RUTHFULLY YOURS

How can the U.S. hope to keep tabs on Tehran’s nuclear program when we can’t even track its oil tankers?American negotiators and their cohorts are trying to close a deal that would let Iran keep its nuclear program, subject to intricate conditions of monitoring and enforcement. Yet how is a deal like that supposed to be verified? The Obama administration can’t even keep up with the Iran-linked oil tankers on the U.S. blacklist.

Currently, there are at least 55 of these tankers the Treasury Department says are under U.S. sanctions. These are large ships, major links in the oil chain that sustains the Tehran regime, many of them calling at ports from Turkey to China. They are easier to spot and track than, say, smuggled nuclear parts (which, in a pinch, they could potentially squeeze on board).

But Iran has engaged for years in what Treasury called “deceptive practices” to dodge sanctions. These include trying to mask the identities, and sometimes the smuggling activities, of its blacklisted ships by renaming them, reflagging them to other countries, veiling their ownership behind front companies, presenting false documents, and engaging in illicit ship-to-ship oil transfers.

The Saudis invade Yemen as the Sunni-Shiite war escalates.

An abiding goal of President Obama’s foreign policy has been to reduce America’s role in the Middle East, in the belief that it would lead to greater stability and serve U.S. interests. Has a policy ever been so thoroughly repudiated in so short a time? Mr. Obama has succeeded in his retreat, but the vacuum he’s left has produced a region on fire that is becoming a broad Sunni-Shiite war.

That’s the context for this week’s meltdown in Yemen, which has now escalated with the military intervention of Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies. This follows the rout of a U.S.-friendly government by Houthi militias that belong to the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam and are backed by Iran. What had been a proxy war is in danger of becoming a direct Saudi-Iran conflict.

Liberal groups are out to sully the names of conservative professors and shut down programs funded by the Koch foundation.

Conservative thought on campus these days is rare, though for some it’s still not rare enough. Witness the growing campaign by politicians, unions and environmentalists to intimidate into silence any academic or program that might challenge liberal ideology.

Congressional Democrats have grabbed most of the attention here, with their recent attempt to cow climate skeptics. Richard Lindzen, an emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT and a Cato Institute scholar, earlier this month described in these pages how House Rep. Raul Grijalva was targeting seven academics skeptical of President Obama’s climate policies, demanding documents about their funding and connections. A trio of Senate Democrats is working to muzzle more than 100 nonprofits and companies that have questioned the climate agenda, with a fishing expedition into their correspondence.

As Israel’s most vocal defender in the West and a conservative to boot, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is now in Obama’s crosshairs. Most likely displeased by Canada’s unwavering support for the Jewish State and persistent pursuit of the popular Keystone pipeline, Obama has set his sights on replacing the Harper government with one of a more liberal stripe. Reportedly, in a repeat performance of his anti-Netanyahu strategy in Israel, Obama’s campaign operatives are now working with Canadian Liberals to defeat Harper. Shockingly, Obama is popular with Canadians; more so than Harper! Let’s hope Obama fares as badly as he did recently in Israel! Janet Levy, Los Angeles

One wonders if U.S. President Barack Obama will campaign as vigorously to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper this fall, as he did, unsuccessfully, to defeat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in that country’s recent election.

It’s no secret Obama despises Netanyahu, who heads Israel’s right-wing Likud party and favoured Mitt Romney over Obama in the 2012 presidential race.

The U.S. president has also talked since the beginning of his administration about the need to “put some daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, so he would have more influence with Arab and Muslim countries in his pursuit of an Israel-Palestine peace deal.

During the Israeli election, the Obama administration and the president’s political advisers did everything they could to defeat Netanyahu, including anonymously leaking information to the media to damage him, a tactic they have continued following Netanyahu’s victory.

That’s to say nothing of the direct attacks Obama levelled at Netanyahu during the campaign — Netanyahu did the same to him — while Obama administration officials, both publicly and anonymously, warned America’s support of Israel would be undermined if Netanyahu won.

Jerusalem is worried by the Iran-backed Houthi takeover of Aden, but Saudi Arabia is burning with anger, and not at Tehran

A few months ago, when Yemen’s Houthi uprising was still in its infancy, Israel was already worriedly watching over the progress of rebel forces making advances in the peninsula.

It’s little surprise the group got Jerusalem’s attention. In almost every demonstration held by Houthis in recent months, the slogans heard may as well have been taken straight out of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran: “Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.”

A Washington DC based watchdog monitoring US nuclear negotiations with Iran has said that the White House’s latest backpedaling on its negotiating positions follows a consistent trend.

In a statement to reporters, The Israel Project pointed to a Wall Street Journal report by Carol Lee about the deferment of a previously stated US demand that Iran resolve “questions concerning the possible military dimensions” (PMDs) of its atomic program at the front end of an agreement.

“Lee’s piece was specific to PMDs, but she could have written a near-identical column on centrifuges, heavy water work, and ballistic missile development,” the statement said.

In shocking breach, U.S. declassifies document revealing some of Israel’s nuclear capabilities
When on February 12, the Pentagon quietly declassified a top-secret 386-page Department of Defense document from 1987 detailing Israel’s nuclear program – the first time Israel’s alleged nuclear program has ever been officially and publically referenced by the U.S. authorities – I and other journalists chose not to write about it.

In the declassified document, the Pentagon reveals supposed details about Israel’s deterrence capabilities, but it kept sections on France, Germany and Italy classified. Those sections are blacked out in the document.

Daniel Greenfield on “The Real Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’” — on The Glazov Gang

Why you should be suspicious of the translation the media provides after every Jihadi attack.
http://jamieglazov.com/2015/03/27/daniel-greenfield-on-the-real-meaning-of-allahu-akbar-on-the-glazov-gang/

Mounting chaos in the region puts the administration on the defensive.

Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran.

The meltdown has Obama officials defending their management of a region that some call impossible to control, even as critics say U.S. policies there are partly to blame for the spreading anarchy.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough continued the Obama administration’s relentless series of verbal fusillades against Israel, declaring on March 23rd that “an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.” Mr. McDonough added that “Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely,” as if the present state of affairs were something most Israelis yearned to maintain indefinitely. His speech offered no practical suggestions as to how to allay Israelis’ legitimate security concerns. His underlying assumption is that Israel must simply take another chance by giving up more land for peace no matter what, when its prior unilateral withdrawal from Gaza literally blew up in its face.

President Obama’s chief of staff offered up his simplistic tripe to the left-wing J Street group, which claims it is pro-Israel but more often than not sings the Palestinians’ tune.

Mr. McDonough lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge that an independent Palestinian state would not be permitted under his watch. “We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the Prime Minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations” he said.