RUTHFULLY YOURS

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from a speech the author delivered this week at the Westminster Institute in McLean, Va. The topic: “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies: What Keeps America from Protecting Itself from Radical Islam.”

Two weekends ago in Orlando, Fla., in the wee hours of the morning, a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub teeming with revelers. After killing and wounding scores of people, he took hostages in a restroom. He began calling police and media outlets, began crafting social-media posts, all for the point of announcing what was already clear to the nightclub denizens who’d heard him screaming, “Allahu Akbar!” — Allah is greater! — as he fired shot after shot: Omar Mateen was a stealth Muslim militant.

He was an adherent of radical Islam who committed his atrocity in furtherance of its ongoing jihad against America and the West. He took time in the midst of the carnage to make bayat — a pledge of allegiance — to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State terror network and its proclaimed caliphate.

By the time police barged in three hours later and killed Mateen in a firefight, he had murdered 49 people and wounded another 53, many quite seriously.

It should have been possible to see Omar Mateen coming. He was a first-generation American citizen, born in this country to immigrant parents from Afghanistan and raised in a troubled household — one in which the father is a visible and ardent supporter of the Taliban, the fundamentalist jihadist group that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, harbored al-Qaeda as it plotted and executed the 9/11 attacks, and to this day wages war against American troops as it fights to retake the country.

Mateen, who was 29 when he committed his mass-murder attack, was repeatedly suspended for fighting throughout his childhood school years. Academically, he had great difficulty — despite being nominally American from birth, he was mired for years in English programs for students who speak other languages in the home. His rantings during the attack indicated that he considered Afghanistan to be his home, and that he identified, first and foremost, as a Muslim: a member of the worldwide ummah — not a citizen of the United States, the nation he volunteered to levy war against, just as the Islamic State (or ISIS) exhorts its acolytes to do.

Gerald Walpin died yesterday after being hit by a car in Manhattan. Jerry was a renowned lawyer, a scholar, a proud Jew and supporter of Israel, and a principled advocate for the benefits and protections of the Constitution. This past Thursday I was in the front row with his beloved wife Sheila when he delivered a brilliant speech on the infringement of free speech and outright bigotry on American campuses. He was author of a wonderful primer on the Supreme Court versus the Constitution. I will leave it to others to write the encomia that he deserves with a long list of his many achievements.

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He was a great American patriot…..at all family events that I attended…birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations….we sang “America the Beautiful.” Jerry’s brilliance and tenacity made America more beautiful. I am proud to have been his friend. I offer deepest condolences to his children and grandchildren ….and to my friend Sheila. His memory is a blessing. rsk

The Financial Action Task Force, an international anti-money-laundering standards body, said Friday it would suspend some of its restrictions against Iran for a year to monitor Tehran’s progress implementing changes to its regulatory regime.

The White House has been pushing to ease the path for business into Iran since the implementation of the nuclear agreement, and removing Iran from the FATF blacklist would aid in that effort. Critics, however, are pushing back, saying Iran’s conduct hasn’t changed since the deal was implemented, citing, among other things, Iran’s support for groups such as Hezbollah.

The FATF, following its plenary session in South Korea this week, said it welcomed Iran’s adoption of, and political commitment to, an action plan to address deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policies, as well as Iran’s decision to seek assistance with implementation. Iran will remain on the blacklist until the full implementation is complete, and if Iran fails to demonstrate “sufficient progress” at the end of the yearlong suspension, the restrictions will be reimposed, the FATF said, calling attention to Iran’s issues with terrorism financing, without specifying what those issues were.

Among other moves in recent months, Iran ordered the implementation of an anti-terror financing law and it joined the Eurasian Group, an FATF-associate body, as an observer. If Iran meets its commitments, the FATF said it would “consider next steps.” In the meantime, the FATF called for members to tell their country’s financial financial institutions to “apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions,” using a risk-based approach, with people and companies in Iran.

“The FATF will continue to engage with Iran and closely monitor its progress,” it said in a statement.

Countries that fail to implement FATF’s standards on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policy run the risk of being labeled as high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions, making it more costly and difficult for those nations to transact with the banking systems of FATF member states.

Iran has lobbied for removal from the FATF blacklist, seeing it as a roadblock to investment from foreign companies since the implementation of the nuclear agreement with global powers. Global banks have cited the FATF’s statements on Iran as one reason to hold back on investment.

North Korea and Iran are the only countries labeled as “high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions” by the FATF. In February, the FATF said in its statement it was “particularly and exceptionally concerned” about Iran’s failures to address terrorism-financing issues, saying it poses a serious threat to the integrity of the global financial system. CONTINUE AT SITE

I think that the British exit from the European Union is wonderful, and the EU Commission head Jean Claude Juncker’s response was petulant…urging Britain to hurry up and get out.

On the other hand I feel some gratitude to Juncker…. At a commemoration of the Holocaust he lamented rampant and growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the strongest terms.

“I never imagined a Rabbi in Marseille would have to tell his Community it might be better to hide the kippa,” he said, referring to controversial comments made after a machete attack against a Jewish teacher. “I never imagined that Jewish schools and Synagogues would have to be guarded, I never imagined a Europe where Jews feel so insecure that immigration to Israel reaches an all-time high. 71 years after the liberation of Auschwitz this is intolerable.Europe cannot and will not accept this,” he continued. “Attacks on Jews are attacks on all of us – against our way of living, against tolerance and against our identity.”
“Our entire society has a duty to prevent Anti-Semitism and we must fight it on every corner – whether on the extreme right or the extreme left or when it is instigated by extreme Islamists,” he declared.
“We are determined: Never again. Because a Europe of hate is one that we refuse. Because a Europe without Jews would be no longer Europe.”

WASHINGTON — The White House confirmed today that North Korea conducted more “provocative actions” in “a flagrant violation of their international obligations.”

“U.S. Strategic Command did, in fact, detect and track what we assessed were two North Korean missile launches yesterday. The missiles were tracked over the Sea of Japan, where initial indications are that they fell,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the daily briefing. “NORAD was also monitoring the launches and determined that they did not pose a threat to North America.”

“But I do think that the impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Korea’s behavior,” he added.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that, of the test launches of the two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles, at least one appeared to have been unsuccessful.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the first missile was launched at 5:58 a.m. and was unsuccessful, followed by a second launch at 8:05 a.m. “The second Musudan-like missile flew about 400 km,” the JCS said without elaborating. “South Korea and the United States are carrying out an in-depth analysis on it.”

Yonhap cited military sources saying that the first missile “burst into pieces in the air after flying some 150 km.”

“The South Korean military reportedly concluded that the second missile soared to an altitude of some 1,000 kilometers, which could indicate the country has improved the performance of the Musudan missile’s engine,” the news agency added.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to have watched the launches.

Pyongyang began testing the Musudan this April.

Washington’s response?”The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan,” Earnest said. “We’ll also continue our ongoing dialogue with the Chinese and the Russians about what additional pressure can be applied to the North Koreans. And the key here will be to continue to work with our allies and partners to address this destabilizing threat in Northeast Asia.” CONTINUE AT SITE

“You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans,” Ayatollah Khomeini said, and promised to President Jimmy Carter that Iran would be a “tolerant democracy.”

Although the State Department has in its just released annual report on world-wide terror designated Iran as the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, the Obama administration has assisted Iranian militias in Iraq with air support, provided intelligence to Hezbollah’s allies on Israeli air strikes, and has steadfastly refused to use any military force against any elements of the Assad regime.

America is apparently bent on repeating — yet again — the historic wrong turn it took in 1979 by once again embracing the radical Islamic regime in Iran. Why would the U.S. administration think doing the same thing again will have a different outcome?

Senior leaders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are in Washington, meeting with top U.S. diplomatic and defense officials, and are deeply concerned America has significantly worsened the situation in the Middle East by creating a “strategic partnership” with Iran.

Thirty-seven years ago, former American President Carter paved the way for Iran’s Islamic theocratic dictatorship to come to power according to newly declassified secret documents, reports the BBC Persian News Service. The documents show that former President Carter pledged to “hold back” the Iranian military from attempting a coup, which would have prevented the return of the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from France.

The documents also reveal that the Carter administration believed –erroneously– that bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini into power in Iran, and in the process abandoning the Shah, would preserve American interests, keep the Soviets out of the region, protect U.S. allies, and ensure the flow of oil to the world’s industrial nations.

In one of his many messages to President Jimmy Carter, Khomeini played into that belief. “You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans,” Khomeini said and promised that Iran would be a “tolerant democracy.”

Unfortunately, the mullahs did not stop their terrorist ways; and the U.S. government, through successive administrations, did not stopped them, either.

The Reagan administration, for example, deployed “peacekeepers” to Lebanon under Congressionally mandated rules of engagement that, tragically, only facilitated the Iranian- and Syrian-directed bombings of the U.S. Beirut Marine barracks and embassy.

Then, the Clinton administration refused to lift an arms embargo and provide weapons to Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, ensuring that Iranian weapons and influence would fill the void.

The result of decades of the U.S. policy in Iran is that since Islamic terrorists took power in Tehran in 1979, Iran has murdered thousands of Americans[1] in addition to those killed in the bombings in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the African embassies, and the World Trade Towers in New York.

U.S. court decisions have so far held Iran responsible for more than $50 billion in damages owed to American citizens for these terror attacks directed by the mullahs and their terrorist proxies.

America’s military has also suffered. Thousands of American and allied soldiers have been killed and maimed by Iranian Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.[2]

It could be argued that the United States has at times had to make deals with unsavory countries. It was allied with the Soviet Union, for instance, in the fight to destroy Nazism in World War II. So, the thinking might go, a genuine agreement to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program might require some compromise and thus a type of “partnership”.

The Obama administration has, in fact, sought to justify its embrace of Iran by citing the assumed benefits from a nuclear agreement with Iran.[3] But the current “nuclear deal” with Iran is not a real agreement. The Iranians never signed it.

Obama’s “strategy” against ISIS and the rest of the terrorist world has disintegrated. You can’t fight Islamic terrorists with political correctness tying your hands.

Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has maintained his willful ignorance of the fact that weakness against terrorists abroad, coupled with weakness against them at home, add up to more than the sum of their parts. To defeat terrorists, we need to have policies at home and strategies abroad that are integrated and support each other.

From the State Department came a petition of dissent, signed by dozens of employees, asking for military action against Syria’s Bashar Assad. If many in the State Department — the last bastion of diplomatic wimpery — are calling for military action, the president’s policies must have disintegrated.

And they have, as CIA Director John Brennan said last week. Mr. Brennan said that two years of President Obama’s war against the Islamic State, or ISIS, haven’t even disrupted its ability to conduct terrorist attacks globally. This despite the president’s insistence that ISIS is suffering low morale and loss of territory.

The Orlando nightclub massacre, committed by a man claiming allegiance to ISIS, leaves Mr. Obama’s shattered policies in stark relief.

The media has desperately tried to blame anything and everything for the Orlando Muslim massacre. The bloodshed by a Muslim terrorist has been attributed to guns, homophobia, family problems and mental illness. By next week, the media may be blaming global warming and UFOs.

But Omar Mateen told his Facebook friends and a 911 operator exactly why he was doing it. Omar killed 49 people as part of the Islamic State’s war against America.

The motive is there in black and white. This was one of a number of ISIS attacks. The roots of the Orlando attack lie in Iraq forcing us to dig down into Obama’s disastrous mishandling of ISIS. Without understanding what went wrong in Iraq, we cannot understand what happened in Orlando.

Under Bush, Al Qaeda in Iraq had been on the run. Under Obama, it began overrunning the region.

In 2009, Obama vowed a “responsible” end to the Iraq War. He claimed that the “starting point for our policies must always be the safety of the American people”. But the safety of the American people was the first casualty of his foreign policy. In 2011, he hung up his own “Mission Accomplished” sign and boasted that “The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year.” It did not and would not.

Obama claimed that his withdrawal from Iraq and his invasion of Libya were both examples of successful policies. Both countries are now ISIS playgrounds. The “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” Iraq he told the country we were leaving behind was a myth. The new Libya was an equally imaginary and unreal place. ISIS gained power and influence as a result of that chaos. And it used that influence to kill Americans.

Today the battle for Fallujah is raging. When ISIS first took the city, Obama breezily dismissed them as a JayVee team. He specifically insisted that ISIS posed no serious threat to America. “There is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

Ever since Richard Nixon opened relations with Communist China in 1972, Chinese intentions have been a matter of incessant and often fevered speculation in this country.

In particular, national security and regional experts, non-governmental organizations and office-holders alike, have endlessly debated whether the People’s Republic of China could be brought into a U.S.-dominated international order and world economy in a manner consistent with American interests and, better yet, as a partner in opposition to mutual adversaries (e.g., the Soviet Union, North Korea, and the global jihad movement).

Regrettably, this controversy over China’s intentions has now been largely settled by actions of the Chinese government – and a rapid militarization. Under successive regimes – and most especially that of the incumbent Chinese ruler, Xi Jinping – the Chinese have relentlessly and unmistakably striven to put themselves in a position to challenge, and ultimately to displace, the post-World War II Pax Americana with a new order. This position would return China to what its leaders consider to be China’s rightful place as the Middle Kingdom, the preeminent global power strategically and economically.

At this critical juncture, it is both foolhardy and irresponsible for America and its allies to continue to construe China’s conduct as non-threatening. That conclusion is powerfully articulated by eight essays featured in a book just released by the Center for Security Policy, entitled Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict and Why We Must Do the Same. (A video introduction is here.)

A Warning Order is a technique long used by the U.S. military to put its units on notice of an impending danger that requires countervailing action. The draft Secretary of Defense directive that briefly summarizes and suggests how to operationalize the findings of the contributors to this new volume – former U.S. Senator Jim Talent, former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, China and national security experts Dr. Peter Navarro, Gordon Chang, Dean Cheng, Kevin Freeman and Lindsey Neas and journalist Bill Gertz – reads as follows:

WARNING ORDER: Required Preparations for Conflict with China