a Ghost”, which features a drawing of a grandmother in a full-length jilbab on the cover, tells the story of “Omar, who meets his grandmother from Somalia. Omar wants to dress up as a ghost for Halloween and he wants his grandma to come along so that it will be spooky”. Apparently, Swedish children are supposed to learn that the jilbab, which covers a woman from head to toe, leaving only the face visible, is not a frightening ghost costume, but completely commonplace dress for women to wear.

Swedish libraries are evidently not concerned that books normalizing the misogynist practices of Islamic polygamy and covering women from top to toe, aimed at Swedish toddlers and children, might also be considered “offensive’, not to mention criminal. On the contrary: Stockholm Library had already ordered “Grandad Has Four Wives”.

After two Swedish news outlets wrote about the books, however, the author, Oscar Trimbel, announced that he will be taking “Grandad Has Four Wives” off the market. He gave no reason for his decision.