Obama's 'Appeasement Policy' to Blame for Iran's Rise

For nearly four decades Iran's regime has literally posed the first and foremost threat for peace and security in the world

Shahriar Kia a press spokesman for residents of Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq has written an article on the  'growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism' led by Iran's regime and how the US administration appeasement policy toward Tehran has raised this threat in the Middle East and throughout the world.
The following is the full article posted on the News Max:

As the world continues to struggle in its effort to find a solution to the ever growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, a very simple reality is very often overlooked -- and at times deliberately neglected.
In the years leading to World War II, the appeasement policy advocated by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain vis-a-vis the fascist regimes of Europe forced him to declare war on Nazi Germany after Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland, and the rest is history.
Decades later, we are literally witnessing history repeating itself as the West, spearheaded by the Obama administration in Washington, has once again embraced the appeasement/engagement policy. This time, it is with a fascist regime in Iran. The objective is to encourage the emergence of moderates from within the mullahs’ establishment. This misguided policy has unfortunately led to the de facto rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
The regime in Iran is relying on three main pillars and platforms to safeguard its ruling system: domestic oppression and harrowing human rights violations, perennial support for international terrorism, and the all-out effort to obtain nuclear weapons by any means possible.
Long before Daesh -- the Arabic acronym for the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL -- ever came to existence, the mullahs sitting on the throne in Iran claimed having the prophecy and manifestation to rule over all Islamic countries under such a caliphate.
For nearly four decades, Iran has literally posed the first and foremost threat for peace and security for Middle East and beyond.
The Obama administration sought to tame the regime in Iran through an outreach effort to seal an agreement over Tehran's ongoing differences with the international community regarding its suspicious and clandestine nuclear program.
After years of overt and covert talks, the P5+1 finally closed an agreement in July 2015 for Iran to cooperate in curbing its emblematic nuclear program in return for certain concessions.
The international community expected Iran to at least principally alter previous methods, and remedy its menacing behavior.
However, the mullahs in Tehran – under pressure from their dismal base – built on this naïve expectation and continued wreaking havoc by meddling in the region, test-firing a string of ballistic missiles despite the U.N. Security Council denouncing such measures, and launching massive waves of executions in prisons across the country.
The International Institute of Strategic Studies reported on April 20th: “US Cent-com commander General Lloyd Austin testified in March that Iran’s regional behavior has not changed since the nuclear deal, for better or for worse: ‘The fact remains that Iran today is a significant destabilizing force in the region.’”
Newsweek raised the question of Iran ever maturing into an appropriate neighbor, describing how Tehran has resorted to pursuing “deterrence and military power projection through means of its ballistic missiles, an alliance with Lebanese Hezbollah and the rest of its regional proxy army, and its suite of asymmetric naval capabilities designed to threaten Persian Gulf shipping and U.S. maritime dominance.”
Interestingly, despite all these undeniable facts, the West, and the Obama administration in particular, simply refuse to accept the reality that Iran will not budge to denounce its past or welcome any change whatsoever, nor will it allow its already tenuous hegemony be tethered.
American Thinker’s Rick Moran best summarized and articulated this harsh reality with reference to Iran’s approach regarding its nuclear pact with the P5+1: “I'm trying to decide what's more jaw-dropping: Obama thinking Iran is interested in adhering to the 'spirit' of the treaty, or that the president actually believed the Iranians ever intended to adhere to it.”
We have to accept the fact that any talk of “moderates” and “hardliners” in Iran is merely playing into Tehran’s hands.
The mentality of all factions inside Iran is founded based on Islamic fundamentalism, denying freedoms for all and most importantly, strict gender segregation and discrimination.
Iran under its “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani is known to have executed more than 2,400 people from June 2013 onward. Recent startling reports indicate Iran sent 23 prisoners to the gallows in the span of two days of May 17th and 18th, and placed in solitary confinement 10 young inmates aged between 21 and 25, all in preparation for their executions.
Further disturbing news from Iran show how dozens of high school graduates were arrested and lashed 99 times each for throwing, and dancing at, a graduation party. This should provide a clear insight about the mullahs’ temperament.
This complex, defiant threat was first unearthed more than two decades ago by the Iranian opposition in a book titled Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat. It precisely evaluated the very foundation of this mentality.
Had these warnings been taken seriously, and received the attention they deserved, rest assured that neither al-Qaida nor Daesh would have emerged. Iraq would not have been taken hostage by Iran-backed Shiite militias sowing the seeds of “sedition and division.”
Nor would Bashar al-Assad, following the footsteps dictated by Iran, have massacred the Syrian people in a turmoil enduring for more than five years now.
The regime in Tehran is the epicenter of provoking this multi-layered misery, and offers a safe haven for terrorists.
Four decades of their onslaught against the Middle East and world over has proven the international community has been neglecting the mainstream solution to this major dilemma.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, symbolized in the leadership of Maryam Rajavi and her 10-point plan for Iran, presents a democratic alternative for Iran to dislodge the mullahs.
As former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani stated at a major NCRI -sponsored gathering back in June 2015: “This is a critical time for freedom in Iran. Now more than ever, it is essential for President Obama and Secretary Kerry to keep the pressure on the Iranian Government.”
He added: “At the core of all these problems is the regime in Iran. It should be changed, it must be changed, it has to be changed…There should be support by the United States government for an opposition in Iran. The United States government should support the opposition groups, Mrs. Rajavi's being the most prominent, and the biggest.'
Shahriar Kia is a press spokesman for residents of Camp Liberty, Iraq, and members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran opposition group (PMOI, also known as MEK). Twitter: @shahriarkia

Why is the migrant crisis erupting now?

Asylum seekers in desperate need of help

After more than 4 years of fighting in Syria and also across the Middle East and North Africa, what has provoked this new influx of asylum seekers into Europe?
They flee a country at war where the West resists any major military or political engagement.
They flee a country where NATO-led forces fought for more than a decade to achieve stability.
The stories of Syria and Afghanistan are two cautionary tales of our time.
Old wars don’t end. New ones get worse.
No matter what the world’s great powers did or did not do, growing numbers of Syrians and Afghans are taking their future into their own hands. They make up the two largest groups in this mass displacement of people across Europe and beyond.
Never has there has been such an ingathering of people sending the most pointed public message to their own leaders and the world at large: 'You failed.'


A Syrian man holds a sign declaring his gratitude to German Chancellor Angela Merkel

It’s the people’s version of the Live Aid concert organised by the world’s musicians 30 years ago to raise money for the Ethiopian famine.
This time, people are no longer waiting for a more peaceful and privileged world beyond to come to them with aid. They’re coming to that better safer place themselves - no matter what it takes.
And as this human stream rushes unabated, it starts to change course and political colour.
Now there are growing numbers of Iraqis, the other major international engagement of the decade past. Eritreans flee well-documented repression, Somalis escape a chronic instability that is now a way of life and even Pakistanis are on the move to get out of harm’s way at home.



'Is there a war in Pakistan?' I ask two men who also spill out of a bus packed with Syrians and Afghans when it pulls up to the last muddy crossing in northern Greece on the Macedonian border.
'Bombs are exploding around Lahore,' one young man insists, bowing his head to show me what he says is a scar on the back of it.

No easy divide
This seemingly unending flow of people making perilous journeys across the Mediterranean and running the gauntlet across northern Europe underlines how difficult distinctions and decisions will have to be made between refugees with a 'well-founded fear of persecution' and those with an understandable desire to seek a better life.
But the neat binary divide between economic migrants and refugees no longer fits a messy world of fragile and failing states and 'post-conflict' conflicts.
Many countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada, have made it clear they are now only opening their door to allow in thousands, possibly tens of thousands, more Syrians.


Sami Khazi Kani is trying for the second time to reach the West

'Its absolutely unfair,' Sami Khazi Kani declares as he waits for his turn to cross the last metal barrier manned by Greek police.
He tried and failed a decade ago to get asylum in Britain. When he was deported to Afghanistan his risks only grew when his English language skills landed him a job as an interpreter for US troops. Now he’s trying to reach the West again.
'The Taliban are killing us, the Taliban are kidnapping us,' he says bitterly. 'But the media only broadcast what is happening in Syria.'
Taliban attacks are on the rise in Afghanistan but Syria is undeniably the war of our time. It’s a country so ravaged that many dare to state the unspeakable: that Syria as we knew it is no more.
This is a place where more than half the population of 22 million people is displaced, dead or a refugee.


Migrant crisis in graphics

’Burden sharing’It’s also described as the largest, most expensive aid operation of modern times.
Even before this current crisis erupted, the world’s major aid agencies had repeatedly warned that the global humanitarian system was at breaking point, cracking under the weight of Syria as well as protracted conflicts in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Iraq and more.
'Burden sharing' has been the buzzword in aid circles for many months with growing calls for wealthy Gulf states to do more and for countries in all corners of the world to play their part.
Some countries are doing more and giving more but even the most high-profile aid operations like Syria keep running out of cash .
'Don’t say there is no solution to what is a man-made crisis,' Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council told me a year ago. 'There are more than 190 countries in the world.'

There is no humanitarian solution for this tragic humanitarian crisis
Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Now there’s a call for quotas among European nations to share responsibility for about 160,000 refugees, mainly from Syria. But it may not work.
So when Western politicians say people must stay where they are, to be helped closer to home, their pleas now ring hollow. Governments in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, hosting the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees, are under mounting strain.
The head of the UN’s Refugee Agency, Antonio Guterres, has repeatedly invoked one mantra: 'There is no humanitarian solution for this tragic humanitarian crisis.' The only real solution is political.

Maps and groups
And yet, even as this crisis explodes with unprecedented human force, the fate of one man, Bashar al-Assad, seems to matter more, to all sides, than the fate of 22 million people.
Russia and Iran are rushing to bolster the government’s increasingly embattled position. Western powers focus on ramping up air strikes.


 Greek police man the metal barriers
The UN’s new political plan is a long-term process of working groups to study a 'roadmap for peace' to try to encourage warring sides to come to the negotiating table.
But Syrians, worried that aid is running out, fearful of multiplying threats from extremist forces like ISIS, and losing hope that this war will ever end, are deploying their own maps and groups: Google maps from the internet to chart their journey to Europe and Facebook groups to get advice from those who’ve gone before.
And many others from many places are coming with them.
'Are you sure you will be offered asylum?' I ask a young Iraqi man from Baghdad who tells me he’s exhausted after a journey that’s already lasted 10 days just to get him to northern Greece.
'I am sure,' he says confidently on a cold, dark night as the rain pours down on the open field. He covers his head with some plastic sheeting offered by some local volunteers and rushes to catch up with the next group making its way across a short no-man’s land towards the next border.
A slogan once brandished in what was called the Arab Spring seems to have resonance again: 'The power of the people is greater than the people in power.'
But the lesson of that earlier moment was that those in power still have the ability to determine the people’s chances to succeed, or fail.

Iranian Mullahs spend billions on terrorism

Iranian training terrorists

A private U.S. government report ordered by Sen. Mark Kirk has learned Iran has been sending billions of dollars to fill the pockets of terrorist fighters across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, The Washington Times reported on Saturday, September 5th.
Iran’s defense budget ranges anywhere between $14 billion to $30 billion a year and much of that money goes to fund terrorist groups and rebel fighters throughout the region, according to the Congressional Research Service report conducted at the request of Mr. Kirk, an Illinois Republican.
The report, first viewed by The Washington Free Beacon, discloses that funding for these terrorist groups could be much higher than originally estimated, as Iran often hides public records about its defense spending.
“Some regional experts claim that Iran’s defense budget excludes much of its spending on intelligence activities and support of foreign non-state actors,” the report states, stressing that actual military spending could far exceed the $30 billion that Iran discloses annually, The Free Beacon reported.
“Similarly, another study claims that actual funding for the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force’s Al Quds Force] is ‘much greater’ ” than the amount allocated in the state budget, as the group’s funds are supplemented by its own economic activities,” the report said.
The report gives “low-ball” estimates for each of the groups supported by Iranian funding. Researchers estimate Iran spends between $100 million and $200 million per year on Hezbollah, $3.5 billion to $15 billion per year in support of Syria’s Assad Regime, $12 million to $26 million per year on Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, $10 million to $20 million per year to support Houthi rebels in Yemen and tens of millions per year to support Hamas terrorists in Israel.
In Syria, for example, Iranian-backed fighters are paid between $500 to $1,000 a month to fight in support of Bashar Assad’s regime, according to the report.
Afghan fighters in Syria have disclosed that they “had recently returned from training in Iran and planned to fight in Syria,” the report notes. These militants “expected to receive salaries from Iran ranging from $500 to $1000 a month.”
The report comes as the Obama administration gained the final critical vote needed to suppress a resolution to disapprove a nuclear deal with Iran. Under the deal, the U.S. and other world powers will gradually lift economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic in exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
Similar reports from watchdog groups have revealed that releasing Iranian assets sanctions could allow Tehran to spend more money on its terrorist-link Quds force, as well as beef up its own military in general.more

Growing signs Schumer will oppose Iran deal

More than 10,000 phone calls have flooded his office linethe past two weeks, organized by a group looking to kill the deal. Anothergroup has dropped seven figures on TV in New York City to pressure Schumer andother lawmakers to vote against the plan.
And Dov Hikind, a state assemblyman from Brooklyn, was arrested for disorderly conduct while protesting the deal outside Schumer’s office.
People who have spoken with the senior New York senator believe the pressure campaign is having an effect: They say there is a growing sense inside and outside the Capitol that Schumer will vote against the deal when the Senate considers it in September. The bigger question many have now is this: How hard will he push against it?
Schumer is one of about 15 Democratic senators who will decide the fate of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in Congress. The president can afford to lose no more than a dozen Democrats on the Senate floor, and as the next Democratic leader, Schumer may be the most critical of them all.
In an interview with POLITICO, Schumer insisted he’s still weighing his vote. He said he would decide based on the merits of the deal, not lobbying from either side.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” said Schumer, who is in line to be the first Jewish Senate leader next Congress. “There are expectations all over the lot. I’m doing what I’m always doing when I have a very difficult decision: Learning it carefully and giving it my best shot, doing what I think is right. I’m not going to let pressure or politics or party get in the way of that.”
He wouldn’t say if he would forcefully advocate his position once he makes his stance clear.
“I’ve got to first decide how I’m voting,” Schumer said.
Opponents have been much louder than supporters. If that trend continues over the break at town hall meetings, it will only amplify pressure on swing Democrats to vote against the deal.

Sen. Chris Coons, who was personally lobbied by President Barack Obama and national security adviser Susan Rice to back the deal during a trip to Africa in July, said the view of the accord was about evenly split in his home state of Delaware in the first few days after the announcement. But the Democrat now says telephone calls against the deal outnumber those in favor by 10-to-1 in his state, an avalanche of opposition he has no choice but to listen to.
“I am a Democrat, and I would like to be able to support this agreement,” Coons said. “But I have serious reservations about it.”
Schumer does as well. As the next Democratic leader after Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) retires in January 2017, Schumer is seen as a bellwether among the handful of fence-sitting Democrats who may buck the White House and try to kill the sweeping accord. That leaves Schumer stuck between pro-Israel forces who have long been a key base of support and who are trying to kill the deal — and the White House and its progressive allies who are eager to secure a centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy legacy and stave off a potential war.
Schumer will be criticized no matter what he does. If he tries to lobby members against the deal, he’ll be lashed by the left for undermining both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and precipitating another conflict in the Middle East. If he quietly opposes the deal, he’ll be criticized by his hawkish Israel supporters for not doing enough to scuttle the agreement.
And if he supports it, he’s bound to get slammed by powerful Jewish donors and constituents who have long been among his staunchest supporters.

“Boy, I’m glad I’m not Chuck Schumer, I’ll tell ya,” said a smirking John McCain (R-Ariz.), a friend of the New York Democrat. “He’s got the toughest vote of his career coming.”
Congress has 60 days to consider the Iran nuclear agreement, which was reached between the United States, five world powers and Iran, meaning decisive votes will occur no later than September 17th. The agreement seeks to pare back Iran’s nuclear program, opening its facilities to inspections and monitoring, in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Congress vote is on whether to lift legislative sanctions, which have been key to bringing Iran to the negotiating table and would provide major economic relief if Congress lets the deal go through. Republicans will need a veto-proof, two-thirds majority to scuttle the deal, a high bar that will require a sizable bloc of Democratic opposition.
Skeptics in both parties fear the plan will make Iran richer but do little to curtail the country’s nuclear ambitions. Nowhere is that feeling more prevalent than in New York, with one of the most politically active Jewish populations. 

If Schumer wanted to persuade members to side with him, “Chuck would have let his intentions known a long time ago, and everybody would have known,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Winning over members now, Manchin added, “would be much more difficult.”
The Iran vote could reverberate for Democratic senators facing tough reelection races in the coming years, especially if they back the accord and it fails to rein in Iran. Only one of them, Colorado’s Michael Bennet, is up in 2016; several others will be on the ballot in 2018.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a moderate who faces voters in three years, said she’s still carefully weighing the agreement.
In the Senate, the other members of the leadership team, including Reid, Schumer and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), are playing coy.
 

Asked why he hadn’t made a decision yet, Reid replied: “Have you made a decision?” Informed that reporters don’t cast votes on bills, he responded, “Yeah, well” and then walked into the Senate chamber....more