RUTHFULLY YOURS

Advocates of the nuclear deal with Iran were heartened last month by reports that moderates close to President Hasan Rouhani had done well in elections to the country’s Parliament and the more influential Assembly of Experts. It soon became clear that the moderates hadn’t done as well as advertised—and that moderation, Iranian-style, is relative.
That much was clear from the message printed this week along the length of an Iranian ballistic missile, which said—in Hebrew as well as Farsi, lest anything be lost in translation—that “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.” On Wednesday Iran test-fired two such missiles with a reported range of 1,250 miles from a mountain base, hitting targets 850 miles away in southwestern Iran. The Jewish state is about 600 miles from the Islamic Republic at the nearest point.

Tehran’s show of force—it also tested missiles on Tuesday—are not the work of the usual “hardline” suspects. Iran tested ballistic missiles last fall in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, and in January Mr. Rouhani publicly ordered his defense minister to speed up missile testing and production. The Obama Administration later sanctioned a handful of Iranian individuals and companies for the violations, but to little effect. The tests appear to be timed to coincide with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.

“Our main enemies, the Americans, who mutter about plans, have activated new missile sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and are seeking to weaken the country’s missile capability,” said one Iranian general. “The Guards and other armed forces are defenders of the revolution and the country will not pay a toll to anyone.”
So much for the nuclear deal producing a new era of Iranian accommodation to the world. Part of the problem is that Secretary of State John Kerry bowed to Iranian demands during the nuclear negotiations not to include ballistic missiles as part of the final deal, though missiles are an essential component of any nuclear program. CONTINUE AT SITE

When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders. Facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.

If Turkish Jews are “safe and secure” in Turkey, why do they feel compelled to protect their schools and synagogues with heavy security? Why do most synagogues in Istanbul look almost like a U.S. embassy in Baghdad or Islamabad?

Anti-Semitism in Turkey reached such intensity that even anti-Semitic Islamists were not immune to anti-Semitic smear campaigns.

The 74th anniversary of an embarrassing tragedy took place in Turkey on February 24, 2016.

The MV Struma was a small iron-hulled ship built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner, but was later re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine. In 1941, it was tasked with safely transporting an estimated 781 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Britain’s Mandatory Palestine. Between its departure from Constanta on the Black Sea on Dec. 12, 1941 and arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15, the vessel’s engine failed several times. On Feb. 23, 1942 with her engine still not running but the refugees aboard, Turkish authorities towed the Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea. On the morning of Feb. 24, the Soviet submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the Struma, killing all but one of the refugees and 10 crew aboard.

The Iranian distribution of cash to families of terrorists is an open incitement to an ongoing campaign of murder. It should by now have not only been condemned by the whole world, but have caused a colossal rethink among the P5+1 nations that signed the ill-judged accord with Iran.

It is worth considering another recent Iranian development: the decision — allegedly by a conglomeration of media outlets, but hardly able to be separated from the government in a country whose press is more “government” than “free” — to increase the cash-bounty on the head of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

The British government has been strangely mute on the matter. The “normalised” relations with Iran were meant to lead to business opportunities for Britain and an increase in decent behavior from Tehran. Instead, the first major test of Iranian-British relations in several decades turns out to be precisely the same test that the late Ayatollah Khomeini drew up in 1989.

Last year, when America, Britain and four other countries (the P5+1) signed their joint plan of action with Iran there was no shortage of people who warned of the consequences. They warned that the deal would merely delay rather than prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power. They warned of the increased grip the mullahs would have on the country they purport to govern. And in particular, those not caught up in the P5+1 jubilation warned of what Iran would do with the tens of billions of dollars’ cash bonanza it would receive once the deal was done. Would Iran use this windfall solely to improve the lives of its people? Or might it spend at least a portion of this cash doing what it has been doing for nearly four decades: that is, spreading terror?

There have already been some signs that the ill-judged deal is embedding Iran’s worst behaviour rather than elevating the regime to any higher behavioral level.

In recent days we have learned that Iran is already planning to use its windfall to encourage Palestinian terror against the State of Israel. Speaking at the end of last month, the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon used a press conference with a number of Palestinian factions to announce a new bounty-scheme to be sponsored by Iran. This scheme promises to reward financially those who carry out terror against Israel. The reward includes — according to the Iranian ambassador — a payment of $7,000 to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists who die in the process of attacking any Israeli. And it also includes a promised payment of $30,000 to any terrorists’ families whose homes are destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The demolition of the home of a terrorist’s family house is one of the only disincentives that Israel or any other country could think of to dissuade people intent on suicide attacks. Now the Iranian government is trying to re-incentivise anyone who might wish to commit such an attack.

The West’s feather-footed leaders tread softly when extolling “moderate” Muslims as the purported antidote to the creed’s literalist firebrands and militant extremists. What they lack the courage to acknowledge is that the Qur’an is itself the fountainhead of radicalism.
One would need to be the infamous Blind Freddy not to recognise that the West is on a hiding to nothing as it struggles to contend with its Islamic imbroglio. There are many reasons for this but I suggest the most dangerous are found in the many common and comforting consensuses that have arisen over the Religion of Peace, as some would have it. These are no more than convenient delusions.

Perhaps the most dangerous consensus is the misconception that Islamic State (ISIS), the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist variants are the problem to be addressed and that, with sufficient firepower, the obvious manifestations of these elements can be contained or eliminated. In fact these groups are simply elements of a much larger issue: the re-emergence of a militant and resurgent Islam.

History shows that the drive for a worldwide Islamic caliphate is as old as the Qur’an itself, and in the 1,400 years since the Muslims’ sacred text appeared, the religion’s fortunes in achieving that goal have waxed and waned. Today we see a revitalization of this dream, but this time there are significant, profound differences. First, younger Islamic leaders are practicing Islam as explicitly prescribed in the Qur’an, and it is important to note that a high proportion of Muslims in Western nations are under 25 years of age. Second, over the past century Islam has moved from being Middle Eastern-centric, with but a meager demographic representation in traditional secular democracies, to having sizeable Muslim populations in those countries. Third, events in the Middle East, together with Islamist-sanctioned terrorist events across the globe, have given encouragement to those who share the hope of a worldwide caliphate. Fourth, modern technology and better management among Islamic leaders is being used to orchestrate a more coherent Islamic narrative, one that is backed by contemporary firepower.

Last week, the State Department coordinator on Iran, Stephen Mull, acknowledged that the Obama Administration has failed to monitor the transfer of Iranian uranium shipments to Russia. Mr. Mull was unable to tell the House Foreign Affairs Committee just exactly where 25,000 pounds of Iranian enriched uranium had gone.

This is only the latest development facilitating Iran’s march to nuclear weapons since the announcement of the Vienna nuclear deal between America, the West, and Iran last June. Such developments were predictable because the Vienna agreement was so comprehensively defective.

Why? Because President Obama discarded one requirement after another in order to obtain a deal.

Thus, the agreement permits Iran to retain all the components of its nuclear weapons program — uranium enrichment, thousands of centrifuges, its Arakplutonium facility, its Fordow underground nuclear facility — while shredding the international sanctions regime on Tehran, and infusing its economy with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and sanctions relief.

Unsurprisingly, since the agreement’s conclusion, Iran has announced a 32% increase in military spending. And that’s not all. With the deal’s massive financial windfall in the offing, Iran has significantly increased its financial support for the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Previously, support for both had dropped due to pressure on the Iranian economy. Now, cash in suitcases are coming to Hamas’ military leadership in Gaza, fueling prospects of a renewed outbreak of war with Israel.

Iranian money has also enabled Hezbollah to obtain highly developed armaments previously beyond its means, and to dispatch thousands of its fighters to Syria to bolster the Assad regime in its battle with Sunni jihadists. As Syria analyst Avi Isacharoff notes, “Today, Iran is the main, and likely only, power attempting to build terror cells to fight Israel on the Syrian Golan Heights, in areas under Assad’s control.”