A Great Foreign Policy And Defense Forum With Dick Cheney And Leon Panetta

This is a major treat for anyone interested in U.S. foreign policy and national defense. A great Forum at the Reagan National Defense Forum featuring former Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Dick Cheney, along with veteran Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

This is a great discussion of the new era of foreign policy under President-elect Donald Trump, the challenges and national security threats we face and possible solutions by three people with vast experience and who very much know what they're talking about.



The fact that all three know and respect each other makes this a refreshing change from the usual shouting contest, and some humorous banter between the trio leavens an extremely worthwhile and informative discussion.

Well worth an hour's time, taped live as it happened at the Reagan Library.

Congress Votes Unanimously To Deny Iran UN Envoy a Visa - Will Obama Sign The Bill?

You have to wonder how far the Obama team is willing to go to appease Iran.

In their latest provocation, 'moderate' Iranian president Hasan Rouhani appointed Hamid Aboutalebi to serve as Iran's UN envoy, which means he would enjoy diplomatic immunity in America.

Aboutalebi, pictured above then and now ( he's on your left in the older photo) participated in taking our diplomats in Tehran hostage and holding them for ransom back in 1979.

Amazingly, the Obama Administration didn't raise a murmur at this blatant extension of the middle digit by Iran. That was left to the U.S. Congress.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that would ban terrorists from entering the US to serve as UN ambassadors, and the House quickly followed suit, in a bill sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO).

“Congress has voted unanimously in support of a bill to reject Iran’s deliberately insulting nomination of a known terrorist – one of the 1979 hostage-takers – to be their ambassador to the United Nations,” Cruz wrote in a statement shortly after the House decision. “I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for supporting it, and urge the President to act quickly. We, as a country, can send an unequivocal message to rogue nations like Iran that the United States will not tolerate this kind of provocative and hostile behavior.”

Now comes the interesting part. Will President Obama sign the legislation? And if he refuses, will congress override his veto?

White House Spokeshole Jay Carney was noncommittal about it. The Regime was probably hoping this would pass unnoticed.

Stay tuned!

Obama's New Pick For Ambassador - "I'm No Real Expert On China"

'But,on the other hand, I'm a well connected Democrat senator who's retiring and knows where a few bodies are buried, so....'

Unbelievable, even in the amateur hour that is our current White House.

One of the most important ambassadorships in the world, and they want to send appoint someone with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, whose knowledge of foreign policy in general is not his strong point and who admits he knows nothing about China, where he's supposed to negotiate with the Chinese and represent our interest.

Not only is this rank stupidity, but it's an open insult to the flag and the people of the United States by the current occupant of the Oval Office.

And what's even worse is that as a member of the senatorial club, he's almost sure to be confirmed, just like Chuck Hagel was.

The Saudis Look At Dumping Obama And Changing Sponsors

Two weeks ago in my piece, "What the Media Won't Tell You About What's Really Going On In Egypt", I let you in on the fact that the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar, spent 4 hours closeted with none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 31st.

As I revealed back then, part of the conversation involved Saudi client Egypt and Egypt's General al-Sissi finding a new arms supplier and best friend in the Kremlin in response to President Obama's threats.

Putin would sell Egypt arms in a heartbeat and would love nothing better than to get another warm water Mediterranean port for the Russian navy.

But more was discussed than just that. The Saudis are fed up with President Obama and his clueless, duplicitous antics, especially his dithering on Iran and his shilling and enablement of the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn. And they're willing to discuss a deal for the Russians to become what members of the Mob refer to in these situations as 'a new sponsor.'

Let me briefly reiterate our relationship with the Saudis and the other GCE countries to spell out what this is important before we get to the grim details.

The Arabs sell us oil, which they make sure that OPEC continues to delineate in US dollars. They also spin a certain amount of that money back at us in the form of buying our debt, rewarding U.S. politicians who see things their way with lucrative business opportunities, investments in businesses and funds owned by influential Americans, the funding of presidential libraries and foundations, six figure speaking fees and honorariums, anything you can imagine. More importantly, by making sure that oil continues to be traded in dollars, they import a certain amount of our inflation, which they cover to some extent as necessary by raising wholesale prices on crude...but not too much, just enough to keep everyone happy and keep certain politicians doing their best sabotaging energy creation here in America unless in involves green energy scams never intended to work in the first place run by well connected political donors, or electric cars that are ultimately powered by oil, which is what powers the plants where most of the electricity to power them comes from.

In exchange, we protect them militarily, sell them arms and look after their interests,including the promotion of Wahhabi Islam here in America.

Needless to say, OPEC members like Putin, the Iranians and Obama's late unlamented BFF Hugo Chavez screamed bloody murder about this for years because they were getting nothing but a financial loss out of this arrangement.

What the Saudis are discussing with Putin is changing this arrangement, if a few deal points can be worked out.

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir has a piece worth reading that they're representing as a basic rundown on what went what on. Some of it appears to be fairly accurate, at least in terms of the subjects that were discussed, especially in light of a few details I'm aware of but some of it is also highly unlikely, which we'll get to. You have to keep in mind that As-Safir is a Lebanese paper and thus a paper that exists as part of the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah bloc...which colors their coverage.A free press and the Muslim world don't exactly go together.

Here's the main, most important part, and the part I would say is 100% accurate:

The Saudis are offering to partner with Russia in essentially controlling the price and supply of a lot of the world's energy. The article doesn't say this, but it's obvious that the Saudis are asking, essentially, for Russia to sponsor them as members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group long time members of Joshua's Army may recall me mentioning.

The SCO is basically a partnership which was founded five years ago under Chinese leadership to foster regional security and economic cooperation.China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan make up the group, and Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia and India all have observer status.

The six member states control 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world's people. With observer states included, its members account for half of the earth's population. It also offers an alternative bloc to western democracy and to using the U.S. dollar as reserve currency for energy dealing (they're working on putting together a gas cartel) and other joint development projects.

Turkey has been banging on the SCO's door for quite a while, and Tayyipp Erdogan would happily leave NATO and sell out its secrets to get into this club .

The Saudis joining the SCO would give the group more stability and coverage, control over a huge part of the world's energy, and of course, the prices. And it would end the use of the U.S. dollar as the currency used in energy trading, with some interesting results on our currency, at least until we got our own act together energy independence-wise.

Syria and Iran were almost definitely on the agenda.

As-Safir says that Prince Bandar told Putin that he had spoken with the Americans before the visit, and they pledged to commit to any deal the Saudis and Russians made on a diplomatic solution to Syria. This is almost definitely not true, since Putin would have laughed at it and Bandar knows it.

Putin has not trusted President Obama for quite some time,but especially since the two of them first started to attempt to work out a diplomatic solution on Syria and Putin found out that President Obama sent 1,200 Marines to the Jordanian border via the USS Kearsage without telling him.

The article quotes Putin as saying, "During the Geneva I Conference, we agreed with the Americans on a package of understandings, and they agreed that the Syrian regime will be part of any settlement. Later on, they decided to renege on Geneva I."

It further quotes Putin as saying “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters."

I doubt Putin said that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bandar and Putin discussed the outlines of a diplomatic arrangement between them that would leave Assad in power in exchange, perhaps, for arms deals with the Saudis and Russian help with the Iranians, since the Saudis know by now President Obama will do nothing to stop Iran from going nuclear.

However, if President Obama hits Syria, any tentative arrangement Bandar and Putin might have come to might well be history,or at least postponed.

As-Safir says that when Bandar mentioned Iran's nuclear program as a problem, Putin replied, “We support the Iranian quest to obtain nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. And we helped them develop their facilities in this direction. Of course, we will resume negotiations with them as part of the 5P+1 group. I will meet with President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the Central Asia summit and we will discuss a lot of bilateral, regional and international issues. We will inform him that Russia is completely opposed to the UN Security Council imposing new sanctions on Iran. We believe that the sanctions imposed against Iran and Iranians are unfair and that we will not repeat the experience again.”

The dialog on Iran and Syria are almost certainly fabricated to a large extent.

Putin has been violating the sanctions since day one, and Russia has a veto on the UN Security Council even if our Dear Leader decided to actually impose real sanctions. He could care less about them except as a talking point at the UN. The conversation with Putin over Iran probably dealt more with what safeguards the Russians could put in place to stop the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons and threatening the GCE countries...if Russia in fact became the Saudi's new sponsors.

Bottom line, the Russians and Saudis are now considering serious cooperation on energy and perhaps even on arms sales, and studying the mechanics of what concrete proposals were advanced.

Syria and Iran likely still remain issues that are problematic but are still under discussion. Could Russia and Putin finesse this by working as a mediator to end the Sunni-Shi'ite war in the Middle East and provide certain guarantees to the Saudis? With the leverage Putin has on Iran and Assad's Syria, anything's possible. And the idea of collaborating with the Saudis on the energy trade would be a powerful incentive for Putin.

Of course, if that happens, America's influence in the region will be over.

US And The Philippines Discuss Larger US Military Presence To Restructure Old Alliance

 

The Filipino government, anxious about what they say is increasing Chinese aggression in Philippine-claimed waters in the South China Sea is now in talks with the US about an increased US military presence and help in refurbishing and training its own military.

Filipino Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario sent a letter to the FIlipino congress emphasizing the necessity for American troops to have an “increased rotational presence” will help the country attain a “minimum credible defense” to help the Philippines guard its territory while it works to modernize its own military, something that has not been a priority for quite some time.

The Philippines, a former U.S. colony actually bans foreign troops being permanently based on its soil, something that was directly aimed at the US after the two countries had a falling out in 1991 and forced the U.S. to vacate its two major American bases in the Philippines at Subic and Clark.

A few U.S. troops were allowed back in to help the Filipino military battle Abu Sayaff, the local al-Qaeda affiliate (the Philippines has a large Muslim population, mainly located on the southern island of Mindanao), but this recent call is directed at increasing tension between the Philippines and China.

China claims huge stretches of the South China Sea as its own sovereign territory, and that has led to clashes with not only the Philippines but with Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. The Chinese sent a fleet into the waters of the Spratly Islands, which the Philipines claim as their own sovereign territory just last July, and China has also turned Mischief Reef, which it occupied, into a naval base.

So the Filipino government is once again seeking to base U.S. forces there.

While this is being dubbed as 'temporary' for political reasons, there's no doubt in my mind that the superb harbor at what was a major U.S. base at Subic Bay will once again become a prominent American military asset.

In his famous speech to Congress 62 years ago, General Douglas MacArthur reminded America that the western Pacific is America's maritime redoubt against our enemies. He was entirely correct.

We're seeing this basic truth reaffirmed again, as our ally Japan rebuilds its Navy and the U.S. builds ups its forces in Northern Australia, Guam, the Marianas and the naval fortress of Singapore. Look for the Philippines to be another important link in our Pacific defenses.

This is a much bigger deal than it appears.

The 'Reconciliation' That Wasn't: Turkey Postpones Talks With Israel

What was billed as President Obama's great foreign policy triumph on his last Middle East tour involved arm twisting Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu into an 'apology' for the killing of nine IHF 'activists' onboard the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla of ships backed by Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan and the Islamist government of Turkey that was trying to breach the Israeli blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The men were killed after they ambushed and attacked IDF Naval commandos boarding the ship with knives, iron bars, clubs and firearms, and Erdogan used it as an excuse to break off relations that had been steadily worsening since he and the Islamist AKP took over Turkey.

In exchange for the apology by Netanyahu and an agreement to pay compensation to the families of the dead 'activists', something they had offered to do before, Erdogan agreed to exchange ambassadors again, to restore relations, to end legal action against a whole slew of Israeli military and political figures and to meet with the Israelis for what was billed as 'reconciliation talks' aimed at restoring the former relationship.

The ObamaMedia trumpeted this as the greatest U.S. diplomatic achievement since Nixon went to China.

As I predicted at the time, the celebrations were just a little premature.

Just the week before, Erdogan referred to Zionism as 'a crime against humanity' at a U.N. conference in Vienna, comparing it to Naziism. And that was hardly an isolated instance.

As an Islamist, he's not only an 'anti-Zionist' but an anti-Semite, as evidenced by his continued championship of the genocidal Hamas.

And sure enough, within two days, Turkey walked back every one of its supposed commitments.

First, after bragging in the Arab media about how he'd gotten the Jews to do exactly what he wanted, Erdogan said Netanyahu's apology wasn't good enough. He said there would be no exchange of ambassadors or restoral of relations yet, unless Israel continues to 'move forward in the right way', which means lifting the blockade on Hamas.And the court cases are going to continue. Turkey's Erdogan was quite blunt about that.

The final blow came today, when Turkey announced that the reconciliation talks were being 'postponed' . The Israeli delegation was not going to be received in Turkey right now because - wait for it - Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç explained that he and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had scheduled a trip to the Kyrgyz Republic!

Let's translate this into the Islamist frame of reference. Erdogan already had the Jews coming to him rather than the other way around. And to further rub in the humiliation, he had his number two call to cancel because of a trip to the Kyrgyz Republic, a way of letting the Israelis know their place as supplicants in a not very subtle way. Not only that, but the humiliation also reflects on the U.S., because of President Obama and new Secretary of State John Kerry's role in setting this up:

Ahmet Varol, a journalist present on the Marmara, said the Turkish were demanding Israel provide a time frame for removal of the blockade in Gaza, and that it allow Ankara to examine the process. “Nobody wants compensation, and although the apology has diplomatic meaning, it carries no meaning for the victims.”

During a Sunday press conference with the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, US Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with the Turkish leaders to fully renew diplomatic relations with Israel. Kerry said that it was important that Israel and Turkey agree to completion of the reconciliation agreement, but emphasized that the US would not impose a deadline on the two countries to return to normalization.

In other words, President Obama's great diplomatic coup amounted to nothing more but a PR stunt to provide President Obama with a win and burnish his image as a foreign policy genius.And to do it, he has the Secretary of the United States literally begging Turkey, a country who has been instrumental in helping Iran evade sanctions over its illegal nuclear program.

It's a futile exercise in any case.Nothing is going to substantially change Israeli-Turkish relations at this point, which deteriorated once the Islamist AKP regime headed by Erdogan took over in 2003, long before the Mavi Mamara incident.The Turks are making it clear they have no intention of abiding by any agreement to normalize relations with Israel, and as they showed Kerry, Netanyahu's apology was just a wedge for them to demand further concessions for the Hamas friends.

In this part of the world, this is the diplomatic equivalent of wearing a 'kick me' sign.

Turkey's Erdogan: "We Blocked The Inclusion Of Israel In NATO"

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quite open about the matter when talking to reporters on a flight to Budapest, Hungary:

“We, as Turkey, would stop wrong steps [in NATO]. Thus, we saw such steps toward Israel’s inclusion in NATO. We prevented that,” Erdoğan said. “We have our own red lines. For us, to be involved in NATO with Israel is never considerable. To be with such a cruel understanding would conflict with our structure, history and culture.”

Erdogan also spoke about Turkey's 50 year quest to join the EU, saying the union was “hesitant because the members will not be able to do everything they want when Turkey gets in.”

In an interesting sidebar, Turkey has been making noises about ditching NATO to join the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO), which regular members of Joshua's Army will recall me mentioning before.

The SCO is an organization with goals of becoming the anti-NATO, consisting of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Mongolia have the status of observer states. It focuses on trade, security and military cooperation, energy ( they're working on putting together a gas cartel) and joint development projects. The six member states control 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world's. With observer states included, its affiliates account for half of the earth's population. It also offers an alternative bloc to western democracy and to using the U.S. dollar as reserve currency for energy dealing.

If Turkey were to quit NATO and join, it would be a major realignment of the world's power blocs.

Erdogan first approached the SCO in 2011 and was granted 'dialogue partner' last year. They now want in as a full member, and are dangling quitting NATO (and revealing all of NATO's secrets) as bait.

For Turkey, the pluses are interesting. As Erdogan himself has said, the SCO "is much better, it is much more powerful [than the EU], and we share values with its members."

Those values are essentially non-Democratic, without the sort of commitment to freedom and human rights that characterize some of the other members of NATO.

Turkey also shares Islam with most of the membership.Every one of the members and observer states except Russia, China and India are Muslim, and a number of them are primarily composed of people of Turkic origin with cultural and linguistic heritage in common with the Turks.

The minuses? Turkey would stand to lose a great deal of foreign aid if they switched sides, there are still divisions in the country between Turks who are more Islamist in allegiance and those who still lean more towards the West.And Erdogan has three other issues that get in the way of his joining the SCO.

 First many if the six main members, especially  India, China and Russia are strongly opposed the Islamism Erdogan champions, and in th ecase of the three main members I cited, all have problems with Islamist aggression and terrorism.

Second, Erdogan's support for the insurgents trying to topple Syrian dictator Basher Assad sets him against one major member, Russia and one observer state, Iran.

And third, while Turkey's economy appears robust, it isn't.Inflation is at 6.5% and rising, food prices are soaring, the official unemployment rate is at 9.5% ( which means the real rate is closer to 13 or 14%) and there is a major imploding domestic credit bubble in consumer loans, which Turkey's banks are slamming out at 30% interest and up.Meanwhile exports continue to decline and Turkey's current account deficits is running at about $70 billion a year.

Since a good part of what the SCO is involved with is economic growth and investment, it might be problematic for them to take on a member whose economy could tank and become a drag on the organization, perhaps even a candidate for bailouts.  

According to one of my notorious Little Birdies, China is more or less favorably disposed to letting Turkey in as an observer state at least, while Russia and to a lesser extent India are strongly opposed.

Some horsetrading may go on, and we'll see what develops.

Senator Rand Paul Talks Sense On Foreign Policy

 


Senator Rand Paul ( R-KY) gave an important speech at the Heritage Foundation today. It's one of the more intelligent  expostions on Foreign Policy I've seen come out of Congress in quite some time. The more I see of Senator Paul, the more I'm impressed with his common sense and his understanding of the Founder's principles. And he clearly understands the threat of radical Islam.  Here's a slice:

Foreign policy is uniquely an arena where we should base decisions on the landscape of the world as it is . . . not as we wish it to be. I see the world as it is. I am a realist, not a neoconservative, nor an isolationist.

When candidate John McCain argued in 2007 that we should remain in Iraq for 100 years, I blanched and wondered what the unintended consequences of prolonged occupation would be.  But McCain’s call for a hundred year occupation does capture some truth: that the West is in for a long, irregular confrontation not with terrorism, which is simply a tactic, but with Radical Islam.

As many are quick to note, the war is not with Islam but with a radical element of Islam - the problem is that this element is no small minority but a vibrant, often mainstream, vocal and numerous minority. Whole countries, such as Saudi Arabia, adhere to at least certain radical concepts such as the death penalty for blasphemy, conversion, or apostasy. A survey in Britain after the subway bombings showed 20% of the Muslim population in Britain approved of the violence.

Some libertarians argue that western occupation fans the flames of radical Islam – I agree. But I don’t agree that absent western occupation that radical Islam “goes quietly into that good night.” I don’t agree with FDR’s VP Henry Wallace that the Soviets (or Radical Islam in today’s case) can be discouraged by “the glad hand and the winning smile.”

Americans need to understand that Islam has a long and perseverant memory. As Bernard Lewis writes, “despite an immense investment in the teaching and writing of history, the general level of historical knowledge in American society is abysmally low. The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but unlike some others, they are keenly aware of it.”
Radical Islam is no fleeting fad but a relentless force. Though at times stateless, radical Islam is also supported by radicalized nations such as Iran. Though often militarily weak, radical Islam makes up for its lack of conventional armies with unlimited zeal.

For Americans to grasp the mindset of radical Islam we need to understand that they are still hopping mad about the massacre at Karbala several hundred years ago. Meanwhile, many Americans seem to be more concerned with who is winning Dancing with the Stars.

Read the rest here

A Game Change In Syria

The situation in the Syrian insurgency has changed in an interesting way.

We started out with the Obama administration actually supporting Bashir Assad - remember Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referring to Assad as a 'reformer' and Senator John Kerry shilling for U.S. aid to him?

The next twist in the road was the Obama administration supporting the insurgents, consisting of the Syrian National Council(SNC) and the Syrian Free Army, a group put together at the insistence of President Obama's closest friend among foreign leaders, Tayyip Erdogan and the Islamist Turkish government. The U.S. government has been supplying them with arms and some training via Turkey and Jordan while Qatar and the Saudis have been supplying most of the funding.

Of course, the problem is that the SNC and the Syrian Free Army are controlled in their entirety by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafists, some of them outright al-Qaeda affiliates like Jabhat al-Nusra. Apparently this troubling fact just came to light in Washington.

So the next step was to put together yet another insurgent group of Syrian 'moderates' to back, the Syrian Opposition Coalition,(SOC)and the associated Joint Military Council because, in President Obama's words, it was "now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime."

Except that there are just a few problems. Mere details.

This new coalition, formed in Qatar is only two thirds composed of members of the Muslim Brotherhood or their affiliates.

The leader of the SOC is one Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and - wait for it - a religious cleric closely allied to the Damascus branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another troubling detail is that the SOC and their affiliated Joint Military Council are mostly located outside Syria, and it has few boots on the ground if any, let alone weapons. Thanks to the Obama Administration,it is the Syrian National Council and the Syrian Free Army who have the fighters and the weaponry, some of it reportedly taken from deposed Libyan leader Moamar Khaddaffi's armories, although that part of the sordid Libyan story has yet to be proven conclusively. If that's what actually went down, I suppose we could call it Fast and Furious, Middle East style.

As you might guess, the SNC and the Syrian Free Army aren't taking kindly to a bunch of ferenghi in DC and the EU dumping them and telling them whom represents the resistance and whom doesn't, especially when it's been them doing the fighting and dying against Assad's forces.

The ace in the hole for the newly formed and recognized Syrian Opposition Coalition is that they're going to be the main recipient and control point of Western economic aid. That ought to buy them a seat at the table.

But let's not make the mistake that this is going to end up with a moderate, pro-western government.

The SOC is just as anti-western, just as anti-Israel and almost as Islamist as the SNC.They will almost certainly come together and deal to put together a sharia go0verned Islamist state.

It's the Muslim Brotherhood who has the clear agenda, a disciplined corps of followers subject to an organized hierarchy and the ruthlessness to take over in Syria. The Brotherhood has Qatar and Turkey backing it, and they are ultimately the best bet to be Syria's next government.

What's left of Syria's Christians are already fleeing, mostly to Lebanon, the only Arab country that still has a sizable Christian population.

If the Russians cut Assad loose (and there are some signs that they may now be leaning that way), Assad would be unable to put together a northwestern redoubt as I discussed here. The Shi'ites and Alawites, those that stay, can look forward, at best, to being marginalized if not ethnically cleansed.

The Kurds, meanwhile, are keeping to themselves and consolidating their strength in the northeast, the area adjacent to Iraqi Kurdistan. The odds are good that they may merge in a de facto union with their fellow Kurds just over the border as a precursor to a free Kurdistan.It is the one positive development out of this entire mess.

Syria, like Iraq is an artificial country, some lines in the sand created out of the debris of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. And like Iraq, it was a seething mass of ethnicities ruled over by an iron fisted dictator, until we kicked it over.

Given the coming showdown between the Sunnis and the Muslim Brotherhood versus the Shi'ite Iranian bloc, it's fascinating that in Iraq we midwifed a transition from a Sunni-ruled dictatorship to a Shi'ite one that is essentially becoming an Iranian colony, while in Syria, we're engaged in doing the exact opposite, transforming an Alawite Shi'ite dictatorship into a Sunni one.

The Obama Administration goal, to all intents and purposes is to establish yet another Muslim Brotherhood regime in the Middle East.Or to put it more bluntly, The U.S. is now backing what is essentially an anti-western, Islamist takeover of Syria

And not just in Syria, of course. President Obama and his team believe that the solution to our conflicts with the Muslim world is 'daylight' between the U.S. and its ally Israel ( the president's own words) while we encourage Islamist regimes to take over, as they have in Egypt and Gaza, and may soon take over in Libya, Syria, the Palestinian occupied areas of Judea and Samaria and Jordan.

This is the start of the Caliphate Hassan al-Banna dreamt of, when he started the Muslim Brotherhood back in the 1920's.

In later years, we're going to find out exactly what a huge act of folly this was.

White House Opposes New Iran Sanctions Approved By The Senate 94-0

 

The Obama White House is now opposing new, stricter sanctions against Iran after the U.S. Senate approved them 94-0:

The White House announced its opposition to a new round of Iran sanctions that the Senate unanimously approved Friday, in the latest instance of Congress pushing for more aggressive punitive measures on Iran than the administration deems prudent.

On Thursday, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate passed 94-0. The new legislative language would blacklist Iran's energy, port, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, while also placing new restrictions on Iran's ability to get insurance for all these industries. The legislation would also vastly expand U.S. support for human rights inside Iran and impose new sanctions on Iranians who divert humanitarian assistance from its intended purpose.

"The window is closing. The time for the waiting game is over," Menendez said on the Senate floor Thursday night. "Yes, our sanctions are having a demonstrable effect on the Iranian economy, but Iran is still working just as hard to develop nuclear weapons."

But the White House told several Senate offices Thursday evening that the administration was opposed to the amendment. National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent The Cable the administration's official position, explaining the White House's view the sanctions aren't needed and aren't helpful at this time.

"As we focus with our partners on effectively implementing these efforts, we believe additional authorities now threaten to undercut these efforts," he said. "We also have concerns with some of the formulations as currently drafted in the text and want to work through them with our congressional partners to make the law more effective and consistent with the current sanctions law to ensure we don't undercut our success to date."

The real story, of course is that the new sanctions threaten to undercut the administration's ability to water them down by issuing waivers to most countries on abiding by them..just as they did with the last set of sanctions. That's why. although there's been a certain amount of economic turmoil, it hasn't stopped Iran from pursuing its illegal nuclear weapons program one iota:

One of the White House's chief concerns is that Congress is not providing the administration enough waivers, which would give the United States the option of negating or postponing applications of the sanctions on a case-by-case basis.

The White House also said that secondary sanctions should apply only to those Iranian persons and entities that are guilty of aiding Iran's nulear and missile programs. The new legislative language would designate entire categories of Iranian government entities to be sanctioned -- whether or not each person or entity is directly involved in such activities.{...}

"The truth is that the U.S. Congress continues to lead a comprehensive and unrelenting international sanctions program against the Iranian regime despite a comprehensive and unrelenting campaign by this administration to block or water down those sanctions at every move," a senior GOP Senate aide told The Cable. "We beat them 100-0 last year and while they tried to kill this amendment more quietly this time, we beat them again 94-0. Hopefully House and Senate negotiators will stay strong and resist the administration's strategy to dilute these sanctions in conference."

Actually, if the Obama Administration really wanted to stop Iran's nuclear program in a heartbeat, all they'd have to do would be to forbid any U.S. bank from doing transactions with any bank processing Iran's oil payments, or any insurance company insuring Iran's oils shipments from doing business with American citizens or financial outlets.

That's exactly how President George W. Bush dealt with outlets like the BCCI that were financing terrorism, and it's one of the few things he got right. The world's banking system is still wired into New York, and the inability to process oil payments or insure cargoes would pretty much end the game.Even the Russians and the Turks would have to comply.

Instead, we've been tasking half measures while the centrifuges turn and having them undercut by the President Obama and his team, sheer foreign policy geniuses that they are.

And this is just another example.

Former Obama Adviser 'Our Foreign Policy Is A Mess'

 

Normally, with an election less than three weeks off you would expect people who've worked with this president to be effusive in praising him, especially in his so-called strong point of foreign policy.

Apparently, not all of them do.

Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air writes about one example, former Obama administration Defense undersecretary and State Department adviser Rosa Brooks, who wrote a particularly scathing piece over at Foreign Policy:

Despite some successes large and small, Obama’s foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration’s response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we’re searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military’s direction have bought little cooperation and less love.

The Russians want to reset the reset, neither the Chinese nor anyone else can figure out what, if anything, the “pivot to Asia” really means, and Latin America and Africa continue to be mostly ignored, along with global issues such as climate change. Meanwhile, the administration’s expanding drone campaign suggests a counterterrorism strategy that has completely lost its bearings – we no longer seem very clear on who we need to kill or why.

Could Obama have done better?

In foreign policy as in life, stuff happens — including bad stuff no one could have predicted. Nonetheless, to a significant extent, President Obama is the author of his own lackluster foreign policy. He was a visionary candidate, but as president, he has presided over an exceptionally dysfunctional and un-visionary national security architecture — one that appears to drift from crisis to crisis, with little ability to look beyond the next few weeks. His national security staff is squabbling and demoralized, and though senior White House officials are good at making policy announcements, mechanisms to actually implement policies are sadly inadequate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If Obama wants to fix his broken foreign policy machine, he can do it — but conversations with numerous insiders, as well as my own government experiences, suggest that he needs to focus on strategy, structure, process, management, and personnel as much as on new policy initiatives.

Not sexy, I know. But just as a start-up company needs more than an entrepreneurial founder with a couple of good ideas and a nifty PowerPoint presentation, the United States needs more than speeches and high-minded aspirations.

She offers some specific suggestions, but none of them are likely to succeed because of the amateur and dysfunctional nature of the Administration itself. Barack Obama is running America like he was mayor of Chicago, and it's not what you know but whom you know, who brought you to the dance, and what you did in the last political campaign.

Add to that a president who's largely disconnected and an essentially leftist tilt, and you have a recipe for exactly what we have now - a disaster.

Heart Of Darkness - The Real Benghazi Coverup

The CIA is apparently not willing to fall on its sword to protect President Obama, Secretary Clinton , Ambassador Rice, and the rest of the Obama Administration.

It's now been leaked by officials within the Obama Administration that the CIA Head of Station in Libya reported within 24 hours that the attack on Benghazi that left four Americans dead was carried out by al-Qaeda and associated groups, that it was a planned operation, and that it had nothing to do with any protest or unrest over a video.

The linked story, which is essentially an AP rewrite says 'It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went.'

'Unclear'? It obviously went to various places - to the head of the CIA General Petraeus, to Obama's NSC Tom Donilon, and to Hillary Clinton as head of the State Department at the very least. That's how these things are routinely handled. Are we to believe Joe Biden and President Obama that nobody told them, and the entire attempt to spin this for nine days as a 'protest' over a video was due to misinformation and intelligence failure?

Or Hillary Clinton's claim that she didn't know either and that the obscene spin put on this was due to ' the fog of war'?

The AP does their best to shield the Administration, like always. They even repeated the falsehood Obama told at the last debate (with an assist from 'moderator' Candy Crowley) that he referred to Benghazi as a terrorist attack during his speech the day after in the Rose Garden, something I debunked previously.

But even if one takes a large leap in logic to assume that no one in the administration knew for certain what had happened, how does that explain the certainty with which the president and his minions declared for 8 days that what happened in Benghazi was a protest over a poorly made video on YouTube that turned violent?

How does it explain the deliberate removal of special forces security teams from Libya and the denials of Ambassador Stevens' own repeated requests for more of it? Even his request for a barbed wire fence around the Benghazi consulate was denied.

How does it explain situating an unprotected consulate and staff in Benghazi, known to be a hotbed of al-Qaeda and associated militias? Even the International Red Cross pulled out months before the attack because of the security situation. If the Red Cross knew, if most European intelligence bureaus like Britain's M15 knew, why didn't our own intel?

The answer of course, is fairly simple. None of it adds up.

What does add up is an attempt at a political coverup, and it possibly goes even deeper than just shielding the president and his administration from charges of gross incompetence during an election year when President Obama is chest pounding over his supposed foreign policy expertise.

Obama's big boast is 'I got bin-Laden'. What he also got (and its becoming more and more evident every day) is a relocation of al-Qaeda back into the Arab world.

He certainly deserved death, but along all the other disastrous fallout that occurred from assassinating a man who was essentially a retired terrorist, we settled a dispute between Osama bin-Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri:

Bin laden was relatively comfortable in Abbotobad and wanted to keep al-Qaeda anchored in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Zawahiri, looking at developments in his native Egypt and elsewhere like the 'Arab Spring' , the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Obama's already announced retreat from the region was pushing to relocate al-Qaeda back to the Middle East and the roiling Arab world.

So now that Osama's dead (and according to my sources, there are pretty solid indications he was deliberately fingered) Zawahiri, a former Muslim Brotherhood member has taken over and we see increased al-Qaeda presence in both the Egyptian Sinai and Libya, as well as in Iraq where the Maliki government's marginalization of the Sunnis has given al-Qaeda new life.

And that's not all.

Libya is another case where President Obama's amateurism has led to dangerous developments.Moammar Khaddaffi was an odious tyrant, but he essentially retired from any support for terrorism. In fact, he was helping our CIA catch al-Qada fighters in the Maghreb and was actually receiving foreign aid from us.

It was known from the very beginning that the Libyan rebels had substantial elements of al-Qaeda and other salifist groups, yet President Obama intervened militarily, allowing the rebels to take over the country and murder Khaddaffi when he otherwise would have quashed the revolt.

Aside from allowing al-Qaeda and its associated militias to survive, it also allowed them to plunder Khaddaffi's armories and help themselves to his weaponry, including shoulder fired Stinger missiles capable of bringing down a helicopter or a commercial airline. In fact, a shipment of those missiles coming from Libya was intercepted on its way to the al-Qaeda forces in Sinai.

The mortars, RPGs and automatic weapons used in the attack on our Benghazi consulate were almost certainly obtained by al-Qaeda as a direct result of President Obama's intervention in Libya.

That's undoubtedly the Heart of Darkness, the real core of what President Obama and his minions  would rather  the American people weren't talking about right now.

Think of it as a Middle Eastern version of Fast and Furious, where innocent peopl egot murdered by weapons they obtained by this Administration's policies. Only  this one has  much more disastrous long term consequences for America.

Romney At VMI Hits Obama Hard On Foreign Policy

Governor Mitt Romney chose Virginia Military Institute the site for a major speech on foreign policy.Actually, there were only a few differences in his previous speech at the Citadel and today's, but they're worth noting.

Romney sees the current War on Jihad very much as a vital struggle along the lines of the Cold War that must be won, which makes perfect sense in many respects. He referred to it as "a struggle between liberty and tyranny, justice and oppression, hope and despair."

In both speeches, he said exactly what needed to be said about the Iranian threat, the hollowing out of our military, and the need to increase our Navy from unsafe levels it hasn't been at since 1916.

The new strategies he's proposing here are interesting.

He proposes a much tighter vetting of who gets U.S. aid, and the use of that aid as a carrot for pro-U.S. behavior and the safeguarding of our interests. And he wants to use free trade in the same way much more aggressively, pointing out that the Obama Administration has not signed a free trade agreement in four years.

Governor Romney made the salient point that in Iran and in Syria, President Obama has simply not attempted to vet the players and to aid the forces of real pro-western democracy. Romney pledges to change that:

The greater tragedy of it all is that we are missing an historic opportunity to win new friends who share our values in the Middle East—friends who are fighting for their own futures against the very same violent extremists, and evil tyrants, and angry mobs who seek to harm us. Unfortunately, so many of these people who could be our friends feel that our President is indifferent to their quest for freedom and dignity. As one Syrian woman put it, “We will not forget that you forgot about us.”

These are all good ideas worth pursuing, although in dealing with Islamist countries,a President Romney may find that his successes are mixed,because Islam trumps all.Still, I doubt that a Romney Administration would be funding, aiding and abetting the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood at home or abroad.

Governor Romney went over the various hot points in the world, and by and large seems to have a pretty firm grasp of global strategy and an awareness of the big picture and the way both our friends and our enemies perceive us that President Obama has always lacked.He sees our allies hungry for the American commitment and leadership that's been missing for the past 4 years, and I think he's entirely correct on that.

In the Middle East particularly, the return of the perception of America as the strong horse will do a great deal to change things on the ground and help destroy our enemies.

Governor Romney made a particular point of saying that he's committed to missile defense, and slapped President Obama's hit mic leak earlier this year to Russian President Medvedev by quipping that he, Romney, will not be more flexible with Vladimir Putin over that.

He also made a pro forma remark about U.S. commitment to a prosperous and democratic Palestinian state. That isn't going to happen because there's no potential for it, but I suppose his foreign policy team urged the governor to stick something in his speech about it somewhere.

On Afghanistan, Governor Romney said that he will continue to pursue a transition to Afghan forces by 2014, but will not write it in stone, saying:

..the route to more war – and to potential attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used it to launch the attacks of 9/11. I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders. And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation.

Here, I think Governor Romney is perhaps kidding himself a bit. Barring a massive change in rules of engagement, our attitude towards the Kharzai government and a real strategy to defeat the Taliban both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I think Governor Romney will find that there are far better uses for our troops, time and money than Afghanistan. After all, if the Taliban, Lashkar-e-taiba and al-Qaeda want to find a failed state to foment terrorism from, there's one right next door in Pakistan.

All in all though, a sensible and statesmanlike speech,no matter what the usual suspects say.

America leads...what a concept.

Obama - An 'F' On Foreign Policy

There's a story in Politico today doing its very best to carry President Obama's water today, slamming Mitt Romney for criticizing the Obama Administration on foreign policy:

Mitt Romney accused the Obama White House of risking the lives of U.S. troops for “political gain,” undermining Israel and being complicit in Iranian nuclear proliferation.

In a speech here Tuesday that featured some of the strongest language Romney has used about Obama since the general election began, the presumptive nominee made a move to gain a foothold in the foreign policy debate on the eve of his trip to Europe.

“This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your President. You have that President today,” Romney told the crowd at the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference. Obama spoke Monday before the same group.

Romney delivered a harsh condemnation of the leaks of classified information regarding American involvement in cyber-attacks on Iran and details of a planned attack by al Qaeda on a U.S.-bound airplane, saying the leaks risked American lives.

He pinned the blame squarely on the White House.

“This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field,” Romney said. “Whoever provided classified information to the media, seeking political advantage for the administration, must be exposed, dismissed, and punished. The time for stonewalling is over.”

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee demanded a “full and prompt investigation” and said an investigation being conducted by the attorney general’s office is not enough.

“Obama appointees, who are accountable to President Obama’s Attorney General, should not be responsible for investigating the leaks coming from the Obama White House,” he said. “It is not enough to say the matter is being looked into, and leave it at that.”

Arguing that the concerns weren’t partisan, Romney pointed to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Monday remarks in which she said of the leaks: “I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks.”

Well, minus the spin later in this piece, the fact is that President Obama has been execrable on foreign policy.

For instance, despite the publicity, he's done relatively nothing on Iran...except talk.

The so-called sanctions are riddled with waivers given out by our state department, and in any case Russia, Turkey and a number of nations aren't abiding by them anyway.

The ultimate sanction that might work is to stop American Banks from dealing with anyone processing oil payments via Iran's Central bank, one of the few things George W. Bush got right when he was dealing with al-Qaeda. That helped a great deal in cutting off their funding. Needless to say, President Obama hasn't done anything like this, for the simple reason that thus far, he hasn't been serious about it.

The rest of his foreign policy record pretty much consists of appeasing our enemies, enabling Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and distancing himself from our friends like Britain, Honduras, Israel,Poland, Germany, and Japan.

Included in this dismal list is the farcical START treaty with Russia, which Russia is taking advantage of to access to our most secret anti-Missile technology.

Oh yes..he does take credit for assassinating bin-Laden. As much as a man who was essentially a retired terrorist needed to die, the multi-billion cost,which included starving our troops in Afghanistan of supplies after Pakistan cut off our shipments via Karachi and the Torkum Pass, the loss of SOTA stealth technology to Pakistan, Russia China and Iran from the specially equipped Blackhawk that crashed and the re-location of al-Qaeda from AFPak back to the Arab world now that ex-Muslim Brotherhood lead Ayman Zawahiri is now in command should make any astute observer wonder whether the cost was worth it.

I'm frankly tired of people giving this president a pass on what, foreign policy wise, has easily been the worst presidency in our history.

Pentagon Now Buying Helicopters From Russia - For The Afghan Air Force!

Every time you think the Obama Administration has hit bottom when it comes to ridiculous nonsense, they surprise you by sinking to a new low. Get your mind around this...the Pentagon is using your tax dollars to buy helicopters from Russia - for the Afghan air force.

The Pentagon must pay Russia’s state- run arms trader to provide helicopters for Afghanistan’s air force even though the company also been has supplying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with weapons to kill his own people, according to the Defense Department’s top policy official.

The U.S. Army has taken delivery of nine Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from Rosoboronexport under a $375 million contract issued in May 2011, with six more awaiting shipment and another six to be delivered by May 31, Acting Undersecretary for Policy James Miller said in a previously undisclosed March 30 letter to lawmakers. The U.S. has an option to buy an additional 12 Russian helicopters for the Afghans, who have been flying them for 30 years.

“I share your concern that Rosoboronexport continues to supply weapons and ammunition to the Assad regime and acknowledge there is evidence that some of these arms are being used by Syrian forces against Syria’s civilian population,” Miller wrote Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who’s led opposition to the contract in Congress.

The U.S. barred deals with Rosoboronexport from 2006 to 2010, citing its arms sales to nations including Iran and Syria as violating efforts to curb proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In his letter to Cornyn, Miller sought to reconcile the Pentagon’s purchases from the Russian government arms company with the Obama administration’s pleas for nations and companies to stop doing business with Assad.

The Syrian angle aside - and that alone is a pretty large one in view of all the pious rhetoric and inaction from the Obama Administration - a few other questions come to mind. Why are we paying the Russians to build helicopters with U.S. tax dollars when we have American companies here that can do it, combined with an 'official' unemployment rate of over 8% nationally? Is building helicopters yet another one of those jobs Americans won't do? And if we are outsourcing this, why not to one of our allies, instead of to a nation that is in many ways hostile to us and our foreign policy aims?

And while we're on the subject, why do we need to subsidize the building of an Afghan air force anyway? Just like the shiny new armies we have built at U.S. expense for the 'Palestinians' and for the Iraqis, exactly what good is America going to get out of spending over a billion dollars to buy helicopters from Russia to give to the Afghans?

Dumb and dumber.

The Iran Sanctions That Aren't - State Department Give Waivers to 11 Countries

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the State Department is exempting 10 European countries and Japan from penalties for doing business with Iran's central bank:

"I am pleased to announce that an initial group of eleven countries has significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran -- Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As a result, I will report to the Congress that sanctions pursuant to Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) will not apply to the financial institutions based in these countries, for a renewable period of 180 days," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Tuesday statement. "The actions taken by these countries were not easy. They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs."

Of course, Mrs. Clinton didn't mention that Iran has already announced it would no longer sell crude to France and the United Kingdom, so they're getting a waiver based on Iran's actions,not theirs. And the other EU countries have already announced they will phase out all purchases of Iranian oil by July 1st. However, at this point it really doesn't matter. Without barring countries from dealing with Iran's Central Bank the oil sanctions are almost meaningless.

Let me explain to you why. Oil is fungible, and as we saw with the UN's Oil for Food scandal involving Saddam Hussein and Iraq, it's easily transferable, can easily be moved through other hands to disguise its origin and can be swapped via third parties for other items. The US could even end up buying Iranian oil if it was shipped to say, Venezuela and reflagged. But take away the ability of buyers to pay Iran for it directly by isolating Iran's central bank and it becomes a much more difficult and costly matter.

One of the few effective things President George W. Bush did in the period after 9/11 to fight Islamist terrorism was to identify the banks used to bankroll it and a number of questionable individuals and organizations who held accounts in otherwise legitimate institutions. Aside from freezing all suspect assets here in America and blocking US financial institutions from having any dealings with the suspect accounts and organizations, President Bush successfully got foreign financial institutions to cooperate by ordering US financial institutions not to deal with banks overseas handling accounts for places like the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan, Italy, Al Taqwa Construction in Dubai and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society(RIHS) in Kuwait, all al-Qaeda and Hamas fronts. Since the world's banking system is wired through New York, most countries complied, which led to something like $79.9 million in terrorist assets being seized.

If President Obama was actually serious about stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program and ending Iran's financing of terrorism, he'd do something similar and make all of Iran's banks including Iran's central bank persona non grata in the world's financial systems using the same tools. Even countries like China and India might decide that forgoing Iranian oil was better than having their ability to perform financial transactions here in America compromised or curtailed.

But then, that was never going to happen with this president. I've become fairly convinced that President Obama isn't particularly exercised about whether Iran goes nuclear or not. He might just take a wag the dog option to pull off a strike on Iran if he's lagging in the polls come October, but failing that, he appears to be fine with it.

Either he's simply clueless and doesn't see the danger, is too preoccupied with his domestic agenda and his re-election bid,or feels that America needs to be taken down a peg. Or perhaps a combination of all three.

"I Got Bin Laden" - And Why Obama's Big Boast Might Have Been A Huge Mistake

"..Osama bin Laden will never again walk the face of this Earth. That’s what change is."

So said President Obama at a recent fundraiser, the same one where he also claimed that Republicans threaten the "very core of what this country stands for."

Let's ignore his attacking the GOP's patriotism and focus on that first statement, because President Obama keeps coming back to it as a great foreign policy achievement of his. Was it?

Osama bin Laden certainly deserved death if any one did. But foreign policy is based on strategic goals, not on simply meting out justice to those who've murdered Americans. If President Obama's chief concern was punishing people who've murdered Americans, we wouldn't be aiding the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or the Hezbollah-controlled government of Lebanon and Iran would be a smoking crater right now, with the mullahs, President Ahmadinejad and a lot of other members of that government turned into halal crisps.

Since President Obama is touting this as a great foreign policy accomplishment of his and is using it to raise money, let's simply take a cold hard look at it in the light of what it actually accomplished from that perspective.

At the time he was assassinated, Osama bin Laden was essentially living quietly as a guest of the Pakistani government in Abbottobad. His health was not the best, so a great deal of the actual operational command was in the hands of his subordinate, Egyptian-born former Muslim Brotherhood leader Ayman Zawahiri.

As President Obama has pointed out, al-Qaeda has been weakened severely and marginalized, thanks to bin Laden's miscalculation in making Iraq a central front of jihad and suffering massive losses of men and material. That happened, ironically, because of military strategies like the surge Senator Obama did his very best to criticize and sabotage before he entered the White House.

At the time of bin Laden's death, Al-Qaeda had become more of a brand name, a proselytizing force over the internet and an inspiration to young jihadis rather than an actual source of many attacks.

We used a painstakingly created network of Pakistani informers and intel sources to nail down bin-Laden's whereabouts and plan the operation that assassinated him. We then sent the valiant men of Navy Seal Team Six into Pakistan via helicopter, broke into bin-Laden's compound, shot him down, removed his body, gave him a proper Islamic funeral ( which involves cursing Christians and Jews, if the usual text was used) and threw his body into the sea.

So we accomplished an act of retribution. Let's examine the results and see if they were worth it.

The Pakistanis were predictably livid at being exposed, again, as a major aider and abetter of Islamic fascism and terrorism. Their honor/shame mentality kicked in and rather than express regret that they had been caught sheltering a mass murderer, they went into hysterics about the violation of their sovereignty. They arrested every member of the Pakistani network they could get their hands on that helped the US find and assassinate bin-Laden and charged them with treason, which will likely end in a number of executions. Aside from our network in Pakistan being burnt, this assured that we're going to have great difficulty with intel from that country in the future.

The Pakistanis also closed the land route they control into Afghanistan through the Torkum Pass for several days. This route transports 75% of the supplies going into Afghanistan for our troops, who now simply had to make do without needed supplies for a few days. Also, because the stopped supply trucks were sitting ducks, the Taliban manged to destroy several of them.

Even more costly, we lost one of our helicopters in the bin-Laden operation, a Blackhawk. Now, these normally cost about $20 million or so, but this one cost a great deal more, because it had been highly modified with top secret stealth technology that brought its cost up to more like $60 million. Even worse, the SEAL's were unable to completely destroy it, and the angry Pakistanis gleefully gave it to the Chinese to examine at their leisure. The potential loss of technology is in the millions, not to mention our relationship with Pakistan, which has worsened considerably and is unlikely to recover for some time if at all.

But the worse is yet to come.

When we take a look at exactly why Osama bin-Laden was ratted out after all this time, some interesting intel surfaces. As I've mentioned on these pages before, we know that there was a substantial disagreement between Osama and his chief lieutenant Ayman Zawahiri, prior to Osama's death. Bin laden was relatively comfortable in Abbotobad and wanted to keep al-Qaeda anchored in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Zawahiri, looking at developments in his native Egypt and elsewhere like the 'Arab Spring' , the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Obama's already announced retreat from the region was pushing to relocate al-Qaeda back to the Middle East and the roiling Arab world.

So now that Osama's dead (and according to my sources, there are pretty solid indications he was deliberately fingered) Zawahiri, a former Muslim Brotherhood member has taken over and we see increased al-Qaeda presence in both the Egyptian Sinai and Libya, as well as in Iraq where the Maliki government's marginalization of the Sunnis has given al-Qaeda new life.

Moreover, should Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist governments take over in Egypt and Libya as seems likely, Ayman Zawahiri, al-Qaeda and its affiliates like Takfir-wal Higra can count on a haven to train and recruit, with Libya's oil wealth and Egypt's population and rabid Islamism to draw on.

So let's reiterate, shall we? The chief foreign policy triumph President Obama continually boasts about consists of taking out a largely defanged terrorist. It cost us millions of dollars, inflamed an already unfriendly but unfortunately necessary relationship between the US and Pakistan, burnt our intel network in that country, gave the Chinese and probably the Russians and Iranians a good look at American state of the art stealth technology that cost additional millions to develop, and helped relocate al-Qaeda to the heart of the Middle East after we had largely driven them out.

'Foreign policy achievement' or a fiasco being used for political effect? You be the judge.

Another Reason Rick Perry Shouldn't Be President

Frankly, he's almost as clueless about foreign policy as Herman Cain and Ron Paul.

Take a look at this, from Saturday's debate:



Governor Perry, believe it or not, says he would send U.S. troops back to Iraq.

"The idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country, with all of the treasures, both in blood and money, that we have spent in Iraq- because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal leftist base, and move out those men and women. He could have renegotiated that time frame."

He apparently doesn't realize that Maliki and the Iraqis ordered us out of Iraq at the behest of the Iranian controlled Shi'ite bloc that's responsible for Maliki being in power. During the flag lowering ceremony when the last of our troops left Iraq, not one member of the Iraqi government we put in power with our blood and treasure could be bothered to attend.

Is Governor Perry planning to invade again and have our military take out that shiny new army the American taxpayers built for Iraq? Is he going to have our troops overthrow the 'model Arab democracy' we left there?

As I wrote long ago, with Maliki and his friends, it was always a matter of 'thank you infidels for your time and your money. Now leave, so we can bond with our jihad brothers in Iran.'

Even before President Obama pulled us out of Iraq, Maliki and the Sadrist bloc that keeps him in power were quite clear about what they wanted. Once we empowered the Shi'ites and rushed them into elections less than two years after we invaded that were ultimately decided on tribal grounds, it was over.

Governor Perry is correct that we essentially left Iraq after putting in power a Shi'ite Islamic Republic based on sharia. But unless Governor Perry plans to go to war again and depose that government, he's simply being stupid.

This is not the first time he's demonstrated his ignorance of foreign policy matters. Back in September, when he was asked what he would do if he got the 3 AM call saying that Pakistan's nukes had fallen into the hands of the Taliban, here was his reply:

Well obviously, before you ever get to that point you have to build a relationship in that region. That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country. So to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.

For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16′s, we chose not to do that. We did the same with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them.

Today, we don’t have those allies in that region that can assist us if that situation that you talked about were to become a reality.

Yes, according to Governor Perry, his solution to the Taliban or one of Pakistan's other terrorist groups getting control of Pakistan's nukes was to call and ask India or Taiwan what to do!

I'm sure he's a fine governor, but I wouldn't want him within spitting distance of the Oval Office.

Iran Warns US: 'Keep Your Aircraft Carrier Out Of The Persian Gulf'

Iran issued warnings today that they regard the Strait of Hormuz as their territorial waters and that a US ship that exited into the Strait into the Gulf of Oman had better not return to the Persian Gulf - or else.

“We recommend to the American warship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian Gulf,” said Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, the commander in chief of the army, as reported by Iran’s official news agency, IRNA. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will not repeat its warning.”

The ship General Salehi was talking about is the aircraft carrier the USS John C. Stennis.

The warning was accompanied by a statement from a senior member of Iran's majlis (parliament) Nader Qazipour, reported in Iran's FARS News Agency that any foreign warships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian consent should be stopped, as Iran considers the Strait part of its territorial waters rahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifther than a freely passable international waterway :

"If the military vessels and warships of any country want to pass via the Strait of Hormoz without coordination and permission of Iran's Navy forces, they should be stopped by the Iranian Armed Forces," Nader Qazipour told FNA, explaining about the contents of the plan.

In relevant remarks on Monday, another Iranian legislator stressed that Iran will use all its capabilities and possibilities to defend the country against foreign threats and the country will use the Strait of Hormoz as a defensive tool and will close the waterway if it comes under threat.

"Iran will definitely use the defensive potential of the Strait of Hormoz if it is faced with threats," Rapporteur of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Kazzem Jalali told FNA.

The bellicose saber rattling has a purpose, of course.

In the midst of all of this, the Iranians suddenly announced that they're willing to entertain talks again on their nuclear program with the UN 5+1 (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) due to the wonderful non-results that occurred last time.

It's the carrot and stick game the Mullahs have played so successfully in the past,and its one purpose is to buy time for Iran to complete its nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

President Obama bought into this big time. He reluctantly ( his own words) finally signed tough sanctions passed by Congress against Iran into law that target their central bank and would make it difficult for them to process their oil payments.

The only problem is, they're meaningless because of how the Senate Democrats watered them down. Not only don't they take effect for six months, but President Obama has the wiggle room not to apply them if he judges doing so would not be in US interest.

There's no question in my mind that President Obama will almost certainly bend over again, swallow hard and engage with Iran. It's also almost a certainty the US will not enforce any sanctions while talks are going on, let alone any military action. And of course,Russia will see to it that the proposed talks go absolutely nowhere except to a highly watered down policy statement the Mullahs will use for toilet paper.

This is indeed a very bad time for America to have a leader like President Obama at the helm of the ship of state.

Herman Cain For Commander-In-Chief? No, I Don't Think So!

Absolutely breathtaking. Sorry, but I wouldn't want to see Mr. Cain getting a 3AM call for anything but a late night pizza run.

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