Obama and his summer of love for the mullahs in Iran

President Obama can change tack, and he should, but for now he has mired foreign policy in an unsustainable one-way deal with Iran that he owns entirely

One year after President Obama struck his nuclear deal with Iran without congressional approval, it has become clear that it was sold with a slew of falsehoods.
The misrepresentations to Congress were multitudinous. Secretary of State John Kerry promised that the ayatollahs would be prohibited from testing ballistic missiles. But when Iran did test such missiles, the administration acquiesced, choosing to harrumph about it being 'inconsistent' with the agreement rather than declaring it a 'violation' that undid the deal.
Obama promised that the International Atomic Energy Agency would be allowed to complete its investigation into Iran's past nuclear work, so it would be possible to verify the deal by knowing the true baseline of Tehran's nuke development. But IAEA inspectors have not been given necessary access, and as of this week remain unable to explain or account for evidence strongly suggesting secret nuclear development activities.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was among those who promised that Washington would keep up pressure on Iran's economy. This hasn't happened either. Lew testified last summer that Iran 'will continue to be denied access' to the U.S. market, and that sanctions against Iranian dollar access and Americans importing and exporting into Iran would remain in place.
But the administration has bent over backwards to allow deals through, including the purchase of Iranian heavy water and a big deal with Boeing now under discussion on Capitol Hill.
Worse yet, the administration has used the Iran deal as an excuse to weaken American laws aimed at punishing the mullahs for their continued sponsorship of terrorism. This too contradicts promises now a year old.
Treasury Undersecretary Adam Szubin testified last summer that the nuclear deal 'in no way limits' Congress' ability to pass such laws. In December, Obama signed such a law related to travel to countries that sponsor terrorism. But as soon as Iran declared this a violation of the deal, Obama responded by waiving the law's provisions with respect to Iran, which the law itself explicitly forbids.
There were other lies used to dupe Congress. The list above is not intended as an exhaustive indictment, just a sampler menu.
The deal, as it has turned out — it seems to bind only Obama and his administration rather than the Iranians — probably could not have survived the weak stamp of supermajority disapproval that Congress was allowed.
And it did violence to the Constitution, for it was a treaty in all but name, and treaties require ratification in the Senate, which this one did not have. But after decades during which one presidency after another has arrogated power to the executive and upset the fine balance put in place by the Founding Fathers, one cannot be surprised by Obama's unilateralism and selective enforcement of laws and deals.
Congress has allowed its rights, privileges and duties to be usurped, and it and the rest of the country are now paying the price.
But that does not mean it must sit pathetically and wring its hands. It should put some substance back into this deal that makes it less damaging. There are many pieces of legislation already drafted to try to make the Iran deal resemble what Obama promised. For example, one would stop the Boeing deal, or at least prevent the Export-Import Bank financing it.
Naturally, the administration, with Iranian and legacy interests closest to its heart, is resisting legislative efforts to haul the deal back into alignment with Obama's promises. His resistance indictates to the tyrants that they need not moderate their behavior, and suggests that he never intended to keep his promises. There was just so much snakeoil to ease the deal's passage up and over Capitol Hill.
Obama can change track, and he should, but for now he has mired foreign policy in an unsustainable one-way deal that he owns entirely. It was negotiated with great deference to the Iranian regime and without appropriate majority support of the public's elected representatives.
His successor will be forced to clean up this mess. One hopes it will not be a radioactive blast zone.

Gingrich: Prince Turki al-Faisal appearance in the meeting of NCRI in Paris is 'like an earthquake

 Saudis on the side of the Free Iranians is a real step towards overthrowing the Iranian Mullahs

Iran has 'gone from bad to worse' under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells News max TV that he would advise any Republican president to tear up the nuclear agreement with Tehran on 'the first day' in the White House.
'I'd advise tearing it up the first day — and I'd advise establishing a policy to actively work covertly to overthrow the dictatorship,' Gingrich, 73, who was vetted last week as a possible vice presidential choice of Donald Trump, told 'Newsmax Prime' host J.D. Hayworth in an exclusive interview from Paris.
'We will never be safe in the Middle East as long as the Iranian dictatorship is in power.'
Gingrich, who was speaker from 1995 to 1999, was in Paris over the weekend for a meeting sponsored by the National Council for Resistance in Iran, which brought together dissidents, activists living in exile from Iran and other supporters from around the world.
'I've been involved since all the way back when I was in Congress, because I felt strongly that the Free Iran movement was being discriminated against by the U.S. State Department to appease the dictatorship in Tehran,' he told Hayworth.
Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of the royal family who has long slammed the Obama administration's policies in the Middle East, told about 100,000 delegates to the meeting that the Iranian government should be overthrown.

 

Gingrich described his appearance to Hayworth as 'like an earthquake.'
'To have the Saudis on the side of the Free Iranians is a real signal of how much the Saudis are afraid of the dictatorship and is a real step towards overthrowing the dictatorship,' he said. 'So, it’s an exciting day to be here.'

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

Congress Should Reject Iran Deal

The following is an article posted by Kim R. Holmes in the Trend website on August 22, 2015.

You’ve heard the argument. If Congress turns down the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran will rush to get a nuclear bomb within two to three months. Our only alternative then is war.
But what about Congress voting “no” and adjusting the terms of the agreement?
Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently made such a proposal. He argues that congressional disapproval would provide time to correct some of the agreement’s flaws. Most experts believe that it would take until spring 2016 at the earliest for Iran to comply with the terms of the agreement. Since none of the U.S. sanctions will be suspended by then, there would still be time for the U.S. to take remedial measures to strengthen the deal.
Among these could be reaching understandings with the European partners “on the appropriate penalties to be imposed for a broad spectrum of Iranian violations.” Other actions could include a clearer declaratory policy that military force will not be taken off the table and ramping up tougher sanctions against Tehran’s terrorist and other non-nuclear activities that destabilize the region.
Satloff’s alternative is a noble effort to save an obviously weak deal. It recognizes a major flaw in the agreement: that the terms of re-imposing “snapback” sanctions are so onerous that they will likely never be enforced. It also points to a negotiating principle that the Obama administration has tried to obscure: strong sanctions are what forced whatever concessions Iran made. Keeping or strengthening sanctions enhances America’s bargaining leverage. Even if Congress disapproves the deal, that leverage will remain.
This last point is key. We should remember that no sanctions relief kicks in from anybody—including the United Nations and the Europeans—until the IAEA certifies that Iran has complied with its initial commitments under the agreement. If Tehran responds to a congressional “no” vote by thumbing its nose at everybody, it will only be back where it started, which is not where it wants to be. In fact, it could face even stronger sanctions (or worse) from the U.S. if it should hit the accelerator on its nuclear program.
Satloff’s idea is a good start. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go far enough. The only way to get Iran to give up its nuclear program short of war is to force it to decide between retaining its nuclear weapons potential and having sanctions completely lifted. Neither Satloff’s option nor Obama’s deal forces that choice....more

News - Categorized News A Letter to Chuck Schumer: Convince Your Democrat Colleagues Iran Deal Is Bad

 
 

Dear Sen. Schumer,
Or may I call you “Chuck”? About 30 years ago, when I first met you, you were an informal kind of guy. You had recently been elected to the House from a district in Brooklyn and Queens. I was a New York Times reporter. I remember you were sharing a row house with two other House members—Leon Panetta was one—and I wrote a story about that. I always thought it could be the premise for a situation comedy. (“Friends with Entitlements”? Just kidding.)
I had no better source than you. You’d call to give me a heads-up on a bill or to explain some Hill battle so my editors would think I knew what I was talking about. It was nice of you, but it was also smart. You are smart: A perfect score on the SAT. On to Harvard College and Harvard Law. Elected to the New York Assembly at 23. Never losing a single election.
I’ve been thinking about writing you for a while regarding your vote on President Obama’s Iran deal. I knew you’d recognize that, from a policy perspective, this deal doesn’t get a passing grade. But from a political perspective, I understood that voting to disapprove would not be easy. Then, last week, you announced your decisions in an incisive 1,670-word essay. Kudos to you.
You pointed out that there won’t be “anywhere, anytime” inspections—which Obama himself had said was a necessity. American demands for inspections will be reviewed by a commission—on which Iran gets a seat. Iran’s rulers have flatly ruled out “entry into our military sites”—hardly an unlikely place for weapons research and development.
You grasp that sanctions, once lifted, cannot be “snapped back.” Then there is the curious decision to “sunset” restrictions on a regime whose supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, continues to call for “death to America!” As for Hassan Rouhani , Iran’s “moderate” president, he has said Iranians need “to express ‘death to America’ with action.” Like this deal?
Both Gen. Ray Odierno, U.S. Army chief of staff, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been clear: Iran has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. The United States, as you point out, has designated Iran as “one of only three nations in the world who are ‘state sponsors of terrorism.’ “...more

Obama helps Iran to obtain the Bomb

May 19, 2015

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, ratified by US congress, is now on its way to the White House for a reluctant signature by President Obama. The overwhelming votes in both chambers, left no room for president to oppose Congress’s constitutional role in reviewing any nuclear deal with Iran and the lifting of any Congressional imposed sanctions. Now the hardest part begins.

Obama must either negotiate an agreement that will permanently prevent the untrustworthy Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons— or keep up with his current idiotic policy of appeasement.