THE U.S. - ISRAEL CRISIS: In my column this week, I argue:
No Palestinian leader can make peace with Israel any time soon. The reasons, though fairly obvious, elude the peace processors.
Members of Hamas object to Israel’s existence on theological grounds. According to their reading of the Koran, what we call Israel is as an “endowment from Allah to the Muslims.” As such, it cannot be given away -- not a square inch -- to Jews or other infidels, no matter what concessions are offered in return. More secular Palestinians may not view it in these terms. But they know that signing a peace treaty with Israel, as Egyptian president Anwar Sadat did, would invite the fate Sadat received: He was gunned down by members of an Egyptian jihadist group. (Final historical footnote: That group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, merged with al-Qaeda in 1998. Its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is now Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and alive and well and almost certainly living in Pakistan.)
Now would be a particularly bad time for Palestinian leaders to seriously consider settling the conflict with Israel because Iran -- ruled by a regime committed to wiping Israel off the map and achieving a “world without America” -- could soon acquire nuclear weapons. If that happens, Iran will become the region’s strong horse, and no Palestinian leader is likely to be so foolish as to put his head in front of that bucking bronco’s hoof.
More here.
In his interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, President Obama attempted to leave the impression that his administration is at least even-handed. He told Baier that “when there were riots by the Palestinians against a synagogue that had been reopened, we condemned them in the same way.”
However, as Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin points out here, that’s simply not true:
On March 16 (the day to which the president refers), the State Department spokesman had this to say: “As we said yesterday, we are concerned about statements that could potentially risk incitement because we recognize that there’s a great deal of tension in the region right now.”…
So where has the U.S. “condemned” the Palestinian violence? Not in any public briefing or statement so far.
Even if we did hold the Palestinians to the same standard as we do Israel, is a housing announcement concerning the Israeli capital really equivalent to a call to violence? That’s the question being ignored.
The Obama administration did not even “condemn” last week’s naming of a square in the West Bank for a terrorist who slaughtered Israeli women and children, as well as an American as I point out in my column (linked above).
I made a similar point this month in a guest column for Moment magazine:
Militant jihadis are waging a war against the “infidel” West. They see Israel as a frontline state. There is no way they will permit a separate peace for Israel.
I realize this stands on its head the long-standing and widespread belief that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian question would help us prevail over Islamist extremists elsewhere in the world. But that’s like saying repealing the law of gravity would make it easier for us to fly. Yes, it would; but we can’t, so why delude ourselves? … Until the Islamist movement is seen as failing and in retreat there can be no durable resolution of the conflict between Israel its neighbors—no matter how much Israelis want it, no matter how hard they work for it, no matter how much they are willing to sacrifice and no matter how strenuously Americans push.
More here.
Jay Nordlinger writes:
How can you make peace with people who celebrate those who kill you? How? I am very patient with the Israelis: They are in a difficult position, to put it as mildly as possible.
More here.
Elliott Abrams, who served in the George W. Bush White House, notes:
The United States and Israel have long had different views of the settlements, but the issue has been managed without a crisis for decades. In the Bush administration, a deal was struck whereby the United States would not protest construction inside existing settlements so long as they did not expand outward. The current crisis, ostensibly about construction in Jerusalem, was manufactured by the Obama administration–and as it is about Jerusalem, isn’t even about activity in the settlements. …
To escalate that announcement into a crisis in bilateral relations and “condemn” it–using a verb we apply to acts of murder and terror, not acts of housing construction–was a decision by the U.S. government, not a natural or inevitable occurrence.
More here.
Cal Thomas writes:
What part of annihilation does the State Department not understand? What State is blind to is that the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” as it is erroneously labeled, is part of a worldwide religious war against all things Jewish, Christian, secular, modern and Western.
Making demands of only one side before serious negotiations begin, especially on matters of Jerusalem, so-called “refugees” and borders, effectively pressures Israel into making concessions on all three, which would severely damage its prospects for continued existence.
How about first making these demands of the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side: (1) A pledge of no more war with Israel, or terrorism; 2) a declaration by a powerful Islamic cleric that their God no longer requires them to kill people who don’t believe as they do; and 3) no more teaching in Palestinian textbooks and in their media that Jews created AIDS and descend from monkeys and pigs?
After those three demands are met, the State Department can start making demands of Israel. Not before. Anything less puts America on the wrong side, along with Israel’s (and America’s) enemies. Or hasn’t State noticed that we share the same enemies?
More here.
The Jerusalem Post’s David Horovitz observes that
the public bitterness of the American response shoves Abbas all the way back up his maximalist tree again. If America has turned on Israel, and is making demands on Israel that impact on core issues like Jerusalem, why would he volunteer compromise? …
[I]t emboldens Palestinian and wider Arab extremism. If America publicly brands Israel worthy of such bitter condemnation, then the worst of the extremists can confidently expect their violence against Israel to be granted still more indulgence internationally than it already, terribly enjoys. Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran could well figure that Israel may not even get backing from the United States when it moves to try and control the next bloody onslaught, the seeds of which were already sprouting this week in Gaza, the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Old City.
Furthermore, when professions of absolute, “no space,” shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity – as expressed by Biden in his Tel Aviv speech – are rapidly followed by a public avalanche of criticism and allegations of disloyalty to the US interest, as expressed by the White House and State Department, how much weight can Israel henceforth afford to attach to such warm rhetorical assurances? If, on Tuesday, America stands side-by-side with Israel, Ramat Shlomo fiasco notwithstanding, how is it that by the weekend, when nothing substantive has changed, Israel can find itself buried under a global welter of headline accusations of near-betrayal, including talk of American soldiers’ lives at risk? And how comforted is Israel expected to be by the backtracking of a few days later, and the revived insistence that the bilateral bonds are unbreakable and unshakeable? …
[N]obody should have any delusions: Murderous Islamist hostility to the West in general and the US in particular would not be defused by the elimination of Israel. The purported imperative to destroy the Zionist enterprise is a convenient pretext for galvanizing the masses. If Israel were brought down, however, the fundamentalists would simply move onto the next spurious example of ostensible Western decadence to justify the assault.
More here.
Yossi Klein Halevi offers a compelling analysis:
By demanding that Israel stop building in Ramat Shlomo and elsewhere in East Jerusalem -- and placing that demand at the center of American-Israeli relations -- [Obama has] ensured that the Palestinians won't show up even to proximity talks. This is no longer amateurishness; it is pique disguised as policy. …
In turning an incident into a crisis, Obama has convinced many Israelis that he was merely seeking a pretext to pick a fight with Israel. Netanyahu was inadvertently shabby; Obama, deliberately so. …
Obama's one-sided public pressure against Israel could intensify the atmosphere of "open season" against Israel internationally. Indeed, the European Union has reaffirmed it is linking improved economic relations with Israel to the resumption of the peace process -- as if it's Israel rather than the Palestinians that has refused to come to the table. …
Israel's insistence on survival remains the obstacle to peace. …
To the fictitious notion of a peace process, Obama has now added the fiction of an intransigent Israel blocking the peace process. …
More here.
Charles Krauthammer writes:
Under Obama, Netanyahu agreed to commit his center-right coalition to acceptance of a Palestinian state; took down dozens of anti-terror roadblocks and checkpoints to ease life for the Palestinians; assisted West Bank economic development to the point where its GDP is growing at an astounding 7 percent a year; and agreed to the West Bank construction moratorium, a concession that Secretary Clinton herself called “unprecedented.”
What reciprocal gesture, let alone concession, has Abbas made during the Obama presidency? Not one.
Indeed, long before the Biden incident, Abbas refused even to resume direct negotiations with Israel. That’s why the Obama administration has to resort to “proximity talks” -- a procedure that sets us back 35 years to before Anwar Sadat’s groundbreaking visit to Jerusalem.
And Clinton demands that Israel show its seriousness about peace?
Now that’s an insult.
So why this astonishing one-sidedness? Because Obama likes appeasing enemies while beating up on allies -- therefore Israel shouldn’t take it personally (according to Robert Kagan)? Because Obama wants to bring down the current Israeli coalition government (according to Jeffrey Goldberg)?
Or is it because Obama fancies himself the historic redeemer whose irresistible charisma will heal the breach between Christianity and Islam or, if you will, between the post-imperial West and the Muslim world -- and has little patience for this pesky Jewish state that insists brazenly on its right to exist, and even more brazenly on permitting Jews to live in its own ancient, historic, and now present capital?
Who knows? Perhaps we should ask those Obama acolytes who assured the 63 percent of Americans who support Israel -- at least 97 percent of those supporters, mind you, are non-Jews -- of candidate Obama’s abiding commitment to Israel.
More here.
John Bolton writes that Barack Obama
is our first post-American president. He looks beyond American exceptionalism and believes that our role on the world stage should be merely one nation among many. Mr. Netanyahu's strategy is therefore out-of-date and flawed.
Israel has sought to accommodate Mr. Obama on two critical issues: negotiations with Palestinians and Iranian nuclear weapons. These efforts have largely kept bilateral disagreements out of sight. But now the suppressed conflicts are fully visible and will either be resolved or cause a serious collision between Israel and the U.S. …
Last week's announcement of the construction of new settlements in East Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel was an unnecessary step. But optics are not the real problem. Mr. Biden's response ("I condemn the decision"), approved in advance by Mr. Obama, and then emphasized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a blistering Friday phone call to Mr. Netanyahu, foreshadows what lies ahead. It won't be pretty. …
Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.
Mr. Netanyahu must realize he has not been banking good behavior credits with Mr. Obama but simply postponing an inevitable confrontation. The prime minister should recalibrate his approach, and soon. Israel's deference on Palestinian issues will not help it with Mr. Obama after a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program. It would be a mistake to think that further delays in such a strike will materially change the toxic political response Israel can expect from the White House. Israel's support will come from Congress and the American people, as opinion polls show, not from the president.
More here.
Robert Kagan provides some context:
The president who ran against "unilateralism" in the 2008 campaign has worse relations overall with American allies than George W. Bush did in his second term. …
The president has shown seemingly limitless patience with the Russians as they stall an arms-control deal that could have been done in December. He accepted a year of Iranian insults and refusal to negotiate before hesitantly moving toward sanctions. The administration continues to woo Syria and Burma without much sign of reciprocation in Damascus or Rangoon. Yet Obama angrily orders a near-rupture of relations with Israel for a minor infraction like the recent settlement dispute -- and after the Israeli prime minister publicly apologized.
This may be the one great innovation of Obama foreign policy. While displaying more continuity than discontinuity in his policies toward Afghanistan, Iraq and the war against terrorism, and garnering as a result considerable bipartisan support for those policies.
Obama appears to be departing from a 60-year-old American grand strategy when it comes to allies. The old strategy rested on a global network of formal military and political alliances, mostly though not exclusively with fellow democracies. The idea, Averell Harriman explained in 1947, was to create "a balance of power preponderantly in favor of the free countries." Under Bill Clinton, and the two Bushes, relations with Europe and Japan, and later India, were deepened and strengthened.
This administration pays lip-service to "multilateralism," but it is a multilateralism of accommodating autocratic rivals, not of solidifying relations with longtime democratic allies. Rather than strengthening the democratic foundation of the new "international architecture" -- the G-20 world -- the administration's posture is increasingly one of neutrality, at best, between allies and adversaries, and between democrats and autocrats. Israel is not the only unhappy ally, therefore; it's just the most vulnerable.
More here.
Jeff Jacoby notes that since at least 1995, it has been
US policy that "Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected." As a candidate for president in 2008, Barack Obama said that was his position too. Millions of pro-Israel American voters believed him, just as they believed his pledge of "unwavering friendship with Israel." The recent unpleasantness suggests it may be time for second thoughts.
More here.
The Denver Post’s David Harsanyi says that
it would be nice if someone reiterated to our new Muslim friends that the United States has yet to deploy a single soldier to risk life or limb for the security of Israel. It has, however, only recently sent thousands of Americans to perish, in part, for the cause of Muslim freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
That sacrifice alone should be enough to absolve us from any more bowing -- or kowtowing.
More here.
Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens points out that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
isn't territorial. It's existential. Israelis are now broadly prepared to live with a Palestinian state along their borders. Palestinians are not yet willing to live with a Jewish state along theirs.
That should help explain why it is that in the past decade, two Israeli prime ministers -- Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008 -- have put forward comprehensive peace offers to the Palestinians, and have twice been rebuffed. In both cases, the offers included the division of Jerusalem; in the latter case, it also included international jurisdiction over Jerusalem's holy places and concessions on the subject of Palestinian refugees. …
[T]he sad fact is that the most important thing Israel's withdrawal from Gaza accomplished was to expose the fanatical irredentism that still lies at the heart of the Palestinian movement.
The withdrawal exposed other things too. For years, Israel's soi-disant friends, particularly in Europe, had piously insisted that they supported Israel's right to self-defense against attacks on Israel proper. But none of them lifted a finger to object to the rocket attacks from Gaza, while they were outspoken in denouncing Israel's "disproportionate" use of retaliatory force.
Similarly, Israel withdrew from Gaza with assurances from the Bush administration that the U.S. would not insist on a return to the 1967 borders in brokering any future deal with the Palestinians. But Hillary Clinton reneged on that commitment last year, and now the administration is going out of its way to provoke a diplomatic crisis with Israel over a construction project that -- assuming it ever gets off the ground -- is plainly in keeping with past U.S. undertakings.
More here.
Richard Z. Chesnoff writes:
[T]he entire argument that Israeli settlements are the primary block to peace between Arabs and Jews is a huge fraud. The Arab world bitterly opposed peace with the Jewish state long before there were ever any Jewish settlements in either the West Bank or Gaza. What the Arab world opposes is the existence of a legitimate Jewish state. …
I lived for 13 years in a divided Jerusalem, a city where Jews -- Israeli, American or any kind -- were forbidden by Arabs from entering the Arab controlled section of the city or visiting Jewish holy places. I would never want to see Jerusalem divided in that way again. I also believe that Israel has a logical right to build 1600 new apartments (they are apartment units, NOT settlements) for its people in a section of the city that is so close to "official" Israeli Jerusalem that it is bound to eventually be part of any deal between Palestinians and Israelis should it ever come.
More here.
Historian Walter Russell Mead writes:
Israel’s political support in the United States is ultimately based much less in the highly visible network of organizations like AIPAC than it is in the strong support for Israel well beyond the Beltway. I’ve been writing a series of posts over the last week about this; it is the gentile supporters of Israel, not American Jews, who ultimately define the boundaries of American foreign policy on this issue, and the Obama administration’s ability to put pressure on its most important Middle Eastern ally ultimately depends on the reaction of American gentile supporters of Israel to administration policy. The administration may be in danger of overestimating its support in a drawn out debate.
The politics of American support for Israel can be hard to read. For the last generation, Israel has been losing popularity and support among some groups of Americans. The shift in sentiment is particularly notable among Democrats, among some of the more liberal mainline churches, among African-Americans and among people with graduate and professional degrees.
Despite these losses, overall public support for Israel in the United States has been rising, not falling, for most of the last generation. 9/11, which galvanized many American liberals to think harder than ever about the desirability of distancing the United States from Israel, immeasurably deepened the determination of a large number of their fellow citizens to stand by Israel no matter what. Just as Israel was seen as America’s most reliable and important Middle Eastern ally during the Cold War by these people, it now looked like a country whose survival depended on the defeat of America’s enemies in the war on terror. That today Israel is engaged in a confrontation with Iran, a country which poll after poll shows that Americans think of as their most dangerous adversary, only deepens this bond. …
Many of the arguments and perceptions that have weakened support for Israel on the left cut no ice with the populist right. The argument that just war theory forbids the ‘disproportionate’ use of force has absolutely no weight in much of American opinion. When somebody attacks you, especially in an underhanded terrorist way, you have a natural right to defend yourself using every weapon and every tactic that comes to hand. This is the way most Americans think about war; American public opinion on the whole does not regret the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Two-thirds of American respondents tell Pew pollsters that they favor the use of “torture” under some circumstances. Such people are not necessarily indifferent to Palestinian rights, and they may not feel that every Israeli action is well judged, but they strongly believe that as long as Palestinians engage in terrorism, Israel has an unlimited and absolute right of self defense. It can and should do anything and everything it can to stop the attacks and many Americans consider international laws against such practices as pious hopes with no binding legal or even moral force. If the terrorists shield themselves behind civilians, that only shows how evil they are -- and is an extra reason why you have both the right and the duty to eliminate them no matter what it takes. …
For many Jacksonians, Israel is a litmus test. If you are pro-Israel, you are pro-American exceptionalism, pro-western values and pro-defense. The more clearly you support Israel, the more you look like a reliable American patriot who will do what it takes to defend the country from religious violence and the more you seem to share the values of tens of millions of gentile Americans.
This may be the ultimate reason why so many American politicians instinctively shy away from taking any positions that can even remotely be seen as anti-Israel. Being pro-Israel is a sign of being pro-American to a very large sector of American public opinion.
More here.
The Wall Street Journal observes:
The U.S. needs Israel's acquiescence in the Obama Administration's increasingly drawn-out efforts to halt Iran's nuclear bid through diplomacy or sanctions. But Israel's restraint is measured in direct proportion to its sense that U.S. security guarantees are good. If Israel senses that the Administration is looking for any pretext to blow up relations, it will care much less how the U.S. might react to a military strike on Iran. …
Israeli anxieties about America's role as an honest broker in any diplomacy won't be assuaged by the Administration's neuralgia over this particular housing project, which falls within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and can only be described as a "settlement" in the maximalist terms defined by the Palestinians. Any realistic peace deal will have to include a readjustment of the 1967 borders and an exchange of territory, a point formally recognized by the Bush Administration prior to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. If the Obama Administration opts to transform itself, as the Europeans have, into another set of lawyers for the Palestinians, it will find Israeli concessions increasingly hard to come by.
That may be the preferred outcome for Israel's enemies, both in the Arab world and the West, since it allows them to paint Israel as the intransigent party standing in the way of "peace." Why an Administration that repeatedly avers its friendship with Israel would want that is another question.
Then again, this episode does fit Mr. Obama's foreign policy pattern to date: Our enemies get courted; our friends get the squeeze. It has happened to Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and Colombia. Now it's Israel's turn.
More here.
Cogent point by military historian Arthur Herman:
The saddest thing about Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Israel last week was that the flap over the sudden announcement of new settlement activity in Jerusalem derailed what should've been a brilliant opportunity to summon the region's powers for the final showdown with the Mideast's most truly dangerous threat -- Iran. …
It is vital that a military option to stop Iran's nuclear program, including but not limited to airstrikes, remain on the table as an option in extremis. But what's needed first is a forceful rallying of regional powers behind the Iranian opposition -- both in public forums and behind the scenes -- and a multilateral isolation of Iran from its neighbors.
A shutoff of gasoline from Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates (Iran lacks the capacity to refine enough on its own), together with US naval antimissile deployments in the Persian Gulf and even a joint Israeli-Egyptian-Palestinian statement decrying "radical influences" in the region, would do more to undermine the regime than an anemic UN resolution backed by a prevaricating China and a duplicitous Russia.
This was the opportunity lost last week -- but not irrevocably.
More here.
Noah Pollack writes:
It appears to be official policy in the current administration to approach the peace process as an opportunity to reorient the U.S.' position between Jews and Arabs in the region.
Palestinian incitement, the PA's public celebration of terrorism, the rioting in Jerusalem, the ongoing Palestinian refusal to participate in negotiations -- none of these have warranted any American comment whatsoever.
In fact, I cannot recall a single time when an Obama administration official has criticized the PA for anything. Yet the administration publicly upbraids Israel on an almost weekly basis.
More here.
Moshe Arens argues that the Obama administration’s approach
is actually making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Whereas in the past he negotiated with Israel while settlement activity continued, Obama's Cairo speech left Abbas no choice but to demand the cessation of settlement activity as a condition for entering.
More here.
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren writes:
Israel and America enjoy a deep and multi-layered friendship, but even the closest allies can sometimes disagree.
More here.
Richard Cohen here.
IRAN: The Telegraph (UK) reports:
A Taliban commander admitted that the insurgents had grown more dependent on Iran as Pakistan stepped up operations against the group on its territory.
"Day by day the Iranian border becomes more important for us," he said. "Especially now in Pakistan there are many problems for the Taliban and many of the Taliban have been imprisoned and also they arrest any Taliban who comes out of the [religious schools].
More here.
Time magazine reports:
The outlook might look bleak for winning U.N. Security Council backing for ratcheting up sanctions to punish Iran's nuclear noncooperation, but Western powers have lately made more headway on unilateral measures. The U.S. Congress looks set to pass new measures that would punish third-country suppliers of gasoline to Iran -- whose decrepit refining capacity forces it to import nearly 40% of its fuel consumption despite its massive oil reserves. European leaders last weekend discussed introducing unilateral continent-wide measures, and a growing number of companies involved in trade with Iran have begun to cut ties as a result of the growing pressure for sanctions. …
Lloyds and Munich Re, two major insurance companies, have announced that they will no longer insure cargo in and out of Iran, which produces 4 million bbl. of oil a day. Global oil brokers Vitol and Trafigura have said they will no longer make deliveries of refined gasoline to Iran, while Shell, Total and BP have said they will no longer supply gasoline to the Islamic Republic. Those suppliers could be replaced by Chinese, Malaysian and other Asian companies, but that could force Iran to spend more on gasoline imports.
More here.
Foreign Policy reports that
pressure is mounting for Congress to move forward with its conference to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions of the Iran sanctions legislation, after the French Foreign Minister said that a U.N. Security Council resolution might not surface until June.
The original idea was to finalize the U.S. sanctions legislation only after the U.N. has its say, but the continued delays in New York have put that plan into question. While lawmakers want to give the administration space to line up the necessary support at the Security Council, their patience is wearing thin.
Last Friday, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Jon Kyl, R-AZ, penned a letter to President Obama asking him to abandon attempts to try to get exemptions for countries and support the Iran sanctions legislation as is. The senators said they don't want to wait until the UN acts, due to continued Chinese intransigence.
"We believe that attempts at diplomacy will continue to be rebuffed by the government of Iran and that our window for implementing meaningful, ‘crippling' sanctions against Iran is getting narrower by the day," they wrote.
More here.
FDD’s Jonathan Schanzer argues:
We’ve been waiting a full year for President Obama’s diplomatic overtures to persuade the Iranians to scrap their plans for a nuclear weapon.
Now that a year has passed, and Obama’s “outstretched hand” has not been grasped, it’s time for tougher measures. …
It’s time for the president to shepherd the energy sanctions that Congress has drawn up, and to muster the resolve to stop Iran’s nuclear quest.
More here.
IRAN AND AQ, TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME: Bill Gertz reports:
Iran is assisting al Qaeda by facilitating links between senior terrorist leaders and affiliate groups, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East told Congress on Tuesday.
But here’s a bit of good news:
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, also said Iran's nuclear program is facing problems, and as a result, Tehran is not expected to emerge with a nuclear weapon this year.
The exact details of when U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran will have a nuclear bomb are classified, but the timeline for developing a nuclear device has "thankfully slid to the right a bit," he said.
On Tehran's ties to al Qaeda, Gen. Petraeus said the group "continues to use Iran as a key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al Qaedas senior leadership to regional affiliates."
"And although Iranian authorities do periodically disrupt this network by detaining select al Qaeda facilitators and operational planners, Tehrans policy in this regard is often unpredictable," he stated in written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. …
Gen. Petraeus said Iran is also working to undermine U.S. and international efforts to stabilize Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of the region. …
In Iraq, Iranian Islamist "Qods Force" personnel are working both politically to influence Iraqi politics and to provide explosives and other military support to Shi'ite militias.
"The Qods Force also maintains its lethal support to Shia Iraqi militia groups, providing them with weapons, funding and training," Gen. Petraeus said.
More here.
VOA Reports:
Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who has written extensively on Iran's nuclear program, explains that the logic of the West's original deal -- to remove a large portion of its uranium stockpile from the country was just a stopgap measure and is slowly becoming meaningless.
"It is perplexing why Iran would turn [the original] deal down, because the truth is that, if indeed Iran wants to use the stockpile to produce weapons grade fuel, at the rate of current production, losing 1200 kilos to the West for the kind of further enrichment [proposed] would put Iran with a stockpile of 800 kilograms, which means that within 2 months Iran would have enough to build a bomb and in under a year it would have replenished its stockpile by continuing to enrich at [its main enrichment facility at] Natanz," said Ottolenghi.
More here.
AFGHANISTAN: Fred and Kim Kagan argue that the international community should be
working to marginalize Taliban senior leaders and persuade Pakistan to abandon its support of these proxies.
More here.
LAWFARE: FDD’S Tom Joscelyn and Debra Burlingame in the Wall Street Journal on Gitmo’s lawyers here.
Tom notes in The Weekly Standard that that lawyers for the John Adams Project
reportedly provided photographs of CIA interrogators to defense attorneys, who then showed them to al Qaeda terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay.
Why would lawyers do that? Gertz says it was done “in an attempt to have the terrorism suspects identify the interrogators in order to call them as witnesses in future trials.” The John Adams Project’s lawyers wanted to use court proceedings intended to try mass-murdering terrorists for another purpose: to put the Bush administration and the CIA on trial.
Although CIA officials say the pictures compromised the agency’s ongoing operations and could potentially lead to reprisals against the interrogators, Attorney General Eric Holder’s department apparently does not think the photos are all that important. …
“Given the events of the past year there is concern in the agency over whether or not someone has their back,” a former senior intelligence official explained to us. “A failure to aggressively follow up these allegations will only worsen that concern.” …
While Holder has been willing to denigrate CIA interrogators, he is apparently not eager to investigate the people who stalked and photographed CIA interrogators and then exposed them and their families to admitted al Qaeda killers. Instead, Holder has hired lawyers like Daskal, who opposed the CIA’s role in countering the terrorist threat and worked to expose the agency’s detention and interrogation operations.
More here.
IRAQ: FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht here.
-Cliff May
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
"Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea … Eight years after 9/11 and the declaration of war against terrorism, jihad is still reaching the shores of Europe and America. Not from the outside, but from within. Jihad is not being imported but is being homegrown"
(03/19/2010) US-born, Yemeni-based fugitive cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi, in an unauthenticated message posted on militant forums (released by the US-based SITE monitoring agency).
"Jihad is right here before you: jihad against the secularists and liberals, who are Muslims in name only."
(02/08/2010) Qatari Sheikh Nasser bin Suleiman Al-'Omar, Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida.
"Jihad is present in the Holy Koran and no one can deny this; and the Koran is taught in the religious madrassas, so the education of jihad must also be given [in these seminaries]. … What is wrong in it? Being a jihadist is an honor for a Muslim, and being deprived of jihad is a mischief and nuisance."
(02/03/2010) Saadi, Urdu-language Pakistani magazine Haftroza Al-Qalam.
IN THE MEDIA
Our New Year's Resolution for Iran -- Slap Them With Sanctions
03/20/2010, Jonathan Schanzer, FoxNews.com
Saturday is the Iranian holiday of Norwuz, marking both the first day of spring and the first day of the Iranian calendar. This year, the holiday is also a milestone for Americans. We've been waiting a full year for President Obama's diplomatic overtures to persuade the Iranians to scrap their plans for a nuclear weapon.
Peace Later
03/18/2010, Clifford D. May, Scripps Howard News Service
Apparently, some things cannot be tolerated. For example, while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel last week, Jerusalem's Regional Planning Council announced its approval of plans to construct apartments for 1,600 Israeli families in Israel's capital, Jerusalem. "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem," Biden said in a statement. "Condemn" is a word seldom used in diplomatic parlance - least of all in reference to an ally.
A Modest Proposal For Israel
03/18/2010, Claudia Rosett, Forbes.com
In the midst of the current crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations, we set ourselves the brainteaser of trying to figure out what Israel could actually do that would both allow it to survive as a nation--and at the same time get along with the Obama administration.
Missed Opportunities To Pressure Iran
03/18/2010, Laura Grossman, inFocus
However, Obama's reluctance to take definitive action during his first year has allowed Tehran to continue its nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, Iran continues to sponsor terrorism around the world, and its people continue to suffer at the hands of an oppressive regime.
The Worst Crisis in 35 Years?
03/17/2010, Jonathan Schanzer, NRO Symposium
The current diplomatic crisis between Israel and the United States is a manufactured one. President Obama chose to exploit Israel's ill-timed announcement to build new homes in east Jerusalem as an opportunity to extract concessions from Israel and to demonstrate to the Arab world that the White House can rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Real Terror War Is On The Internet
03/16/2010, Mark Dubowitz, FoxNews.com
Terrorists and rogue states are moving their battle to the Internet in a virtual war against liberal democracy. For too long, the United States and its allies have ignored the incitement and violent propaganda from Internet platforms operated by violent Islamist extremists.
Obama Fans Flames In Israel
03/16/2010, Jonathan Schanzer, FoxNews.com
After a diplomatic crisis last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working to bring calm to the region, while U.S. President Barack Obama inexplicably appears to be trying to escalate tensions. Obama, a novice in Middle East diplomacy, may soon learn that fabricating controversy is not a good idea. Not in the Middle East.
Hope And Change In Iraq
03/16/2010, Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Weekly Standard
In Iraq we are now where we should have been in 2005 if the Sunni Arab community had not staged a bloody revanchist insurrection. The parliamentary elections on March 7 gave us a good snapshot of the real Iraq: an insecure Sunni Arab minority more or less united in one bloc, the Shiite Arab majority building self-confidence and naturally fracturing along religious/secular lines, and the Kurdish (predominantly Sunni) minority united against the Arabs but internally fractious and increasingly dissatisfied with the two families who've ruled Kurdish politics for decades.
Iran Took A Hit In Iraq, But Will Obama Profit?
03/16/2010, Tony Badran, NOW Lebanon
The emerging picture from last week's parliamentary elections in Iraq points to the return of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to office. Preliminary results also suggest that Iran's allies have suffered a setback.
Memo to Baroness Ashton: Embrace Israel
03/16/2010, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, Wall Street Journal (Europe)
On the eve of her departure for the Middle East, Baroness Catherine Ashton, Europe's new foreign policy czar, reaffirmed the European Union's long-standing refusal to upgrade its relations with Israel unless Israel first makes sweeping concessions.
The Dylan Ratigan Show
03/19/2010, Clifford D. May, MSNBC
Recent tensions between Israel and the United States.
National Security Review
03/19/2010, Clifford D. May, Jonathan Schanzer, PJTV
Recent tensions between Israel and the United States.
The Ed Show
03/17/2010, Clifford D. May, MSNBC
Attorney General Holder's comments on Osama Bin Laden.
America's Nightly Scoreboard
03/17/2010, David B. Rivkin Jr., Fox Business News
Attorney General Holder's comments on Osama Bin Laden.
Fox 5 News at 10
03/17/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Fox 5 (DC)
Pakistani Court Charges 5 Americans with Terrorism.
Fox 5 News Edge
03/17/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Fox 5 (DC)
Pakistani Court Charges 5 Americans with Terrorism.
Power and Politics
03/16/2010, Mark Dubowitz, CBC News
Recent tensions between the United States and Israel.
News Watch
03/16/2010, Jonathan Schanzer, CBN News
Recent tensions between the United States and Israel.
Fox and Friends Sunday
03/14/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Fox News Channel
Jihad Jane and trends in homegrown terrorism.
What is Behind the News
03/19/2010, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Al Jazeera
Secretary of State Clinton, Russia and Iran.
News Update
03/18/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Radio Free Iraq
Elections in Iraq.
News Update
03/18/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Radio Free Iraq
American knowledge of Iraqi politics.
News Update
03/18/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Radio Free Iraq
America's commitment to Iraq.
Radio Anch'io
03/17/2010, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, Radio RAI 1
Middle East peace process.
Nothing But Truth
03/17/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, Syndicated
Pakistani Court Charges 5 Americans with Terrorism.
Dateline: Washington
03/16/2010, Clifford D. May, Syndicated
United States alliance with Israel.
The Rick Amato Show
03/16/2010, Dr. Walid Phares, KCBQ - San Diego (CA)
Homegrown Terrorism and Jihad Jane.
NEWS AND EVENTS
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/260871
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