There are 4 Americans in prison in Iran for which there have been countless calls and efforts for their release. Major Garrett of CBS asked Barack Obama during a press conference if he was content with leaving those Americans behind to which Obama responded by shaming Garrett for even asking the question.
It should also be noted that the Palestinian Authority demanded that thousands of terrorists in prison in Israel be released for a scheduled round of peace talks between Israel and the PA. Barack Obama forced Israel to comply for face financial extortion. Israel complied where later many of those terrorists were re-arrested in Qatar. The betrayal continues. The secrets were effective.
Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran’s military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleague of the Sultan, have seen a series of US-Iran prisoner releases, and there may be more to come
The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.
In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.
American and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman on and off for years, according to a respected Israeli intelligence analyst, Ronen Solomon. And in the past three years as a consequence of those talks, Iran released three American prisoners, all via Oman, and the US responded in kind. Then, most critically, in April, when the back channel was reactivated in advance of the Geneva P5+1 meetings, the US released a fourth Iranian prisoner, high-ranking Iranian scientist Atarodi, who was arrested in California on charges that remain sealed but relate to his attempt to acquire what are known as dual-use technologies, or equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs. Iran has not reciprocated for that latest release.
Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst (who in 2009 revealed the crucial role played by German Federal Intelligence Service officer Gerhard Conrad in the negotiations that led to the 2011 Gilad Shalit Israel-Hamas prisoner deal), has been following the US-Iran meetings in Oman for years. Detailing what he termed the “unwritten prisoner exchange deals” agreed over the years in Oman by the US and Iran, Solomon told The Times of Israel that “It’s clear what the Iranians got” with the release of top scientist Atarodi in April. “What’s unclear is what the US got.”
The history of these deals, though, he said, would suggest that in the coming months Iran will release at least one of three US citizens who are currently believed to be in Iranian custody. One of these three is former FBI agent Robert Levinson.
Solomon told The Times of Israel that the interlocutor in the Oman talks is a man named Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily, who is the executive president of the Omani Center for Investment Promotion and Export Development and a close confidant of the Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
The latter tells the fictional tale of John Wilkinson, a successful American businessman who fails in all of his business endeavors in the Gulf until he meets Sultan, who explains to him, according to the book’s promotional literature, how to forgo his hard-charging Western style and “surrender to very different values rooted in ancient tribal customs and traditions.” Those mores have been central to the murky prisoner swaps surrounding the nuclear negotiations, Solomon said.
Solomon said he identified Ismaily’s role back in September 2010, when Sarah Shourd, an American who apparently inadvertently crossed into Iran while hiking near the Iraqi border, was released, for what were called humanitarian reasons. She was delivered into Ismaily’s hands in Oman and from there was flown to the US — the first release in the series of deals brokered in Oman. One year later, in September 2011, her fiancé and fellow hiker, Shane Bauer, was set free along with their friend, Josh Fattal. The two men were also received at Muscat’s Seeb military airport by Ismaily before being flown back to the US.
The US began reciprocating in August 2012, Solomon said. It freed Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian convicted on three counts of weapons trafficking. Next Nosratollah Tajik, a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan — who, like Gholikhan, had been initially apprehended abroad trying to buy night-vision goggles from US agents — was freed after the US opted not to follow up an extradition request it had submitted to the British. Then, in January 2013, Amir Hossein Seirafi was released, also via Oman, having been arrested in Frankfurt and convicted in the US of trying to buy specialized vacuum pumps that could be used in the Iranian nuclear program.
Finally, in April, came the release of Mojtaba Atarodi.
The facts of his case are still shrouded. On December 7, 2011, Atarodi, a faculty member at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in Tehran — a US-educated electrical engineer with a heart condition, a green card and a brother living in the US — arrived at LAX and was arrested by US federal officials.
He appeared twice in US federal court in San Francisco and was incarcerated at a federal facility in Dublin, California and then kept under house arrest. The US government cloaked the contents of his indictment and released no statement upon his release. His lawyer, Matthew David Kohn, told The Times of Israel he would like to discuss the case further but that first he had to “make some inquiries” to see what he was allowed to reveal.
In January, shortly after Atarodi’s arrest, his colleagues wrote a letter to the journal Nature, protesting his detention. “We believe holding a distinguished 55-year-old professor in custody is a historical mistake and not commensurate with the image that America strives to extend throughout the world as a bastion of free scientific exchange among schools and academic institutions,” they said.
Solomon, who compiled a profile of Atarodi, believes that the scientist, prior to his arrest, played an important role in Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. Atarodi, he said, has co-authored more than 30 technical articles, mostly related to micro-electric engineering and, in 2011, won the Khwarizmi award for the design of a microchip receiver for digital photos. “That same technology,” he said, “can be used for missile guidance and the analysis of nuclear tests.”
Solomon further noted that the then-Iranian defense minister and former commander of the revolutionary guards, Ahmad Vahidi, attended the prize ceremony and that Professor Massoud Ali-Mahmoudi, an Iranian physics professor who was assassinated in 2010, was an earlier recipient of the prize.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Atarodi came to the US at the behest of the logistics wing of the IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps],” Solomon said.
On April 26 Atarodi was flown from the US to Seeb military airbase in Oman, where he met with Ismaily, and onward to Iran. “The release of someone who holds that sort of information and has advanced strategic projects in Iran is a prize,” Solomon said. The US, said Solomon, must have already received something in return or will do so in the future.
Thus far, US-Iran prisoner swaps have been conducted in a manner utterly distinct from the old Cold War rituals, in which, as was the case with Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky, spies or prisoners from either side of the Iron Curtain walked across Berlin’s old Glienicke Bridge toward their respective home countries. Instead, with Iran claiming it knows nothing about the whereabouts of former FBI agent Levinson, for instance, and the US eager to show that it will not barter with hostage-takers, the deals have taken the form of a delayed quid pro quo.
There are currently three US nationals — Levinson, Saeed Abedini, and Amir Hekmati — still believed to be held in Iran.
US President Barak Obama raised the issue of the imprisoned Americans in his historic September phone call to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Tony Blinken, told CNN that aside from the nuclear program it was the only other issue that was brought up in the call.
The interim deal in Geneva did not include any reference to prisoner dealings. Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN, “you’ve got to decide how much you’re going to try to accomplish, and just tackling all the dimensions of the nuclear agreement is ambition enough.” A spokeswoman for the National Security Council added that the “talks focused exclusively on nuclear issues.”
The omission prompted the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, who is representing Pastor Saeed Abedini’s wife Naghmeh, to charge Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry with turning their backs on an American citizen. On the center’s website, he called the decision “outrageous and a betrayal” and said it sends the message that “Americans are expendable.”
Abedini, who was born in Iran and later converted to Christianity, was arrested earlier this year in Iran for what would seem was strictly Christian charity work and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was recently transferred from Evin Prison, a notorious jail for political prisoners in Tehran, Sukelow wrote in a letter to Kerry, “to the even more notorious and brutal Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj.”
Amir Hekmati, a 31-year-old former Marine from Flint, Michigan, who allegedly obtained permission to visit his grandmother in Iran in 2011, was charged with espionage and sentenced to death in 2012. In September, Hekmati managed to smuggle a letter out of prison. Published in the Guardian, it contended that his filmed admission of guilt had been coerced and that his arrest “is part of a propaganda and hostage-taking effort by Iranian intelligence to secure the release of Iranians abroad being held on security-related charges.”
Levinson, a 65-year-old veteran of the FBI, was last seen on March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. According to Solomon, Levinson was stationed in Dubai at the time as part of a US task force comprised of former officers operating in the United Arab Emirates, training officials there to combat weapons trafficking, and was tempted to come to Kish for a meeting.
The last person he is known to have had contact with, and with whom he shared a room the night before his abduction, according to a Reuters article from 2007, is Dawud Salahuddin, an American convert to Islam, who is wanted in the US for murder. According to a New Yorker profile of the Long Island-born Salahuddin, he showed up at the home of Ali Akbar Tabatabai’s Bethseda, Maryland door in July 1980, dressed as a mailman, and shot Tabatabai, a Shah supporter, three times in the abdomen, killing him. From there he fled to Canada and on to Switzerland and Iran.
Salahuddin has indicated that Levinson had come to Kish to meet with him.
In September, Rouhani denied any knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, he said that, “We don’t know where he is, who he is. He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him.”
This is highly doubtful. In 2010 and 2011 Levinson’s family received a video and photographs respectively of him in captivity. In January of this year the AP reported that “despite years of denials,” many US security officials now believe that “Iran’s intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family.” The photos and the videos traced back to different addresses in Afghanistan and Pakistan, suggesting, perhaps, that Levinson, the longest-held hostage in US history, was imprisoned in Balochistan, a desert region spanning the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Levinson’s son Dan wrote a column in the Washington Post calling Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “well-respected men committed to the goodwill of all human beings, regardless of their nationality.”
Several hours later, White House Spokesman Jay Carney published a statement saying that the US government welcomes the assistance “of our international partners” in attempting to bring Levinson home and, he added, “we respectfully ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist us in securing Mr. Levinson’s health, welfare, and safe return.”
As was the case with the Geneva negotiations, and as is likely happening with the upcoming round of talks regarding Syria, there is good reason to believe, and in this case to hope, that the movements played out under the spotlights of the international stage have been choreographed well in advance, perhaps in the sea-side city of Muscat, under the careful tutelage of Salem Ben Nasser al Ismaily.
The mainstream media are celebrating, as a deal has been reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations. It appears, however, to be a complete capitulation by the West. CNN described it as “historic,” along the lines of Richard Nixon’s deal with China, which certainly must be music to President Obama’s ears.
But even as terms of the deal are starting to emerge, the holes in the agreement are becoming clear.
“Initial readings of the deal also indicate that Iran will be given the right to veto so-called ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections of Iranian nuclear sites,” reports Adam Kredo for The Washington Free Beacon. “This concession has caused concern that Tehran will be able to continue hiding its nuclear work and potentially continue in secret along the pathway to a bomb.”
“In one of the most controversial concessions made by the Obama administration, a United Nations embargo on arms will also be lifted within around five years as part of the deal…” he writes. “A similar embargo on the construction of ballistic missiles, which could carry a nuclear payload, also will expire in around eight years under the deal.” So much for this deal being strictly about Iran’s nuclear program, as Secretary of State John Kerry has frequently asserted, such as when he was asked why the four Americans being held by the Iranians were not part of this agreement.
Regardless of what President Obama has said, the deal is not verifiable. Just the opposite. It actually rewards Iran with more than $100 billion in sanctions relief, money that is certain to be used by the totalitarian regime to continue to expand its hegemonic and terrorist pursuits. No one will be more determined to overlook any violations than the Obama administration, which is heavily invested in this as the President’s foreign policy legacy, which has mostly been a disaster. Obama is convinced, and rightly so, that the media will help him sell this debacle as a great foreign policy achievement.
It is clear that the two sides have different interpretations of the deal, just as they did with the so-called “framework” agreement reached in April of this year. In the official Iranian news agency IRNA the Iranians triumphantly declare that:
“All nuclear installations and sites are to continue their work contrary to the early demands of the other party, none of them will be dismantled;”
“The policy on preventing enrichment uranium is now failed and Iran will go ahead with its enrichment program;”
“Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, no centrifuges will be dismantled and research and development on key and advanced centrifuges such as IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, IR-8 will continue;” and
“All economic, financial sanctions in banking, finance, oil, gas, petrochemical, commerce, insurance and transportations leveled by the European Union and the US under the pretext to Iran’s nuclear program, will be lifted on early stages of the agreement.”
In addition, there are many details yet to be resolved, as this statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) makes clear. It refers to the “Road-map between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA for the clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.” It includes a series of target dates this year to set “out a clear sequence of activities over the coming months, including the provision by Iran of explanations regarding outstanding issues.” In other words, details to be worked out later. But in the meantime, UN sanctions will have been lifted, taking virtually all of the pressure off of Iran to cooperate with the IAEA and the P5+1.
The media appear uninterested in detailing the number of red lines that have been broken by this administration. Here are just a couple:
The Secretary of State first said in 2013 that Iran did not have a right to enrich uranium. This agreement legitimizes Iranian enrichment only by limiting the “type” of centrifuge used and amount of uranium stockpiled and enriched.
Iran was supposed to submit to “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Now, it has “a very protracted process of advance warning and ‘consultation’ to resolve concerns.”
The editor of the Times of Israel has laid out “16 reasons nuke deal is an Iranian victory and a Western catastrophe,” including this: “Was the Iranian regime required, as a condition for this deal, to disclose the previous military dimensions of its nuclear program—to come clean on its violations—in order both to ensure effective inspections of all relevant facilities and to shatter the Iranian-dispelled myth that it has never breached its non-proliferation obligations? No.”
Also, “Has the Iranian regime been required to submit to ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections of any and all facilities suspected of engaging in rogue nuclear-related activity? No. And there are 14 more.
The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation, laid out “…the Truth About 6 of Obama’s Iran Deal Claims,” including this claim, that “Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off.” Yet, as The Daily Signal points out, “Iran is permitted to retain its enrichment infrastructure, including advanced centrifuges. The administration’s concession on uranium enrichment is a serious blow to a decade old principle of U.S. nonproliferation policy. The United States worked very hard in the past to prevent allies from developing indigenous uranium enrichment capability because technologies for uranium enrichment and weapons grade enrichment are the same.”
In addition, from The Daily Signal, “Yet Iran, which developed this capability in defiance of its existing international obligations, is being rewarded for its bad behavior by lifting sanctions on its country, including sanctions concerning shipping, arms sales, transportation, banking and precious metal trade.”
“We have now gotten to the point where the President was saying a year ago, ‘No deal is better than a bad deal,’ and he’s now to the point where any deal will be fine,” argued KT McFarland, an American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation senior fellow and the moderator of a very informative and underreported panel held last month by the ACU.
“Critics of the nuclear deal sought by President Obama fear that this will be a dangerous deal because of too many one sided U.S. concessions to Iran,” Clare Lopez, a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, presciently noted.
“Iran will keep all of its nuclear infrastructure, including a plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor,” she wrote. “And the U.S. reportedly has now pledged to provide Iran technical assistance to further develop its nuclear program.” These concessions appear in the text of the final deal.
Lopez, who participated in the aforementioned ACU event, added that Iran continues to condemn Jews as cockroaches, bacteria, and insects.
“There has never been a year since 1988 or so when the Iranians did not have a clandestine nuclear weapons program,” Lopez said. “The one they are negotiating in Geneva, in Vienna, in Lausanne, that’s the overt side of the program, that’s just the overt part.”
“We don’t know what we don’t know about the covert part but we are pretty confident there is one.”
President Obama is not only using his executive power to engage a hostile, theocratic Iranian regime, he is also trying to pressure future presidents and Congress into perpetuating his damaging policies. His administration is also bending over backwards not to offend the Iranian regime, while this totalitarian government does everything possible to humiliate the United States.
Obama wants a much-needed foreign policy victory during his second term in office. The violations, and the disastrous consequences, can come later—and be blamed on the missteps of a future administration.
The ultimate solution to the Iranian nuclear question—and to the issue of Iran as the leading sponsor of terrorism—is regime change. But world powers are not ready for such a discussion—and neither are the media.
Congress still has a chance to stop this “agreement” from going forward, but President Obama requires only 34 U.S. senators to prevent the override of his veto if they disapprove. Congress has 60 days to consider the deal before voting on it. There is an event in New York City’s Times Square next Wednesday, July 22, with a distinguished list of individuals who will be speaking out about the dangers of this deal, why it can’t be trusted, and what should be done to stop it. The list includes former military leaders, CIA officers, congressmen, and other policy and political activists. You can see the full list of participants here.
Israel, which arguably has the most to lose, will surely be advocating against this agreement. Even so, there will be an intense, bruising conflict to move this deal along to the point of implementation. We know that the media will be doing everything possible to play down the risks and likely implications of this agreement. But will that be enough, along with an Obama administration that pays little attention to the law, the Constitution, and America’s best interests?
Update: Born in Kuwait, naturalized citizen. Was living in Hixson, TN at the time of the murders. His vehicle had a large cache of small arms.
He apparently worked for the City of Chattanooga as an unarmed security officer in the Stormwater Management Division and wrote a letter to President to GW Bush and that link is here.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulzeez from Arizona where public records show Abdulzeez is approximately 24 years old and a native of Phoenix. Abdulzeez has no prior criminal record, except a 2013 traffic violation.
Rest in Peace
Here’s the new Pentagon statement on the killing of four Marines in Chattanooga:
“We can confirm that four DoD servicemembers were tragically killed and one wounded in two separate shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee today. The shootings took place at a Network Operations Support Center operated by the U.S. Navy and at an armed forces recruiting center. Names of the deceased will be released following next of kin notification. We are working with local and federal authorities. We will provide additional information as it becomes available.”
The killer was from Phoenix and immediately the FBI and law enforcement in Chattanooga called this an act of domestic terror.
For additional photos of the shooter who is alleged to have had contact with the Garland, Texas shooters, click here.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two military facilities Thursday in Tennessee, killing at least four Marines and wounding a soldier and a police officer, officials told CBS News. The suspect also was killed.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said five people died in all, including the gunman. Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that the shooting suspect was identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.
9 Photos
Chattanooga shooting
Five people are dead, including the gunman, and three injured in two shootings at military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee
U.S. Attorney Bill Killian said officials were treating the attacks as an “act of domestic terrorism,” though FBI Special Agent in Charge Ed Reinhold said authorities were still investigating a motive.
Officials told CBS News correspondent David Marin that four U.S. Marines were among the dead and another was injured. The U.S. Marines released a statement saying that the injured Marine was a recruiter who treated and released after sustaining a wound to the leg.
A police officer also was shot in the ankle and is expected to be ok.
“Lives have been lost from some faithful people who have been serving our country, and I think I join all Tennesseans in being both sickened and saddened by this,” Gov. Bill Haslam said.
A facility 7 miles away on Old Lee Highway also was attacked. Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Kentucky, said his recruiters there were told by law enforcement that the shooter was in a car, stopped in front of the facility, shot at the building and drove off.
The Army recruiters at the facility told Lepley they were not hurt and had evacuated; Lepley said he had no information about recruiters for the other branches at the facility.
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dodge, 36, is the center leader for U.S. Army recruiting at the facility on Old Lee Highway. He said four Army personnel were in the office at the time. He said the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and National Guard all have their own offices right next to each other. Around 10:30 or 10:45 a.m., Dodge and the others heard a gunshot, “which kind of sparked our attention,” he said.
“Shortly after that, just a few seconds, the shooter began shooting more rounds. We realized it was an actual shooting,” he said. They then got on the ground and barricaded themselves in a safe place. Dodge estimated there were 30 to 50 shots fired.
He did not see the shooter or a vehicle.
The Army recruiting office was not damaged, but doors and glass were damaged at the neighboring Air Force, Navy and Marine offices.
Reinhold said all the dead were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga. It sits between Amnicola Highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark, a popular park at a bend in the Tennessee River northeast of downtown Chattanooga. It’s in a light industrial area that includes a Coca-Cola bottling plant and Binswanger Glass.
The two entrances to the fenced facility have unmanned gates and concrete barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around them.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many,” she said. “It was rapid fire, like pow pow pow pow pow, so quickly. The next thing I knew, there were police cars coming from every direction.”
She ran inside, where she remained locked down with other employees and a customer. The gunfire continued with occasional bursts she estimated for 20 minutes.
“We’re apprehensive,” Hutcheson said. “Not knowing what transpired, if it was a grievance or terroristic related, we just don’t know.”
They’ve seen dozens of emergency vehicles rush by: bomb teams, SWAT teams, and state, local and federal authorities.
The Armed Forces Career Center on Lee Highway sits in a short strip between a Cricket Wireless and an Italian restaurant with no apparent additional security.
Near the other shooting location on Lee Highway, Nicholas Donohue heard a blast of gunshots while working at Desktop Solutions. But he had music playing and wasn’t quite sure what the noise had been. He turned off the music and seconds later, a second blast thundered. He took shelter in a back room.
“Even though it knew it was most likely gunfire I heard, you also don’t want to believe it’s happening in the moment,” he said. “Since I didn’t see anything, I couldn’t be sure.”
By the time he emerged, police were cordoning off the area.
Grant Demanded “Unconditional Surrender” Of The Enemy, While Obama Capitulated In An “Unconditional Surrender” To The Enemy
Obama’s Red Lines
Over a period of three years the Obama regime drew a series of bright “red lines” that it pretentiously and periodically announced to the U.S. public to reassure the American people that Obama was firmly committed to preventing the Iranian Shia Mullocracy from acquiring nuclear weapons that would vault their Twelver jihadist mission into the forefront of world threats to civilization. The red lines that Obama assured Americans would prevent the Iranian Islamic theocracy included
Dismantling of Iran’s Nuclear Program
Denying Iran’s “right” to Enrich Uranium
Closing the underground, fortified Fordow Enrichment Facility
Closing the Arak Heavy Water Reactor
Reveal past work on the “Possible Military Dimensions” of Iran’s Nuclear Program
Completely preclude Iran’s Breakout Capacity
Give Sanctions Relief under the deal only after Iran’s Nuclear Program has been dismantled
Sanctions Enforcement will be re-imposed if violations are detected
Iran’s Breakout Time will be reduced to zero
Containment vs. Prevention: Obama completely ruled out Containment, stating that only Prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons was the acceptable outcome
The Risk of Regional Proliferation will be drastically reduced
Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program will be curtailed by a subsequent comprehensive agreement
The Nature of the Iranian Regime would change to be a very successful regional power that would also be abiding by international norms and international rules
Click on Interactive Map provided by the Institute for Science and International Security
Obama’s Unconditional Surrender To Iran
Not one of the 1-12 red lines survived the the negotiations to go into force under the deal that Obama ultimately approved.
Conclusion
Obviously red line #13 will never come to fruition as long as the Iranian Shia Mullocracy remains in power. Aside from the fact that #13 was totally unrealistic, the nature of the Iranian Islamic theocracy exists exclusively to implement the Shia Twelver jihadist mission, which involves dominating the world, not cooperating with it.
Obama’s unconditional surrender has considerably enabled the Iranian Shia Mullocracy to begin constructing their nuclear jihad tools unhampered by those it intends to dominate.
What began in 2012 with secret negotiations between Valerie Jarrett and Iran has now borne its toxic, likely nuclear, fruit. It is now all but certain, excepting an unlikely Congressional intervention, that the Obama administration will officially legitimize the world’s most prolific sponsor of Islamic terror. This follows on the heels of a surprise announcement that Obama would normalize relations with Cuba.
From Tehran to Havana, evil is winning, and Obama is leading the way.
Let’s recall a few things about the Iranian and Cuban deals, and their negotiators:
Obama’s Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1956. A personal friend of Barack and Michelle since she introduced the couple, Jarrett is widely assumed to be the most powerful person in the White House. The subject of an FBI investigation, Jarrett’s family is connected with old guard Chicago Communists, including Obama’s political mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.
If that weren’t enough to make you question this “deal,” Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter is married to an Iranian man with family in Iran. Conflict of interest, anyone?
Barack Obama is the president who backed the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood into power during the Arab Spring. After issuing Presidential Study Directive Eleven (PSD-11), Obama allied the U.S.A. with terrorists in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and is still backing anti-Assad terrorists in Syria. His administration, through the DOJ, has purged all mention of “Islam” and “Muslims” from counter-terrorism. With Obama’s approval, the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service have been weaponized against conservatives and Republicans. Yes, that means Obama views American citizens, not Islamic terrorists, as the most dangerous threat to national security.
Likewise, domestic counter-terrorism efforts have been hampered against Muslim Brotherhood front Islamic organizations, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who are now regarded as friends and invited to the White House. Finally, Obama has crippled the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and left the southern border completely open to whatever murderer, rapist, or terrorist wants to walk in.
Iran, for its part, has been the preeminent sponsor of Islamic terrorism since 1979. Its current leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, personally translated into Farsi the works of Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brother who developed the ideology of modern Islamic terror. Iran funds both Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran has a friendly relationship with the terrorist regime of Omar Bashir in the Sudan, where there is ongoing Christian genocide.
Through Hezbollah, they operate narcotics and terrorist networks around the world, including in Latin America. Hezbollah is remarkably powerful in Venezuela and Mexico, and was behind the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which targeted Argentine Jews.
Cuba, an Iranian ally, is home to another other rogue anti-American regime that welcomes Hezbollah terrorists. Bill Ayers, the domestic terrorist who launched Obama’s political career, helped organize trips to Cuba for the Students for a Democratic Society with the infamous Venceremos Brigade.
Not only have the Ayatollahs and Castro brothers been rewarded for their treachery, they are being rewarded handsomely: Cuba will now have full diplomatic relations with the United States, and Iran is expected to receive $100 billion in previously frozen funds.
Do you now start to get a picture of what Obama and the U.S. State Department have accomplished?
2016: A Vote for Republicans, or more Terrorists
In a rare show of wise solidarity, GOP Presidential candidates have denounced the disastrous Iranian deal. Indeed, to listen to Republicans today is almost like listening to former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who has publicly blamed Obama for ruining the close relationship between the United States and Israel.
Hillary, who will almost assuredly be the Democratic nominee, is supportive of the deal. Unsurprising, as Clinton was a fellow architect of the Arab Spring, and her personal aide Huma Abedin is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood through her immediate family.
For Americans at all concerned with the future of their country, it should be very clear that the Democrat Party stands with terrorists. Choose wisely in 2016.
Official the Joint Plan of Action with Iran is now complete with several items considered just housekeeping matters are still to be worked out. The Parchin plant MAY have allowed inspections while the other locations are off limits. The Fordo plant continues the enrichment work and Bashir al Assad is dancing at Disney. (sarcasm)
It is unclear if the UK Parliament or France votes on the JPOA but it is likely to occur. China and Russia stand with Iran especially on the arms embargo and sanction relief side.
As the Senate wraps up debate this week on Iran legislation, expect to hear a lot about “hardliners.”
The Senate’s alleged hardliners have tried to add conditions to a nuclear deal the U.S. is currently negotiating with Iranian moderates, but there is little chance the senators will succeed. The majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is expected to call for an end to debate on their meddling amendments.
President Obama views the politics of the Iran deal in these terms himself. Back in March when Senator Tom Cotton and 46 other Republicans sent a letter to Iran’s leaders, reminding them that any deal signed with Obama could be reversed by Congress or future presidents, the president played the hardliner card: “I think it’s somewhat ironic to see some members for Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran.”
There is definitely a political logic to pinning this “hardliner” label on the senators. The White House can artfully shift the conversation away from the contents of the deal it is negotiating. Instead the debate is framed as the Americans and Iranians who seek peace (moderates) versus those in both nations who want war (hardliners).
It’s simple, but deceptive. This tactic understates the power of Iran’s hardliners and dramatically overstates the power of U.S. hardliners.
In Iran, the people inside the system who are negotiating a deal, such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, must take the agreement to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for approval. In Iran, the hardliner approves the deal.
In the U.S. system it’s the other way around. Senators like Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz support amendments that would set new conditions before lifting Congressional sanctions on Iran. But there are not enough votes in the Senate to overturn an Obama veto on the legislation if these amendments are attached. In other words, Obama frames the conversation in the U.S., because he has the power to ignore his hardliners whereas Zarif is obliged to placate his.
Then there is the substance of the amendments themselves. Democrats and Republicans have derided certain Republicans’ amendments to the bill as “poison pills,” aimed at making a deal with Iran impossible. But these amendments would require Iran to end its war against its neighbors, release U.S. citizens who have been jailed and recognize the right of the world’s only Jewish state to exist. Outside the context of Iran negotiations, these are hardly radical views. Obama has expressed support for these positions himself.
Compare those demands with those of the Iranian hardliners. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces on Sunday reiterated the red line that no military installations would be accessible for international inspections. This would pose a problem, given that the U.S. and other great powers have agreed to allow Iran to keep most of its nuclear infrastructure in exchange for tough inspections. The Iranian hardliners appear to be putting back in play something Obama’s team believed was already agreed.
The most important distinction between Iran’s hardliners and America’s hardliners however is their political legitimacy. Iran’s people have supported reform, but nonetheless the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and domestic spy agency have tightened the grip on power despite elections when reformers won the presidency.
Contrast their ascent with the plight of Iran’s moderates: In 1997, Iranians elected a reformer president, Mohammed Khatami, who promised to open up Iran’s political system. But throughout his presidency he was unable to stop the arrests of student activists or the shuttering of opposition newspapers. By the end of Khatami’s presidency, some of his closest advisers were tried in public for charges tantamount to treason. In 2013, Iranians elected Hassan Rouhani, who ran as a reformer even though under Khatami he had overseen crackdowns on reformers. Rouhani has not freed the leaders of the 2009 green movement from house arrest or most of the activists who protested elections in 2009.
When Obama talks about his Iran negotiations, he glosses over all of this. He emphasizes instead that Rouhani has a mandate to negotiate and that he is taking advantage of this diplomatic window.
Obama had threatened to veto legislation that would give Congress a chance to review, but not modify, any agreement the administration reaches with Iran and five other world powers. Now the president says he will sign the legislation, but only if it doesn’t include the kinds of amendments favored by the so-called hardliners. After all, those amendments are unacceptable to the hardliners who actually have sway — in Iran.
