Tag Archives: Iran

Things Not Being Said Publicly

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On Saturday, Townhall posted an article about the continuing war in Gaza. Although the Biden administration and some other countries are putting pressure on Israel not to end Hamas, some countries in the Middle East are not in agreement with allowing Hamas to survive.

The article reports:

In the days after the brutal October 7 attacks executed by Hamas, Egypt knew what was going to happen. They deployed tanks to the border while their prime minister vowed that his country would sacrifice millions to keep their borders safe. He was not referring to Israel. So, what’s the latest? Well, Haaretz is reporting that Israel’s Arab neighbors are telling Jerusalem privately that they shouldn’t stop military operations until Hamas has been annihilated. They view them as a domestic threat:

The article includes a quote from an article in France 24:

The outcome of a joint summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in the Saudi capital highlighted regional divisions over how to respond to the war even as fears mount that it could draw in other countries. 

…The final declaration on Saturday rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defence” and demanded that the United Nations Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”. 

It also called for an end to weapons sales to Israel and dismissed any future political resolution to the conflict that would keep Gaza separate from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. 

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who before the war was considering establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel, told the summit he “holds the occupation (Israeli) authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people”. 

…Some countries, including Algeria and Lebanon, proposed responding to the devastation in Gaza by threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing the economic and diplomatic ties that some Arab League nations have with Israel, the diplomats said. 

However, at least three countries — including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 — rejected the proposal, according to the diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

In a televised address Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Arab leaders “have to stand up against Hamas”, which he described as “an integral part of the terror axis led by Iran”. 

Why is there so much talk about crimes committed against the Palestinian people and so little talk about crimes committed against Israelis on October 7th and before and after? Where is the concern for the rockets fired consistently on civilian populations in Israel since March 2006? How would America handle things if Mexico had been firing rockets into Texas since 2006?

Paying People To Attack Our Soldiers

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that the Biden administration has given Iran access to another $10 billion in previously frozen assets. Iran is the major sponsor of terrorism around the world. Now they have more money to buy weapons to attack American soldiers stationed in the Middle East. I am sure the people who manufacture weapons are thrilled–they just got $10 billion in new sales.

The article reports:

The Biden administration is extending a sanctions waiver that will allow Iran continued access to $10 billion in previously frozen assets, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The four-month extension will allow Iran continued access to previously frozen $10 billion in electricity revenues for humanitarian aid, according to the AP. Critics of the Biden administration have said that giving Iran to access frozen funds will free up money in Tehran’s money reserves and allow them to carry on sponsoring terrorism.

The sanctions waiver will authorize Iraq to continue purchasing electricity services from Iran and give Tehran access to the billions in payments currently stored in the Iraqi banks, according to the AP. The Biden administration made assurances that Iran has only spent a small amount of the existing $10 billion and can only be used for humanitarian relief.

Does anyone believe that the $10 billion will be used only for humanitarian relief? Are we really that naïve?

The article concludes:

“Biden administration doubles down on giving $10 billion sanctions relief to Iran,” Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said on X Tuesday. “Money is fungible. This is 100% budget support for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

Iran supports a number of terrorist groups to carry out its will, including Hamas, which killed over 1,400 civilians in attacks on Israel that began on Oct. 7. Iranian-backed militias have launched 46 attacks on U.S. troops on U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East since the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

In Case You Had Any Doubt

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On Friday, Breitbart reported that the current leader of Iran had confirmed in a speech given on Wednesday that the policy of his regime is to destroy America. Remind me again why we are attempting to broker a nuclear treaty with Iran.

The article reports:

The “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in an address on Wednesday that the common chant of “Death to America” in his country is “not just a slogan – it is a policy,” one his regime intended to bring to fruition.

Khamenei was reportedly delivering remarks on Iranian regime-controlled television regarding the ongoing conflict between the nation of Israel and the Hamas genocidal terrorist organization, which Iran funds to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. The Iranian regime has enthusiastically embraced Hamas following its harrowing October 7 terrorist attack against civilians in Israel, which featured door-to-door slaughters of entire families in their homes, the mass killing, torture, and rape of attendees at a peace music festival, and evidence of gruesome killings of infants as young as newborns. The “al-Aqsa flood,” as Hamas branded its killings that day, took the lives of more than 1,400 people in Israel; another 250 are believed to still be held hostage by Hamas in its stronghold of Gaza.

The article continues:

Khamenei expanded his hateful remarks against Israel on Wednesday by declaring that, given America’s longstanding support for that country, “Death to America” was a core goal of his regime’s foreign policy.

“The situation between America and Iran is this: When you chant ‘Death to America!’ it is not just a slogan – it is a policy,” Khamenei said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “I have stated the reasons previously. For many years, from the 1940s to the 1970s – that is 30 years – the Americans did everything they could do against the Iranian nation.”

“They hit Iran in any way they could – financially, economically, politically, scientifically, and morally,” the elderly despot continued.

I’m not convinced that you can make peace with people who want to kill you.

Telling It Like It Is

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On Wednesday, The Hill posted an article that included a few rather blunt comments from Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana.

The article reports:

Republican Sen. John Kennedy (La.) dug into President Biden’s foreign policy on Iran on Tuesday, claiming he would “take away” the president’s car keys if he were his son.

“When I look at President Biden in terms of his international affairs, national security and his domestic policy over the last two years and change — if it were my father, I’d take away his car keys, much less … the entire country, and I think … that’s what most Americans are thinking right now,” Kennedy said in an interview on Fox Business’s “The Bottom Line.”

The Senator also noted:

“President Trump put tough, tough sanctions on Iran, so it couldn’t export its oil,” Kennedy said. “Those sanctions are still there, but President Biden hasn’t enforced them. So now, instead of … producing and exporting 500,000 barrels a day, Iran is exporting 1.4 million a day, and its foreign reserves have doubled. We had Iran down, and we were choking them economically.”

“President Biden, because he thought if he was a nice guy, Iran would cooperate in terms of its nuclear weapons — he let them up, and on top of that, he gave them … tried to give them $6 billion cash,” Kennedy continued, in reference to Biden’s prisoner swap with Iran last month that allowed for the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds.

The war in Israel would end quickly if the economic sanctions were put back on Iran and the aid to Gaza was stopped. The actions of America and the European Union are funding this war. The war in Ukraine could be stopped with American energy independence. All we need to do is drop the cost of oil so that Russia cannot afford to continue to war with Ukraine. Unfortunately too many people make too much money during a war, and those people make massive campaign donations.

Hudna?

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In a recent article, I explained the concept of “hudna.” Basically, the principle is “please stop attacking me so that I can re-arm.” Another tenet of Islam is “taqiyya” which says that it’s okay to lie to infidels for the sake of the advancement of Islam. We are seeing both of these concepts at work after the horrific attack on Israel on October 7th.

On Thursday, The American Thinker reported:

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report, identifying an arms-trafficking scheme in which “Iran and its allies” have been smuggling heavy weapons and small arms to the jihadi terrorists occupying certain areas of Israel; see the lede below:

Long before Hamas militants burst out of their Gaza stronghold to massacre scores of civilians with handguns and assault rifles, Iran and its allies had accelerated efforts to smuggle weapons into a different part of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank.

What was most explosive though, given current circumstances, is that the arms flowing from the terrorist regimes to the smaller terrorist groups, often comes disguised as aid packages. The authors of the Journal item recount that after the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Iran “began hauling large quantities of weapons to Syria” in shipments disguised as aid; as we see, a “humanitarian crisis” or an “emergency” is a great cover for arming terrorists.

On a separate and totally unrelated note… From a Politico report last week:

The U.S. will send $100 million in aid for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

‘This money will support more than 1 million displaced in conflict affected Palestinians, including emergency needs in Gaza,’ Biden said Wednesday during a speech in Tel Aviv.

We are arming the enemies of Israel while we claim to be supporting them.

 

Tone Deaf?

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported that Jack Lew is President Biden’s choice for Ambassador to Israel.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden’s nominee to be Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, oversaw the infamous “pallets of cash” transfer of funds to Iran while serving as former President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary in 2016.

The Obama administration paid Iran nearly $2 billion in January of 2016 to resolve a dispute dating back to the 1970’s, in which the U.S.-backed Shah government in Iran purchased $400 million of military equipment from Washington. The equipment was never delivered due to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Obama paid back the $400 million to Tehran plus $1.3 billion in interest.

As Treasury Secretary, Lew oversaw the transfer of the initial $400 million payment on Jan. 17, 2016, which was delivered in the now-infamous form of foreign cash carried on a number of pallets by aircraft. The “pallets of cash” incident became a frequent line of critique for those who opposed Obama’s policy toward Iran, which involved lifting sanctions and negotiating a diplomatic agreement aimed at curbing the development of Tehran’s nuclear program.

The money for Iran came from a Treasury Department fund known as the “Judgement Fund,” which is money set aside by Congress to settle litigation disputes.

I suppose he was just following orders, but I have heard that excuse before.

The article notes:

A 2018 Senate report found Lew falsely claimed Iran had no access to the U.S financial system during his time as Treasury Secretary. In fact, Lew “granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system,” according to the report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Lew was also responsible for implementing sanctions relief for Iran as part of the JCPOA, colloquially known as Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. The JCPOA required that Washington lift various sanctions on Tehran in exchange for the Islamic Republic ceasing its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

If you choose to make this man an ambassador, Israel is not the place to send him.

 

The Sanctions Expired On Wednesday

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On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the U.N. Security Council restrictions on giving missile technology to Iran expire on Wednesday. The United States has the power to veto that expiration, but has chosen not to.

The article reports:

The restrictions were defined in Resolution 2231 of 2015 endorsing a deal by which Britain, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S. removed sanctions against Iran in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, known as the JCPOA, leaving unilateral U.S. sanctions in place, and Iran subsequently accelerated its nuclear programme, which it says is purely peaceful.

With the deal in shreds, U.N. sanctions intended to prevent the theocratic state developing long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles came back into force. But these will finally expire on Wednesday.

Russia has grown close to Iran since invading Ukraine in February 2022 and itself being shunned by the West. Many of the hundreds of one-way attack drones it has used to bomb Ukraine in the last year are believed to have been made in Iran.

Now Russia has stated that it no longer needs to obey the restrictions once they expire. They have not stated whether or not they plan to support Iran’s missile development.

Recent events have shown us that the Biden administration is truly the third term of Barack Obama. We are supporting terrorists and turning our back on our traditional allies.

Pay Attention To The Country Making The Announcement

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Today, The New York Post posted the following headline:

Iran says Hamas ready to release hostages if Israel stops airstrikes as at least 199 now known taken

It is interesting that Iran is making that announcement–as if there were ever any doubt as to who is pulling the strings of the Hamas operation.

To understand what is going on here, you need to understand one of the basic principles of Islamic law.

According the Reliance of the Traveller (a contemporary volume on Islamic law), this is the definition of HUDNA:

Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers of material, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim. 

…Even in modern times, it remains common for Muslims to refer to a proposed peace treaty or peace talks a hudna.

The source for the above information is Stephen Coughlin’s Catastrophic Failure, published in 2015.

Israel has shut off the water to the Gaza Strip and cut off imports of food, etc. Just for the record, the purpose of “hudna” is to regroup and rearm for a future Islamic victory.

The New York Post article reports:

Iran’s Foreign Ministry claimed Monday that Hamas was ready to release its hostages if Israel ceases its airstrikes along the Gaza Strip — as the number known to have been taken by the terrorist group rose to at least 199.

Hamas officials are “ready” to release hostages, but doing so would be “impossible” under Israeli airstrikes in the region, Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani relayed at a news conference in Tehran.

The terror group “stated that they are ready to take necessary measures to release the citizens and civilians held by resistant groups, but their point was that such measures require preparations that are impossible under daily bombardment by the Zionists against various parts of Gaza,” Kanaani said.

In the past, Israel has had a policy of never negotiating with terrorists. We saw the positive results of that in 1976 when Israel mounted a daring raid on the airport at Entebbe rather than negotiate with terrorists. Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed in that raid. Prime Minister Netanyahu totally understands what is at stake.

Anyone with a knowledge of Islamic terrorism will tell you that if the bombing stops and the hostages are released, it will only be a matter of time before more hostages are taken. The only way to end this cycle of violence is to end the lives of those who are perpetrating it.

Actions Have Consequences

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the rationale that Hamas is using for taking American hostages.

The article reports:

Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official, told Russia Today in a Sunday interview that Hamas demands that the United States engage in prisoner swaps and cited President Joe Biden’s recent Iran hostage deal as a rationale for taking of American captives.

Baraka noted in a translated excerpt of the interview provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) that there are multiple Hamas members serving life sentences in U.S. prisons. “We demand that the U.S. free our sons from prisons,” Baraka said.

The article concludes:

Baraka said that there was plenty of precedent to suggest that the United States would comply with Hamas’ demands. “The U.S. conducts prisoner swaps. Only recently, it did one with Iran. Why wouldn’t it conduct a prisoner swap with us?” Baraka asked.

The Biden administration’s Sept. 11, 2023 deal with Iran involved the United States transferring $6 billion to the Islamic Republic in exchange for the release of five American prisoners.

“Biden, the highest authority in the U.S., declared that he stands with Israel against Hamas and the Palestinian people. Therefore, he is a partner to this aggression, he must pay the price,” Baraka said in the interview.

The Biden administration has put the lives of Americans at risk both at home and abroad. At home we have the invasion at our southern border and abroad we have people believing that kidnapping Americans will result in a nice financial reward, the return of a terrorist or both. This administration needs to be impeached–from top to bottom!

Something We Need To Remember

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Chapter 12 of Genesis in the Bible describes the calling of Abram:

…2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will blessthose who bless youand cursethose who curse you;and allthe familiesof the earthwill be blessedthrough you.”4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.…

A close look at world history enforces this Bible verse. The sun never set on the British Empire until they reneged on the 1917 Balfour Declaration. That began the unraveling of their Empire. Maybe that was an incredible coincidence, but then let’s look at Germany after World War II. Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass” occurred on November 9 and 10, 1938. This was a night of violence against Jews and Jewish businesses that took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Germany was a divided nation for 51 years. On August 18th, 2005, Jewish residents in the Gaza Strip were forcibly removed from their homes with the approval of the American government. On August 29,2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. How many coincidences do we need to recognize that there might be a pattern.

In the past few days we have seen Hamas, located in the Gaza Strip attack Israel with a brutality beyond the ‘normal’ brutality of war. Unfortunately, America has not responded well.

On Sunday, The Western Journal posted an article about America’s response to the attack. Unfortunately we got it wrong. Fortunately the Tweet was taken down.

The article notes:

In a now-deleted tweet from the account of the U.S. Office Of Palestinian Affairs, the State Department wrote, “We unequivocally condemn the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has occurred. We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing,” the tweet said.

This is a screenshot of the tweet:
War is a horrible thing, but you can’t live in peace next to people who want to drive you into the sea. Now is the time to destroy Hamas. It is probably true that Hezbollah will be drawn into the fight and will have to be destroyed also. Unfortunately that leads us back to Iran (hopefully they don’t yet have nuclear weapons) who is bankrolling both Hamas and Hezbollah. This is a dangerous time for the world. We all need to be praying, and we all need to understand that God’s covenant with Israel is forever. We need to act carefully and remember we are not the final answer.

Israel At War

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Today, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about Hamas’ attack on Israel this morning. The article makes a connection between the six billion dollars we recently gave Iran access to in a prisoner swap and the attack. That connection is real.

The article quotes The London Times:

The British government believes that Iran is linked to the Hamas attack on Israel and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is likely to have played a role in training and the supply of weapons (Dipesh Gadher writes).

A Whitehall source said: “The Revolutionary Guards have their fingerprints all over this multifaceted attack. Hamas is just another tool in Iran’s campaign against the West.”
***
Members of the Iranian parliament were shown on state television today chanting: “Palestine will be victorious, Israel will be destroyed.”

The article at Power Line Blog notes:

Where would Iran get the money to finance the Palestinians’ war? Oh, that’s right. We just gave them $6 billion.

It should also be noted that there is a strong possibility that some of the weapons used against Israel were weapons America left behind in Afghanistan.

Fox News is reporting today:

At least 250 people have been killed since Hamas terrorists started firing rockets and slaughtering Israelis near the Gaza Strip over the weekend, officials say.

Israeli officials say that at least 250 people were killed, making the conflict one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s history. At least 1,500 people were also wounded.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that at least 232 people in the Gaza Strip were killed, with 1,700 others wounded.

Hamas soldiers surprised the Israeli military with their attacks on Saturday, which coincided with a major Jewish holiday called Simchat Torah. October also marks the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.

The amount of Israeli civilians and soldiers that Hamas militants have taken captive is unknown. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the violence by vowing to retaliate. 

The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) calls for the removal of Israel. As long as that is part of their charter, a two-state solution is not possible. Right now, Israel has an armed enemy camp on its border. It’s very hard to make peace with people who want to drive you into the sea. There will not be peace in the Middle East until the Arab terrorists accept the existence of Israel as fact and stop trying to destroy the nation.

Is This The Best Use Of Our Money

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There is an old expression, “What you subsidize will increase, what you tax will decrease.” The subject of this article is not subsidization, but it is providing income for a questionable activity. I believe that the payment I am describing will lead to more questionable activity.

On Monday, The Conservative Review reported the following:

President Joe Biden will approve the transfer $6 billion of frozen funds to the government of Iran in a prisoner swap deal, it was confirmed Monday.

The deal would free five Americans being held captive in Iran in exchange for the release of five Iranian citizens being held in the U.S.

…”First Joe Biden used 9/11 as an excuse to flee Afghanistan. Now he desecrates this day by paying ransom to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Shameful,” said Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

“It’s ridiculous for US to be blackmailed into paying $6B for hostages which will help indirectly finance the number 1 foreign policy of Iran: terrorism Last time it was $1.7B traded for hostages next time it will probably be $10B the price keeps going up & up,” said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Israel has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists because it encourages more terrorism. America needs a policy of not negotiating with kidnappers because it encourages more kidnapping! This is money we do not have being given to people who want to destroy us. In what world does that make sense?

Being Kind To Our Enemies While Dissing Our Friends

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It is no secret that the Biden administration would like to reach a nuclear deal with Iran some time in the next year. The administration sees that deal as a potential ‘feather in its cap.’ The fact that the deal would not be worth the paper it would be printed on is purely incidental. The fact that it would not only give Iran a green light to create a nuclear bomb, but also require American taxpayers to fund that bomb is also not to be mentioned. After all, a feather in a cap is a feather in a cap.

On Wednesday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article a recent U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) symposium on deterrence.

The article quotes a Washington Free Beacon Newsletter:

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Making plans for a symposium on deterrence, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) decided that a top Iranian official cum Princeton professor, Hussein Mousavian, would make a good keynote speaker. Mousavian last made headlines when he was captured on Iranian television smirking about the regime’s threats to assassinate U.S. officials. He showed up in Nebraska to lavish praise on the defunct nuclear agreement and urge mutual nuclear disarmament. Our Adam Kredo has the story.

This is the video of the speech:

The article concludes:

…The idea that military personnel sat there and listened to it at their invitation is…disturbing.

Quotable quote (former State Department Special Advisor for the Iran Action Group Gabriel Noronha): “The decision to invite former Iranian ambassador Mousavian to speak to STRATCOM is unimaginably foolish. He is a pawn and propaganda agent of the Iranian regime, which explains why he is allowed to travel back to Iran.”

We are giving the people who hate us the weapons to destroy us.

Something To Watch

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We all remember the horrendous nuclear deal the Obama administration attempted to broker with Iran. It looks like the Biden administration is attempting the same thing.

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

A group of 26 Republican senators raised concerns about the Biden administration bypassing congressional authority to agree to a nuclear deal with Iran. 

In a letter — signed by the majority of Senate Republicans last week and addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — the lawmakers voiced concerns with the Biden administration’s recent prisoner swap that sent $6 billion to the Iranian regime in a “secret negotiation.” 

When are we going to send $6 billion to Hawaii?

The article notes:

“When the Obama administration released $400 million in liquidated assets to Iran in 2016, we warned that this dangerous precedent would put a price on American lives. Seven years later, the current administration is providing a ransom payment worth at least fifteen times that amount to the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, in yet another violation of the United States’ long-standing ‘no concessions’ policy,” the senators wrote.

“The release of such a significant sum to the Iranian regime runs entirely counter to that claim and will only serve to encourage additional hostage taking for financial or political gain,” the letter continued.

The letter comes after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) said earlier this month that the Biden administration’s prisoner swap with Iran involved a renewed Iran nuclear deal. The New York Times also reported that the agreement could increase the chances of Biden pursuing his goal of coming to the table with Iran over nuclear weapons. Last summer, Biden attempted to renew the Obama administration’s nuclear deal but ultimately failed. In 2018, former President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement he routinely criticized as “horrible” and “one-sided.” 

America is rapidly going bankrupt. Sending billions of dollars to countries that hate us is not a wise expenditure.

A Very Important Policy Change

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On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about a rather subtle change in American foreign policy recently voiced by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley.

The article reports:

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Andrea Stricker tuned in to Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley’s testimony before the House Appropriations Committee this past Thursday. Stricker quotes Milley stating that the United States “remains committed, as a matter of policy, that Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon.” Stricker observes that this statement, as well as a similar comment by Milley last September, suggests the Biden administration is prepared to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands provided the weapon is not “fielded” — that is — deployed. Perhaps it depends on the meaning of “fielded.”

…Stricker reminds readers that a shift in U.S. policy from one of nuclear weapons denial to one of preventing deployment — but not their production — would reflect a major departure. President Joe Biden has said repeatedly that the United States will “never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon” on his watch. Former President Trump insisted, “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Former President Obama declared, “Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.”

I take it that it’s all blather and that the United States is okay with Iran’s development and deployment of nuclear weapons. It would surely be more hazardous to act after Iran has fielded such weapons. The Milley modification, if that is what it is, should probably be clarified, not that the clarification would be believable either.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This is NOT good news.

This Should Be Called Treason

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On Friday, Gregg Jarrett reported that during the Trump administration as President Trump was attempting to negotiate with Iran, former officials of the Obama administration “engaged in a secret meeting with Iran.”

The article reports:

A group of senior Obama administration officials met with Iran in 2018 as “part of an effort to undermine the Trump administration’s diplomatic push to isolate the hardline regime, according to an internal State Department document” reports The Washington Free Beacon.

“The document is the firmest proof to date that Obama-era officials were engaged in back-channel efforts to keep negotiations with Iran alive” writes The Beacon. The memo states then-President Trump and his administration were working to increase economic pressure on Iran in 2018, but the delegation of U.S. former ambassadors held a secret, “off-the-record” meeting with former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif at his residence in New York City.

The seven-page memo was assembled during the meeting with Zarif, during which Zarif claimed that Trump’s policies have fomented anti-U.S. fervor in Iran and pointed to the popularity of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) leader Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by Trump two years later in a drone strike.

“I was as popular as Soleimani, but now I am at 47 percent and his is up,” Zarif said, according to the memo. “He is closer to 80 percent. People of Iran once preferred engagement, now opted for resistance as the only reality. That is what the polls are telling us now and it is the reality of the region.”

The article quotes The Washington Free Beacon:

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was not aware of these meetings while leading the State Department, said the memo corroborates reports from the time about Kerry’s efforts to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal through back-channel powwows with Iranian officials.

“This memo reflects even more than we already knew about former State Department officials continuing on as if they were still in office,” said Pompeo, who is now senior counsel for global affairs at the ACLJ. “Trying, at every turn, to work with the foreign minister for a terrorist regime, Iran, to undermine the very sanctions put in place by America. It’s worse than not knowing when to get off stage. Actively seeking to protect the terrible deal they struck, these former officials—two years after Obama left office—were signaling that Iran should stand firm against America.”

Everyone involved should be tried for treason.

More Questions Than Answers

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On Friday, BizPacReview posted an article about the recent arrest of Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Sher-Ali. These two men are U.S. citizens, but also had Pakistani and Iranian visas among their passports. The men have been claiming with admirable audacity that they belonged to the Secret Service.

The article reports:

Among other perks of their con game was living rent-free at The Crossing, a posh, luxury D.C. apartment building; all it took to finagle their extended stay was to convince the management that they were working for the government, which can apparently open many doors in the capital. Not only that, but the pair was able to acquire access to video logs and information on fellow residents, including political staffers and federal agents.

Taherzadeh and Sher-Ali were arrested on Wednesday and arraigned on Thursday. They’re expected to make another court appearance on Friday.

It’s not clear at this time why the pair were impersonating Secret Service agents, but they have a long history of shady financial entanglements and business ventures. What’s even less clear is where the pair got all the money for their expensive lifestyle, which included the many lavish gifts they plied their fellow residents with at The Crossing. Rent-free apartments valued at $40,000 a year, multiple iPhones, a drone, a flat-screen TV, surveillance equipment, and a generator are among the many gifts that Taherzadeh and Sher-Ali allegedly doled out.

The two conmen also reportedly had quite an arsenal in their apartment. Sources told the UK Daily Mail that among the pair’s many firearms was a fully automatic suppressed M4-style rifle, a Glock 19 .9mm with high-capacity magazines, a Sig Sauer handgun, and an AR pistol. Whatever these guys were up to, it involved a lot of heavy weaponry right in the middle of Washington, D.C.

In fact, at one point early last year, the Metro Police searched Taherzadeh’s apartment, after a fellow building resident saw the cache of firearms through an open window. Although such weapons are illegal in the District of Columbia, Taherzadeh apparently produced sufficient credentials to convince the police that he was legally permitted to own them.

Among the other items allegedly recovered from Taherzadeh’s unit was a binder that contained information on other residents at The Crossing—which, as noted, is home to many actual federal agents, along with White House and congressional aides and staffers.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There is a lot about this case that we simply do not know. We need to know who these men were working for and who was paying their bills.

Our Insane Foreign Policy

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On Sunday, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Iran has claimed responsibility for the ballistic missiles that struck the U.S. consulate and other targets in Erbil, Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital, early Sunday morning. We are currently negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Obviously they have very little respect for us or our foreign interests.

The article reports:

The missile attack comes as talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal face the prospect of collapse after a last-minute Russian demand forced world powers to pause negotiations for an undetermined time despite having a largely completed text.

The missiles, which targeted the U.S. consulate‘s new building and a neighbouring residential area, caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said. An Iraqi security official told Reuters that the missiles were manufactured in Iran.

Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards released a statement taking responsibility for the missile attack against Israeli “strategic centres” in Erbil, Iran‘s state media reported.

“Any repetition of attacks by Israel will be met with a harsh, decisive and destructive response,” the Revolutionary Guard said in the statement.

There are a lot of things going on here. First of all, Iran would like to be in control of Iraq. Kurdistan is an impediment to that control. Secondly, Iran needs to drag out the nuclear talks long enough to get an atomic bomb. They are almost there, and they probably have some sort of acceptable delivery system. When they have both, their bullying tactics may turn into action–not a good thing for anyone in the world.

The article concludes:

“Iran had carried out attacks against American targets and did not shy away from publicizing this,” said Hamidreza Azizi, Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“I see this more as a warning sign to Israel and a show of force in the negotiations.”

A Kurdish spokesperson for the regional authorities said there were no flight interruptions at Erbil airport.

Residents of Erbil posted videos online showing several large explosions, and some said the blasts shook their homes. Reuters could not independently verify those videos.

Iraq has been rocked by chronic instability since the defeat of the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State in 2017 by a loose coalition of Iraqi, U.S.-led and Iran-backed forces.

Since then, Iran-aligned militias have regularly attacked U.S. military and diplomatic sites in Iraq, U.S. and many Iraqi officials say. Iran denies involvement in those attacks.

When America has a weak President, the world is less safe.

Good News For America–Bad News For Russia

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On March 10th, Newsmax reported that the Iran nuclear talks have stalled. The sticking point is that Russia is demanding protection from sanctions in response to its invasion of Iran.

The article reports:

Just days after reports a deal was close, diplomats are now signaling talks for a rewritten Iran nuclear deal have stalled due to Russia’s demand for sanctions protections amid the world response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Politico reported Thursday night.

“The talks seem to have stalled, primarily because of Russian demands,” International Crisis Group analyst Ali Vaez told Politico.

The article also notes:

Russia is leading talks with Iran, along with diplomats from China, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., but those other parties are balking at the demand for sanctions relief, according to Politico.

An official from the West parties told Politico the accommodation cannot be made in talks that were designed to pull the U.S. and Iran back into the deal — not to give Russia more trade leverage.

“We’ve made it very clear,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Thursday, “that the new Russia-related sanctions are wholly unrelated to the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action].” 

“We also have no intention of offering Russia anything new or specific as it relates to the sanctions.”

The old Iran nuclear deal was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action under former President Barack Obama’s administration when current President Joe Biden was vice president. Many of the Obama administration officials are now working in the Biden administration.

Just for the record, it is not a good idea to make a deal with the world’s largest source of terrorist funding. We have seen that Iran did not follow previous agreements, and there are no indications that Iran would follow any new agreement no matter how generous it is. Short of sanctions on Iran (which the Biden administration would never do), at this point there is probably no way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. If you understand the apocalyptic beliefs regarding the return of the Mahdi, that is a problem. There is a belief among some Muslims that if they create chaos, the Mahdi (their messiah) will return more quickly. Unfortunately, our State Department is obviously ignoring much of the history and beliefs of the militant Islamists who are currently ruling Iran.

Important–A Little Late, But Important

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On Thursday, Just the News posted a list of twenty significant problems with the 2020 election. I realize that this does not seem current, but in view of the fact that we have an election coming up in November, we need to correct these problems. I am posting half of that list. Please follow the link to the entire article to read the rest of the list and the details.

The article lists the problems:

1. A Foreign Intrusion. Federal authorities have confirmed that two Iranian nationals successfully hacked into a state computer election system, stole 100,000 voter registrations and used the data to carry out a cyber-intimidation campaign that targeted GOP members of Congress, Trump campaign officials and Democratic voters in the November 2020 election in one of the largest foreign intrusions in U.S. election history.

2. Alleged Bribery. The former state Supreme Court justice appointed by the Wisconsin Legislature to investigate the 2020 election concluded that millions of dollars in donations to election administrators in five Democrat-heavy municipalities from the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life violated state anti-bribery laws and corrupted election practices by turning public election authorities into liberal get-out-the-vote activists.

3. Illegal ballot harvesting in Wisconsin. Gableman also exposed an extensive vote collection operation, known as ballot harvesting, in nursing homes in which third-party activists illegally collected the ballots of vulnerable residents, some of whom lacked the mental or physical capacity to vote or were forbidden from voting by guardianship agreements.

4. Ballot harvesting probe in the Peach State. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has announced he has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that liberal activists engaged in illegal ballot harvesting, collecting ballots from voters and delivering them in violation of state law. Raffensperger said he is planning to issue subpoenas to identify a whistleblower who admitted he engaged in the operation, and there could be prosecutions.

5. Bad voter signatures? A review of Maricopa County’s mail-in ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimated that more than 200,000 ballots with signatures that did not match voter files were counted without being reviewed, more than eight times the number the county acknowledged.

6. 50,000 Arizona ballots called into question. An extensive audit by Arizona’s Senate officially called into question more than 50,000 ballots cast in the 2020 election, including voters who cast ballots from residences they had left.

7. Illegal ballot drop boxes. A Wisconsin judge has ruled the widespread use of ballot drop boxes in 2020 was unlawful, and the state Supreme Court let that ruling stand. 

8. Foreign voters found on Texas rolls. An audit of Texas voter rolls identified nearly 12,000 noncitizens suspected of illegally registering to vote and nearly 600 cases in which ballots may have been cast in the name of a dead resident or by a voter who may also have voted in another state.

9. Foreign voters found on Georgia  rolls. An audit by Georgia’s Secretary of State has identified more than 2,000 suspected foreigners who tried to register to vote in the state, though none reached the point of casting ballots. 

10. Unconstitutional mail-in voting. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has concluded the state law that opened the door to no-excuse mail-in voting in 2020 was unconstitutional and that mail-in voting can only be enacted by a constitutional amendment.

The article also includes links to further information on the subject including  indictments and court decisions.

Priorities?

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article by Victor Davis Hanson that provides some perspective on the current war in Ukraine.

The article notes:

Thousands are dying from Russian missiles and bombs in the suburbs of Ukraine.

In response, the Biden administration’s climate change envoy, multimillionaire and private-jet-owning John Kerry, laments that Russian President Vladimir Putin might no longer remain his partner in reducing global warming.

“You’re going to lose people’s focus,” Kerry frets. “You’re going to lose big-country attention because they will be diverted, and I think it could have a damaging impact.”

“Impact”?

Did the global moralist Kerry mean by “impact” the over 650 Russian missiles that impacted Ukrainian buildings and tore apart children?

The article also asks the obvious question:

But how will the Biden administration square the circle of its own ideological war against oil and natural gas versus handing the advantage to our oil- and gas-producing enemies, as Russia invades Ukraine?

Or put another way, when selfish theory hits deadly reality, who loses? Answer: the American people.

President Joe Biden lifted U.S. sanctions on the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline designed to provide green Germany with loathsome, but life-saving, natural gas.

But first Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline in the United States. He has no problem with pipelines per se, just American ones.

While Biden doesn’t like the idea of Germany burning carbon fuel, or Putin reaping enormous profits from Berlin’s self-created dependency, or Germans importing liquified natural gas from America, Biden also does not like the idea of forcing German families to turn off their thermostats in mid-winter when there is Russian-fed war not far from Germany’s borders.

Here at home, Biden gets even crazier. As our enemies around the world reap huge profits from record high oil and gas prices, did Biden ask Alaska, North Dakota or Texas to ramp up production?

In other words, did he ask Americans to save fellow cash-strapped Americans from a self-created energy crisis, in the way he assured the Germans that during war reality trumps theory?

The article concludes:

Biden also has beseeched the once sanctioned, terrorist Iranian government. He wants Tehran to help us out by upping the very oil and gas production that America has tried to curtail for years. In return, Iran is demanding a new “Iran Deal” that will soon ensure the now petro-rich theocracy the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

On the eve of the Russian invasion, Biden begged Putin to pump even more oil to supplement its current Russian imports to the United States.

Did Putin see that surreal request as yet another sign of American appeasement that might greenlight his upcoming planned invasion? In Russian eyes, was it more proof of American weakness and craziness after the humiliating flight from Afghanistan?

Biden has blasted the human rights record of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. Now he is begging the monarchy to pump more of its despised carbon-spewing oil to make up for what his administration shut down at home. Is that why the Saudi royals refused to take his call?

The moral of Biden’s oil madness?

Elite ideology divorced from reality impoverishes people and can get them killed.

Because we have given up American energy independence (and the ability to supply Europe with energy), we are funding Russia’s war on Ukraine. Until our leaders are willing to acknowledge that fact, I don’t see the war in Ukraine ending or the war on American energy ending.

Some Perspective On Gasoline Prices

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Issues & Insights recently posted an article about some of the behind the scenes aspects of the rapidly rising gas prices.

The article notes:

That gasoline prices are becoming unaffordable to many Americans is becoming old news. What got us here, though, is a story unheard by much of the public. It starts and ends with green politics.

As gasoline reaches prices that made it a luxury good during President Joe Biden’s year in office, the White House is considering asking the Saudis to produce more oil. At the same time, the administration apparently wants more oil from Venezuela, which is languishing under a dictatorship that’s squarely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Iran, a member in good standing with the axis of evil.

“Joe Biden is frantically searching the globe to see if anyone but Texas might have some spare oil,” says a tweet from Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer and Oregon Democrat, that sums up well the comical blundering as well as the corrupt decision-making of the current White House.

The article concludes:

But green politics won’t allow the U.S. to take advantage of its bounty of crude and natural gas. Oddly, though, the environmentalists who hold energy policy hostage when Democrats are in power have no problem with this country importing oil from nations where the drilling and transportation processes are dirtier than they are in the U.S., and the regimes are not democratically elected.

This is the California model. Officials and activists’ rush to create an all-renewables electricity grid has forced the state to import energy from producers in Arizona, Baja California, Colorado, Mexico, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah that rely on natural gas, nuclear energy, and coal, three sources that California wants to eliminate from its portfolio. But this is acceptable, because it’s happening somewhere else, outside the view sheds of the wealthy enclaves on the coast.

It’s the same with the mining of the natural resources that are needed to build batteries for electric cars, cell phones, and other modern conveniences. The political left is happy to use these items as long as the extraction for material used in their manufacture is done away from their myopic gazes in countries where environmental protections hardly exist.

Yes, this not-in-my-back yard attitude is hypocritical, but worse than that, it produces poor public policy. We hope some day a majority of voters consistently figures this out in election after election.

Green energy destroyed the Spanish economy and did not lower carbon emissions (article here). Let’s not do that in America.

While We Were All Watching Ukraine…

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On Friday, The New York Post posted the following headline:

Biden on verge of making worst deal ever with Iran

The article reminds us of some recent history regarding Iran and nuclear weapons:

The Obama White House claimed the Iran deal guaranteed the most intrusive inspections the world had ever known, but only Israel’s Mossad found the evidence Iran was cheating — a secret nuclear weapons archive that the mullahs kept hidden before, during and after negotiating the Iran deal. That archive led inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to at least four previously unknown sites inside Iran. At three of them, the inspectors found traces of uranium.

…Russia has been a leading opponent of the IAEA’s probe in Iran for years. Since Moscow regularly breaks its own international treaty obligations — whether in the use of chemical weapons or the war crimes we see today in Ukraine — Russian diplomats work overtime to shield rogue nations like Iran and Syria from accountability.

The new deal takes Moscow’s side — flouting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, lifting sanctions and legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program without first demanding a full accounting of previous and current violations. Put simply, it is an agreement knowingly built on deceit that will encourage other authoritarian regimes to violate their international commitments.

Another important change since 2015: We know so much more about the ways in which key Iranian banks and companies finance terrorism. The Obama administration told Congress that nothing in the Iran deal precluded America from imposing terrorism sanctions on Iran. Congress, on a bipartisan basis, took that promise to heart and directed the Trump administration to impose sanctions on affiliates of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Today, the Central Bank of Iran, the National Iranian Oil Company and hundreds more entities are subject to US terrorism sanctions — not nuclear sanctions — due to indisputable evidence showing their involvement in financing terrorism. To lift sanctions on these banks and firms without any indication of behavioral change will be unprecedented. The deal will directly subsidize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations — a win for another Russian client state, Syria, as well.

Hopefully this treaty will never get past the Senate, but that doesn’t mean the Biden administration won’t abide by it anyway. We currently have a lawless administration and an impossibility of impeachment due to a Democrat congress and a downright scary line of succcession–Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Grassley, Antony J. Blinken, etc.

Pray for the mid-terms and hope they won’t be too late.

This Isn’t The Way To Negotiate

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On Saturday, Zero Hedge reported that the Biden administration restored sanction waivers for Iran’s civilian nuclear program. The idea was that restoring those waivers would pave the way for a nuclear agreement with Iran. Those of us with a more cynical viewpoint see restoring the waivers as the Biden administration negotiating with itself in order to get Iran to the negotiating table.

The article reports:

The waivers mean any foreign countries, including Russia, China, and countries in Europe, that work with Iran on its nuclear program cannot be targeted by US sanctions. The waivers are an aspect of the JCPOA and were rescinded by the Trump administration in 2020.

The article concludes:

The waiver is a hopeful sign for the JCPOA. Negotiators are expected to return to Vienna soon in what could be the final round of talks, although Iran said earlier this week that “significant issues” remain.

Iran hawks were quick to criticize the move, and State Department spokesman Ned Price insisted that the waivers were not “sanctions relief.”

“We did NOT provide sanctions relief for Iran and WILL NOT until/unless Tehran returns to its commitments under the JCPOA. We did precisely what the last Administration did: permit our international partners to address growing nuclear nonproliferation and safety risks in Iran,” Price wrote on Twitter.

What’s the difference between a civilian nuclear program and a nuclear weapons program? Not a whole lot. Considering the world’s perception of the Biden administration and the strength of America, Iran will probably have a functioning nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it in the very near future.

 

Have You Read This Anywhere?

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On January 25th, The World Tribune reported that the Biden administration in cooperation with the government of South Korea arranged for $18 million of blocked Iranian funds to be released to the Iranians so they could pay their dues. South Korea, working with the U.S. Treasury Department, facilitated the release of the funds.

The article reports:

Sanctions imposed on Iran by the Trump administration were so devastating that the mullahs in Teheran were unable to pay dues owed to the United Nations.

As a consequence, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism lost its voting rights at the UN.

Was this not a victory for America over a brutal regime which continues to be at the top of the list of human rights abusers?

To Team Biden, it was not. Uncle Joe has stepped in and paid off Iran’s debt.

The decision was described by Claudia Rosett, The New York Sun’s UN correspondent, as “a staggering act of appeasement.”

So what is this actually about? For whatever reason, the Biden administration is desperate to sign a nuclear agreement with Iran. At this point the Biden administration is negotiating with themselves–they are bending over backward to make the terrorist regime in Iran happy.

The article concludes:

The irony, The Sun’s Rosett pointed out, is that somehow Iran has the funds to supply weapons to the Houthis, help out Hizbullah, and take part in joint naval maneuvers with Russia and China.

“We’ve been told for years that the point of sanctions on Iran is to get the regime to change its behavior. If so, South Korea and the Biden administration have just helped out Iran — without changing a thing,” The Sun noted.

We are funding the terrorism against our own soldiers in the region and our civilians at home.