Russia recently announced that it seized 10 caches of arms on May 4 and 5 in Abkhazia which were to be used in dramatic terrorist attacks in Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are to take place. The stockpiles included: 10,000 rounds of ammunition; 15 kilograms of TNT; 50 grenade fuses; 39 hand grenades; 36 mortar shells; 29 grenade launchers; 15 landmines; 12 improvised explosive devices; 3 surface-to-air missiles; 2 anti-tank missiles; 2 assault rifles and a sniper rifle, mortar and flamethrower.

The Russian government says that the man responsible for the planned wave of attacks is Doku Umarov, a Chechen terrorist leader involved with Al-Qaeda. He ordered an end to attacks on Russian civilians earlier this year. Georgian intelligence helped Umarov’s terrorists smuggle the weapons through Georgian territory from Turkey, the Russians claim. Georgia dismisses the accusations as “absolutely absurd.” The accusation provides a clear rationale to remove Saakashvili from power.

This development comes while Russia is preparing for a possible strike on Iran. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin explained, “Iran is our neighbor. If Iran is involved in any military action, it’s a direct threat to our security.” Reportedly, Russia has drawn up plans to send forces to Armenia in such an event, which requires going through Georgia, toppling Saakashvili on the way.

In 2008, Russia’s annual Kavkaz exercises were used as a cover to deploy and train the forces that invaded Georgia the next month. This year’s exercises are to take place in September. Russia announced that Spetsnaz units will be sent to the North Caucasus region for the exercises and airborne assault forces and attack helicopters will deploy to Base 102 in Gyumri, Armenia. One report claims that the families of soldiers at the base have already been evacuated.

It is quite possible that Russia will provide assistance to the Iranian regime from Armenia in the event of a conflict. After all, Saddam Hussein awarded medals to former Soviet advisors for helping him to prepare for the 2003 invasion. Russian Spetsnaz units were deployed to Iraq and are suspected of having helped cleanse the country of documents and incriminating materials. The Russians also gave Saddam Hussein details about the U.S. war plan, retrieved through a spy at CENTCOM. Russia continues to arm Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and deployed an “anti-terror” unit to assist him in March.

“It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region,” wrote Sadollah Zarei, according to a translation by Reza Kahlili.

It’s easy to see why Iran has picked up on this fact, which Democrats have desperately tried to deny throughout Obama’s tenure. Headline after headline is about the U.S. trying to hold Israel back. In March, an anonymous administration official told the Washington Post, “We’re trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.”

There’s been a steady stream of leaks from administration officials potentially damaging Israel. On March 28, Foreign Policy reported on the alleged existence of a secret agreement between Israel and Azerbaijan making the latter’s airbases available for a potential strike on Iran. The results of a classified war game simulating a conflict between Israel and Iran that showed hundreds of U.S. casualties made its way into the press. Another report claimed that Israel is using members of the MEK Iranian opposition group to target Iran’s nuclear scientists.

The author attributes the change in U.S. policy to recognition of Iranian strength because of the Arab Spring, which he refers to as the “Islamic Awakening.” He specifically mentions the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent takeover of the country by Islamist forces. Zarei also claims that the U.S. is “on the verge of accepting the Iranian nuclear program” and points to statements by Israeli officials that Iran is “rational” as proof that the Israeli government is weakening.

Don’t let the fact that Iran is Shiite and the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists are Sunni fool you. The two forces may be battling in Syria, but the Iranian regime still believes that its rise is a fulfillment of Islamic End Times prophecy. Last year, Ahmadinejad’s office produced a documentary titled The Coming Is Upon Us. It outlined how it views its role in Islamic prophecy and plainly states that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ascendance is “in accordance with the Hadith.”

In February, Khamenei declared, “From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help.” This should be seen as an overture to the Muslim Brotherhood. The film states that the destruction of Israel is preceded by the creation of an anti-Western Arab coalition.

Arguably the most important line in Zarei’s column is this: “With diminishing support for Israel and with the (upcoming) collapse of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, there won’t be any obstacles left facing Iran with its policy of annihilation of Israel.”

This statement echoes what the apocalyptic documentary said. In The Coming Is Upon Us, the regime teaches that the death of Saudi King Abdullah will be a fulfillment of prophecy and one of the last precursors to Israel’s destruction. Saudi Arabia will be consumed with internal turmoil until the Mahdi appears to vanquish Islam’s enemies. King Abdullah is at least 87 years old.

Eisner was immediately condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff. The Israeli media relentlessly covered the incident. He was suspended, has been banned from holding command posts for two years, was reassigned to a training school and is still under investigation. It is very possible that he will face further punishment.

That is the real story here. Israel’s furious reaction to the video debunks what its enemies claim it proves. If the Israelis were so inhumane, this wouldn’t be such a big story. There is no other country in the Middle East that would react the same way if roles were reversed. Ironically, the controversy is showing what is so good about Israel, even if no one notices.

Some context is also needed here. A group of about 250 anti-Israel activists were stopped as they tried to get on Highway 90, as the IDF requires advance notice of such crossings as a security precaution. Keep in mind, the group was part of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that says it is non-violent but supports “the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via legitimate armed struggles.” In other words, ISM supports violence.

The ISM-affiliated group began illegally blocking the road and the stand-off continued for two hours. The Israeli soldiers didn’t open fire or forcibly disperse them. Eisner was assaulted, breaking two of his fingers. You can see his bandaged fingers in the video. After a Danish anarchist got in his face, Eisner lost his temper and whacked him in the face with his rifle. The ISM got what it wanted, all on tape. A second video surfaced, showing Eisner hitting some others as they tried to force their way past the Israeli soldiers.

The founders of the ISM sought to supplement the jihadists’  violent campaign with a political and psychological campaign. Lee Kaplan, an expert on the ISM and founder of StoptheISM.com, says that a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, was instrumental in its creation. His website describes the group as “a front group for Yasser Arafat’s PLO and its affiliated Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the PFLP and Hamas. It works in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda ministries by Saudi funding through the Muslim Students Association on our U.S. and Canadian campuses.”

On January 23, the Facebook page of CAIR-MN announced that Best Buy would be a “Platinum Sponsor” of its fifth annual banquet. CAIR was labeled by the federal government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that was shut down for fundraising for the terrorist group Hamas, whose charter calls for the extermination of Jews.

CAIR grew out of the Islamic Association of Palestine, another group that was shut down for being a Hamas front. The Muslim Brotherhood’s secret Palestine Committee in the U.S., set up to support Hamas, listed CAIR as a “working organizations” in one of its documents in 1994.

In a 2007 federal court filing, it is stated that, “From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists” and “the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.” District Judge Jorge Solis ruled that the government provided “ample evidence” tying CAIR to Hamas to justify its designation as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”

This information can easily be found in a quick Internet search, but Best Buy wasn’t simply negligent. After the story broke, Best Buy could have said it acted hastily and would change course. Instead, the company boasted that the donation proves its good will and tolerance.

Best Buy’s customers and employees around the world represent a variety of faiths and denominations. We respect that diversity, and choose to engage with our customers, employees and communities in ways that reflect their traditions and maintain good relationships for Best Buy,” a statement on Facebook reads.

Nearly 5,000 people signed the pledge within the first 24 hours to boycott Best Buy until it rescinds its support for CAIR. Add your name to the list by clicking here.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Seven attacks occurred simultaneously at about 1:45 PM. The fighting lasted for over 18 hours in Kabul and the capitals of Paktia, Logar and Nangarhar provinces. Several embassies, police stations, a NATO base, the Kabul Star Hotel, an airport and the parliament building all came under attack. The targets were chosen based on prominence instead of creating maximum casualties. The Islamist enemy’s goal was to demonstrate that no target is safe and to show off its ability to conduct complicated operations.

The attacks are also meant to discourage the Afghans and the American public. About 66% of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan and 70% believe that the Afghan population does not support the U.S. military presence. Only 22% believe the Afghans support American involvement.

One captured participant in the attacks admitted that he is part of the Haqqani network. Shortly before the attacks, the authorities arrested four members of the Haqqani network. The cell revealed that they were in the midst of carrying out a plan to kill one of Afghanistan’s vice presidents.

The alleged involvement of the Haqqani network points directly to Pakistani complicity. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, bluntly accuses the Pakistani ISI intelligence service of being behind sophisticated attacks in September. Fed up with Pakistan’s duplicity, he forcefully stated, “The Haqqani network acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.” Outcry followed and the White House tried to soften his remarks. He wouldn’t allow it. “I phrased it the way I wanted it to be phrased,” Mullen said.

A Taliban spokesman named Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for his group and downplayed the role of the Haqqanis. He said that reports that the Haqqani network orchestrated the attacks are a part of “a baseless plot from the West, who wants to show that we are separate.” Indeed, the U.S. has been trying to lure the Taliban into a peace deal that would sever its ties to the Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda. Vice President Joe Biden even made the astonishing statement that the “Taliban is not our enemy, per se.”

Mujahid asserts that the Taliban meticulously planned the wave of attacks for two months without being foiled. He said that members even put together models of their targets so they could rehearse their attacks, secretly stored weapons and had help from agents within the Afghan security forces. He boasted that the Taliban’s planned spring offensive has not yet begun.

On the same day, 100-200 militants stormed a prison in Bannu, Pakistan and freed 384 prisoners. Among those released were 20 terrorists deemed “very dangerous,” including one who tried to kill former Pakistani President Musharraf. The circumstances surrounding the break-in strongly indicate that top Pakistani officials were involved. The fighting went on for two hours but no soldiers or police arrived. The huge group of armed militants was not stopped by the border guards at the tribal areas and passed police checkpoints and military installations on their way to the prison.

North Korea’s adversaries loudly protested the planned missile launch. The regime claimed it was innocently launching a satellite, but the technology is almost exactly the same as what is needed for a long-range ballistic missile. It was obvious that North Korea was testing its ability to strike as far away as the continental U.S. and Australia. Japan and South Korea threatened to shoot it down if it entered their airspaces. The regime proudly granted the worldwide media permission to come see the rocket, prompting the U.S. government to caution journalists that they could be feeding into its propaganda.

The U.S. warned that it would torpedo a deal struck on February 29 where the North Koreans would permit inspections of its nuclear facilities, end its nuclear weapons programs and stop testing missiles. In return, the U.S. would provide 240,000 metric tons of food desperately needed by the starving population. American officials assured the public that the delivery would be tightly monitored to make sure that the aid wasn’t diverted to the regime.

Kim Jong-Un decided to go back on the deal and spend $800 million on this failed rocket launch; money that could have been spent on 2.5 million tons of corn and 1.4 million tons of rice. North Korean engineers are digging an underground tunnel in preparation for a nuclear weapons test, spending even more money that could save its people. The regime is also spending $50 million on an amusement park and $140 million on upgrading 3,000 apartments used by government officials. Meanwhile, according to the U.N. World Food Program, about 16 of 24 million North Koreans rely on foreign food aid for survival and one-third of the children suffer from chronic malnourishment.

Speculation that Santorum would quit the race rose after his three-year-old daughter, Bella, had to go to the hospital over the weekend. She suffers from Trisomy-18, a rare disorder that is fatal for all but one percent of its victims by age 10. She has been released from the hospital, but the decision to exit the race was still made.

Santorum described his campaign as being “about who we are as Americans” and reflected on how his campaign sprung from last place to runner-up, despite being counted out all the way up until the final weeks before the Iowa caucus. He is proud that his campaign didn’t focus solely on the economy, but also “violent radical Islam” and “the scourge of Iran.”

There were other factors in his decision. His campaign is asking supporters to help pay off debt, saying the campaign “can’t be free to focus on helping defeat [Obama] with this burden.” Romney had also attained a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. His rivals were under tremendous pressure to drop out due to fears that a prolonged campaign would give Obama decisive advantages. He was also declining in the polls in his home state of Pennsylvania. A game-ending Romney victory there on April 24 was becoming more likely.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are committed to staying in the race. Gingrich immediately declared himself the “last conservative standing”  and says he is eager to go one-on-one with Romney. He hopes to debate him in North Carolina before the state holds its primary on May 8. It is highly unlikely Romney will agree.

Gingrich is focusing on winning delegates in Delaware on April 24, North Carolina on May 8 and Texas on May 29. He admits that Romney is “far and away” the most likely one to get the nomination, so he instead is focusing on influencing the party platform. According to the Republican National Committee, Romney currently has 573 delegates. Even if all of Santorum’s delegates jumped to Gingrich, he’d only have 334.

The focus will now be on Romney’s running mate and the general election. The most mentioned names are Florida Senator Marco Rubio, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Senator Rob Portman, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain suggest Florida Representative Allen West.

“State Department officials said they were untroubled and even optimistic about the Brotherhood’s reversal of its pledge not to seek the presidency,” the Times reports.

Shater has had extensive contact with U.S. officials and has convinced them that he’s not to be feared. Apparently, these U.S. officials have forgotten about (or never were informed of) the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and history.

The Brotherhood’s leaders preach a strategy of “gradualism” towards “mastership of the world.” Hamas has officially added “a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood-Palestine” to its name. The Vice Chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party says Hamas is a “resistance group” and that Cairo should host one of its offices. The Brotherhood’s leaders are not shy about their goal of destroying Israel and its internal documents refer to its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

In November, a Brotherhood spokesman stated without equivocation, “The Sharia, the Muslim legal framework, must be the foundation for everything.” On November 24, senior Brotherhood leaders publicly preached violent jihad, and the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a Brotherhood entity, declared that it is time to “revive the duty of jihad in all its forms.” One top leader, Mohamad Katatni, predicts that the revolution in Egypt would lead to the elimination of the state of Israel.

The State Department’s welcoming of Shater’s candidacy is partly due to fear of the Salafist candidate, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail. He is outwardly hostile to the West. The Salafists shocked the West when they won nearly one-fourth of the vote in Egypt’s elections. The latest poll shows that Ismail leaped forward from as low as fifth place to second place at 22%, about 10% behind the secularist presidential frontrunner, Amr Moussa.

Ismail is happy about Shater’s candidacy. He believes that it will take votes away from Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a Muslim Brotherhood leader whose membership was suspended when he ran for president against the leadership’s wishes. He’s currently polling at 8%. The election is held in May, and if no single candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a run-off is held between the top two candidates the next month. If it comes down to Moussa and Ismail, the Islamists will rally behind Ismail and give him a landslide victory.

The RealClearPolitics poll average had Gingrich barely ahead of Romney in Alabama by only 0.2%, and the last poll in Mississippi had him leading by 2%. One poll found Romney ahead in Alabama by 2%. One poll earlier in March had Romney winning Mississippi by 8%. None showed Santorum winning.

Yet, he won Alabama with 34.6%, about 5 points ahead of Gingrich (29.3%) and Romney (28.9%). Ron Paul only received 5% of the vote. Santorum won Mississippi with 32.9%, about 1.5 points ahead of Gingrich (31.3%). Romney came in third with 30.3% and Paul in fourth with 4.4%.

As things stand now, Romney is projected to have 474 delegates. That is a huge lead over Santorum with 228, Gingrich with 137 and Paul with 64.

Santorum opened up his victory speech with, “We did it again.”  The objective of his speech was to counter the perception that it is inevitable that Romney will be the Republican nominee. He said that he “spent a whole lot of money against me for someone who is inevitable.”  He argued against Romney’s electability, saying that only a genuine conservative can defeat President Obama.

Some experts feel that it is nearly impossible for Santorum to get the 1,144 delegates needed to take the nomination. Santorum predicts that he will win the nomination at the convention. He says “it will be very difficult for anyone to get to the number of delegates that is necessary to win with the majority at the convention.” His campaign argues that Romney would lose in a brokered convention because “he will have a very hard time getting his moderate supporters elected as delegates in these convention systems.”

Newt Gingrich’s strategy is essentially the same. Before the vote, he said he wants to stop Romney from reaching 1,144 delegates so there can be a 60-day period between the primaries and the convention in late August about who the nominee should be. In an interview with FOX News Channel’s Bret Baier last night, he floated the possibility that an entirely new candidate could become the nominee if that were to happen. His campaign originally said it had to win both states in order to remain in the contest.

He began his speech by reminding the audience that the delegates are allocated proportionally and vowing to stay in the race until the very end. He declared that the “elite media’s narrative that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed.” He said that Romney cannot defeat Obama in a debate because of his health care plan.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism broke the story that McCarthy met with officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), where he promised that the Chicago Police Department would not use the surveillance tactics that CAIR has lashed out at the NYPD for using. Outrageously, McCarthy even agreed to speak at a fundraiser for CAIR’s branch in Chicago. The event will honor Kifah Mustapha, an imam whose bid to become the Illinois State Police’s first Muslim chaplain was torpedoed when his links to Hamas came to light.

CAIR was labeled by the federal government as an “unindicted co-conspirator”  in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity found to be a Hamas front used for fundraising. In 2007, the said that, “From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists” and “the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

In 2009, the FBI stopped working with CAIR on outreach to the Muslim community. CAIR lost its fight to have its designation as an “unindicted co-conspirator” lifted and on July 1, 2009, District Court Judge Jorge Solis ruled that there was “ample evidence” tying CAIR to Hamas to justify the label.

This did not stop all law enforcement agencies from working with CAIR. In October 2010, the FBI field office in New Haven, Connecticut used the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut, led by a former CAIR spokesman, to train its personnel in “Islamophobia.” CAIR helped organize the event.

Yet, CAIR still is able to influence the media, politicians and agencies involved in counter-terrorism.

In 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department caved to CAIR’s pressure over its plans to use mapping to analyze the threat posed by different areas of the Muslim community. A spokeswoman said, “There was a clear message from the Muslim community that they were not comfortable with it. So we listened.” Today, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is among the most prominent defenders of CAIR and speaks at its fundraisers.

The pressure campaign against law enforcement, especially the NYPD, went into high gear in early 2011 after reports were published allegedly exposing the influence of “Islamophobes” on counter-terrorism training. By October, the FBI Director was ordering a cleansing of all “offensive content” from training materials with the help of unnamed outside organizations. The same orders were given at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

It soon became apparent that the outsiders helping the U.S. government edit its materials included the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a group founded by Brotherhood ideologues and a close ally of CAIR. In October, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center distributed a document to all law enforcement agencies about how to craft its training programs. MPAC and Sheriff Baca were cited in the report. Words like “jihad” and “Islam” did not appear in the text.

Mitt Romney won Ohio with 38% of the vote to Rick Santorum’s 37%. Newt Gingrich came in 15% and Ron Paul came in 9%. Unfortunately for Santorum, he may be unable to win up to 18 of the state’s 63 delegates because of mistakes in campaign filings.

Romney also won Vermont (40%), Massachusetts (72%), Idaho (69%) and Virginia (60%), where only he and Ron Paul qualified for the ballot. The results from the Alaska caucus were not in at the time of publication, but Romney won that caucus in 2008. He now has at least 396 delegates.

Romney spoke confidently last night, declaring, “I’m gonna get this nomination!” He emphasized electability and the importance of defeating President Obama. He said that a second Obama term would be worse than the first because he’d be “unrestricted by the demands of reelection.” He did not criticize his rivals and told viewers that “real change is finally on the way.” His message was almost entirely geared towards the general election.

Rick Santorum won Tennessee (37%), Oklahoma (34%) and North Dakota (40%). His delegate total is now at least 158. He says he can defeat Romney if Newt Gingrich drops out, thereby consolidating the voters that are opposed to the current frontrunner. In his speech, Santorum distinguished himself as the only one of the three that has never favored an individual health care mandate.

The bulk of Santorum’s speech was devoted to making a philosophical argument for conservatism and against liberalism, saying that the 2012 election is about “fundamental liberty.”  He went after Romney on health care, stating that the Republican Party needs a nominee who will be “truthful with the American public.”

Newt Gingrich said he had to win his home state of Georgia to continue and he did so with 48% of the vote. He has 103 delegates, according to CNN. He began his speech by recounting how many times the “elites” had declared his candidacy dead. He then argued that Romney is less electable than him because the “Romney tactic” of outspending his opponents will not work against a more formidable President Obama. Gingrich said that the nominee must be able to debate Obama and his “deliciously incoherent” policies.

The major concern is that the food aid will be diverted to the regime and the military instead of its starving population and then violate its agreements.

“The destitute North Korean economy needs foreign aid to avoid collapse. North Korea follows a now clear cycle of ostentatiously dangerous conduct followed by a conciliatory gesture that brings its neighbors and the U.S. rushing to the negotiating table, bearing goodies,” writes Christian Whiton, a former deputy special envoy for human rights in North Korea.

Under Kim Jong-Il, North Korea violated several past “breakthrough” agreements. It should be assumed that Kim Jong-Un will follow the same strategy because it worked. There is already uncertainty over whether the regime has agreed to suspend its plutonium reprocessing program that is responsible for at least two nuclear tests. Its announcement only referred to uranium. A senior U.S. official said the administration is confident that the plutonium program is also covered under the deal.

The U.S. says it will closely supervise the delivery of the food aid. It will send meals and products designed for pregnant women and children instead of rice and grains. It is hoped that the first shipment will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks. One official said that the operation will be the “most comprehensively monitored and managed program” devised yet.

It is obviously a good thing if the U.S. can prevent mass starvation among the North Korean population, especially if the recipients understand that it came from its so-called enemies. However, the regime’s giving in to U.S. demands for strict regulations over the food aid deliveries and willingness to suspend its nuclear activities is also a sign of weakness that must be exploited.

The U.S. must not accept the status quo with North Korea and turn a blind eye to the horrors that the regime puts its people through or the other ways it threatens the U.S. It still has 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons and about 5,000 tons of biological weapons, with a dozen production facilities for the former and 20 for the latter. Some of these weapons are tested on innocent prisoners, including children, the disabled and the mentally-handicapped.

In the 2012 Republican presidential race, a caucus or primary’s front-runner often becomes tomorrow’s runner-up. This was the case last night. Mitt Romney, as predicted, won by a landslide in Arizona and came from behind to win Michigan, the state that his father governed. Rick Santorum, hardly discouraged, characterized his narrow loss as something to celebrate because of the odds against him in the state.

At the time of publication, Romney had 48% of the vote in Arizona. Santorum came in second with 26%, followed by Newt Gingrich with 16% and Ron Paul with 9%. Romney appears to have won Michigan by only about three percent — 41% to Santorum’s 38% at last estimation. Paul defeated Gingrich for third, 12% to 7%.

There are two ways to look at the results. On the one hand, Romney came from behind when polls just last week showed Santorum with a significant lead. On the other hand, Romney won this state by 9 percent over McCain in 2008. His father was a popular governor of the state, and Romney grew up there. Michigan was looked at by most political analysts as a second home-state for him.

In his victory speech, Romney worked to characterize the night as a surprise victory. He said that “they were ready to count us out” last week. His speech did not mention or refer to any of his rivals and was geared for the general election. He warned that President Obama would be “unrestrained” if he’s re-elected and sought to counter the declining unemployment rate by talking about the “real unemployment rate” of 15%. He said that Obama’s excuse that he inherited a poor economy is invalid because he also inherited a Democratic Congress that would have given him free reign to fix it.

Rick Santorum’s concession speech was written like a victory speech. He did not go on the attack against Romney in it and emphasized that he was fighting an uphill battle in Michigan and made it a nail-biter. This speech was unique because it focused on the “Freedom Agenda” that would define his first 100 days in office. He talked at length about energy security and driving the price of gasoline downwards.

He pledged to maximize domestic production of oil and talked about North Dakota’s potential in this area. He said he’d repeal ObamaCare, revive the manufacturing sector, have state governments run entitlement programs and fight for a balanced budget. The last part of his speech was about the Declaration of Independence and George Washington. He told the inspiring story of Washington and what he fought for in great detail and used it as a rallying call.

Newt Gingrich, struggling to make a comeback, went on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss gas prices and his stance on Afghanistan. He said that he hoped to resuscitate his campaign by focusing on how he’d bring the price of gasoline down to $2.50 per gallon, fight against the establishment and refuse to apologize, as Obama did, for the accidental burning of Qurans in Afghanistan.

Three of the four Republican presidential candidates endorsed regime change in Syria during last night’s debate, with Ron Paul being the lone exception. These candidates were quick to call for action against the Iranian ally but failed to mention some of the concerns about Islamists within the Syrian opposition and the support it has gotten from the terrorist group al-Qaeda. National security is becoming a more pronounced issue as voters in Arizona and Michigan go to the polls on February 28.

Rick Santorum, arguably the new frontrunner, described Syria as a “puppet state of Iran” and said “we could do no worse” than the Assad regime. Newt Gingrich was more specific and said the U.S. should covertly arm the Syrian rebels so they can topple the regime. Ron Paul railed against any type of interventionist policy.

Mitt Romney said that Syria is “Iran’s route to the sea” and that the revolution is something that the U.S. must “grab hold of.” He said that a message must be sent to the Allawite minority that supports Assad that it will be safe if it joins the opposition. He argued that regime change in Syria would maximize pressure on Iran and “change the course of world history.” One concerning suggestion he made was to ask Turkey and Saudi Arabia to arm the Syrian rebels. Both governments are Islamist and we should be very wary of their influence.

A significant amount of time was devoted to Iran and a possible Israeli strike. The same three candidates said the U.S. should support Israel if it decides that military action is necessary to stop a nuclear-armed Iran.

Rick Santorum described himself as the longest champion of the Iranian opposition seeking to remove the regime. He recalled how he sponsored the Iran Freedom and Support Act that allotted $100 million to the opposition annually but was opposed by the Bush administration. As a result, Santorum said, the Green Revolution sparked in 2009 failed to bring the regime down. He criticized President Obama for helping the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya while softly treating the Iranian regime that targets the U.S., dubbed the “Great Satan.”

Mitt Romney said that Iran is President Obama’s biggest failure and predicted that his re-election would permit Iran to build nuclear weapons. He slammed the president for agreeing to remove the anti-ballistic missile systems from Eastern Europe at Russia’s request without demanding that the Russians permit tough sanctions on Iran.  Like Santorum, he ridiculed Obama for failing to support the Iranian opposition. Romney said that the U.S. should tell Iran that it is “considering”  military action.

Newt Gingrich pivoted to talk about energy independence, a theme he repeatedly went back to throughout the night. He began the debate by pledging to bring gas prices down to $2.50 per gallon. He said that if the U.S allowed offshore drilling and opened up federal land so its oil resources can be used, it’d become the world’s largest oil producer and could bring the government $16-18 trillion in royalties over a generation. His goal would be to make the U.S. so self-sufficient that it could tell the Middle East that “we frankly don’t care what you do.”

Ron Paul received his only boos of the night over Iran when he said that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon and that “the Iranians can’t possibly attack anybody.” He said that the Iranian regime, if it is seeking nuclear weapons, is only doing so because the U.S. is threatening it. He claimed that the sanctions on Iran are “backfiring”  because Iranians are uniting behind the regime.

The Iranian regime announced yesterday that a new line of centrifuges have been activated and domestically-produced fuel rods are being used. The revelations in the state media were scarier: The underground Fordo nuclear site, clearly designed for nuclear weapons production, has become “fully operational,” potentially bringing Iran only a few short months from having bomb-grade uranium.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proudly announced that Iran had produced its own nuclear fuel rods and installed them into a medical research reactor in Tehran. Iran previously bragged that it made its own rods and the site has no weapons-related purpose. Judith Miller of the Manhattan Institute described the announcement as a “photo opportunity” and “publicity stunt.”

Ahmadinejad also claimed that Iran manufactured 3,000 new “fourth generation” centrifuges for its Natanz site that will have larger and faster output. They will begin making low-enriched uranium called yellowcake next year, the regime said. Experts have serious doubts about the validity of Iran’s boasts in this area.

The announcement on Iran’s state media is of much more concern. The underground enrichment site at Fordo near Qom, built to withstand air strikes, will become “fully operational” in the matter of days. When Israeli Defense Minister warned of Iran reaching an “immunity zone” when military action is no longer viable, he was referring to this site specifically and others built underground and deep in the mountains. The U.S. and Europe point out that the structure of the site makes it incompatible with a peaceful nuclear energy program as Iran claims, but very suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Iran says it is going to enrich uranium at the Fordo site to 20% for use in medical research. A nuclear weapon needs uranium enriched to about 90% but in the words of former Revolutionary Guardsman Reza Kahlili, that 20% threshold brings Iran “9/10 of the way to weaponization.”

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security says that it only takes about 6 months to upgrade 20%-enriched uranium to bomb-grade level using 500-1,000 centrifuges. The Fordo site can hold 3,000 centrifuges. Iran has not said how many centrifuges are at the site but an International Atomic Energy Agency report published in November said that 412 were present.

Reza Kahlili reports that Iran just completed its first trigger for detonating a nuclear bomb, a major achievement that the IAEA knows that Iran has been working on. Last year, he was told by sources in Iran that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the construction of at least two nuclear warheads by next month.

If Kahlili’s sources had accurate information, then Iran is much closer to having a nuclear missile than the West believes. The director of Israel’s military-intelligence says Iran has enough uranium for four nuclear weapons but won’t have a nuclear missile for three years. Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies says that once Iran makes enough bomb-grade uranium, it’ll still take over a year for a bomb to be assembled.

Iran is becoming more aggressive as its nuclear program advances.

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri reiterated his call for jihad against the Syrian dictatorship in a message posted on the Internet yesterday. The conflict in Syria pits the Assad regime, Iran and Hezbollah against the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and the Arab states. Non-Islamist Syrians desiring genuine democracy, including the Christian minority, are caught in-between.

Zawahiri tells Muslims to support the uprising “with all that he can, with his life, money, opinion, as well as information.” The message comes after 25 were killed and 175 were wounded in two suicide bombings in Aleppo of security service buildings. The attacks are believed to have been directly ordered by Ayman al-Zawahiri and carried out by Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq.

He is especially concerned about how foreign powers will influence the Syrian opposition as it looks for outside help.

“Our people in Syria, don’t rely on the West or the United States or Arab governments and Turkey,” Zawahiri says.

His video was released on the same day that the Arab League asked the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force into Syria and agreed to “materially” support the opposition, likely paving the way for military assistance to the Free Syria Army that is fighting the regime’s forces.

The Muslim Brotherhood, unlike Al-Qaeda, is happy to accept foreign military intervention if it will lead to victory. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Brotherhood cleric, declared that it is permissible for Muslims to welcome U.N.-backed intervention in Syria if the Arab states are unable to stop the violence.

Al-Qaeda has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the Assad regime. Syria has imprisoned members of Al-Qaeda, as the terrorist group is ideologically committed to replacing the regime with Islamist rule. Assad has also helped Al-Qaeda when their interests have aligned, particularly in Iraq and Lebanon. Relations between Iraq and Syria hit the breaking point in 2009 when the Iraqis released evidence that the Assad regime was backing Al-Qaeda and other terrorists carrying out attacks in Iraq. The relationship has healed since then as Iranian influence over Iraq has grown.

The Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister says that terrorists are crossing the border into Syria and shipping arms to the opposition fighting Assad. The price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle has increased from $100-200 to $1000-$1500 because of the rise in demand, he claims. However, the Iraqi government is backing Assad and could just be trying to substantiate the dictatorship’s claims that it is only fighting “armed gangs” and terrorists.

Since coming to power in 2000, Bashar Assad’s strategy has been to portray his regime as the only thing stopping an Islamist takeover. Secular democratic voices are silenced while the jihadist rhetoric of Islamists is often allowed. The regime recently released a top Al-Qaeda prisoner, Abu Musab al-Suri, who used to lead the terrorist group’s operations in Europe. He oversaw the 2005 bombings in London and was involved in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.

The contest for the Republican presidential nomination has, yet again, taken a surprising turn. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum won the caucuses in Missouri and Minnesota yesterday and topped the night off with a come-from-behind surprise victory in Colorado.

Mitt Romney lost Missouri in 2008 and did not make a play for the caucus, which isn’t awarding any delegates. Newt Gingrich failed to make it onto the ballot, leaving Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to battle it out. Santorum prevailed, winning Missouri with 55% of the vote. Romney came in second with 25%. Ron Paul finished with 12%. This was not a surprising victory, as Santorum was leading in the polls there.

The media assumed that Romney would win Colorado and focused on Minnesota. Romney won the state by 19% in 2008, but the polls showed Santorum with a comfortable lead as the caucus took place. At the time of this article’s publication, Santorum was shown winning Minnesota with 45%. Ron Paul is in second with 27%, Romney has 17% and Gingrich has 11%. If these totals hold, this will mean that Santorum rose from a 2-point lead on February 4 in Public Policy Polling’s survey to a 9-point lead on February 6 and ultimately won by a whopping 18%.

The media thought Santorum’s landslide victory in Minnesota would be the story of the night, but they were wrong. Romney won Colorado in 2008 by 42%. The polls consistently showed him with double-digit leads. The last poll had him ahead by 10%. Amazingly, Santorum pulled off an upset and won a solid victory in Colorado. With 99% of districts reporting, Santorum had attained 40% of the vote, while Romney had 35%, Gingrich had 13% and Paul had 12%. This is a remarkable feat for a candidate who was dismissed as he languished in the low single digits for the majority of the campaign.

Santorum gave his victory speech after the results in Missouri and Minnesota were announced. He likely didn’t think he’d win Colorado at that point. Trumpeting his electability, Santorum proudly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t stand here to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

He made the case that last night’s contests were the most reflective of what the general election campaign will look like. Mitt Romney was unable to overwhelm his opponents with immense finances and superior organization, Santorum argued. He made the point that President Obama’s organization and fundraising will outmatch his Republican opponent, and so Romney will not be able to count on those advantages to win. Santorum argued that the only way Obama could be beaten is if a sharp contrast is drawn and that he is the best candidate to do that.

Mitt Romney won a big victory in Florida’s primary yesterday, taking the state’s 50 delegates with 46% of the vote. There’s still a long road ahead, as Romney only has 87 of the 1,144 delegates needed to officially win the nomination. In their speeches following the primary results, the candidates indicate that the contest will take a more positive direction.

Romney did not mention any of his opponents by name in his victory speech. The only criticism he made was that the others did not have the experience in creating jobs that he has. His focus was completely on President Obama, sounding as if the general election campaign had already begun. He pledged to “end the Obama era and begin a new era of American prosperity.”

He said that President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” the country and that he be the one to bring true hope and change. One standout line in Romney’s speech was, “Hope is a new paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker.” A look at Romney’s financial advantage and the upcoming contests helps explain why Romney sounded so confident and is, once again, talking as if the nomination is his. “If you believe the disappointments of the last few years are a detour, not our destiny, then I am asking for your vote,” he said.

The Romney campaign has nearly 10 times the money that Newt Gingrich has with no debt. It is likely that Romney will score 7 victories in a row by the end of February, as political analyst Dick Morris pointed out. The next contest will be on February 4 when Nevada holds its caucus. Romney won the state in 2008 and has led in every poll taken there. Maine begins its week-long caucus that day also and polls show Romney leading. Romney won Maine in 2008. On February 4, the caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota take place, both of which Romney won last time.

The only debate of the month will be held on February 22, giving Romney’s opponents an opportunity to stall his momentum. If they don’t, he will win the Michigan and Arizona primaries on February 28. Romney won the former in 2008 and lost the latter to McCain. The last poll in Arizona had Gingrich and Romney tied. Super Tuesday, the date when 10 states hold their caucuses and primaries, arrives on March 6.

Newt Gingrich came in second place in Florida with 32% of the vote, but didn’t win any delegates because it is a winner-takes-all contest. He claimed that the state had “made it clear” that the campaign had narrowed down to two people, with Romney as the “Massachusetts moderate” and him as the “conservative leader.” By making this statement, he was trying to compel supporters of Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to jump to his side. He repeatedly talked about winning by running a “positive” campaign and his relatively tepid criticism of Romney may be the result of a shift in strategy.

The Obama administration is redefining the War on Terrorism as a war on Al-Qaeda, with Vice President Biden going so far as to say that the “Taliban, per se, is not our enemy.” In June, Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed that the U.S. was negotiating with the Taliban, and talks have reportedly gone on since at least November 2010. Now, President Obama is even thinking about releasing five high-level Taliban leaders to Qatar from Guantanamo Bay, despite their direct ties with Al-Qaeda and the military’s warnings that they are likely to rejoin the violent jihad.

Marc Thiessen reviewed the biographies of the five Taliban leaders that the U.S. may set free. Mullah Mohammed Fazl was the chief of staff of the Taliban army and worked with Osama Bin Laden’s 055 Brigade. Abdul Haq Wasiq, the Taliban’s deputy intelligence minister, built alliances with terrorist groups and arranged for Al-Qaeda to train Taliban fighters. The governor of Herat Province, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, was “directly associated” with Bin Laden, supervising an Al-Qaeda training camp and took part in Taliban dealings with Iran to jointly kill U.S. soldiers.

Mullah Norullah Noori, a former Taliban commander, was involved with senior members of Al-Qaeda and fought alongside the terrorist group. The Joint Task Force-Guantanamo describes him as a Taliban “hardliner.” Muhammad Nabi, a fundraiser for the Taliban, was part of an Al-Qaeda cell. The reason these five leaders are held is because the military believes they will go right back to what they were doing before their imprisonment. Yet, the Obama administration believes that releasing them will improve the chances that the negotiations with the Taliban will be successful.

There have been around six meetings between the U.S. and Taliban representatives in Germany and Doha, Qatar. Among those participating are Mullah Omar’s secretary and Ibrahim Haqqani, the brother of the leader of the Al-Qaeda-tied Haqqani Network. The U.S. was encouraged by the Taliban’s agreement to open up a political office in Qatar, where Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi is acting as a “mediator.” Qaradawi is a terrorism-supporting, anti-Semitic cleric and leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich went at in what Nate Silver called “probably the most important GOP debate” of the campaign. The focus was mainly on the charges the two frontrunners have made against each other but when it came to foreign policy, the audience cheered Romney’s defense of Israel and Rick Santorum’s denunciation of the Obama administration towards “militant socialists” in Latin America.

The polls out of Florida have fluctuated wildly over the past week. In the days after Gingrich’s South Carolina victory, polls had him ahead by 8 or 9 points. Now, Romney has an average lead of 5 points, with several polls having him winning by 7 or 8 points. The two frontrunners swapped positions in just four days. The primary will be held on Tuesday, January 31.

On foreign policy, Mitt Romney had the most applause when he was asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He ridiculed the Obama administration for “disrespecting” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for peace negotiations to be based on the 1967 borders and for criticizing Israel’s settlements in the West Bank while remaining silent as terrorist rockets fell on Israeli cities. He gave a passionate defense of Israel, saying that it is the Palestinians who are uninterested in a two-state solution. He argued that both Hamas and Fatah seek the destruction of Israel and that Palestinian children are taught with textbooks advocating the killing of Jews.

Newt Gingrich’s best moment on foreign policy was also about Israel. He defended his earlier statement that the Palestinians are an “invented” people, saying that before the 1970s, the Palestinians were just referred to as Arabs with Syrian, Jordanian, Egyptian or Lebanese nationalities. He said the Palestinian leadership is more interested in conflict than in improving the lives of the Palestinian people and uses the process as “war by another form.” The crowd loved it when he said that on his first day in office, he’d sign an executive order moving the embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Rick Santorum was enthusiastically applauded when spoke about the intercontinental alliance between Islamic extremists like Iran and the “militant socialists” in Latin America, specifically in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia that are “spreading like a cancer.” The source of that cancer, Santorum said, is the Castro regime. He said that President Obama had “sided with the leftists, sided with the Marxists” in Latin America against U.S. allies like Colombia and those in Honduras who tried to stop Manuel Zelaya, a Chavez ally, from forming a dictatorship.

Ron Paul repeatedly advocated using diplomacy and free trade as the best way of promoting security. He said that his rivals’ policies towards Cuba and Latin America would backfire and cause anti-Americanism because of their “bully attitude.” His most well-received foreign policy-related line was when he said that most of the American people “don’t see a jihadist under the bed every night.”

There were several clashes between the candidates in this debate. The biggest were between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney put him on the defensive over an ad that called him an “anti-immigrant,” which Florida Senator Marco Rubio defended him against. Romney said it was “repulsive,” that disagreements should be allowed to happen without “highly-charged epithets” and demanded an apology. Gingrich said that Romney would deport “grandmothers” who came to the U.S. illegally, which he denied.

The two frontrunners also battled over an ad accusing Gingrich of describing Spanish as the “language of the ghetto.” Wolf Blitzer asked Romney about it, who said he hadn’t seen the ad and was unsure if his campaign was behind it. He then asked Gingrich if that quote was accurate, to which he replied, “it’s taken totally out of context.” Romney responded, “Oh, well then he said it.” Later in the debate, Blitzer informed Romney that CNN confirmed that his campaign was running the ad, generating boos from the audience.