Question & Answer Session

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Question & Answer Session

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At worst, the P5+1 diplomats will actually be aware of the true nature of the Iranian regime, but will act out the script of “negotiating constructively” with it so as to further certain ancillary goals—like lowering oil prices, boosting political fortunes, and above all, forestalling a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This constructive, reasonable Iran, ready to strike a deal and essentially having the same aims as the P5+1 countries except for a few bridgeable areas of disagreement, cannot be the same Iran that just this week called for the “full annihilation of Israel,” that has taken a steady toll of American lives in Iraq, that bragged earlier this month of its navy’s ability to threaten New York City, that has been responsible for an ongoing string of terrorist atrocities for over three decades, and that continues to intimidate its Persian Gulf neighbors with subversion and very real threats of conquest.

There is, indeed, a situation in which a regime like Iran’s would sue for reasonable terms and real compromise—if it were truly on the ropes. But, while the sanctions are taking an economic toll, not even the most determined optimists claim that Tehran is anywhere near teetering. Not while its nuclear program continues at full speed, and while, as Israeli analyst Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall notes, it has been continuing a policy of strategic “buildup, defiance, and power projection” in the face of all Western blandishments.

IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano’s claim on Tuesday, then, about an imminent—but still-unsigned—deal with Iran allowing inspection of some of its nuclear sites was a kind of ominous prelude to the Baghdad talks. It was the IAEA whose report last November—confirming all of Israel’s warnings about Iran’s unceasing progress toward the bomb—seemed to create a more serious atmosphere regarding the threat. It was Amano himself who heightened the sense of crisis in March by warning that Iran had tripled production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

The timing of this paltry “agreement” announced by the IAEA suggests that the Iranians are once again rope-a-doping the U.N. and the West, playing for time by exploiting both Obama’s fear of an Israeli attack before the elections, and the Europeans’ usual preference for using diplomatic words to avoid military deeds. Thus this latest “breakthrough” is nothing more than another Iranian tactic in its long-term strategy for acquiring nuclear weapons. As Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak responded to the announcement, “The Iranians appear to be trying to reach a technical deal that will create an appearance as if there is progress in the talks to remove some of the pressure ahead of the talks in Baghdad and to postpone an escalation in sanctions.” Indeed, using the talks to ease sanctions is clearly what the Iranians are up to. Parliament Chairman Ali Larijani ordered the West to “stop the shell game they have played on Iran,” since it would be “improper” for the P5+1 powers to negotiate while imposing tighter sanctions. The implication is that relaxing sanctions is a precondition for any agreement.

But even if the Iranians sign the deal with the IAEA, and even if some more definitive agreement is reached in Baghdad, the problem of a nuclear Iran will not be solved, but merely delayed. The history of North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons suggests the playbook Iran is following. In 1994, North Korea signed an agreement that called for the North to shut down its plutonium-based Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for help in building two nuclear reactors for producing electricity. Eight years later, the Koreans admitted to a U.S. delegation that all along it had been enriching uranium. The next year, the North withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and began the “six-nation” negotiations over its nuclear program. That gabfest masked the ongoing development of nuclear weapons, which Korea announced it possessed a year later. Subsequent years saw more promises of cooperation and action by the Koreans when food-aid or other economic help was needed, followed by further provocations and threats, followed in turn by more Western concessions, starting the cycle all over again. Meanwhile the North has continued testing and developing missiles, threatening its neighbors, and providing rogue regimes like Iran and Syria with nuclear technology and know-how.

Given the success of the North Koreans, the Iranians are following the same strategy for becoming a nuclear power, combining diplomatic engagement, threatening bluster, meaningless “agreements,” and duplicitous evasion in order to keep the West off balance. Thus it’s no coincidence that on the same day talks begin in Baghdad the Iranians are launching a satellite on a missile that could be adapted for delivering a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile as the diplomatic dance proceeds, the centrifuges are spinning and nuclear facilities are being buried deep underground, activities that will continue until it’s too late or too costly for the West to do anything about Iran’s nukes.

Polling residents of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Australia, Indonesia, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria, Globescan found that only 21 percent of respondents had a positive impression of Israel, and that the only one of the Western countries surveyed whose residents have an overall positive view of Israel is the U.S.

Looking at the study in its entirety, one discovers that while 50 percent of Americans took a positive view of Israel and 35 percent were negative, the breakdown in Canada was a very different 25-59.  Of Russia, France, Britain, Germany, and Spain, guess which had the most positive view of Israel?  Believe it or not, Russia – land of the shtetls and pogroms, of Sakharov and Sharansky.  While French attitudes toward Israel split 20-65, British 16-68, Germans 16-69, and Spaniards 12-74, the Russians broke almost even, 25-26.  Indeed, Nigerians (54-29) and Kenyans (45-31) were far friendlier to Israel than any of the Western European countries.  Unsurprisingly, the Muslim countries surveyed were not terribly pro-Israel: the figures for Egypt were 7-85, for Pakistan 9-50, for Indonesia 8-61.  But the country that was most hostile of all was Japan, where only 3 percent had an affirmative view of Israel.

The report, of course, only confirms what many of us already know: that with the exception of the U.S., the countries of the West – in which diaspora Jews have lived for centuries and which, in the wake of the Holocaust, fell all over themselves apologizing for, and trying to atone for, their roles in the destruction of the Jews – are today no friends of the Jewish state.  Mountains of anecdotal evidence, moreover, make it clear that it is impossible to separate this antagonism from pure and simple anti-Semitism.

American Jews who still believe that they are living in a world – or, at least, in a Western world – in which anti-Semitism is, by and large, a thing of the past need to open their eyes.  They should be aware of what is going on in the minds of many of the people they encounter when they travel to places like Paris or London.  They should recognize that the relative lack of Jew-hatred that they experience in the U.S. is an outright aberration – an aberration, moreover, that, as rhetoric emanating from the Occupy Wall Street movement has suggested, may not persist for much longer.

Similarly, Western European gentiles who think that they inhabit the most civilized, tolerant, and peaceable corner of the world need to think again.  For the ancient prejudice that led Europe down the road to the Holocaust has come crawling back out of its dark hole.

Clearly, the main reason for the widespread enmity toward Israel in Western Europe is that left-leaning individuals in positions of influence – from politicians and journalists to schoolteachers and professors – have been engaged for quite a long time in a relentless campaign of disinformation and demonization directed against Israel and, frankly, Jews generally.  In turn, a major (if not the only) reason for that effort is a misbegotten desire to please, and appease, European Muslims.

“I am so tired,” complained Søren Espersen of the Danish Folkeparti last Friday on his Jyllands-Posten blog, “of all the lies about Israel.” He elaborated:

I am often invited to high schools, where both teachers and students get such a very special masochistic thrill out of seeing and meeting someone like me – the very epitome of Danish political evil ….! It is, of course, [my] foreign policy they most want to be outraged by, but the second most important topic at Danish schools is actually the Middle East. The relationship between Israelis and Arabs, between Jews and Muslims.

And time after time it has struck me that even in a situation where the interest in the Middle East conflict is burning hot, for the most part neither the teachers nor the students are aware of the historical background.

Renewed talks with Iran come on the heels of a speech delivered Sunday by Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran’s military chief of staff, in which he called for the “full annihilation of Israel.” Like every other Iranian pronouncement revealing the murderous nature of the current regime, it will likely be brushed aside when negotiations between Iran and P5+1, (the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany), begin in Baghdad tomorrow.

Amano’s rare trip to Iran marks the fourth meeting between the IAEA and Tehran. Two rounds of talks took place in Tehran in January and February this year, followed by a third round in Vienna on May 14-15. Yet despite reports of a more “upbeat atmosphere” both last week and yesterday, a large degree of genuine substance apparently remains beyond reach. “We have extensive activities in fighting cancer, food safety and security, supplying water needs and other applications of the nuclear technology,” Amano said. In other words, there was no indication of progress regarding the principal disagreement between the IAEA and Iran, namely a deal allowing the IAEA to inspect Iranian nuclear sites, most specifically the Parchin research facility, where IAEA inspectors were refused entry as recently as February.

Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator who attended the meeting Monday and who will be in Baghdad tomorrow, inadvertently confirmed the banality of the talks between the two sides, noting that his country was “a serious supporter of…global disarmament, confronting the spread of nuclear weapons and the usage of peaceful nuclear technology for (non-proliferation treaty) member states.” “Today we have good negotiations with Amano on these three fields and we hope to have good cooperation with the agency in the future in these areas,” Jalili said.

Furthermore, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) may have revealed Iran’s true intent in negotiating with the IAEA prior to the Baghdad meeting. “The IAEA’s opposition to the U.S. false claim over Iraq helped the agency steer clear of Washington so that the U.N. agency’s officials could not be considered as accomplice to the crimes committed by the U.S. statesmen in Iraq,” it reported. “Iran considers IAEA’s independence and promotion as a factor which would prevent violation of the member states’ rights,” it added.

This is a useful gambit in that it seeks to draw a dividing line between the IAEA and the United States. For optimists, it presents the possibility that Iran might be willing to make substantial concessions as long as it can make them directly to the U.N. instead of the U.S., thereby saving a certain amount of face should that reality come to pass. For realists, it is little more than an attempt to introduce another stumbling block between the international body and the P5+1, one either designed to gain Iran leverage in Baghdad–or give the Islamic nation still more time to develop nuclear weapons.

Adding to the intrigue is the idea expressed by many diplomats that Amano would not have traveled to Iran — his first trip to that nation since becoming the IAEA chief in 2009 — unless a deal between his agency and Tehran was close. Yet when Amano was asked if some sort of framework had been found that would answer questions about Iranian intentions, he declined to get specific. “I will not go into details but the agency has some viewpoints and Iran has its own specific viewpoints,” he said.

Yadlin—who now heads Israel’s leading defense think-tank, the Institute for National Security Studies—also said that while serving in his former post, “We expressed ourselves straightforwardly, with a great deal of integrity and professionalism.”

His words are significant because they contrast with those of two other ex-Israeli spy chiefs who served at the same time. Former Shin Bet (internal security) chief Yuval Diskin and, particularly, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan have made large international media waves by publicly trashing Netanyahu and Barak’s Iran policy and portraying the two as irresponsible extremists if not, in Diskin’s term, “messianic.”

Yadlin, indeed, slammed Dagan and Diskin in his weekend interview on Israeli TV, saying that “when we are regular citizens, we should impose on ourselves a cooling-off period, and not come out with explosive statements.” He could have added that it is Dagan and Diskin’s irresponsible behavior that threatens the viability of Israeli governance. Top-echelon security officials cannot function if they fear that in a few months their colleagues will be slandering them on CNN.

Nor was this the first time Yadlin has made important pronouncements on the Iranian issue. Speaking earlier this month at a conference of the Washington Institute in Virginia, he said Iran had a “sophisticated” strategy to pursue nuclear weapons that was “unfortunately” working. He added that, while he favored exhausting all other options before using military force, a

nuclear Iran is more dangerous than attacking Iran.

If they can’t be contained when they don’t have nuclear weapon[s], how can they be contained when they do?…

I am sure they won’t launch a nuclear bomb the moment they get it, but the possibility [that] as a result of miscalculations and lack of stability, they will launch [a] nuclear missile—it’s not a possibility you can ignore. The flying time of a missile from Tehran to Tel Aviv is seven minutes and the temptation for a first strike is huge.

If you really want all options on the table, you need to be very credible with the military option.

These, clearly, are dramatic words—but to say they didn’t get as much play as Dagan and Diskin’s claims that international diplomacy is indeed working, and Israel should take a back seat to it, is a great understatement. Which can be easily demonstrated by Googling: the result totals for “Meir Dagan,” “Yuval Diskin,” and “Amos Yadlin” came out at 608,000, 297,000, and 120,000 respectively.

“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.

So naturally the Religious Left is opposing these mostly symbolic statements, because largely pacifist prelates do not believe any situation, no matter how dire, ever merits even the implied contemplation of force.  They also are more concerned about military force from the U.S. or Israel than they are about nuclear weapons in the hands of apocalyptic Iranian mullahs.

Complaining that the congressional resolutions would “undermine diplomatic efforts,” the leftist churchmen warn the statements would set a “dangerously low threshold for war” by “ruling out containment,” possibly even, by some interpretations endorsing “military force against Iran now.”

The ecumenical complaint to members of Congress was organized by the Presbyterian Church (USA) chief Capitol Hill lobbyist. It was signed by Quaker and Mennonite officials, a left-wing Catholic order, and the lobby offices of the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.

Noting that Iran’s theocracy since at least the late 1980s has “engaged in a sustained and well-documented pattern of illicit and deceptive activities to acquire nuclear capability,” the congressional resolutions cite Iran as the “most active state sponsor of terrorism,” according to the U.S. State Department.  They also recalled the U.S. Treasury Department’s finding last year that Iran had a “secret deal” to help al Qaeda. Of course they mentioned Iran’s genocidal threats against Israel.  And they pointed at the Islamic Republic’s “serious human rights abuses,” according to the United Nations, including “torture, cruel and degrading treatment in detention, the targeting of human rights defenders, violence against women, and ‘the systematic and serious restrictions on freedom of peaceful assembly’ as well as severe restrictions on the rights to ‘freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.’”

The Congressional resolutions, noting Iran’s continued failure to comply with international non-proliferation standards, urge continued diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran until it ends its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. It also commends the “universal rights and democratic aspirations of the Iranian people.”

Leftist prelates in the U.S. of course are not particularly interested in disarming or democratizing Iran.  Instead, they complain the congressional resolutions are “undercutting” diplomacy, which “heightens the potential war.” They quote various critics claiming the resolutions resemble pre-2003 justifications for the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein Iraq. They insist Iran has not yet decided for nuclear weapons. And they reiterate: “Direct, sustained diplomacy remains the single most effective way to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and avert war. And they implore:  “We urge you to support diplomacy, not war, with Iran, and to oppose” the congressional resolutions.

The Parchin complex came into focus when the Associated Press (AP) publicized a drawing from a country keeping track of Iran’s nuclear program. It depicted a containment chamber that is used to test multipoint explosives of the type used to set off a nuclear charge. The official who shared the computer-generated drawing with AP says it is based on information from an informant inside the Parchin complex, and that going into further detail would endanger the informant’s life. The official also demanded that he and his country remain anonymous in exchange for sharing secret intelligence information.

Olli Heinonen, the former senior official in charge of the Iran file prior to his departure from the IAEA last year, says the drawing is “very similar” to a photo he has seen and identifies as that of the Iranian chamber. He further noted that even the colors of the two images match. His contention was buttressed by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack, who said intelligence agencies are familiar with the drawing as well.

This follows two earlier references to the structure. The first was a November 8 report by the IAEA describing “a large explosives containment vessel” for experiments on triggering a nuclear explosion, one for which they had satellite images “consistent with this information.” The second was from IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who said his agency had “credible information that indicates that Iran engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices” at the site.

Eight months ago the present writer discussed the probability of a nine-front war.  Despite the low-key tone of “a security measure,” Israel now seems to be close to that situation.

Almost-nuclear Iran; Hezbollah; the Sinai, with its entrenched al-Qaeda bases and other terror groups; Egypt, if the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has its way; Syria; and the two internal fronts of Hamas and the PA if they can get their acts together, comprise seven of the nine fronts.

Let’s look first at Iran.

Iran is in deep trouble economically, as its oil production is the lowest in 20 years and its mullocracy is losing popularity with its rank and file.  The nuclear option for which it has been in hot pursuit for 10 years has now turned into a political liability with voters as sanctions slowly impair the economy. The decline is “the result of the country’s growing isolation due to its nuclear program,” so the mullahs are scared because the time may be ripe for another round of internal unrest and open demonstrations for regime change.

The mullahs’ popularity has not been enhanced by Israel’s ten years of successful covert operations against Iran’s WMDs; and Israel’s newly purchased nuclear submarine, with nuclear-armed cruise missiles giving Israel expanded “second-strike” capabilities in case of an Iranian nuclear attack, will soon be added to its Persian Gulf fleet, and offer Iranian leaders the opportunity to reconsider their disdainful attitude toward MAD.

The mullahs desperately need a distraction for their unhappy voters.

Hezbollah is better armed now than it was before the 2^nd Lebanon War, and has successfully cowed the UN “peace keepers.”  But it has suffered a loss of popularity due to its support for Assad and growing isolation.  That can be remedied most easily by opening a northern front with renewed missile and other terror attacks against Israel. Such an action would justify more Iranian efforts to achieve nuclear capacity.

And as is the case with Hezbollah, if Iran gave Syria the order, it would be a boon and a blessing for Syria to join in.  Assad could turn attention from the slaughter of its innocents and call for Syrian unity in the great jihad against Israel.

Egypt and the Sinai are a bit more complicated.

The Sinai is a haven for drug smuggling, human trafficking, gun running, and terrorist groups including al-Qaeda; but the Egyptian armed forces have not been able to clean up the mess.  Operation Eagle, almost a year old, is a total failure, for which, true to form, the Egyptian government blames Israel.

And compounding this problem is the uncertainty about Egyptian politics.  MB leaders have made clear that they want to renew the state of war with Israel. Currently the Egyptian army is still in control, but with a significant Islamofascist majority in the Egyptian Parliament and an MB candidate the front runner for presidential elections, Egypt could turn into an active military enemy overnight.

The other two fronts are internal.

Hamas is the loser in the Arab Spring: losing popularity, losing Iranian and Syrian support due to its backing of the MB’s revolt in Syria, facing competition from other more aggressive terror groups, and facing the impatience of its own rank and file due to its not killing enough Jews.  Polls taken earlier this year found “a significant decline in the popularity of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a decrease in the positive evaluation of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas may also be losing some control over its terror cohorts who have continued rocket attacks on Israel despite Hamas-mandated cease-fires. When Hamas has exercised its authority, the results have backfired.  When Hamas forces wiped out one al-Qaeda unit supported by Iran, for instance, a serious crisis developed with Tehran.

While Obama mentioned ‘atrocities’ twelve times in his speech, he only mentioned ‘genocide’ three times and one of those times he was quoting from the mission statement of the Holocaust Museum. The list of examples from his own policies contained only one example of genocide, the mass murder program carried out by the Sudanese government.

Tellingly Obama described this actual genocide as a ‘conflict’ rather than an atrocity and urged both sides to negotiate, a sharp contrast with his next three examples, in Cote D’Ivorie, in Libya and in Uganda, where he clearly placed the blame on three leaders and described military and pseudo-military actions that he had taken to end the violence.

President Omar al-Bashir, whom he urged in his speech to have the “courage” to negotiate and make peace, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is no comparison between the actions of Gaddafi or Gbago and those of Bashir. Yet Obama ignored actual genocide, and defiled the Holocaust Memorial Museum by using it as a stage for whitewashing one of the world’s worst ruling mass murderers.

Obama was equally unwilling to call out Iran’s mass murdering thugs, Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, by name. He briefly mentioned that his administration would continue to apply diplomatic pressure on Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but refused to make the connection to the events of the day.

“The uniform shout of the Iranian nation is forever ‘Death to Israel,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that, “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor on this region that should be cut off. And it definitely will be cut off.”

Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, the personal representative of the Supreme Leader, appeared on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television to boast that, “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary, to replace (sic) Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.”

Israel holds the largest Jewish population in the world. The threat to destroy it is an open threat of genocide. But while Obama repeated his false claim that the entire population of the Libyan city of Benghazi had been at risk, motivating him to act, there was no acknowledgement that Israel does actually a face a threat of genocide.

At an event commemorating the attempted extermination the Jewish people, Obama spoke at length about the plight of the Syrian rebels, who are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group whose spiritual leader has praised Hitler for carrying out the Holocaust and called for the extermination of the Jews.

“The last punishment was carried out by Hitler…” Yusuf al-Qaradawi had said of the Holocaust. “This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.”  And at the Holocaust Museum, all Obama could think of was how to put Qaradawi’s cronies into power in Syria, as he had already put them into power in Egypt.

Just last week Israel’s serving chief of staff, Benny Gantz, took up the slack by saying that “the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.” And the next day another disgruntled Israeli, ex-Shin Bet (domestic security) chief Yuval Diskin, suggested who might really not be rational, saying that Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak—both at least verbal hawks on Iran—were “two messiahs” who make decisions out of “messianic feelings.”

The New York Times, one could say, ate it up. A day after Diskin’s pronouncements, it ran a piece called “Experts Believe Iran Conflict Is Less Likely,”claiming that the “threat of tighter economic sanctions,” the “revival of direct negotiations,” and a “growing divide in Israel between political leaders and military and intelligence officials” had led “American officials and outside analysts” to believe that the “chances of war in the near future have significantly decreased.”

And the Los Angeles Times has reported that the U.S. was signaling a “major shift on Iran[s’] nuclear program,” with Obama administration officials saying they “might agree to let Iran continue enriching uranium up to 5% purity, which is the upper end of the range for most civilian uses,” if Iran agrees to strict inspections and safeguards.

As the article notes, such a deal would be anathema to Jerusalem and probably most of Congress, since allowing Iran to continue any uranium enrichment means leaving the door open to clandestine work toward the bomb. Israel’s national security adviser Yaakov Amidror has, in fact, been dispatched to Europe for “extremely sensitive” talks on the possibility of such a deal emerging.

The Los Angeles Times article, however, quotes Michael Singh, former top Iran adviser to President George W. Bush, saying “There have been many signals lately that the red line has shifted and they’re no longer pushing for full suspension” of Iran’s uranium enrichment—a shift that Singh “strongly opposes.”

The problem with the Iran-rationality fest is that Iran refuses to join in.

This week Iran’s English-language Fars News Agency website—regularly scoured by Western Iran-observers—has run a report rather brazenly titled “Iranian Navy Able to Deploy Vessels Three Miles off New York Coasts.”

Those headlines—from the New York Times, Reuters, and CNN respectively—are typical of a media firestorm kicked up on Thursday by an Independence Day interview that Israeli chief of staff Benny Gantz gave to Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz.

The reports contrast Gantz’s allegedly pacific statements with recent hawkish statements by his boss, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

In an interview to CNN on Tuesday, Netanyahu said sanctions were “certainly taking a bite out of the Iranian economy, but so far they haven’t rolled back the Iranian program or even stopped it by one iota…so if the sanctions are going to work they better work soon.”

On whether Iran’s nuclear program is for civilian purposes: “They said it’s for medical isotopes. Right? That’s why they’re developing ICBMs to carry medical isotopes to Europe or Israel or the United States.”

And on Iranian rationality: “When it comes to a militant Islamic regime I wouldn’t be too sure, because unlike, say, the Soviets, they can put their ideology before their survival. So I don’t think you can bet on their rationality.”

And in a Holocaust Remembrance Day speech last week, Netanyahu said Iran was “feverishly working to develop atomic weapons….”

Now, what did Gantz say, and was it indeed seriously at odds with Netanyahu’s words? If so, it could be of significance. The fact that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, another Iran hawk, did not order a strike on Iran while Gantz’s predecessor as chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, was in office has been attributed to the fact that Ashkenazi and other security chiefs at the time were Iran doves who opposed a strike.

Gantz begins his interview to Haaretz by saying: “If Iran goes nuclear it will have negative dimensions for the world, for the region, for the freedom of action Iran will permit itself.” Later, regarding American and Israeli perceptions of the threat, he says: “We aren’t two oceans away from the problem—we live here with our civilians, our women and our children, so we interpret the extent of the urgency differently.”

So far, then, no great daylight between Gantz and Netanyahu.

Saeid Moradi stumbled through a muggy Bangkok afternoon past colorful phone booths, knowing that the operation had gone wrong and that he had a limited window for reaching the airport, boarding a plane to Malaysia and then back to Iran. But the taxi did not stop. So Moradi threw one of his remaining bombs at it. He attempted to throw another one at the police, but instead blew off his own legs outside a school.

Mohammad Hazaei, one of the other terrorists, was stopped at the airport while waiting to board a flight to Malaysia. Masoud Sedaghatzadeh was arrested already in Malaysia, while Leila Rohani made it back to Iran. Their bombs had been intended for Israeli diplomats, and it was not the first Iranian backed act of terror against Israel in the country, but it was still startling.

Thailand suffers from Muslim terrorism and Bangkok does have a sizable number of Muslims, but the majority of its Muslim population is Sunni. Thailand Shiites, like many Shiites around the world, do act as agents of Iran, if there was any doubt about that it was quickly dispelled when Syedsulaiman Husaini, the leader of Shiites in Thailand, blamed the attack on MEK activists out to make Iran look bad, a talking point transparently coined in Tehran.

However Iran’s real presence in Thailand isn’t religious, it’s chemical. Iranian gangs and dealers prowl Bangkok plying their crystal meth and muscling out locals with a combination of aggressiveness and underselling. And Bangkok, for all its dangerous reputation, is only one stop on the express train of Iran’s meth empire.

Iranian drug rings are a sizable presence everywhere from Europe to Southeast Asia to the United States.  By the spring of last year, Thai authorities had already arrested their twentieth Iranian meth smuggler. The same story repeats itself in Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma and Vietnam. Asia is no stranger to the drug trade, yet it’s being swamped by Iranian meth, Iranian meth labs and Iranian dealers.

In Japan, they were running meth labs, a rarity in the country, and the majority of those arrested on meth charges in the land of the rising sun were Iranians. That pattern too repeats itself in countries with hardly any Muslim populations, such as Korea. Forget oil, Iran is suddenly in the position of supplying the crystal meth needs of half of Asia.

All three are leftists who support the increasingly violent, anti-American, anti-Semitic Occupy Wall Street movement. The Iranian leadership and left-wing groups in the U.S. such as the terrorist-linked Code Pink also support the movement as a way of weakening America.

The teachers’ jihadist junket aimed ostensibly at teaching Iranians about the movement provides “living proof that although Communism for the most part is dead, useful idiots of tyrannies that do still hold power and endanger all of us still exist,” Ron Radosh writes.

The three academics participated in the Tehran University Occupy Wall Street seminar in February. In so doing these overeducated dupes gave aid and comfort to brutal fundamentalists who call America and its ally Israel the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan.”

As the country Islamists call the “Zionist Entity” contemplates attacking Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, these New Yorkers’ activism could foreshadow the rise of a pro-Iran movement stateside. After all, a pro-Saddam Hussein movement cropped up on the Left a decade ago as the U.S. government pondered the invasion of Iraq.

The trio consisted of Heather D. Gautney of Fordham University, Alex S. Vitale of Brooklyn College (City University of New York), and John L. Hammond of Hunter College (CUNY). They appear in a news report from Press TV, a propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic.

Although Vitale and Hammond, a contributor to Marxist periodical Monthly Review, said little of substance in the video itself, the hijab-clad Gautney said the Occupy movement would agitate stateside this election cycle and push politicians to grow government.

“We have elections coming up in November and I think that the movement is going to be incredibly active in pressuring politicians to start addressing issues of social inequality,” said the self-described “Occupy Wall Street activist.”

The media-savvy Gautney has been adept at getting exposure for her views.

In an impressive feat of self-deception, Gautney wrote at CNN’s website that “Occupy may be anti-corporate, but it is unambiguously pro-American.”

Gautney, whose absurd pronouncement suggests she has never graced an Occupy demonstration with her actual presence, claimed that the Marxist worldview promoted by the movement is somehow catching on in Iran.

“The discourse [in Iran] seems to be veering from ‘Down with America!’ to ‘Down with the 1 Percent!’” Gautney told Fox News on her return to the United States. “In my view,” the naïve left-winger explained, “this is quite a welcome development, and speaks to Iranians’ affection for Americans despite all the political conflict.”

The starry-eyed fellow traveler also reminisced about a visit with Zahra Mostafavi, daughter of the first Supreme Leader of Iran, the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Gautney romanticized the Iranian revolution, writing about the photographs detailing “dramatic scenes” from Khomeini’s life that she saw in Mostafavi’s house.

The event was organized by the Yom Hashoah Mobilization Committee, led by Lynne and Nessim Tammam and assisted by Dr. Paul Brody and Jeff Wiesenfeld, and was supported by organizations which include the National Council of Young Israel, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), NY Association of Holocaust Survivors, Friends of Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Chai, and Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI).

Some New York Association Holocaust Survivors members wore Yellow Stars of David to commemorate the stars they were forced to wear under Nazi occupation. Association leader Fira Stuckelman recalled the horrors that occurred during the Nazi Holocaust. She stated that she is one of the few survivors from a large family and declared that “we must not remain silent, never again.”

According to Pastor James David Manning of the ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem there is a growing anti-Semitism not just from Iran, but among peoples of all colors and races. That must be met with a response. Manning warned that “Nations and peoples are turning their backs on you.” He then pledged, “I will lift up my voice.”

“Seventy years ago, when Hitler said he would wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, the threat was tragically dismissed as empty rhetoric,” Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) said. “Today, when we hear Ahmedinejad echoing Hitler’s call for the destruction of Jews, we know that the threat is real, and we must be prepared to use our military power to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capability and fulfilling their malicious and malevolent dream of a world that is Judenfrei.”

While some of the speakers differed on the position of the Obama administration vis-à-vis preventing a nuclear Iran, they all agreed that Iran must not be allowed to posses nuclear weapons and that the threats leveled by the Iranian regime must be taken seriously.

Mark Shea, whom FPM exposed March 8 in “A Catholic Writer’s Propaganda For Iran,” offered this defense on his blog:

“In point of fact, I affirm Israel’s existence and think Jews, like Palestinians, deserve a homeland. I’m big on people having a home. I merely reject the propositions that a) Israel is immaculately conceived and preserved from all sin, both original and actual b) it’s our job to defend Israel (or Germany, Japan, Korea and the scores of other countries our Empire extends to)and c) we need to pound the drums for war with Iran.”

Let’s examine these propositions.

Regarding Israel, nobody would regard it as “immaculately conceived and preserved from all sin, both original and actual.” This rhetorical straw man caricatures pro-Israel opinion, and allows Shea not only to disregard Israeli concerns about self-defense but also the likelihood of an independent Palestinian state dedicating itself to Israel’s destruction.

In addition, Shea uses his “immaculate conception” meme to browbeat Israel’s supporters. On March 30, Shea condemned Benjamin Kirstein’s assertion that criticizing Israel “is either subjectively anti-Semitic, in that it consciously and intentionally furthers the goals of the campaign (to destroy Israel); or it is objectively anti-Semitic, in that it unconsciously and unintentionally does the same thing.”

Shea labeled Kerstein’s assertion “a particularly idiotic act of idolatry” and accused Kerstein of calling Israel a “sinless utopia,” which Kerstein never even implied.

Besides, since when did opposing anti-Semitic genocide — even clumsily –become a particularly idiotic act of idolatry?

Also, since when did the United States become an “empire”? If the United States is an “empire,” why did it withdraw troops from Iraq? Why didn’t it turn Iraq into a colony when it had the chance? Why does Iraq have an independent government? Why is the United States contemplating withdrawing troops from Afghanistan?

Moreover, why did the United States close military bases once the Cold War ended?

Yet Shea persists and contends that any pre-emptive attack against Iran would result in world war. As Shea declared March 12, while linking to comments from Russian and Chinese generals:

“And if Russia doesn’t appreciate your chickenhawk class’ election year need to look tough and throw some crappy little country against the wall just to show you mean business, you might discover that China wasn’t just whistling dixie when she warned of WWIII as a result of your rash pre-emptive war.”

On the same day — in a post sarcastically entitled “Today’s Pro-Mullah Propaganda”– Shea linked to a story on the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers’ warnings to the United States about attacking Iran.

“Actually, it’s just the common sense proposition that pre-emptive war is unjust, not to mention stupid and dangerous. One need not support the goons in Iran to see this.”

Shea believes pre-emptive attacks violate Catholic ethics. Logically, he cites for support the military and diplomatic leaders of two nations that not only are tone-deaf to Catholicism but also are cavalier about human rights.

Shea reinforces the “empire” myth by exploiting the travails of American troops. On March 14, Shea posted about Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of murdering 16 Afghan civilians:

“The real criminals will never be charged in the mass murder in Afghanistan. These would be the members of our Ruling Classes who sent a brain-injured soldier back into battle for yet another tour of duty (his fourth!)…Sending this valiant and deeply self-sacrificial all-volunteer force back into battle again and again and again in order to maintain the empire–and in such a massive exercise in futility as our Afghan experiment in nation-building — is the real crime here….Leave Afghanistan. Now.”

Shea amplified that theme April 10:

“Not surprisingly, our armed forces, stretched to the breaking point by ten years of being used as lab rats in our ongoing experiments, are now massively medicated. You would be too if you and your family were shoveled around like concrete and your life was being thrown away on a colossal exercise in futility. Not one more drop of blood from our young men and women. Get us out of Afghanistan now.”

Shea ended with a hysterical, violent demand:

“Strip our legislative and executive branches of all wages and earnings except their pay for their office, and give it as a fund for wounded vets. If they complain, jail them until their experimental wars are over.”

Shea’s patronizing rhetoric demeans and insults American soldiers. It portrays them as slaves and dupes of an ostensibly evil political system. It is subtle, manipulative, cynical and beyond despicable.

It also ignores the reason for the invasion and occupation: to prevent Islamic terrorists from establishing a base for more attacks against civilians.

“Al-Qaeda is still present in Afghanistan,” U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told London’s Daily Telegraph, which reported that about 100 al-Qaeda irregulars have returned, according to NATO estimates, with hundreds stationed in Pakistan.

In response to speculators’ supposedly sinister machinations, Obama this week urged Congress to crack down on speculation by stepping up surveillance of energy futures traders and increasing the penalties for those convicted of manipulating Congress. No doubt the move will convince Obama’s supporters that he is “doing something” to bring down gas prices. In truth, the crackdown on oil speculation, not unlike Obama’s recent campaign for a “Buffet rule” tax on millionaires, is little more than a cheap political ploy. Laws are already in place to regulate market manipulation, making Obama’s crackdown largely symbolic. The bigger problem, though, is that there is little connection between rising oil and gas prices and speculation in energy futures markets.

That’s not to say that oil speculation has no effect whatsoever on gasoline prices. But since those prices are ultimately determined by the laws of supply and demand, the only way that oil speculation can influence gas prices is by impacting the supply of oil and gasoline available. Thus, if oil producers expect prices to rise in the future, they may keep oil from the market in the hopes of selling it at a premium. That in turn could lead to diminished supply and increased prices at the pump.

Unfortunately for Obama’s anti-speculation crusade, there is no evidence that this scenario is actually happening. Cato Institute scholars Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren observe that if speculation were having the effect on gas prices that Obama claims, we would see a buildup of inventory among crude oil producers. Instead, crude inventories have remained within the normal range. Even more significant is that gasoline inventories, rather than increasing, have actually been decreasing at a faster-than-average rate. Consequently, Taylor and Van Doren note, “there’s no evidence that speculators are reducing the supply of crude or gasoline through increased storage.” To be sure, inventory rates might not be a meaningful indicator if producers were instead curbing production in anticipation of future price increases. Yet there is no evidence that this is happening, either.

As it happens, there are external factors limiting the supply of oil on the global market. But the true culprit is not oil speculation but geopolitics. Oil analysts point out that due to disruptions in production in strife-torn countries like South Sudan, Yemen and civil-war-engulfed Syria, at least a half a million barrels of oil a day are being withheld from the global market. A precipitous drop in crude oil production in Libya following a complete shutdown last year has cut the global supply by another 2 percent. Combine that with a fall in spare oil capacity and the result is a 20 percent increase in oil prices just since December. Prices may rise even more as a policy that President Obama (along with most Republicans) has supported – new sanctions on Iran intended to curb its nuclear weapons program – goes into effect.

One lesson from the Thirties is that appeasing an aggressor encourages not just that one, but also another. The key act of appeasement of that decade’s many took place in March 1936, when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland with 22,000 unseasoned troops and 14,000 policemen, violating both the Versailles and Locarno treaties. Facing them were nearly 100 French and Belgian divisions. Of course they did nothing, even though, as Hitler later confessed, “If the French had then marched into the Rhineland we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs.” With that daring move, Hitler had taken a huge step toward protecting Germany from Allied counterattacks when he invaded Czechoslovakia and then Poland, and acquiring Germany’s traditional launching pad for his invasion of France and air attacks on England.

But what emboldened Hitler to gamble on French passivity? A few months earlier, in October 1935 Mussolini had invaded Ethiopia in violation of the League of Nations. Like today’s U.N., the League blustered, threatened, and imposed useless sanctions, but in the end did nothing, even though the British Mediterranean fleet could have closed down the Suez Canal and stopped Italy cold. Historian T.P. Cornwall-Evans drew the obvious conclusion of this failure: Hitler “scorns the attitude of England, whose fine phrases contributed nothing to [Ethiopia]. If England hesitated to tackle the Italians . . . how much more would the English hesitate to grapple with the Germans.” Winston Churchill agreed: “Mussolini, like Hitler, regarded Britannia as a frightened, flabby old woman, who at the worst would only bluster, and was anyhow incapable of making war.” Thus appeasement begat appeasement until the horrific denouement came in 1939.

Now consider our decades-long appeasement of North Korea and the way it has emboldened the Iranians to follow the Kim family playbook for acquiring nuclear weapons. Just last week, newly minted North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un defied U.N. resolutions and American threats by launching a missile that could deliver a nuclear payload to the West Coast. Satellite intelligence shows that the North is also preparing for more nuclear tests, indicating they have no intention of stopping their development of more nuclear weapons. This provocation came a few weeks after Obama struck a deal offering 240,000 metric tons of food in exchange for promises to freeze the weapons program. This pattern of offering carrots to North Korea, only to get smacked with sticks in return, has been going on for decades now, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. That is how the North got the bomb in the first place, engaging in “negotiations” and dangling promises of cooperation in exchange for aid and time.