RUTHFULLY YOURS

Our president continues to embrace the travesty known as the UN Human Rights Council.

Reforming United Nations institutions is often a fool’s errand. Yet, the Obama Administration chooses to draw no lessons from its attempt to improve the UN Human Rights Council, which just concluded its 10th anniversary session this month.

Ten years ago, the Human Rights Council was formed to replace its corrupt and discredited predecessor, the Human Rights Commission. Then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the Commission as having “cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole” due to its biased selectivity, politicization, and corrupt efforts to shield its members from due scrutiny.

It’s easy to see why. At its end, the Commission included six of the most politically repressive regimes — China, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Vietnam.

A genocide in Darfur was being perpetrated by Sudan, which had been elected a member of the Commission. The Syrian regime that has murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens was proposing to investigate U.S. war crimes in Iraq. And the U.S. itself had been kicked off the Commission.

A satirist could scarcely conceive so perverse a record. But has its successor been an improvement?

The presidency of James Monroe is often recalled as a period of political quiescence between the heroic age of the Founders and the era of muscular national expansion that followed him. Of course, his presidency is mostly remembered for the Monroe Doctrine. Proclaimed in 1823, it declared that the United States would consider any European action against the newly independent states of the Americas as an affront to itself.

Beneath the surface, the Monroe years and the decade that preceded them—roughly, 1810 to 1825—were anything but placid, at least with respect to Americans’ political discovery of Latin America. The turbulent visions and new ideological affinities of this period are the focus of Caitlin Fitz’s superb “Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions.” Ms. Fitz, a history professor at Northwestern University, argues that the Monroe era not only laid the foundation for U.S. policy toward Latin America but shaped North Americans’ ideas about the place of the United States in the world. It is a fascinating and often surprising story.

“Our Sister Republics” is not a history of Latin America’s revolutions, although Ms. Fitz tells us enough to enable us to distinguish the fleeting Republic of Pernambuco from the new regimes in Buenos Aires or Caracas. Rather, she focuses on North Americans’ passionate, if short-lived, identification with the aspirations of their South American neighbors.As instructive as Ms. Fitz’s narrative is, it is also a pleasure to read. She has a gift for the sparkling phrase that both enchants and illuminates. North American newspapers were “foreign agents’ strongest weapons, their pages scraping away at Portuguese authority with the accumulated force of a thousand paper cuts.” News of revolutions was carried by “merchants, sea captains, and other international men of motion.” Monroe, in the weeks before proclaiming his doctrine, sat “in Washington’s crisp autumn, holding foreign policy in his thoughts like a jeweler appraising a diamond, turning it around, inspecting it from all sides.” It is a rare historian who can bring politics alive with such verve.

President Obama has surrounded himself not with military strategists but rather with fiction writers, wide-eyed diplomats whose strategy is “don’t do stupid shit,” and law enforcement officials who believe that “Our most effective response to terror and hatred is compassion, unity and love.”

Only “rightwing extremism” is obvious to the Obama Administration. Everything else is apparently too complex and nuanced for labels. Even Micah Xavier Johnson, who said that he was motivated by “Black Lives Matters” rhetoric and hatred of white people, is a conundrum to the president, who bizarrely asserted that it is “hard to untangle the motives of this shooter.”

The Obama era is one of willful blindness to the jihadist movement that has declared war on America. CIA Director John Brennan purged the word “jihad” from the agency’s vocabulary. Obama’s two Attorneys General have done the same at the Department of Justice.

The federal government has spent the last 8 years pretending that “rightwing extremists” are more numerous and dangerous than the careful and intelligent jihadist attackers, whom it insists are just “madmen” or “troubled individuals.”

Anyone surprised by President Barack Obama’s recurring attempts at exploiting jihadist attacks in his efforts to restrict gun ownership should read the earliest known document concerning terrorism assembled by his administration. The unclassified assessment by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” is dated April 7, 2009 — a mere 77 days after Obama’s inauguration.

The document was leaked shortly after its release to law enforcement officials across the country and made public by Roger Hedgecock on April 13, 2009. It laid out the new president’s legislative and executive priorities on terrorism, guns and immigration. Uniquely combining these three issues would become a predictable, coordinated pattern during Obama’s two terms in office.

It’s official: U.S. now relies on Russia and Iran in Middle East.

The Wall Street Journal report that Russian aircraft had bombed a supposedly secret U.S.-British base on the Syrian border with Jordan last month should raise the hackles of everyone in the presidential race and Middle East policymakers everywhere. It proved, redundantly, the comprehensive failure of Obama’s policies in the Middle East, particularly his more than two-year war against ISIS.

The base was reportedly used by U.S. and British special forces to stop ISIS fighters from coming to Syria from Jordan and for other anti-ISIS missions. A British special forces unit had apparently left the base less than a day before the attack. There were no reports of U.S. or allied casualties, which doesn’t mean there weren’t any.

The attack had the objective of goading us into sharing more intelligence information with the Russians. Sure enough, it worked. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Moscow last week to offer greater sharing of U.S. intelligence with the Russians. (Kerry added a clause to the document he signed stating that if the Russians bombed our bases again we could — might, maybe, perhaps — suspend cooperation.)

Kerry made this agreement despite the rather loud objection by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the quieter opposition of Defense Secretary Carter.

Several conclusions must be drawn from Kerry’s actions. First, it is clear that Obama and Kerry have long since decided that Russia and Iran — the two nations whose forces have occupied Syria and protect Bashar al-Assad’s regime — will be the nations who should create a new stability in the Middle East. (Obama said, when peddling his Iran nuclear deal, that Iran could be a force for stability in the Middle East.)

Second, that Obama is entirely comfortable with the fact that the “stability” he wants in the Middle East would be accomplished by the force of arms of our enemies, to our strategic disadvantage and that of our ally, Israel. He either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that a Russian and Iranian-dominated Middle East means war, not peace, and that such wars could engulf the whole region and us as well. When — not if — Iran achieves its nuclear weapons ambitions, that war could be the first in which nations exchange nuclear strikes against each other.

Obama has misplayed all our cards in the Middle East. There are none left for the next president except to gradually undo what Obama has done.

Exposes of secret agreements signed with Iran regarding its nuclear agenda should come as no surprise.President Obama made no secret that a nuclear deal with Iran was a priority of his, and he determined to keep most of his dealings with the Mullahs from the American people. When the first Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, which was supposed to freeze “key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief from some economic sanctions” was signed in November 2013, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that the deal recognized Tehran’s “right” to maintain its enrichment program. Shortly afterward, Secretary Kerry was quoted by the Washington Post – a participant in the White House’s “echo chamber” as saying

that the “agreement…states they could only do that by mutual agreement and nothing is agreed on until everything is agreed on.” But skeptics who questioned Kerry’s frequent denials of Iran’s boasting of “victories” with the agreement, should feel vindicated.

Yesterday, a leaked document to the Associated Press revealed a secret agreement allowing Iran to replace 5,060 inefficient centrifuges with 3,500 advanced machines, which are “five times more efficient.” The upgrade , which is supposed to take place in ten years from now, will enable Iran to develop nuclear weapons in six months. So when Obama declared: “Under this agreement, Iran is never allowed to build a nuclear weapon – period,” he was fully aware this was not true.

I was not a supporter of Donald Trump….I preferred Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio….but reality bites…Trump won….fair and square….there were no dead people voting, no voter intimidation, no fraud, and no coercion. Newly registered Republicans stood on line for hours to cast their vote.The alternative is Hillary of Chappaquadick, and that is enough for me to vote for and aver my support for Donald Trump without fear of the self-righteous limo liberals and death by dinner party.

The bitter clingers to # Elections Don’t Matter Trump dumpsters won’t relent. Kasich who called himself “the grownup of the debates” is acting like a spoiled brat by boycotting the convention in his own state; Lindsey Graham is preening; John McCain is posturing; Jeb and the Bushites are pouting; Romney who could not debate the overt lies and distortions of Benghazi, is licking his wounds in New Hampshire.

And today, my favorite conservative National Review Online has the following headlines:

Never Trump, Now More than Ever by David French
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438092/republican-convention-why-never-trump-movement-still-matters

Donald Trump Will Fail the Heroes Who Endorsed Him by David French
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438063/donald-trump-foreign-policy-american-retreat-2016-gop-convention

GOP Convention Has Become a Stomach-Churning Affair by Jonah Goldberg
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438075/2016-gop-convention-failure-donald-trump

Trump’s Weaknesses Are on Full Display in Cleveland by Michael Tanner
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438060/2016-gop-convention-donald-trump-weaknesses-full-display

Donald Trump’s Brand Is Tarnished by His Cheapness by John Fund
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438079/donald-trumps-cheapness-harms-trump-brand

Fortunately in the same issue Jim Geraghty clarifies things:

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/438057/print

“Yes, Donald Trump is a flawed messenger for the case against Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t make the message any less true or compelling. The decision by a lot of big-name Republican lawmakers to skip the Cleveland convention was a blessing in disguise, because it cleared the stage for ordinary Americans who suffered the cruel, random, and deadly consequences of the Obama administration’s policies.”

Yup! rsk

Veteran Associated Press IAEA reporter George Jahn made news yesterday by revealing a secret agreement to the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). This agreement says that in January 2027, Tehran will be allowed to replace the primitive 5,060 uranium centrifuges it is allowed to operate while the nuclear agreement is in effect with more-advanced designs, even though other restrictions on Iranian uranium enrichment remain in place for 15 years.

I believe this is a significant development because it represents another secret JCPOA side deal that the Obama administration illegally withheld from Congress.

This agreement means that in only eleven years, Iran will be permitted to substantially increase its capability to produce nuclear fuel faster and in larger amounts. Since Iran is permitted to conduct R&D on advanced centrifuges while the JCPOA is in place — and can expand this effort after eight and a half years — it probably will be able to quickly construct and install these advanced centrifuges.

Jahn reported that although this undisclosed, confidential agreement is “an integral part” of the JCPOA, Iran will not be permitted to accumulate more than 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for 15 years. In light of recent reports that the Iranians are already cheating on the nuclear agreement, it is hard to believe that they will continue to abide by this restriction after they install more-advanced centrifuges .

Some media outlets responded to Jahn’s story as a major revelation. I agree but for different reasons from what many are laying out. It’s not news that Iran can begin enriching under the JCPOA with advanced centrifuges after ten years. I reported this in my new book, Obamabomb: A Dangerous and Growing National Security Threat. I’ve also explained that there is no limit on the number of uranium centrifuges Iran can operate after ten years.

What is news is that the Obama administration is a party to another secret side deal to the JCPOA that explicitly recognizes Iran’s plan to greatly expand its uranium-enrichment program. Other secret side deals include one that allows Iran to inspect itself on possible nuclear-weapons-related work and another that possibly weakened IAEA reporting on Iran’s nuclear program.

There’s an iconic scene in the Star Wars trilogy where the protagonistic smuggler, Lando Calrissian, bitterly notes that a deal he struck with the evil Darth Vader is “getting worse all the time.” That exasperated sentiment strikes the right tone for the way many now view the deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), alternatively known as the Iran Deal.

To refer to the Iran Deal as deeply flawed is in fact, a gross understatement. The JCPOA contained many disquieting clauses that many, including Obama’s supporters, saw as gravely dangerous. The deal made a mockery out of Obama’s claims that Iran’s nuclear facilities would be subjected to “anytime anywhere” inspections. In fact, under the deal, Iran is permitted to delay inspections by up to twenty-four days. Moreover, the opaque Parchin facility, where Iran has conducted its most secretive nuclear experiments, continues to remain largely off limits to international inspectors.

It now comes to light a secret addendum to the deal permits the Iranians to reduce their breakout time – the time needed to produce enough weapons-grade material sufficient for the manufacture of nuclear weapons – from one year to just six months or perhaps even less. According to a secret document obtained by the Associated Press, key restrictions on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium taper off after a decade. Under this addendum, the Iranians will be permitted to replace their older, inefficient centrifuges – the machines that enrich uranium – with more modern and efficient ones. The newer centrifuges are in fact up to five times more efficient than the models they would be replacing. Moreover, according to the document, the Iranians will be allowed to conduct research and development on even more advanced centrifuges.

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that its goal was to hold Iran to a one-year breakout period. Any timeframe less than that would represent a serious threat to national security and would endanger allies. But Obama, faced with multiple foreign policy failures, badly needed to secure at least one success and consequently, shoved a badly flawed agreement – the worst in U.S. diplomatic history, down America’s throat.

He employed his unscrupulous shills, including the notorious Ben Rhodes, to feed lies and falsehoods to the American people. Those fabrications were then skillfully magnified by manipulating elements within the media to repeat the administration’s talking points. Organizations like the anti-Israel J-Street were also employed for this dastardly task. “We created an echo chamber,” a smug Rhodes admitted with self-satisfaction.

Expect the Obama administration to take more victory laps this week by claiming Iran has complied with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal that reached its first anniversary on July 14. However, recent press reports paint a very different picture, one that confirms its critics’ worst fears: massive Iranian violations of the agreement.

In an annual security report issued this month, German intelligence said Iran made a clandestine effort last year to acquire illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies at a “quantitatively high level,” and that “it is safe to expect that Iran will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.” A German intelligence agency reported 141 clandestine Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear and missile technology in 2015 versus 83 in 2013.

According to a July 7 memo from the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran recently tried, unsuccessfully, to covertly purchase tons of high-strength carbon fiber, which it uses to make rotors for uranium enrichment centrifuges. Under the JCPOA, Iran is required to seek approval for such purchases from a JCPOA procurement working group. The Institute said the JCPOA group probably would not have approved this sale, since Iran has enough carbon fiber to replace the rotors of centrifuges it is permitted to operate under the agreement.

In a separate report, the Institute said many Iranian entities that had been sanctioned for illicit nuclear and missile procurement but were relieved of these sanctions by the JCPOA in January “are now very active in procuring goods in China.”

Many other troubling reports indicate the JCPOA is much worse and much weaker than its critics believed. These include:

ExemptingChina’s redesign and rebuilding of the Arak heavy-water reactor from the JCPOA procurement process.

Iran placing military facilities off-limits to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

The Iranian parliament approving a much weaker version of the agreement.