RUTHFULLY YOURS

As a deputy in the Russian parliament, Ilya Ponomarev cast last year’s sole vote against the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. For this and other thought crimes, his face was plastered on a Moscow billboard labeling him a “national traitor” and his bank accounts were frozen. For most of the last year he has been living abroad.

But in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a bucket of political revenge is never enough. So this week the parliament voted to strip Mr. Ponomarev of his parliamentary immunity. This effectively forces him into exile, since his immunity was the only thing that had been standing in the way of being hit with trumped up criminal charges of taking illicit payments. The tactic is a Kremlin favorite, which it has used against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and dissident blogger Alexei Navalny.

Mixing shrewd diplomacy with defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has turned the negotiation on its head.

The announced framework for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has the potential to generate a seminal national debate. Advocates exult over the nuclear constraints it would impose on Iran. Critics question the verifiability of these constraints and their longer-term impact on regional and world stability. The historic significance of the agreement and indeed its sustainability depend on whether these emotions, valid by themselves, can be reconciled.

Debate regarding technical details of the deal has thus far inhibited the soul-searching necessary regarding its deeper implications. For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests—and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.

He throws money and platitudes at the VA to cover up its deadly scandals.

Eight months ago, President Obama put on a grand show for the troops. Surrounded by new secretary of veterans affairs Bob McDonald, assorted politicians, military leaders, and a bevy of TV cameras, the commander-in-chief signed the “Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act.” He’s good at inking things. Obama condemned the “inexcusable conduct” at VA hospitals across the country (and under his own watch). He vowed to “do right by all who served under our proud flag.” He promised America’s veterans new “reform,” “resources,” “timely care,” and an end to the disgraceful disability backlog.

The bill he signed, in case you’d forgotten, included $10 billion in emergency funding to pay for veterans to go outside the chronically dysfunctional VA system if they are facing long wait times or live 40 miles or more from a VA facility, plus another $6.3 billion to set up 27 new clinics and hire doctors, nurses, and other medical staff. So, how’s it all working out? About as well as every other “success story” Obama has signed his name to: abysmally, ineffectually, and incompetently. Take Obama’s hyped plan to expand health-care access to those who live far from a VA facility.

Its bogus UVA rape story ignored the most basic rules of journalism. Rolling Stone screwed up. In most media scandals, it’s unfair to paint with such a broad brush. When Stephen Glass concocted his fables at The New Republic, he went to antiheroic lengths to conceal his deceptions from his colleagues. Janet Cooke, who famously won a Pulitzer for her Washington Post series about an eight-year-old heroin addict, “Jimmy’s World,” lied to her editors.

That’s not the case with Rolling Stone’s publication of “A Rape on Campus,” the story of the brutal gang rape of a student named “Jackie” at the University of Virginia that turned out to be false. Its failure was a group effort, from editor-in-chief Jann Wenner on down.
The best thing you can say about this fiasco is that there was little deliberate lying involved. According to an exhaustive report by the Columbia Journalism School, the article’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and her editors didn’t purposefully publish falsehoods. Of course, this is faint praise.

It’s simple: Warm relations with adversaries, and cool them with friends. James Jeffrey, Barack Obama’s former ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Iraq, has this to say about the administration’s current record in the Middle East: “We’re in a goddamn free fall.” Count the mistakes: Helping overthrow Moammar Qaddafi in Libya, leading to anarchy and civil war. Pressuring Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to resign, then backing the Muslim Brotherhood, leading now-president Sisi to turn toward Moscow. Alienating Washington’s most stalwart ally in the region, the government of Israel.

Dismissing ISIS as “junior varsity” just before it seized major cities. Hailing Yemen as a counterterrorism success just before its government was overthrown. Alarming the Saudi authorities to the point that they put together a military alliance against Iran. Coddling Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, encouraging his dictatorial tendencies. Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan prematurely, dooming the vast American investment in those two countries.

A few thousand interceptors at home and abroad would significantly strengthen deterrence, not undermine it.

In short, the U.S. was being condemned for defending itself.

This statement by Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, came on top of serial Russian threats, over the past six years, repeatedly threatening the use of nuclear weapons against U.S. allies and NATO, as well as a new threat on April 2, if the U.S. armed Ukraine or protected the Baltic states.

The Russian ambassador to Denmark recently threatened to aim Russian nuclear warheads at Danish warships if they deployed missile defense radars.

Such dangers will only be magnified if the number of nuclear powers multiplies, such as if Iran and many Sunni states develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has already said that Iran plans to sell “enriched uranium” on the international market, and “will hopefully be making some money from it.”

We’re getting a lesson in the politically correct way to conduct journalism in contemporary media, with a retraction and the admission by Rolling Stone magazine that it made up the story about gang rape at the University of Virginia. But nobody is paying a price. Not yet.

Rolling Stone — which is to journalism what rock, even with the roll, is to music — says it has its regrets, too bad, sorry and all that, but nobody will be punished.

The magazine published the sensational story last fall, high crimes beyond misdemeanors in the upper class, as if it had beaten the supermarket tabloids to a story (and no offense intended to those supermarket tabloids): A young woman had been gang-raped at a drunken party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Tom Jefferson’s old school.

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001525.html

CONTENTS

1. ISIS beheads a Hamas leader in Syria
2. Washington Post: With this deal “the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state”
3. Delusions about Iran’s moderate Islamic regime
4. In the words of Bill Clinton
5. Clinton’s North Korea, Obama’s Iran?
6. Israel proposes terms for a “more reasonable” Iran deal
7. “No online cameras allowed at nuclear sites: Zarif”
8. Air strikes and the media
9. John Oliver visits Moscow
10. Israeli model Gal Gadot to become new face of Gucci
11. “Iran is America’s new Iraq: With his nuclear deal, Obama is making as big a mistake in the Mideast as George W. Bush did” (By Ari Shavit, Politico, April 2, 2015)
12. “Why is Obama’s stance on Israel questioned by so many?” (By Jonathan Tobin, Commentary, April 6, 2015)

* Haaretz’s lead columnist slams Obama’s “march of folly” deal that will almost certainly see Iran going nuclear unless changed:

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for appropriately opposing a Palestinian state because Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) has not only merged with the terrorist group Hamas, but also hasn’t met any of the conditions Mr. Netanyahu required in his 2009 conditional acceptance of Palestinian statehood, such as acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, demilitarization, secure borders and a united Jerusalem.

In contrast, Mr. Obama has never condemned –– indeed, has even covered for –– Mr. Abbas for repeatedly opposing Israel’s very existence, even at the expense of establishing a Palestinian state. Consider:

PA maps, official stationery, atlases and two recent PA-commissioned Fatah emblems depict all Israel as ‘Palestine.’ Mr. Obama has never taken Mr. Abbas to task for the PA’s erasing Israeli statehood in this manner.

http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/reality-based-leadership/
The Canadian government does not share US President Obama’s enthusiasm over the interim deal reached with Iran Thursday (see below). Neither do we.Their Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson responded to the deal by warning that the Islamic regime may still be able to obtain a nuclear weapon even with the agreement. And of that, we have no doubt.Signing a deal with pathological liars – see “We Lied” – who also happen to be the #1 world sponsor of terrorism, is not only an exercise in futility, but downright idiotic. Someone once said: “History never looks like history when you are living through it.”Well, we in America are living through it, and history will not judge us kindly….National Security Roundtable

‘Skeptical’ Canada Won’t Lift its Iran Sanctions By Dalit Halevy, Ari Yashar

Canadian officials say they will only ease sanctions if Iran demilitarizes its nuclear program, noting Iran’s record isn’t trustworthy.The Canadian government has not shared US President Barack Obama’s enthusiasm over the deal reached with Iran over its nuclear program last Thursday, by which the Islamic regime continues enriching uranium at reduced levels in exchange for the removal of sanctions.