More 'Diplomacy ' With Iran As Obama And The EU Team Up To Fend Off An Israeli Strike

After taking a couple of weeks studying yet another proposal from the EU and the Obama Administration to enter talks on Iran's illegal nuclear program, the mullahs decided they had nothing to lose and only time to gain, so they sent an offer to EU foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton, who promptly accepted it.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed the EU and President Obama's support for the new effort.

"This talk is good talk and shows an exit from illusion," AFP reported Khamenei as saying. However, Khamenei also made it plain that Iran was not going to give up it's nuclear program and that the sanctions would not budge him.

"The US president continued saying that he wants to make the Iranian people kneel through sanctions, this part of this speech shows the continuation of illusion in this issue," he said.

Of course, the actual target of this latest offer of diplomacy is Israel, not Iran. For the countries Lady Ashton the main point is that while these negotiations are ongoing, Israel is highly unlikely to make a preemptive strike to take out an Iranian nuclear program that represents an existential threat.

In President Obama's case, the idea is simply to tie Israel hands until after the election. The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported today that President Obama attempted to bribe Israeli PM Netanyahu with a gift of advanced weaponry including the latest in bunker-busting bombs and more tanker refueling planes provided he agreed to pledge not to strike Iran until 2013.

This has advantages for President Obama. It assures him of a 'wag the dog' option to strike Iran himself come October if he's not doing well in the polls, and it ties Israel's hands until it's likely to be too late to do anything. Fortunately, Netanyahu reportedly just reiterated that Israel would retain freedom of action.

The talks themselves are in the 'talks about talks' stage. Following the usual pattern with Iran, they will delay things as much as possible, throwing an inconsequential bone at the West to keep things going. For instance, one thing Iran has apparently agreed to is to allow IAEA inspectors to look at Iran's Parchin military base outside Tehran, where the IAEA and outside observers have long suspected that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

While talks about talks are going on, the IAEA has noticed a flurry of suspicious activity around Parchin...the Iranians are busily purging the site of anything they don't want the IAEA to see and cleaning up nuclear waste!



Israeli officials have been pretty blunt about their their skepticism over this latest diplomatic circus. Shabtai Shavit, a former director of the Mossad, was quoted as saying yesterday in an interview with Israel Radio:

In the past, every time the Iranians agreed to talk, the reason for their agreeing was in order to buy time in order to advance the development of their nuclear program. They didn’t invent this ruse, they learned it from the North Koreans.

And PM Benyamin Netanyahu, being interviewed on FOX essentially echoed these comments, albeit in far more diplomatic fashion:



It's the height of naïvete to the Iranians have anything else in mind besides stalling as long as possible to get closer to an operable nuclear weapon.

There's something absolutely creepy as well in the West's willingness to go along with the charade, especially with Israel, who has the most to lose directly closed out of the loop.It recalls the 1938 Munich Agreement on the edge of WWII, when the Czechs were locked out of the room and forbidden to participate while Czechoslovakia's western 'allies' and the Nazis negotiated on the fate of their small country.

However, there is a bright spot amidst all this.

This new round of talks is going to show exactly how futile the 'window of diplomacy' really is. The threats of an oil embargo and tighter sanctions have already been put on the table, and when the Iranians play the West for fools again, as they almost certainly will, there is a lot less leeway than there was before, simply because Israel is not Czechoslovakia nor is it willing to be, and there is a limit to how long the Israelis will allow the usual dance to continue. This time, when things get bogged down, it's going to be game over and the failure will show that those of us who said sactions and diplomacy were useless in this case were right all along. Any further delays will be seen as simply an excuse to avoid confronting the Iranian threat.

When the Iranians return to the old pattern - stalling its Western dupes for a few more months and then using another gambit to keep things going just when it appears the talks have fallen apart - they may surprised to find that the Israelis are likely to jump on the next failure of diplomacy to justify a preemptive strike. And given President Obama's rhetoric about not allowing a nuclear Iran, there's not going to be much he can say, especially with an election going on.

Iran invented the game of chess. But this time, they may very well have opened up an avenue for themselves to be checkmated once and for all.

More 'Diplomacy ' With Iran As Obama And The EU Team Up To Fend Off An Israeli Strike

After taking a couple of weeks studying yet another proposal from the EU and the Obama Administration to enter talks on Iran's illegal nuclear program, the mullahs decided they had nothing to lose and only time to gain, so they sent an offer to EU foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton, who promptly accepted it.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed the EU and President Obama's support for the new effort.

"This talk is good talk and shows an exit from illusion," AFP reported Khamenei as saying. However, Khamenei also made it plain that Iran was not going to give up it's nuclear program and that the sanctions would not budge him.

"The US president continued saying that he wants to make the Iranian people kneel through sanctions, this part of this speech shows the continuation of illusion in this issue," he said.

Of course, the actual target of this latest offer of diplomacy is Israel, not Iran. For the countries Lady Ashton the main point is that while these negotiations are ongoing, Israel is highly unlikely to make a preemptive strike to take out an Iranian nuclear program that represents an existential threat.

In President Obama's case, the idea is simply to tie Israel hands until after the election. The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported today that President Obama attempted to bribe Israeli PM Netanyahu with a gift of advanced weaponry including the latest in bunker-busting bombs and more tanker refueling planes provided he agreed to pledge not to strike Iran until 2013.

This has advantages for President Obama. It assures him of a 'wag the dog' option to strike Iran himself come October if he's not doing well in the polls, and it ties Israel's hands until it's likely to be too late to do anything. Fortunately, Netanyahu reportedly just reiterated that Israel would retain freedom of action.

The talks themselves are in the 'talks about talks' stage. Following the usual pattern with Iran, they will delay things as much as possible, throwing an inconsequential bone at the West to keep things going. For instance, one thing Iran has apparently agreed to is to allow IAEA inspectors to look at Iran's Parchin military base outside Tehran, where the IAEA and outside observers have long suspected that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

While talks about talks are going on, the IAEA has noticed a flurry of suspicious activity around Parchin...the Iranians are busily purging the site of anything they don't want the IAEA to see and cleaning up nuclear waste!



Israeli officials have been pretty blunt about their their skepticism over this latest diplomatic circus. Shabtai Shavit, a former director of the Mossad, was quoted as saying yesterday in an interview with Israel Radio:

In the past, every time the Iranians agreed to talk, the reason for their agreeing was in order to buy time in order to advance the development of their nuclear program. They didn’t invent this ruse, they learned it from the North Koreans.

And PM Benyamin Netanyahu, being interviewed on FOX essentially echoed these comments, albeit in far more diplomatic fashion:



It's the height of naïvete to the Iranians have anything else in mind besides stalling as long as possible to get closer to an operable nuclear weapon.

There's something absolutely creepy as well in the West's willingness to go along with the charade, especially with Israel, who has the most to lose directly closed out of the loop.It recalls the 1938 Munich Agreement on the edge of WWII, when the Czechs were locked out of the room and forbidden to participate while Czechoslovakia's western 'allies' and the Nazis negotiated on the fate of their small country.

However, there is a bright spot amidst all this.

This new round of talks is going to show exactly how futile the 'window of diplomacy' really is. The threats of an oil embargo and tighter sanctions have already been put on the table, and when the Iranians play the West for fools again, as they almost certainly will, there is a lot less leeway than there was before, simply because Israel is not Czechoslovakia nor is it willing to be, and there is a limit to how long the Israelis will allow the usual dance to continue. This time, when things get bogged down, it's going to be game over and the failure will show that those of us who said sactions and diplomacy were useless in this case were right all along. Any further delays will be seen as simply an excuse to avoid confronting the Iranian threat.

When the Iranians return to the old pattern - stalling its Western dupes for a few more months and then using another gambit to keep things going just when it appears the talks have fallen apart - they may surprised to find that the Israelis are likely to jump on the next failure of diplomacy to justify a preemptive strike. And given President Obama's rhetoric about not allowing a nuclear Iran, there's not going to be much he can say, especially with an election going on.

Iran invented the game of chess. But this time, they may very well have opened up an avenue for themselves to be checkmated once and for all.

Daylight: The Real Story of Obama's Record On Israel

An excellent film by The Emergency Committee For Israel on Obama's real record on Israel and the Middle East...although they left a few important things out,including trashing previous agreements with Israel, telling them they have no right to their religious shrines , threatening an aid cutoff, and instituting what amounted to a de facto arms embargo during the early part of President Obama's term.

I'm sure the Obama Campaign, the president's media allies and the Soros media galley slaves are working overtime to spin this.

Daylight: The Real Story of Obama's Record On Israel

An excellent film by The Emergency Committee For Israel on Obama's real record on Israel and the Middle East...although they left a few important things out,including trashing previous agreements with Israel, telling them they have no right to their religious shrines , threatening an aid cutoff, and instituting what amounted to a de facto arms embargo during the early part of President Obama's term.

I'm sure the Obama Campaign, the president's media allies and the Soros media galley slaves are working overtime to spin this.

Dancing With Armegeddon

In the past few days, there have been major high level efforts by the Obama Administration and the British government to talk Israel out of pre-emptive strike on Iran's rogue nuclear facilities.

President Obama's National Security Adviser Tom Donilon failed in three days of talks with Israeli PM Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Barak Ehud and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to convince them to give sanctions and negotiations more time to work.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague delivered the same message to Israel. In a BBC interview, he said Britain was focusing on pressuring Iran through diplomatic means.

"I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran," he said. "I think Israel like everyone else in the world should be giving a real chance to the approach we have adopted on very serious economic sanctions and economic pressure and the readiness to negotiate with Iran."

The back story is very different.

The Israelis are livid over what they see as President Obama's betrayal in starting - again- to engage with Iran in back channel diplomacy in exchange for the U.S. and the EU postponing sanctions until July, with the likelihood of further postponements in exchange for more talks. The Israelis had already agreed to hold off to give sanctions time to work, only to find out later that President Obama was using the waiver Congress gave him in the sanctions legislation to postpone any meaningful action.

This movie has played out many times before in the over 7 years or so the West has known about Iran's nuclear program, with 'talks' spinning into months while the regime simply buys time. The Iranians have no intention of seriously being diverted from making nuclear weapons, because they know that's where the regime's ultimate security lies. They've taken note of how differently President Obama has reacted to Kim Il Sung North Korea and Moamar Khaddaffi in Libya.

The new proposal the Iranians are now taking their time to study allows them to continue enriching uranium to 5% in any quantity, provided they promise not to build an Iranian nuclear weapon.

While they're studying the matter, the mullahs are upgrading and greatly expanding the number of centrifuges at Iran's Fordo underground facility near the city of Qom to allow them to to convert their 5% uranium to weapons grade uranium in a matter of days.

This was the backdrop behind PM Netanyahu's remarks in Cyprus on February 15, where he blasted both Iran and by extension, the Obama Administration, saying that sanctions “haven’t worked” and that a regime which attacks diplomats having nuclear weapons “is something of enormous concern for the United States and for Israel.”

According to what I'm hearing from several sources, the discussions with Donilon were fairly strained. The Israelis see this new back channel proposal to Iran from the Obama Administration as a clear violation of guarantees made to Israel regarding Iran and sanctions, especially since it allows Iran to continue nuclear enrichment as well as the hardening and dispersal of its nuclear facilities. Once the talks are underway, the Israelis understand that they can again be spun out for months, and that there would be no way of stopping Iran's progress towards weaponization during the negotiations until it was too late for Israel to do anything about what they correctly regard as an existential threat.

Netanyahu is headed for the United States to meet with President Obama on March 5th to discuss the matter further.Given that it's election time in America, Netanyahu isn't going to be deliberately insulted like he was the first time he came here, but I doubt Netanyahu has any illusions about President Obama's feelings about him and about Israel. Aside from trashing previous agreements with Israel, demanding they retreat to indefensible borders, telling them they have no right to their religious shrines , threatening an aid cutoff, and instituting what amounted to a de facto arms embargo during the early part of President Obama's term, they've watched as the Obama Administration has actively encouraged and enabled the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya.

What Netanyahu will likely relay to the president is a message that if the U.S. doesn't do something to curtail Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons program, Israel will. While both men will attempt to keep things civil, especially when the cameras are on them, the meeting is not likely to be an amicable one.

Netanyahu has absolutely no reason to trust anything President Obama says, and he has that in common with many of our allies, who have their own reasons to regard this president as weak and unreliable.

Could the Israelis pull off a strike? As I've discussed on this site several times, there no doubt that they could. And the damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities would likely be far more than merely putting things off for a couple of years.



The obstacles frequently cited are the sheer distance involved, the amount of planes needed, the need for mid-air refueling, the tough Iranian air defenses and the danger of retaliatory strikes from Iran and from Iran's proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.

A couple of years ago I analyzed what an Israeli strike on Iran might look like, and it was interesting to see an echo of some of that thinking recently from Hans Rühle, a leading German security expert who was head of the planning department of the German Defense Ministry between 1982-1988.

In an article in Die Welt, Rühle stated that in his opinion, a well planned Israeli attack could significantly set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program by perhaps a decade or more.

I personally see that as a bit optimistic, but at least five years is a certainty and a longer time is certainly possible depending on what gets hit.

Rühle and I agree that rather than a huge air armada of over a hundred planes, the Israelis would use smaller groups of 25 or 30 planes, each armed with two GBU-28 bunker busters. I think the Israelis would likely proceed a strike with a cyber attack to blind and confuse Iran's radar and missile defenses as they did in Syria. Even though the Syrians had something Iran doesn't, the advanced Russian S - 300 missile defense systems, the Israelis were able to blind and baffle them easily. The Israelis might even possibly mount an EMP attack which would destroy Iranian communications, computer networks and electronic controls, using a Jericho III missile.

The Israelis have one large advantage in an air attack they didn't have before. The most direct route planes would likely take to their targets in Iran is over Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Iraqis have no air defenses at this time and now that U.S. forces have withdrawn from Iraq, the U.S. has no part in defending Iraq's air space, so the road is wide open.

Using a smaller number of planes would allow greater flexibility in mid air refueling from Israel's fleet of 9 U.S. made tankers, and also allow attacks to be made in waves against specific targets while other planes refuel. Rühle suspects that the Israelis have configured additional planes as tankers. I know for a fact that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is currently working on converting a recently-acquired Boeing 707 for use as a super tanker, with delivery scheduled to the IDF by mid year. Never underestimate the Israeli genius for improvisation.

Nor is Israel's arsenal limited to F-15's and F-16's armed with bunker busters. The Israelis have state-of -the art drones available like the jumbo jet sized Eitan, which can carry a one ton payload and fly for 48 straight hours, their fleet of nuclear-capable Dolphin subs, each capable of firing Jericho II and III missiles with great precision and their land based Jericho III's with a range capable of reaching Iranian targets.

Rühle sees the primary nuclear targets as the nuclear plant at Natanz, the conversion facility in Isfahan, the heavy water reactor at Arak and the major weapons and munitions sites in Parchin. In addition, he notes the deep underground enrichment facility at Fordow near Qom and Iran’s nuclear plant at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf:

Rühle writes that surveillance “information about Natanz is solid,“ adding that the “project has been observed from satellites and from the location from 'Israeli tourists.'”

He added that Israel strongest bunker buster bombs GBU-28 could destroy the roof of the facility. If the damage is not sufficient, a second GBU-28 could be launched to complete the aim of destruction.

According to Rühle, Israel’s successful obliteration of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 laid an important precedent. He writes that “many experts believe “ that strikes against Iran’s nuclear operations could set back the program 10 years, or possibly longer, based on present knowledge.

The fighter plane requirement would entail 20 F-15 machines each accompanied with two GBU-28s. He estimates that Israel’s air force has over 87 F-15 planes at its disposal. The conversion Nuclear Technology Center of Isfahan, which is largely vulnerable to attack because its buildings are not underground, could be eliminated with GBU-27 bombs. Isfahan converts the yellow cake process into uranium.

The least difficult challenge for Israel’s air force is the heavy-water reactor Arak, observes Rühle. The above-ground facility could be razed with 10 GBU-10 bombs, wrote Rühle. The strike would require 10 F- 16 fighter jets.

According to Rühe, the most difficult obstacle to destroy is the underground Fordow enrichment plant. He notes that special team forces would have to attack the facility.

The alternative would be to strike the tunnel openings with GBU-28 bombs to plug the entry points for a period of time.

The complex Parchin site remains beyond the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and it is unclear how many bombs it would take to destroy the over 100 buildings, many of which are buried underground. Nuclear warheads are believed to be worked on in the Parchin plant.

Dancing With Armegeddon

In the past few days, there have been major high level efforts by the Obama Administration and the British government to talk Israel out of pre-emptive strike on Iran's rogue nuclear facilities.

President Obama's National Security Adviser Tom Donilon failed in three days of talks with Israeli PM Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Barak Ehud and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to convince them to give sanctions and negotiations more time to work.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague delivered the same message to Israel. In a BBC interview, he said Britain was focusing on pressuring Iran through diplomatic means.

"I don't think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran," he said. "I think Israel like everyone else in the world should be giving a real chance to the approach we have adopted on very serious economic sanctions and economic pressure and the readiness to negotiate with Iran."

The back story is very different.

The Israelis are livid over what they see as President Obama's betrayal in starting - again- to engage with Iran in back channel diplomacy in exchange for the U.S. and the EU postponing sanctions until July, with the likelihood of further postponements in exchange for more talks. The Israelis had already agreed to hold off to give sanctions time to work, only to find out later that President Obama was using the waiver Congress gave him in the sanctions legislation to postpone any meaningful action.

This movie has played out many times before in the over 7 years or so the West has known about Iran's nuclear program, with 'talks' spinning into months while the regime simply buys time. The Iranians have no intention of seriously being diverted from making nuclear weapons, because they know that's where the regime's ultimate security lies. They've taken note of how differently President Obama has reacted to Kim Il Sung North Korea and Moamar Khaddaffi in Libya.

The new proposal the Iranians are now taking their time to study allows them to continue enriching uranium to 5% in any quantity, provided they promise not to build an Iranian nuclear weapon.

While they're studying the matter, the mullahs are upgrading and greatly expanding the number of centrifuges at Iran's Fordo underground facility near the city of Qom to allow them to to convert their 5% uranium to weapons grade uranium in a matter of days.

This was the backdrop behind PM Netanyahu's remarks in Cyprus on February 15, where he blasted both Iran and by extension, the Obama Administration, saying that sanctions “haven’t worked” and that a regime which attacks diplomats having nuclear weapons “is something of enormous concern for the United States and for Israel.”

According to what I'm hearing from several sources, the discussions with Donilon were fairly strained. The Israelis see this new back channel proposal to Iran from the Obama Administration as a clear violation of guarantees made to Israel regarding Iran and sanctions, especially since it allows Iran to continue nuclear enrichment as well as the hardening and dispersal of its nuclear facilities. Once the talks are underway, the Israelis understand that they can again be spun out for months, and that there would be no way of stopping Iran's progress towards weaponization during the negotiations until it was too late for Israel to do anything about what they correctly regard as an existential threat.

Netanyahu is headed for the United States to meet with President Obama on March 5th to discuss the matter further.Given that it's election time in America, Netanyahu isn't going to be deliberately insulted like he was the first time he came here, but I doubt Netanyahu has any illusions about President Obama's feelings about him and about Israel. Aside from trashing previous agreements with Israel, demanding they retreat to indefensible borders, telling them they have no right to their religious shrines , threatening an aid cutoff, and instituting what amounted to a de facto arms embargo during the early part of President Obama's term, they've watched as the Obama Administration has actively encouraged and enabled the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya.

What Netanyahu will likely relay to the president is a message that if the U.S. doesn't do something to curtail Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons program, Israel will. While both men will attempt to keep things civil, especially when the cameras are on them, the meeting is not likely to be an amicable one.

Netanyahu has absolutely no reason to trust anything President Obama says, and he has that in common with many of our allies, who have their own reasons to regard this president as weak and unreliable.

Could the Israelis pull off a strike? As I've discussed on this site several times, there no doubt that they could. And the damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities would likely be far more than merely putting things off for a couple of years.



The obstacles frequently cited are the sheer distance involved, the amount of planes needed, the need for mid-air refueling, the tough Iranian air defenses and the danger of retaliatory strikes from Iran and from Iran's proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.

A couple of years ago I analyzed what an Israeli strike on Iran might look like, and it was interesting to see an echo of some of that thinking recently from Hans Rühle, a leading German security expert who was head of the planning department of the German Defense Ministry between 1982-1988.

In an article in Die Welt, Rühle stated that in his opinion, a well planned Israeli attack could significantly set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program by perhaps a decade or more.

I personally see that as a bit optimistic, but at least five years is a certainty and a longer time is certainly possible depending on what gets hit.

Rühle and I agree that rather than a huge air armada of over a hundred planes, the Israelis would use smaller groups of 25 or 30 planes, each armed with two GBU-28 bunker busters. I think the Israelis would likely proceed a strike with a cyber attack to blind and confuse Iran's radar and missile defenses as they did in Syria. Even though the Syrians had something Iran doesn't, the advanced Russian S - 300 missile defense systems, the Israelis were able to blind and baffle them easily. The Israelis might even possibly mount an EMP attack which would destroy Iranian communications, computer networks and electronic controls, using a Jericho III missile.

The Israelis have one large advantage in an air attack they didn't have before. The most direct route planes would likely take to their targets in Iran is over Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Iraqis have no air defenses at this time and now that U.S. forces have withdrawn from Iraq, the U.S. has no part in defending Iraq's air space, so the road is wide open.

Using a smaller number of planes would allow greater flexibility in mid air refueling from Israel's fleet of 9 U.S. made tankers, and also allow attacks to be made in waves against specific targets while other planes refuel. Rühle suspects that the Israelis have configured additional planes as tankers. I know for a fact that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is currently working on converting a recently-acquired Boeing 707 for use as a super tanker, with delivery scheduled to the IDF by mid year. Never underestimate the Israeli genius for improvisation.

Nor is Israel's arsenal limited to F-15's and F-16's armed with bunker busters. The Israelis have state-of -the art drones available like the jumbo jet sized Eitan, which can carry a one ton payload and fly for 48 straight hours, their fleet of nuclear-capable Dolphin subs, each capable of firing Jericho II and III missiles with great precision and their land based Jericho III's with a range capable of reaching Iranian targets.

Rühle sees the primary nuclear targets as the nuclear plant at Natanz, the conversion facility in Isfahan, the heavy water reactor at Arak and the major weapons and munitions sites in Parchin. In addition, he notes the deep underground enrichment facility at Fordow near Qom and Iran’s nuclear plant at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf:

Rühle writes that surveillance “information about Natanz is solid,“ adding that the “project has been observed from satellites and from the location from 'Israeli tourists.'”

He added that Israel strongest bunker buster bombs GBU-28 could destroy the roof of the facility. If the damage is not sufficient, a second GBU-28 could be launched to complete the aim of destruction.

According to Rühle, Israel’s successful obliteration of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 laid an important precedent. He writes that “many experts believe “ that strikes against Iran’s nuclear operations could set back the program 10 years, or possibly longer, based on present knowledge.

The fighter plane requirement would entail 20 F-15 machines each accompanied with two GBU-28s. He estimates that Israel’s air force has over 87 F-15 planes at its disposal. The conversion Nuclear Technology Center of Isfahan, which is largely vulnerable to attack because its buildings are not underground, could be eliminated with GBU-27 bombs. Isfahan converts the yellow cake process into uranium.

The least difficult challenge for Israel’s air force is the heavy-water reactor Arak, observes Rühle. The above-ground facility could be razed with 10 GBU-10 bombs, wrote Rühle. The strike would require 10 F- 16 fighter jets.

According to Rühe, the most difficult obstacle to destroy is the underground Fordow enrichment plant. He notes that special team forces would have to attack the facility.

The alternative would be to strike the tunnel openings with GBU-28 bombs to plug the entry points for a period of time.

The complex Parchin site remains beyond the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and it is unclear how many bombs it would take to destroy the over 100 buildings, many of which are buried underground. Nuclear warheads are believed to be worked on in the Parchin plant.

US/Israel Military Exercises Postponed; US Pressures Israel Against Unilateral Iran Strike

The US and Israel have postponed the joint military exercises they had scheduled for April under the code name "Austere Challenge". The official reason given was to avoid exacerbating tensions with Iran.

The exercise as it was originally planned would have include more than 5,000 U.S. personnel and simulated Israel's ballistic missile defense.

In the midst of all this, the US is strongly pressuring the Israelis not to mount a unilateral attack on Iran at this time. US Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to be in Israel this week for talks with his IDF head, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and is also going to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that's exactly the message he's almost certainly carrying.

While the US Senate voted 100-1 to impose sanctions on Iranian oil and on Iran's central bank, the Democrats watered things down sufficiently so that President Obama has substantial wiggle room on when and how to apply them. So far, the most damaging sanction, on Iran's Central Bank that would make it difficult for Iran to process its oil payments has been put off for six months by President Obama.

Moshe 'Boogie' Yaalon, Israel's vice prime minister put his finger on what's going on in an interview with Israel Radio today.

He compared the Obama administration's actions to those of France and Britain, which he said "are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately."

"In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations."

"In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now."

Yaalon continued that the international community must force Iran to "face the dilemma of choosing between its nuclear program or its regime as soon as possible," using the tougher sanctions necessary to isolate the regime.

Yaalon, finished by saying that Israel should not "leap forward" to attack Iran, "But Israel has to be ready to defend itself.Let's hope we do not arrive at that moment."

The truth of the matter - and Yaalon, Netanyahu, Gantz, General Dempsey and yes, the Iranians all know it - is that the entire US posture in the Gulf is geared towards defense, not offense.

As my friend the always scintillating Commander J.D. Dyer points out, what we're currently seeing in the Gulf is a small defensive buildup, a sign of how the Obama Administration plans to deal with Iran:

...we are not “boosting” our troop presence in the Gulf. We decided last year to keep some of the troops coming out of Iraq in Kuwait, as a ready force to deal with contingencies. As far as I can tell, the US administration has not explicitly implied in the last few days that the troops were “dispatched” to Kuwait, as if they had just recently deployed from North America. But numerous news outlets are reporting the developments in exactly those terms.

The force of about 15,000 includes two Army brigade combat teams (BCTs) and a combat air (helicopter) brigade, all of which deployed in 2011 prior to the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq. We haven’t “boosted” our ground-force presence in the Persian Gulf; we have drawn it down a little less than originally advertised. The forces in Kuwait are insufficient to mount an attack with; they might be used instead to help defend Gulf nations if Iran retaliated against sanctions or other Western actions with regional attacks. (The original premise was being able to go back into Iraq for security operations.)

The carrier strike group situation, meanwhile, will prove out in the coming days; we may have decided to keep two strike groups on station instead of one. One of two carriers that are currently outside the Persian Gulf – USS John C Stennis (CVN-74), which has been on station and is due to go home to the West coast, and USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), which has just arrived from San Diego – will probably leave shortly. A third carrier strike group, that of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), is reportedly headed for the theater from its last port visit in Thailand, which may mean that two carriers will be within a 1-3 day transit of the Persian Gulf, even if both are not operating there continuously.

It has been far from unusual to have two carriers in CENTCOM over the past decade. Even Pat Buchanan seems to have given up thinking it’s a harbinger of an ill-advised attack on Iran. Two carriers are, in fact, insufficient to launch a deliberate attack on Iran – like the ground forces being retained in Kuwait. The presence of two carriers in the theater for an extended period is evidence of a marginally heightened defensive profile. (It also gives the president the flexibility to send one on a dash to the Eastern Mediterranean if necessary, while keeping one on station in Southwest Asia.) The two carriers are not a signal that we are going on offense.

Notably, if we did need to apply significant force in the Eastern Med, we’d have to send assets there. The Russians have the only aircraft carrier task force deployed in EASTMED. The US has not maintained a robust carrier presence in the Med for some years now. (Interestingly, Britain and France are planning to jointly deploy a large naval force – including aircraft carriers – to the Med later this year.)

That's the real story behind the postponing of the joint US/Israel military exercises - President Obama is simply trying to wait out the election season hoping he doesn't have to take any decisive action on Iran while doing his very best to keep Israel from forcing the issue.

The president may also be concerned with preventing the Israelis from taking the option away from him of a 'wag the dog' October surprise attack on Iran if he's down in the polls. I guarantee you that scenario's been discussed at the White House.

US/Israel Military Exercises Postponed; US Pressures Israel Against Unilateral Iran Strike

The US and Israel have postponed the joint military exercises they had scheduled for April under the code name "Austere Challenge". The official reason given was to avoid exacerbating tensions with Iran.

The exercise as it was originally planned would have include more than 5,000 U.S. personnel and simulated Israel's ballistic missile defense.

In the midst of all this, the US is strongly pressuring the Israelis not to mount a unilateral attack on Iran at this time. US Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to be in Israel this week for talks with his IDF head, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and is also going to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that's exactly the message he's almost certainly carrying.

While the US Senate voted 100-1 to impose sanctions on Iranian oil and on Iran's central bank, the Democrats watered things down sufficiently so that President Obama has substantial wiggle room on when and how to apply them. So far, the most damaging sanction, on Iran's Central Bank that would make it difficult for Iran to process its oil payments has been put off for six months by President Obama.

Moshe 'Boogie' Yaalon, Israel's vice prime minister put his finger on what's going on in an interview with Israel Radio today.

He compared the Obama administration's actions to those of France and Britain, which he said "are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately."

"In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations."

"In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now."

Yaalon continued that the international community must force Iran to "face the dilemma of choosing between its nuclear program or its regime as soon as possible," using the tougher sanctions necessary to isolate the regime.

Yaalon, finished by saying that Israel should not "leap forward" to attack Iran, "But Israel has to be ready to defend itself.Let's hope we do not arrive at that moment."

The truth of the matter - and Yaalon, Netanyahu, Gantz, General Dempsey and yes, the Iranians all know it - is that the entire US posture in the Gulf is geared towards defense, not offense.

As my friend the always scintillating Commander J.D. Dyer points out, what we're currently seeing in the Gulf is a small defensive buildup, a sign of how the Obama Administration plans to deal with Iran:

...we are not “boosting” our troop presence in the Gulf. We decided last year to keep some of the troops coming out of Iraq in Kuwait, as a ready force to deal with contingencies. As far as I can tell, the US administration has not explicitly implied in the last few days that the troops were “dispatched” to Kuwait, as if they had just recently deployed from North America. But numerous news outlets are reporting the developments in exactly those terms.

The force of about 15,000 includes two Army brigade combat teams (BCTs) and a combat air (helicopter) brigade, all of which deployed in 2011 prior to the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq. We haven’t “boosted” our ground-force presence in the Persian Gulf; we have drawn it down a little less than originally advertised. The forces in Kuwait are insufficient to mount an attack with; they might be used instead to help defend Gulf nations if Iran retaliated against sanctions or other Western actions with regional attacks. (The original premise was being able to go back into Iraq for security operations.)

The carrier strike group situation, meanwhile, will prove out in the coming days; we may have decided to keep two strike groups on station instead of one. One of two carriers that are currently outside the Persian Gulf – USS John C Stennis (CVN-74), which has been on station and is due to go home to the West coast, and USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), which has just arrived from San Diego – will probably leave shortly. A third carrier strike group, that of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), is reportedly headed for the theater from its last port visit in Thailand, which may mean that two carriers will be within a 1-3 day transit of the Persian Gulf, even if both are not operating there continuously.

It has been far from unusual to have two carriers in CENTCOM over the past decade. Even Pat Buchanan seems to have given up thinking it’s a harbinger of an ill-advised attack on Iran. Two carriers are, in fact, insufficient to launch a deliberate attack on Iran – like the ground forces being retained in Kuwait. The presence of two carriers in the theater for an extended period is evidence of a marginally heightened defensive profile. (It also gives the president the flexibility to send one on a dash to the Eastern Mediterranean if necessary, while keeping one on station in Southwest Asia.) The two carriers are not a signal that we are going on offense.

Notably, if we did need to apply significant force in the Eastern Med, we’d have to send assets there. The Russians have the only aircraft carrier task force deployed in EASTMED. The US has not maintained a robust carrier presence in the Med for some years now. (Interestingly, Britain and France are planning to jointly deploy a large naval force – including aircraft carriers – to the Med later this year.)

That's the real story behind the postponing of the joint US/Israel military exercises - President Obama is simply trying to wait out the election season hoping he doesn't have to take any decisive action on Iran while doing his very best to keep Israel from forcing the issue.

The president may also be concerned with preventing the Israelis from taking the option away from him of a 'wag the dog' October surprise attack on Iran if he's down in the polls. I guarantee you that scenario's been discussed at the White House.

Obama Caught In Huge Whopper - Says Perry,Gingrich, Romney Would Cut All Aid to Israel

"Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero."

"Stand against ‘zeroing out’ aid to Israel," the web page says. "Republican candidates for president Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero. Stand up to this extreme isolationism and join the call to reject the Romney-Perry-Gingrich plan."

It says a great deal about President Obama's contempt for his fellow citizens that he'd even try getting away with this one.

The campaign cites as evidence a series of statements made at a Nov. 12, 2011, debate among the Republican presidential candidates moderated by CBS News’ Scott Pelley and National Journal’s Major Garrett.

What the candidates in question actually said is so far away from what the Obama campaign says they did beggars the imagination.

Rick Perry responded to a question by Pelly about foreign aid to Pakistan by saying this:

"Listen, I think we're having an interesting conversation here, but the deeper one (is about) foreign aid. And we need a president of the United States working with a Congress that sends a clear message to every country. It doesn't make any difference whether it's Pakistan or whether it's Afghanistan or whether it's India.

"The foreign aid budget in my administration for every country is going to start at zero dollars. Zero dollars. And then we'll have a conversation. Then we'll have a conversation in this country about whether or not a penny of our taxpayer dollar needs to go into those countries. And Pakistan is clearly sending us messages, Mitt. It's clearly sending us messages that they -- they don't deserve our foreign aid that we're getting, because they're not being honest with us. American soldiers' lives are being put at jeopardy because of that country. … It's time for us as a country to say no to foreign aid to countries that don't support the United States of America."

Notice Perry says that foreign aid should be cut to "countries that don't support the United States of America." And notice that he specifically says that he'd start at zero dollars and then decide how much aid the US gives them, not that he'd 'zero it out' and eliminate it as the Obama website says.

Newt Gingrich was asked if he agreed with Perry by Major Garret and said this:

"What he said made absolutely perfect sense. … Consider the alternative. You're giving some country $7 billion a year .... or in the case of Egypt, $3 billion a year. So you start off every year and say, ‘Here's your $3 billion, now I'll start thinking’? You ought to start off at zero and say, ‘Explain to me why I should give you a penny.’...

"The Pakistanis hid Bin Laden for at least six years in a military city within a mile of their national defense university. And then they got mad at the people who turned him over to us? And we think those are the acts of allies? I think that's a pretty good idea to start at zero and sometimes stay there."

Mitt Romney later in the debate expressed the same views later talking about Pakistan: "One of the things we have to do with our foreign aid commitments, the ongoing foreign aid commitments -- I agree with Gov. Perry. You start everything at zero."

A sensible position, actually that has nothing to do with 'cutting foreign aid to Israel to zero'.

And guess what...when asked later specifically about aid to Israel, every one of the three GOP candidates made it quite clear where they stood.

Perry said during the debate, "Obviously, Israel is a special ally. And my bet is that we would be funding them at some substantial level."

After the debate a Perry aide e-mailed POLITICO columnist Ben Smith to say, "Perry believes Israel's an extraordinary friend and our greatest ally. … Under Rick Perry, Israel will set the bar for judging foreign aid to any country. Perry's Start at Zero is exactly the right policy -- no country stands to benefit more than Israel from merit-based foreign aid."

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have taken consistently pro-Israel positions during the campaign made statements reiterating both their commitment to Israel as a valued ally and to continued military aid to Israel.

In fact, in Newt Gingrich's case, he cited a 2007 memorandum of understanding between Israel and the Bush Administration formalizing a 10-year commitment for U.S. military aid to Israel.

"We have a 10-year commitment that we have to live out," Gingrich said. "So I think because we’ve made this long-term commitment, you wouldn’t be able to go back to zero."

So the Prevaricator-in-chief is just flat out lying...again.

I'd love to see one of the candidates respond by mentioning that it was the Obama Administration that instituted what amounted to a de facto arms embargo on arms sales to Israel for eight months when President Obama first took office, and later threatened an aid cutoff in defiance of that 2007 MOU.

You'll also notice that th eObama website makes no mention of the one GOP candidate who does want to end all aid to Israel specifically and even introduced an amendment in Congress last February to that effect - Ron Paul.

But by now, I think we know why.

Ihave to admit I am disappointed by President Obama . I'm looking forward to more inventive lies and misstatements, not stupid ones like this. it belittles us both.

(h/t Politifact)

Obama Caught In Huge Whopper - Says Perry,Gingrich, Romney Would Cut All Aid to Israel

"Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero."

"Stand against ‘zeroing out’ aid to Israel," the web page says. "Republican candidates for president Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero. Stand up to this extreme isolationism and join the call to reject the Romney-Perry-Gingrich plan."

It says a great deal about President Obama's contempt for his fellow citizens that he'd even try getting away with this one.

The campaign cites as evidence a series of statements made at a Nov. 12, 2011, debate among the Republican presidential candidates moderated by CBS News’ Scott Pelley and National Journal’s Major Garrett.

What the candidates in question actually said is so far away from what the Obama campaign says they did beggars the imagination.

Rick Perry responded to a question by Pelly about foreign aid to Pakistan by saying this:

"Listen, I think we're having an interesting conversation here, but the deeper one (is about) foreign aid. And we need a president of the United States working with a Congress that sends a clear message to every country. It doesn't make any difference whether it's Pakistan or whether it's Afghanistan or whether it's India.

"The foreign aid budget in my administration for every country is going to start at zero dollars. Zero dollars. And then we'll have a conversation. Then we'll have a conversation in this country about whether or not a penny of our taxpayer dollar needs to go into those countries. And Pakistan is clearly sending us messages, Mitt. It's clearly sending us messages that they -- they don't deserve our foreign aid that we're getting, because they're not being honest with us. American soldiers' lives are being put at jeopardy because of that country. … It's time for us as a country to say no to foreign aid to countries that don't support the United States of America."

Notice Perry says that foreign aid should be cut to "countries that don't support the United States of America." And notice that he specifically says that he'd start at zero dollars and then decide how much aid the US gives them, not that he'd 'zero it out' and eliminate it as the Obama website says.

Newt Gingrich was asked if he agreed with Perry by Major Garret and said this:

"What he said made absolutely perfect sense. … Consider the alternative. You're giving some country $7 billion a year .... or in the case of Egypt, $3 billion a year. So you start off every year and say, ‘Here's your $3 billion, now I'll start thinking’? You ought to start off at zero and say, ‘Explain to me why I should give you a penny.’...

"The Pakistanis hid Bin Laden for at least six years in a military city within a mile of their national defense university. And then they got mad at the people who turned him over to us? And we think those are the acts of allies? I think that's a pretty good idea to start at zero and sometimes stay there."

Mitt Romney later in the debate expressed the same views later talking about Pakistan: "One of the things we have to do with our foreign aid commitments, the ongoing foreign aid commitments -- I agree with Gov. Perry. You start everything at zero."

A sensible position, actually that has nothing to do with 'cutting foreign aid to Israel to zero'.

And guess what...when asked later specifically about aid to Israel, every one of the three GOP candidates made it quite clear where they stood.

Perry said during the debate, "Obviously, Israel is a special ally. And my bet is that we would be funding them at some substantial level."

After the debate a Perry aide e-mailed POLITICO columnist Ben Smith to say, "Perry believes Israel's an extraordinary friend and our greatest ally. … Under Rick Perry, Israel will set the bar for judging foreign aid to any country. Perry's Start at Zero is exactly the right policy -- no country stands to benefit more than Israel from merit-based foreign aid."

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have taken consistently pro-Israel positions during the campaign made statements reiterating both their commitment to Israel as a valued ally and to continued military aid to Israel.

In fact, in Newt Gingrich's case, he cited a 2007 memorandum of understanding between Israel and the Bush Administration formalizing a 10-year commitment for U.S. military aid to Israel.

"We have a 10-year commitment that we have to live out," Gingrich said. "So I think because we’ve made this long-term commitment, you wouldn’t be able to go back to zero."

So the Prevaricator-in-chief is just flat out lying...again.

I'd love to see one of the candidates respond by mentioning that it was the Obama Administration that instituted what amounted to a de facto arms embargo on arms sales to Israel for eight months when President Obama first took office, and later threatened an aid cutoff in defiance of that 2007 MOU.

You'll also notice that th eObama website makes no mention of the one GOP candidate who does want to end all aid to Israel specifically and even introduced an amendment in Congress last February to that effect - Ron Paul.

But by now, I think we know why.

Ihave to admit I am disappointed by President Obama . I'm looking forward to more inventive lies and misstatements, not stupid ones like this. it belittles us both.

(h/t Politifact)

How The U.S. Bribed 'Palestinians' To Begin Talks With Israel

An interesting if somewhat sickening story to start off the New Year..

One of the big surprise stories surfacing is that the 'Palestinians' have finally agreed to begin negotiations with Israel without any preconditions, although they're very careful to label them as 'talks about talks' rather than any actual negotiations. That's probably accurate, since it's almost certain nothing will actually be accomplished.

The talks are being held in Amman, Jordan with Jordan's King Abdullah as mediator in the context of a Middle East Peace Quartet meeting (The United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations. The Israelis are sending Yitzhak Molcho, Israel's chief negotiator for talks with the 'Palestinians' and Fatah is sending Saeb Erekat, formerly the right fork of the execrable Yasser Arafat's tongue.

Two questions come to mind immediately. Why Jordan, and why did Fatah suddenly agree to sit down with the Israelis? The answers are simple once you connect the dots.

Why Jordan is simplicity itself. King Abdullah, along with a Bedouin minority rules over a country where 75% of the population identifies themselves as 'Palestinian', and where Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are increasingly popular.Jordan is another of those Arab countries like Egypt without oil income and King Abdullah has attempted to bridge Jordan's economic gap by becoming a U.S. ally and accepting close to $1 billion in American foreign aid.

Jordan has already seen a certain amount of Muslim Brotherhood sponsored unrest, largely from his 'Palestinian' citizens, and the last thing he wants is a Hamas dominated state next door in Judea and Samaria that might seek to overthrow him and take Jordan over as the actual 'Palestinian' state the way Arafat and Fatah did in the 1970's. He has every reason to anxiously support some kind of Fatah ruled state in hopes that even if Hamas takes over, they'll concentrate on trying to destroy Israel. leave him in peace and be content with that. Obviously King Abdullah has forgotten what happened to his father Hussein in the 1970's when Arafat and Fatah tried to take over Jordan and turn it into a 'Palestinian' state in 1970 with a very similar scenario, but that appears to be what King Abdullah has in mind.

As for why Fatah agreed to sit down with the Israelis, the answer's even simpler. Money talks, and they have nothing to lose anyway.

Some of you may recall seeing this under reported story about the U.S. Congress agreeing to release 20 percent of $187 million in U.S. aid to the 'Palestinians' that had been frozen because of 'Palestine's' bid for U.N. membership. That happened just a few days ago, and now we see the 'Palestinians' grudgingly agreeing to meet with the Israelis for the first time in months.

As one of my notorious Little Birdies whom actually works within the 'Palestinian' Authority informed me, I was entirely correct when I guessed this is no mere coincidence.This person had told me back when the funds were first frozen that it was only a matter of time until the 'Palestinians' got their usual jizya from the Obama Administration. And in our latest exchange, he informed me quite openly that the Obama Administration had made a solid proposition to Abbas and Fatah in exchange for freeing up the funds, and just sitting down with the Israelis was the price.

The 'Palestinians' aren't totally stupid, they know President Obama is coming up for re-election and is trying to convince Jews to vote for him, and that even the appearance of progress towards that mythical two-state solution looks good. So they went along. And why not? They have nothing to lose.

Abbas and Fatah aren't in a position to make any kind of binding deal anyway, not without the consent of Hamas. And even if they were, they have absolutely no inclination to do so. As Abbas has said many times, he's not prepared to make even a single concession on 'Palestinian' demands, and those demands aren't anything the Israelis can realistically accept unless they're suicidal.

At worst, the 'Palestinians' will walk away again with remarks for their groupies on the press and the so-called international community about how the Israelis are refusing to negotiate. At best, some of the goons in the Quartet may even successfully lean on Israel for some more unilateral concessions. And the important thing is, they get the money, honey, a nice chunk of which will also go to Hamas.

The 'Palestinians' managed with the willing help of President Obama to obtain $545.7 million courtesy of the US taxpayers in 2011, including the part that was frozen. That money is characterized as development and humanitarian aid, but it really continues to fund the War Against The Jews, since Fatah and Hamas can use it to free up money they already have for use elsewhere. In other words, the US government is funding anti-Semitic incitement and outright terrorism to the tune of well north of half a billion per year.

And it's going to continue. President Obama has already asked Congress for $513.4 million in aid for the 'Palestinians' in fiscal year 2012.

How The U.S. Bribed 'Palestinians' To Begin Talks With Israel

An interesting if somewhat sickening story to start off the New Year..

One of the big surprise stories surfacing is that the 'Palestinians' have finally agreed to begin negotiations with Israel without any preconditions, although they're very careful to label them as 'talks about talks' rather than any actual negotiations. That's probably accurate, since it's almost certain nothing will actually be accomplished.

The talks are being held in Amman, Jordan with Jordan's King Abdullah as mediator in the context of a Middle East Peace Quartet meeting (The United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations. The Israelis are sending Yitzhak Molcho, Israel's chief negotiator for talks with the 'Palestinians' and Fatah is sending Saeb Erekat, formerly the right fork of the execrable Yasser Arafat's tongue.

Two questions come to mind immediately. Why Jordan, and why did Fatah suddenly agree to sit down with the Israelis? The answers are simple once you connect the dots.

Why Jordan is simplicity itself. King Abdullah, along with a Bedouin minority rules over a country where 75% of the population identifies themselves as 'Palestinian', and where Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are increasingly popular.Jordan is another of those Arab countries like Egypt without oil income and King Abdullah has attempted to bridge Jordan's economic gap by becoming a U.S. ally and accepting close to $1 billion in American foreign aid.

Jordan has already seen a certain amount of Muslim Brotherhood sponsored unrest, largely from his 'Palestinian' citizens, and the last thing he wants is a Hamas dominated state next door in Judea and Samaria that might seek to overthrow him and take Jordan over as the actual 'Palestinian' state the way Arafat and Fatah did in the 1970's. He has every reason to anxiously support some kind of Fatah ruled state in hopes that even if Hamas takes over, they'll concentrate on trying to destroy Israel. leave him in peace and be content with that. Obviously King Abdullah has forgotten what happened to his father Hussein in the 1970's when Arafat and Fatah tried to take over Jordan and turn it into a 'Palestinian' state in 1970 with a very similar scenario, but that appears to be what King Abdullah has in mind.

As for why Fatah agreed to sit down with the Israelis, the answer's even simpler. Money talks, and they have nothing to lose anyway.

Some of you may recall seeing this under reported story about the U.S. Congress agreeing to release 20 percent of $187 million in U.S. aid to the 'Palestinians' that had been frozen because of 'Palestine's' bid for U.N. membership. That happened just a few days ago, and now we see the 'Palestinians' grudgingly agreeing to meet with the Israelis for the first time in months.

As one of my notorious Little Birdies whom actually works within the 'Palestinian' Authority informed me, I was entirely correct when I guessed this is no mere coincidence.This person had told me back when the funds were first frozen that it was only a matter of time until the 'Palestinians' got their usual jizya from the Obama Administration. And in our latest exchange, he informed me quite openly that the Obama Administration had made a solid proposition to Abbas and Fatah in exchange for freeing up the funds, and just sitting down with the Israelis was the price.

The 'Palestinians' aren't totally stupid, they know President Obama is coming up for re-election and is trying to convince Jews to vote for him, and that even the appearance of progress towards that mythical two-state solution looks good. So they went along. And why not? They have nothing to lose.

Abbas and Fatah aren't in a position to make any kind of binding deal anyway, not without the consent of Hamas. And even if they were, they have absolutely no inclination to do so. As Abbas has said many times, he's not prepared to make even a single concession on 'Palestinian' demands, and those demands aren't anything the Israelis can realistically accept unless they're suicidal.

At worst, the 'Palestinians' will walk away again with remarks for their groupies on the press and the so-called international community about how the Israelis are refusing to negotiate. At best, some of the goons in the Quartet may even successfully lean on Israel for some more unilateral concessions. And the important thing is, they get the money, honey, a nice chunk of which will also go to Hamas.

The 'Palestinians' managed with the willing help of President Obama to obtain $545.7 million courtesy of the US taxpayers in 2011, including the part that was frozen. That money is characterized as development and humanitarian aid, but it really continues to fund the War Against The Jews, since Fatah and Hamas can use it to free up money they already have for use elsewhere. In other words, the US government is funding anti-Semitic incitement and outright terrorism to the tune of well north of half a billion per year.

And it's going to continue. President Obama has already asked Congress for $513.4 million in aid for the 'Palestinians' in fiscal year 2012.

Tensions Ratcheting Up With Iran?

There are a couple of items worth examining on this today.

The first one was a response ( obviously cleared with higher authority) to Iran's threats to close the Strait of Hormuz from the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet's spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich, who warned Iran that any disruption "will not be tolerated." She added that the U.S. Navy is "always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation."

That statement sent oil prices down today, with benchmark crude falling 77 cents to $100.57 a barrel in morning trading and Brent crude falling 82 cents to $108.45 a barrel in London.

The second item is a piece by national-security correspondent Eli Lake in the Daily Beast that claims Israel and the US are currently arguing/negotiating over red lines that would trigger taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Reportedly, SecDef Leon Panetta's remarks to the Israelis at the Saban Center 3 weeks ago didn't go over well, especially combined with remarks by other Administration figures and surrogates. Ambassador Oren made a formal diplomatic protest, a demarche, which according to Lake led to him gettng assurances from th eAdministration about their own red lines for launching an attack on Iran's nuke sites and therefore the Israelis could just sit back and relax, relying on the Obama Administration to take care of things.

Unfortunately - I can't imagine why - the Israelis mistrust President Obama's intentions, and if Lake is correct, there's been a fair amount of ongoing haggling over those red lines the Israelis are being told about:

With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

The two items are obviously related, with the somewhat bellicose naval rhetoric intended not only for the mullahs but for the Sunni rulers of the Gulf States, and also for the Israelis, in an effort to convince them to trust this president not to fold when it comes to the Iranian threat .

If the talks Lake describes are in fact being held and if that's the topic being discussed, there are going to be a number of things to be ironed out.

For one thing, the Israelis ( who almost certainly have better intelligence on the ground in Iran than we do) are convinced Iran is a lot further along with its nuclear weapons program than the Obama Administration is. They also are no doubt pointing out the every day of delay gives Iran more time to hide, disperse and harden its nuclear sites, making success in taking them out more difficult. The Israelis undoubtedly reason that the longer they or the Americans wait, the stronger Iran will be and the greater the possibility of casualties or failure.

On the other hand, the chief concern of the Obama Administration is politics. As I mentioned before, the Iranians have a suspicion that a down- in- the- polls President Obama might just try and revive his fortunes with a pre-emptive strike as an October Surprise in 2012. Part of the Iranian strategy is to warn him off by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, reminding him that an attack by the US or the Israelis or even meaningful sanctions could lead to a spike in world oil prices that could effect the US economy and the president's re-election prospects.

From President Obama's perspective, there's no question that he would rather delay any decision on a military strike on Iran until much later, depending on how his re-election campaign is going. Unfortunately, in order to do that, he's going to have to convince the Israelis to hold off.

If there actually are negotiations on Iran going on between the Obama Administration and Israel, that's the real topic of conversation. President Obama is likelyreaping the harvest of three years worth of distrust and discord he sowed with Israel and I doubt things are going smoothly.

Tensions Ratcheting Up With Iran?

There are a couple of items worth examining on this today.

The first one was a response ( obviously cleared with higher authority) to Iran's threats to close the Strait of Hormuz from the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet's spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich, who warned Iran that any disruption "will not be tolerated." She added that the U.S. Navy is "always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation."

That statement sent oil prices down today, with benchmark crude falling 77 cents to $100.57 a barrel in morning trading and Brent crude falling 82 cents to $108.45 a barrel in London.

The second item is a piece by national-security correspondent Eli Lake in the Daily Beast that claims Israel and the US are currently arguing/negotiating over red lines that would trigger taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Reportedly, SecDef Leon Panetta's remarks to the Israelis at the Saban Center 3 weeks ago didn't go over well, especially combined with remarks by other Administration figures and surrogates. Ambassador Oren made a formal diplomatic protest, a demarche, which according to Lake led to him gettng assurances from th eAdministration about their own red lines for launching an attack on Iran's nuke sites and therefore the Israelis could just sit back and relax, relying on the Obama Administration to take care of things.

Unfortunately - I can't imagine why - the Israelis mistrust President Obama's intentions, and if Lake is correct, there's been a fair amount of ongoing haggling over those red lines the Israelis are being told about:

With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

The two items are obviously related, with the somewhat bellicose naval rhetoric intended not only for the mullahs but for the Sunni rulers of the Gulf States, and also for the Israelis, in an effort to convince them to trust this president not to fold when it comes to the Iranian threat .

If the talks Lake describes are in fact being held and if that's the topic being discussed, there are going to be a number of things to be ironed out.

For one thing, the Israelis ( who almost certainly have better intelligence on the ground in Iran than we do) are convinced Iran is a lot further along with its nuclear weapons program than the Obama Administration is. They also are no doubt pointing out the every day of delay gives Iran more time to hide, disperse and harden its nuclear sites, making success in taking them out more difficult. The Israelis undoubtedly reason that the longer they or the Americans wait, the stronger Iran will be and the greater the possibility of casualties or failure.

On the other hand, the chief concern of the Obama Administration is politics. As I mentioned before, the Iranians have a suspicion that a down- in- the- polls President Obama might just try and revive his fortunes with a pre-emptive strike as an October Surprise in 2012. Part of the Iranian strategy is to warn him off by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, reminding him that an attack by the US or the Israelis or even meaningful sanctions could lead to a spike in world oil prices that could effect the US economy and the president's re-election prospects.

From President Obama's perspective, there's no question that he would rather delay any decision on a military strike on Iran until much later, depending on how his re-election campaign is going. Unfortunately, in order to do that, he's going to have to convince the Israelis to hold off.

If there actually are negotiations on Iran going on between the Obama Administration and Israel, that's the real topic of conversation. President Obama is likelyreaping the harvest of three years worth of distrust and discord he sowed with Israel and I doubt things are going smoothly.

Heart Of Darkness; Obama's Campaign To Make Israel A Scapegoat And Fool America's Jews

The Obama Administration is obviously very concerned about its fading support among America's Jews. And to counteract it, there's a subtle but growing campaign going on to convince America's Jews that not only is the president the most pro-Israel in history, but that it's those ungrateful Jews in Israel that caused the death of the so-called peace process and cause all the rampant Muslim Jew hatred rather than President Obama's arrogant, amateurish and deceitful behavior. And the president and his handlers are using committed foot soldiers who are either Jews or people posing as 'friends' of Israel to do it.

The president, speaking in front of a fundraiser to group of American Jews in the Manhattan home of Obama donor Jack Rosen,the chairman of the American Jewish Congress made this incredible statement: "I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. We don't compromise when it comes to Israel's security ... and that will continue."

A whole chorus of the administration's allies has come out full force to echo this fantasy.

For instance, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, recently told a conference hosted by the European Jewish Union that Israel was to blame for Muslim Jew hatred :

"A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

According to the account in the Israeli paper, “The legal experts at the event were visibly stunned by Gutman’s words, and the next speaker offered a scathing rebuttal to the envoy’s remarks.”

Gutman apparently never read the Qu'ran or the Hadiths and is clueless as to the real roots of Muslim anti-Semitism, which predates the re-establishment of Israel by centuries.

But of course, Gutman is infinitely qualified for his post as ambassador, having bundled $500,000 in 2008 for Obama, according to OpenSecrets.org.

It's worth repeating the words of the next speaker after Gutman,German attorney Nathan Gelbart:


"The modern Anti-Semite formally condemns Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust and expresses upmost sympathy with the Jewish people. He simply has created a new species, the “Anti-Zionist” or – even more sophisticated – the so-called ‘Israel critic,’”

“The ‘Israel critic’ will never state ‘Jews go home’ but is questioning the legality of the incorporation of the State of Israel and therefore the right for the Jewish people to settle in their homeland. He will not say the Jews are the evil of the world but claim that the State of Israel is a major cause for instability and war in the region,” he said. “There is no other country, no other people on this planet the ‘Israel critic’ would dedicate so much time and devotion as to the case of Israel.”

“For no other country he would criticize or ask to boycott its goods or academics. And this for one simple reason: Because Israel is the state of the Jewish people, not more and not less.”

Gelbert's remarks were received with loud applause, while Ambassador Gutman left the conference hurriedly, claiming prior obligations.

The White house has reportedly backed away from Gutman, issuing a hurried statement that his views do not reflect theirs. Actually they reflect the Obama Administration's views exactly, but the White House is a lot more subtle, what with elections coming up.

In another instance,you have SecDef Leon Panetta's recent remarks at a forum at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington DC. Apparently the Secretary took some time off from hollowing out America's military to explain to an audience of American Jews that really, the problems in the Middle East are all Israel's fault:

"I understand the view that this is not the time to pursue peace, and that the Arab awakening further imperils the dream of a safe and secure, Jewish and democratic Israel. But I disagree with that view," Panetta said.

He said Israel needed to take risks, including by breathing new life into moribund peace talks with Palestinians. When asked by a moderator what steps Israel needed to take to pursue peace, Panetta said: "Just get to the damn table."

As if it was Israel that was refusing to negotiate!

"I believe security is dependent on a strong military but it is also dependent on strong diplomacy. And unfortunately, over the past year, we've seen Israel's isolation from its traditional security partners in the region grow," Panetta said.

Panetta suggested that Israel reach out and mend fences with countries like Turkey, Egypt and Jordan which "share an interest in regional stability."

Panetta said that while Israel is not solely responsible for its isolation, it could more actively attempt to reverse the trend: "For example, Israel can reach out and mend fences with those who share an interest in regional stability – countries like Turkey and Egypt, as well as Jordan," he said.

"This is not impossible. If the gestures are rebuked, the world will see those rebukes for what they are. And that is exactly why Israel should pursue them."

"It is in Israel's interest, Turkey's interest, and US interest for Israel to reconcile with Turkey, and both Turkey and Israel need to do more to put their relationship back on track," Panetta said.

As if Israel hasn't made ample gestures to these countries, only to have them slapped away each time? And exactly how is Israel supposed to 'mend fences' with Islamist governments in Turkey and Egypt? Or Jordan,where King Abdullah toes the anti-Israel line because he's scared stiff of his mostly 'Palestinian' subjects tossing him out on his behind and claiming Jordan as yet another 'Palestinian' state?

Egypt, Turkey and Jordan aren't committed to 'regional stability' and Panetta knows it. What they're committed to is Israel's disappearance,because it is a Jewish state. But Panetta and the Obama Administration would have us believe that this is Israel's fault. Just as the dead-in-the-water 'peace process is Israel's fault, rather than President Obama's:

Panetta further urged Israel to "lean forward" to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Peace talks have been moribund for more than a year.

"Rather than undermining the Palestinian Authority, it is in Israel's interests to strengthen it by ... continuing to transfer Palestinian tax revenues and pursuing other avenues of cooperation," he said.

Rather than 'lean forward', what Panetta really means is 'bend over'. And he's telling Israel that after you get raped, give up territory and important and irreversible strategic concessions and pay in blood because of it, the world will of course take your side and forcefully condemn those who attack Jews...just like they did when Israel retreated from Gaza.

It's worth noting that Panetta's remarks are not directed at Israel, but at American Jewish voters.

Panetta's speech took place at at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy... established and funded by Obama contributor and major Democrat fund raiser and contributor Chaim Saban. And just by coincidence, it was the Saban Center who also funded this bogus poll, designed to convince American Jews that Israelis absolutely love Obama, so it's just fine to vote for him.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pressed into service, making remarks at - what a coincidence- a closed Saban Forum.

According to our Secretary of State, pending Knesset legislation to limit foreign donations to far Left anti-Israel NGOs like Peace Now, B’Tselem and the Holy Land Trust and stop Israeli Supreme Court justices from naming their own successors are 'assaults onIsrael's democracy'. She even had the nerve to claim that Israel's women are 'excluded from public life'. Aside from the prominent judges and Knesset members in Israel who are female, apparently no one told her that the MK who is a prime mover in favor the bill to cut funding is Faina Kirschenbaum.

Secretary Clinton, of course, would never say such a thing about her 'Palestinian' friends or Jordan, where honor killings of uppity females are endemic. Nor would she make such remarks in Israel, where she would have been laughed off the stage and severely challenged. No, the idea here was to slime Israel's democracy here in the US to make it easier for American Jewish voters to feel good about voting against Israel's present government and re-electing President Obama.

Ignorant Jewish quislings like Gutman and Rosen are already in the bag.The regime may even recall Ambassador Gutman to try to show their 'pro-Israel' bonifides. But this campaign - and there's no other word for it - is directed at American Jews to try to convince them that black is white so that they'll line up and pull the lever for the most anti-Israel president in history.

I don't know what's in President Obama's heart. But I know that many of his most intimate associates are rabid anti-Semites, or 'Anti-Zionists' to use the more fashionable new term for these creatures. I know he has little or no respect for the Jewish religion. I know that he's supported Islamist movements throughout the Middle East like the Muslim Brotherhood that have rabid Jew hatred as a primary feature. And I know he's done more to delegitimize Israel and distance America from a major ally than any president in history. And that's all I or anyone else should need to know.

This latest cynical campaign of contempt ought to send a message to those still sitting on the fence. As far as I'm concerned, any Jew - or for that matter, anybody - who votes for Obama cannot claim to be pro-Israel. End of story, and it goes beyond any Republican or Democrat affiliation.

UPDATE: Per Journolista Ben Smith, the campaign intensifies as George Soros' zombies weigh in.

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