Eliminate Israel and replace it with an Arab-majority nation?

 Jonathan Tobin

The New York Times just spent 2,300 words outlining how -- and why -- it should be done

JewishWorldReview.com | Twenty years after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords the two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs that was its premise remains unrealized. Indeed, support for the idea that a century-old struggle can be ended merely by the stroke of a pen and a new round of concessions on the part of the Israelis is smaller than ever in Israel, even if some elsewhere (such as Secretary of State John Kerry) cling to such illusions.

As I wrote last week, it is clear that while the majority of Israelis seem to have drawn some appropriate conclusions to twenty years of peace processing, there remains a constituency in Washington that is determined to ignore the costly mistakes that were made in 1993 and since in the name of promoting peace. So long as the Palestinians are unable to re-imagine their national identity outside of an effort to extinguish the Zionist project and to therefore recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn, negotiations are doomed to fail.

	Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch
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This is frustrating for the vast majority of Israelis who, despite their political divisions, are united in a longing for peace that made projects like Oslo and other such initiatives possible. It also exasperates foreign onlookers who wrongly believe the Arab-Israeli conflict is the root of all trouble in the Middle East (a myth that has been exploded by the Arab Spring and its battles in Egypt and Syria that have nothing to do with Israel).

But it is welcomed by those in the West whose dreams have never centered so much on schemes of a "New Middle East" in which economic cooperation will make everyone happy as they have on simply ending the Zionist dream.

One such dreamer is the University of Pennsylvania's Ian Lustick, a political science professor and sometime State Department consultant who was given the front page of the New York Times Sunday Review to explain in 2,300 words why the obsession with two states should give way to the project of simply eliminating Israel and replacing it with an Arab-majority nation.

Given the persistent and increasingly obvious anti-Israel bias of the paper (especially its editorial and op-ed pages) it is hardly a surprise that it would give such prominent play to a piece with such a goal. But even by the low standards that currently govern that section, the disingenuous nature of Lustick's rant is stunning.

The core conceit of Lustick's piece is to put forward the idea that a radical transformation of the conflict is not only possible but also probable. Thus, he claims that "the disappearance of Israel as a Zionist project through war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum" is a plausible outcome.

Indeed, though his essay occasionally hedges its bets, his enthusiasm for the prospect of the end of the Jewish state is palpable. Indeed, he compares it to the end of British rule over all of Ireland, the French hold on Algeria, or the collapse of the Soviet Union, historical events that he claims were once thought unthinkable but now are seen as inevitable outcomes.

These analogies are transparently specious, but they are telling because they put Israel in the category of imperialist projects rather than as the national liberation movement of a small people struggling for survival. That tells us a lot about Lustick's mindset but little about the reality of the Middle East.

Unlike the Brits' Protestant ascendancy in Ireland or the French pieds noirs of Algeria or even the Soviet nomenklatura, the Jews of Israel have nowhere to go. That he also compares Israel to apartheid South Africa, the Iran of the shah, or Saddam Hussein's Iraq shows just how skewed his view of the country has become and how little he understands its strength and resiliency.

 

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Saudi Daily: 'Chemical Weapons Smuggled to Hezbollah'

 Adam Ross 

President Bashar Al-Assad has smuggled part of his chemical weapons arsenal to Hezbollah in a bid to evade international inspection, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan reported Monday. 

The report quoted Syrian National Coalition member Kamal al-Labwani as claiming that: "The Syrian regime has transferred some of its chemical weapons arsenal to its ally Hezbollah aboard trucks used to transport vegetables."

The article published Monday, also included a claim that the Assad regime had covertly moved significant parts of its chemical weapons aboard Russian ships docked along the Syrian coastline. 

"We have credible information indicating that the Assad regime has smuggled part of its chemical arsenal to Russian ships in barrels," al-Labwani added. 

Last week, Syria officially handed in a request to the United Nations to join the convention which which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. 

The regime led by President Bashar Al-Assad is widely believed to have used lethal sarin gas in an attack on a Damascus neighborhood on August 21, killing more than a thousand civilians including hundreds of children.  According to U.S. estimates, the Syrian regime has an arsenal  of 100 tonnes of chemical weapons.

Days after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem pledged to sign the convention, intelligence reports indicated Assad had begun scattering his chemical stockpile to around 50 different sites across the country making them harder for the international community to track. 

Another unconfirmed report claimed that the regime had begun moving its stockpiles to Iraq, although both the Syrian and Iraqi governments firmly denied the report. 

But the prospect of chemical weapons in the hands of Syria's non-state ally Hezbollah will be of particular concern to Israel.  

The Iranian-backed terrorist group is sworn to Israel's destruction, and has repeatedly threatened the Jewish state with violent attacks. It has made good on those threats in recent years, including a recentborder attack which wounded four IDF soldiers, and the infamous "Burgas Bombing" in 2012, in which Hezbollah-linked terrorists murdered 5 Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver in a bombing attack in Bulgaria.  

But intelligence experts have warned that Hezbollah is still seeking to carry out a large-scale attack in revenge for the assassination of its leading commander, Imad Mughniye, in 2008 - an attack which Hezbollah blamed on Israel, but for which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.  

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Livni 'Willing to Cede Control of Jordan Valley'

 Gil Ronen 

Sources close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are once again expressing concern that Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the Israeli negotiating team with the Palestinian Authority (PA), is undermining the prime minister's positions in the talks. 

Daily newspaper Maariv quoted sources close to Netanyahu who said that Livni's positions differ from those of Netanyahu on the key issues of Jerusalem, eviction of Jewish communities and Israel's security arrangements in the Jordan Valley. 

According to the report, Livni - who heads the left-wing Hatnua political party - is willing to pull out the IDF from the Jordan Valley which guards Israel's long eastern border, and let an international force take its place. Netanyahu vigorously opposes this, citing the region's crucial strategic importance. 

In addition, Livni has agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and a future state of “Palestine” in Judea and Samaria, as well as a large scale eviction of Jews from communities in Judea and Samaria – whereas Netanyahu believes that communities need to remain under Palestinian sovereignty, with proper security arrangements. 

Maariv reported three weeks ago that Livni has been making various generous offers in contacts with the PA and US representatives, while Netanyahu thinks that Israel should not give up its best cards in the early stages of negotiations, as it is not clear what the PA is willing to cede in terms of security arrangements. 

“In Netanyahu's vicinity,” the newspaper explained, “there is a feeling that the Americans, whom Israel is making every effort not to bring into the negotiations room, are eagerly using Livni's statements in their conversations with the Palestinians and thus weakening Israel's position in the talks." 

There is widespread consensus among experts that ceding control of the Jordan Valley to any force but the IDF will make it extremely likely that missiles and other military hardware will be smuggled into Judea and Samaria, from where it could be used to target Tel Aviv with ease. 

If a Palestinian state were to be established in all or the majority of Judea and Samaria, experts say such an arrangement would leave central Israel as narrow as 8 miles at some points, placing approximately 70% of Israel's population within firing-range of deadly mortars and rocket fire, and without the "strategic depth" to successfully defend against invasion. 

Other sources close to the Prime Minister told Maariv that they were not aware of the aforementioned concerns regarding Livni.

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A Taxi Ride down Syria Street

Hannah Lucinda Smith 

In Tripoli, Lebanon, one aptly named road divides two sides in a proxy Syrian war

BACKGAMMON blog: A board game played in smoky cafes from Beirut to Baghdad. Backgammon’s earliest ancestor is five thousand years old and was unearthed in southern Iraq. Modern-day descendants teach players survival skills beyond the game: although luck is involved, strategy wins out in the long run. ‘Backgammon’ covers the state of play in the countries spanning the Fertile Crescent: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq.

Barbed wire between Bab Al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen on Syria Street, Tripoli, Lebanon. (The Majalla/Hannah Lucinda Smith)

Thirty seconds into the taxi ride, Ahmed answers the question that I didn’t want to ask.

“I’m a Sunni,” he says, “and I think that Assad needs to go. That regime has been there for forty years. Why? Where is the democracy?”


The escalating sectarian war in neighboring Syria has steadily seeped into Ahmed’s hometown, the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. As we drive to the area that has been the epicenter of sporadic clashes between members of the troubled city’s Sunni and Alawite communities since the Syrian uprising began, we pass one of the mosques that was targeted in a double car bombing two weeks ago. The façade that faces the road is blackened and hung with a huge banner showing a montage of images of the aftermath. “I can’t say who did it,” says Ahmed, “but it’s linked to the war in Syria, for sure.”
We are heading for Syria Street, the political faultline with the grimly appropriate name. It forms the geographical divide between two neighborhoods that that have faced each other in a tense standoff since the dark days of Lebanon’s own civil war. The Sunni neighborhood of Bab Al-Tabbaneh nestles beneath the Alawite-dominated hillside of Jebel Mohsen. Syria Street is the frontline: behind it, just 30 meters and a few rolls of barbed wire separate the warring neighbors.
A corner shop near Tripoli’s main bus station sells flags of every affiliation: three-starred for the Syrian revolution, black with the Prophet’s seal for Al-Qaeda, yellow with a green Kalashnikov for Hezbollah. Business takes precedence over politics here. But on Syria Street it is different. Black Salafist flags flutter on poles propped up on islands of sandbags in the middle of the road, and the faces of the neighborhood’s young Sunni martyrs gaze down from bullet-riddled banners strung up above the side streets. Ahmed tells me that it is Tripoli’s native Lebanese population, not Syrians, who live here and own the shawarma shops and car garages along the street. But they have been dragged into another country’s war regardless.
The latest burst of fighting erupted in August. Eyewitnesses described machine gun fire exchanges on Syria Street itself, only quelled when the Lebanese Army moved into the district to re-establish the fragile peace. Even in the relative calm that followed, the snipers positioned on Jebel Mohsen’s vantage points continued to take aim at the residents of Bab Al-Tabbaneh below. Ahmed says that no-one knows when the fighting might flare up again: “Maybe in one hour’s time, maybe tomorrow,” he says, as he points to a gun positioned in clear view up on the hillside. He says that the street is quieter than he’s ever seen it; the shoppers are going elsewhere to buy their groceries.
At the northern end of the street a hairpin bend takes us up into Jebel Mohsen. In less than a minute, we have crossed through an invisible border into the pro-Assad area of this proxy Syrian war. Huge pictures of the Syrian dictator and pasted onto the sides of the buildings. Ahmed is nervous. “I don’t want to get stopped here,” he says. “They will wonder what we’re doing. Take your photos quickly, from inside the car.”
From here, you can see the massive strategic advantage that the Alawite militias of Jebel Mohsen have over their adversaries in Bab Al-Tabbaneh. The people who walk the street below are the easiest of targets.
We find Tripoli’s Syrians to the west of Syria Street, selling fruit and vegetables in a marketplace that is huddled in the shadow of a flyover. They have escaped from the war in their own country, but even here it is still on their doorstep.
Abdullah says he is seventeen, but stress has etched so many lines on his face that he looks like a man of forty. He tells us that he came to Tripoli alone: no job, no family, no wife. His family is still living in their house in the Aleppo countryside. “I haven’t spoken to them for two months,” he says. “The phone lines have been cut.”
And yet he cares little for the politics of it all. “When the fighting starts I go to Beirut,” he says, “and as soon as it stops I come back and carry on.” Living, not war, is his priority. The tensions in Tripoli may have their roots in what is happening across the border in Syria, but it is Lebanese history and politics that is providing the momentum.
Back in the comfort of a bar in cosmopolitan Beirut, just an hour and a half’s drive from the standoff in Tripoli, two friends drink coffee and chat. The situation in Syria is playing on the minds of everyone here. A week ago, it looked as though America was set to attack Damascus, and Lebanon was bracing itself for the repercussions.
“Lebanon could fall apart in two days,” says one.
“Don’t think about it, habibi,” his friend replies, dropping his head into his folded arms in a gesture that says he’s sick of it all.
“But we have to think about it,” says the first. “We have to think about it, because it’s happening.”
This article was originally published in The Majalla.

Hannah Lucinda Smith

Hannah Smith is a freelance journalist who has worked on a number of high-profile investigations for Channel 4 and the BBC. Her recent work has seen her gain access to inner city gangs, sex workers and the British far right. She traveled to Kosovo, Syria and Brazil to report on human rights issues. She lives in London.

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The Military Option and Disarmament Diplomacy with Syria

Michael Eisenstadt

By limiting potential strike options, Washington risks undercutting diplomacy and being drawn into the kind of intensive, open-ended engagement in Syria that it wants to avoid.

If the threat of force persuaded Syria to agree to the destruction of its chemical weapons (CW) arsenal, as President Obama and his advisors claim, then clear signs that military planning and preparations continue could bolster the search for a diplomatic solution. This diplomatic "timeout" could also help the administration address concerns raised during the recent debate about the use of force, which focused on how a limited strike might deter further CW use by a determined and ruthless regime, avoid morphing into an open-ended conflict, and advance broader policy objectives in Syria.

AVOIDING POTENTIAL PITFALLS

Should the United States eventually decide to attack Syria -- whether to deter CW use or in response to Syrian obstruction of disarmament efforts -- limited strikes on tactical targets would likely yield only limited results. Bashar al-Assad's regime has become inured to hardship after more than two years of bloody, desperate fighting that has touched even its inner circle (e.g., the defense minister and his deputy -- Assad's brother-in-law -- were killed in a July 2012 bomb attack). Thus, a limited strike that focused on noncritical targets would probably not alter the cost-benefit calculus in Damascus; it might even assuage the regime's fears about U.S. military action, thereby emboldening Assad.
The Obama administration seems to believe that a smaller strike is the best way to limit the U.S. role in Syria, but the converse seems more likely: such a strike could invite further challenges from Damascus, creating an open-ended cycle of provocation and response. Israel's experience is instructive here. On four occasions this year, Israeli forces have carried out limited preemptive airstrikes to disrupt the transfer of "game-changing" weapons systems to Hezbollah, and although Damascus has not retaliated, it has not been deterred from trying again either.
The United States currently has four destroyers off the coast of Syria, and perhaps one or two submarines; together, these vessels could conceivably launch 150-400 Tomahawk cruise missiles. This relatively small arsenal would limit the operation's impact, since some targets would require multiple strikes, and Tomahawks are not very useful against hardened, buried, or mobile assets. Many important targets would not be hit in a cruise missile strike.
For this reason, if a strike is eventually ordered, it should include manned attack aircraft and bombers, which could hit targets that Tomahawks cannot, and whose pilots could confirm target information in realtime, reducing the likelihood of harming civilians (including human shields, which the regime has already reportedly employed). This would necessitate a more expansive strike, since elements of Syria's air defenses would need to be suppressed before manned aircraft could be sent in.

DEGRADING AND DETERRING

Several considerations should guide planning for a strike that could be ordered in the event that diplomacy fails. These considerations should also be quietly publicized in order to bolster CW disarmament efforts.
First, the United States should be prepared to strike repeatedly. Imposing limits that preclude follow-on strikes would diminish the deterrent value of U.S. threats and undermine the prospects for diplomacy.
Second, a U.S. strike should target personnel and assets that are critical to the regime's survival and its ability to prosecute the war, and that are not easily replaced. This would show the regime that its recalcitrance imposes heavy costs and could jeopardize its survival.
The template for such a strike is Operation Desert Fox, the December 1998 action that targeted Iraq's Special Republican Guard and its surviving missile production infrastructure. Because it came as a surprise, the four-day strike reportedly killed hundreds of Special Republican Guard personnel and struck a critical blow to its missile production capabilities, shaking the regime's confidence.

SELECTING TARGETS

U.S. planners should choose targets whose destruction would have a major psychological impact on the regime, altering its cost-benefit calculus. This means hitting the regime's most loyal and capable units, the Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division, which have frequently spearheaded operations against the opposition and have been deeply implicated in CW use. Specifically, U.S. forces should target headquarters, command posts, barracks, and maintenance facilities associated with these units, as well as their field formations if possible.
The most important aim would be to inflict heavy personnel losses, since loyal, committed, and experienced soldiers are more difficult to replace than military equipment. (Because only about a third of its army is actively engaged in combat, the regime probably has large excess stocks of equipment, and Russia has pledged to replace any materiel destroyed in a U.S. strike.) Many members of the Republican Guard and 4th Armored Division are related by blood and marriage to the regime's leadership, so targeting these units would convey the message that CW use or obstruction of disarmament efforts threatens Assad's most stalwart supporters. As long as U.S. operations do not target the senior leadership in Damascus, they are unlikely to be mistaken for decapitation strikes, which could cause Syria to overreact or prompt Hezbollah and Iran to lash out against the United States in an effort to save their embattled ally.
The United States should also target the scores of helicopters and aircraft that have supported these units in combat by delivering conventional and chemical munitions, as well as the regime's arsenal of long-range rockets and missiles, which have killed thousands of Syrians and can deliver CW. Yet there are clear limits to how much this type of strike could degrade Syria's ability to deliver chemical munitions -- especially if Washington is unwilling to attack CW storage facilities that are close to populated areas. For this reason, these weapons systems should not be the main target of a strike.

ENABLING ACTIVITIES

Hitting high-value targets could prove difficult under present circumstances. By telegraphing its intention to strike, Washington gave the regime time to evacuate headquarters and disperse and conceal its forces, though this posture could be difficult to sustain over time. One way to counter these tactics would be to encourage the opposition to launch a broad offensive on the eve of a U.S. strike should such a decision be taken. This might compel the regime to concentrate its forces to meet the offensive, creating lucrative targets for U.S. missiles and air power. Such coordination could also lay the foundation for an enhanced train-and-equip effort with moderate rebel factions.
In addition, military action would be more effective if accompanied by diplomatic efforts to strip away the regime's foreign enablers. Here, NATO's Operation Allied Force (March-June 1999) offers a precedent: Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic eventually accepted a ceasefire in large part because he lost the support of his Russian patron. Accordingly, Washington should explore whether the diplomatic process can be used to drive a wedge between Moscow and Damascus if the latter reneges on its commitment to destroy its CW. At the end of the day, the fear of losing his most important allies could have as great an impact on Assad's cost-benefit calculus as military action.

CONCLUSION

As Washington enters a new phase of its crisis with Damascus, the threat -- and, potentially, use -- of force will remain critical to the success of disarmament diplomacy, and to achieving whatever measure of policy success is possible in Syria. Failing to get this piece of the policy right could diminish the prospects for diplomacy and increase the chances that a limited strike will lead to the kind of intensive, open-ended engagement Washington has been trying to avoid. Either way, there seems to be no easy exit from the dilemmas that the United States now faces in Syria.
Michael Eisenstadt directs the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute.

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Obama's YouTube Wars Posted

Sultan Knish
 

Last September, Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly to denounce a YouTube video, calling it "crude and disgusting" and assuring Muslims everywhere that this particular YouTube video did not represent America.

Finally Obama delivered what is surely one of the most famous YouTube negative video comments ever, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

The future is still up for grabs, but the man behind the YouTube video was taken in by a crowd of armed police and locked up earning him the privilege of being one of the few movie producers imprisoned for their movies; alongside Robert Goldstein of  "The Spirit of '76".

As YouTube thumbs downs go, a year in jail is pretty harsh. The thumbs of American presidents historically lacked the thumbpotence of Roman emperors sitting in their Coliseum boxes and deciding if a gladiator should live or die. But when a YouTube video is passed off as the biggest national security threat since a Twitter hashtag about Biden's hairplugs, why shouldn't Obama take on imperial airs and drop the prison banhammer?

The trailer for a movie about the Muslim persecution of Christians did not actually lead to multiple coordinated attacks by Salafists against American embassies and diplomatic missions.

Unfortunately in an election where the incumbent was running on his claim that he had single-handedly killed Osama bin Laden in an arm wrestling match, it would have been embarrassing to admit that Al Qaeda had pulled off its second worst attack on America since September 11... on September 11.

It was easier to blame it on YouTube.

Last September, a YouTube video was blamed for several acts of war. This September, a war may be fought over a bunch of YouTube videos.

Obama addressed the nation to rally support for his Syrian strikes. As evidence that "chemical weapons were used in Syria" he mentioned the "videos, cell phone pictures, and social media accounts from the attack".

The message was that if you want Obama's case for war, go watch it on YouTube. And hope it isn't as staged as Jimmy Kimmel's Twerking fail video..

William Randolph Hearst was supposed to have told a reporter, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war". Now YouTube and social media furnishes the videos and pictures and Barack Hussein Obama will furnish the war.

Obama didn't even bother assembling a playlist of the top 10 WMD YouTube videos that will make a case for war; a strange omission for an administration that prides itself as the most tech-savvy organization in the room when it comes to emailing voters and reading their email.

Instead officials boasted about their high-end YouTube watching skills and their "Classified intelligence tools... used to ensure that bodies were not counted twice." Hopefully at least one of those classified tools involved basic arithmetic.

Traditionally a case for war would be based on some kind of physical evidence, but in this new digital world where no one ever has to do anything in person, except get treated for carpal tunnel syndrome, we can blame wars on YouTube videos and fight wars over YouTube videos.

And if the whole Syrian chemical attack turns out to have been faked by Jimmy Kimmel, at least it will have been the most epic troll ever leading to a flame war with actual flames.

It's easy to blame Obama for being too lazy to send someone out to Syria to actually check the toe tags instead of clicking through a few videos, marking the WMD box checked and then checking out the trailer for the remake of Robocop.

But it's not like anyone else has been doing a much better job.

French intelligence released a report confirming a chemical weapons attack by Assad that killed 281 people based in part "on dozens of videos culled by French intelligence services".

Forget James Bond. Jacques Bond dispenses with the tuxedo, martinis and the Walther PPK and equipped with a Snuggie, a swivel chair and some Hot Pockets assembles a case for war based on his unique skill of video cullings. It really is the ultimate playlist with Europe's The Final Countdown as the soundtrack. Or maybe Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy.

When Assad said that the accusations are based "on arbitrary videos posted on the Internet", he kind of had a point. Or maybe he didn't. After all they're based on arbitrary videos posted on the internet and then culled by the crack Le Hot Pockets team at French intelligence and the best YouTube watchers our own intelligence services have to offer.
It's easy to get confused when building a case for war based on YouTube videos.

France's Top Secret YouTubers claimed 281 people had been killed. Our own YouTubers appear to have come up with 1,429 since that's the number that John Kerry has been waving around on any channel willing to give him 5 minutes of airtime.

But maybe our YouTubers just watched the same video 5 times.

Across the channel, UK's social media spooks claimed 350 dead. Maybe they watched the full video. Doctors Without Borders, which hopefully counted actual bodies instead of URLs, pegged the death toll at 355. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights went up to 502. Even that is only 1/3 of Kerry's 1,429.

Where does Kerry get his oddly specific 1,429 number from?  No one knows. The Senate Intelligence Committee received 13 videos whose authenticity was verified by that specter known as "the intelligence community". The intelligence community is a notoriously flexible entity. It usually knows the truth, but sometimes serves other masters.

Back when Obama was determined to blame a movie trailer for the murder of four Americans, the intelligence community, which originally pointed to a terrorist attack, was muscled by Hillary's people into blaming the dreaded YouTube video in the Benghazi talking points.

Online videos don't make the best case for war. It's not just Jimmy Kimmel who can fake viral videos.

Both sides in the Syrian Civil War have filled the internet with viral videos claiming to show the other side using chemical weapons, killing babies and eating with their left hands. There's a fake suicide bomber auction video being distributed by the regime and a fake government massacre being passed around by the rebels. And those are just some of the more notorious examples.

The pro-regime Syrian Electronic Army is hacking websites and the Syria expert whose Wall Street Journal article claiming that the Syrian rebels were moderate was cited by McCain and Kerry turned out to have faked her academic credentials while working for a Syrian rebel front group.

The best thing to believe about Syria is nothing. Both sides are engaged in epic levels of fakery. And if we are going to bomb Syria, the least we can do is sort through real life evidence.

Obama may begin wars over YouTube videos and blame wars on YouTube videos, but the people who die in those wars are all too real. In his UN General Assembly speech, he mentioned the video seven times, but never once mentioned the names of the two former Navy SEALS who rushed to the rescue.

If the future is to belong to anyone, it should belong to men like them and not to amateur YouTube reviewers who start wars.

Those who live in a virtual world, often forget that the things that matter are real. Wars aren't really virtual; even if they're fought with drones and reported on by Twitter accounts. The people who die in them are real and the money used to wage them has to be taken out of the monthly paychecks of families struggling to pay for winter clothing, braces and a home cooked meal.

Obama, like Hollande and Cameron, his leading Syrian War allies, slashed military spending while starting new wars. He cut military paychecks and raised the cost of military healthcare while drastically slashing the armed forces. In a debate, he sneered that objections to his policy of gutting the Navy while expecting it to fight all his wars for him were like so retro.

"We have fewer ships than we did... we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed," Obama said. The line quickly became a trending Twitter hashtag and inspired YouTube videos; none of which, fortunately, led to jail sentences.

But now it’s not hashtags or YouTube videos steaming toward Syria; it’s Navy ships with not enough of the cruise missiles that Obama would like to fire off. And so the bayonets may have to do.

YouTube videos are great for streaming Obama’s war speeches and finding scapegoats for the terrorist attacks he wants to deny happened, but they don't fight wars.

Men like Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who died not because of a YouTube video, but because Obama failed to provide them with armed support while they were fighting for their lives, are the ones that fight them. And they fight with whatever is left to them by a government that tried to blow $250,000 on an Afghan YouTube channel, but didn’t have enough left over to provide security for American diplomats or health care for American soldiers.

Obama is a virtual leader for a virtual nation. He has virtual solutions for all problems, none of which actually work in the real world. He can virtually do anything, but he can't really do anything except spend fortunes on useless boondoggles in proper Silicon Valley style. Like so many dot coms, he thinks that inspiration is a substitute for a business plan and communications and social media outreach are a substitute for a strategy. They aren't.

Like so many Silicon Valley dot coms with a huge audience and no profits to show for it, he has gotten away with it because too many are invested in the virtual pyramids of the Arab Spring, along with his other pyramid schemes, to hold him accountable.

But his Syria speech is only another reminder that he doesn't have a plan for the war. He has a video. - See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/obamas-youtube-wars.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+(from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News)#sthash.rkUSjDyD.dpuf

Last September, Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly to denounce a YouTube video, calling it "crude and disgusting" and assuring Muslims everywhere that this particular YouTube video did not represent America.

Finally Obama delivered what is surely one of the most famous YouTube negative video comments ever, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

The future is still up for grabs, but the man behind the YouTube video was taken in by a crowd of armed police and locked up earning him the privilege of being one of the few movie producers imprisoned for their movies; alongside Robert Goldstein of  "The Spirit of '76".

As YouTube thumbs downs go, a year in jail is pretty harsh. The thumbs of American presidents historically lacked the thumbpotence of Roman emperors sitting in their Coliseum boxes and deciding if a gladiator should live or die. But when a YouTube video is passed off as the biggest national security threat since a Twitter hashtag about Biden's hairplugs, why shouldn't Obama take on imperial airs and drop the prison banhammer?

The trailer for a movie about the Muslim persecution of Christians did not actually lead to multiple coordinated attacks by Salafists against American embassies and diplomatic missions.

Unfortunately in an election where the incumbent was running on his claim that he had single-handedly killed Osama bin Laden in an arm wrestling match, it would have been embarrassing to admit that Al Qaeda had pulled off its second worst attack on America since September 11... on September 11.

It was easier to blame it on YouTube.

Last September, a YouTube video was blamed for several acts of war. This September, a war may be fought over a bunch of YouTube videos.

Obama addressed the nation to rally support for his Syrian strikes. As evidence that "chemical weapons were used in Syria" he mentioned the "videos, cell phone pictures, and social media accounts from the attack".

The message was that if you want Obama's case for war, go watch it on YouTube. And hope it isn't as staged as Jimmy Kimmel's Twerking fail video..

William Randolph Hearst was supposed to have told a reporter, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war". Now YouTube and social media furnishes the videos and pictures and Barack Hussein Obama will furnish the war.

Obama didn't even bother assembling a playlist of the top 10 WMD YouTube videos that will make a case for war; a strange omission for an administration that prides itself as the most tech-savvy organization in the room when it comes to emailing voters and reading their email.

Instead officials boasted about their high-end YouTube watching skills and their "Classified intelligence tools... used to ensure that bodies were not counted twice." Hopefully at least one of those classified tools involved basic arithmetic.

Traditionally a case for war would be based on some kind of physical evidence, but in this new digital world where no one ever has to do anything in person, except get treated for carpal tunnel syndrome, we can blame wars on YouTube videos and fight wars over YouTube videos.

And if the whole Syrian chemical attack turns out to have been faked by Jimmy Kimmel, at least it will have been the most epic troll ever leading to a flame war with actual flames.

It's easy to blame Obama for being too lazy to send someone out to Syria to actually check the toe tags instead of clicking through a few videos, marking the WMD box checked and then checking out the trailer for the remake of Robocop.

But it's not like anyone else has been doing a much better job.

French intelligence released a report confirming a chemical weapons attack by Assad that killed 281 people based in part "on dozens of videos culled by French intelligence services".

Forget James Bond. Jacques Bond dispenses with the tuxedo, martinis and the Walther PPK and equipped with a Snuggie, a swivel chair and some Hot Pockets assembles a case for war based on his unique skill of video cullings. It really is the ultimate playlist with Europe's The Final Countdown as the soundtrack. Or maybe Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy.

When Assad said that the accusations are based "on arbitrary videos posted on the Internet", he kind of had a point. Or maybe he didn't. After all they're based on arbitrary videos posted on the internet and then culled by the crack Le Hot Pockets team at French intelligence and the best YouTube watchers our own intelligence services have to offer.
It's easy to get confused when building a case for war based on YouTube videos.

France's Top Secret YouTubers claimed 281 people had been killed. Our own YouTubers appear to have come up with 1,429 since that's the number that John Kerry has been waving around on any channel willing to give him 5 minutes of airtime.

But maybe our YouTubers just watched the same video 5 times.

Across the channel, UK's social media spooks claimed 350 dead. Maybe they watched the full video. Doctors Without Borders, which hopefully counted actual bodies instead of URLs, pegged the death toll at 355. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights went up to 502. Even that is only 1/3 of Kerry's 1,429.

Where does Kerry get his oddly specific 1,429 number from?  No one knows. The Senate Intelligence Committee received 13 videos whose authenticity was verified by that specter known as "the intelligence community". The intelligence community is a notoriously flexible entity. It usually knows the truth, but sometimes serves other masters.

Back when Obama was determined to blame a movie trailer for the murder of four Americans, the intelligence community, which originally pointed to a terrorist attack, was muscled by Hillary's people into blaming the dreaded YouTube video in the Benghazi talking points.

Online videos don't make the best case for war. It's not just Jimmy Kimmel who can fake viral videos.

Both sides in the Syrian Civil War have filled the internet with viral videos claiming to show the other side using chemical weapons, killing babies and eating with their left hands. There's a fake suicide bomber auction video being distributed by the regime and a fake government massacre being passed around by the rebels. And those are just some of the more notorious examples.

The pro-regime Syrian Electronic Army is hacking websites and the Syria expert whose Wall Street Journal article claiming that the Syrian rebels were moderate was cited by McCain and Kerry turned out to have faked her academic credentials while working for a Syrian rebel front group.

The best thing to believe about Syria is nothing. Both sides are engaged in epic levels of fakery. And if we are going to bomb Syria, the least we can do is sort through real life evidence.

Obama may begin wars over YouTube videos and blame wars on YouTube videos, but the people who die in those wars are all too real. In his UN General Assembly speech, he mentioned the video seven times, but never once mentioned the names of the two former Navy SEALS who rushed to the rescue.

If the future is to belong to anyone, it should belong to men like them and not to amateur YouTube reviewers who start wars.

Those who live in a virtual world, often forget that the things that matter are real. Wars aren't really virtual; even if they're fought with drones and reported on by Twitter accounts. The people who die in them are real and the money used to wage them has to be taken out of the monthly paychecks of families struggling to pay for winter clothing, braces and a home cooked meal.

Obama, like Hollande and Cameron, his leading Syrian War allies, slashed military spending while starting new wars. He cut military paychecks and raised the cost of military healthcare while drastically slashing the armed forces. In a debate, he sneered that objections to his policy of gutting the Navy while expecting it to fight all his wars for him were like so retro.

"We have fewer ships than we did... we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed," Obama said. The line quickly became a trending Twitter hashtag and inspired YouTube videos; none of which, fortunately, led to jail sentences.

But now it’s not hashtags or YouTube videos steaming toward Syria; it’s Navy ships with not enough of the cruise missiles that Obama would like to fire off. And so the bayonets may have to do.

YouTube videos are great for streaming Obama’s war speeches and finding scapegoats for the terrorist attacks he wants to deny happened, but they don't fight wars.

Men like Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who died not because of a YouTube video, but because Obama failed to provide them with armed support while they were fighting for their lives, are the ones that fight them. And they fight with whatever is left to them by a government that tried to blow $250,000 on an Afghan YouTube channel, but didn’t have enough left over to provide security for American diplomats or health care for American soldiers.

Obama is a virtual leader for a virtual nation. He has virtual solutions for all problems, none of which actually work in the real world. He can virtually do anything, but he can't really do anything except spend fortunes on useless boondoggles in proper Silicon Valley style. Like so many dot coms, he thinks that inspiration is a substitute for a business plan and communications and social media outreach are a substitute for a strategy. They aren't.

Like so many Silicon Valley dot coms with a huge audience and no profits to show for it, he has gotten away with it because too many are invested in the virtual pyramids of the Arab Spring, along with his other pyramid schemes, to hold him accountable.

But his Syria speech is only another reminder that he doesn't have a plan for the war. He has a video. - See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/obamas-youtube-wars.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+(from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News)#sthash.rkUSjDyD.dpuf

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Really? It's only about the money or are you afraid to stand up!!

Procter & Gamble runs NFL ads on Al Jazeera America, ONLY major company remaining

creeping

click image for more on this banner to fly 9/22

Green Bay Packer and Pittsburgh Steeler fans need to step up and stop jihad tv in the U.S. Make a difference today using the email form linked below. via Procter & Gamble airs NFL, Green Bay Packer and Pittsburgh Steeler sanctioned Gillette and Head & Shoulders advertisements on Al Jazeera America.

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Click here to send your email to P&G corporate officials, their advertising agencies and NFL officials.

Some of Procter & Gamble’s best known products include:  Tide detergent, Swiffer mop, Mr. Clean, Febreze, Duracell batteries, Downey, Gain, Cascade, Dawn and Bounty.

The Florida Family Association office sent emails to Procter and Gamble to inform them about Gillette and/or Head n’ Shoulder advertisements on Al Jazeera America on January 31, 2013, February 4, 2013, February 20, 2013, March 7, 2013, March 19, 2013, March 22, 2013, April 2, 2013, May 9, 2013, May 28, 2013, June 18, 2013, July 2, 2013, July 30, 2013, August 5, 2013, August 14, 2013, August 21, 2013 and August 26, 2013.  However, Gillette and Head n’ Shoulders advertisements continued to air.

Florida Family Association sent out email alerts on August 16 & 17, 2013 regarding Gillette’s advertising on Al Jazeera America.  FFA supporters sent thousands of emails to Procter & Gamble officials.  Gillette advertisements stopped airing on Al Jazeera America two days after the first email alert.

However, Gillette and Head n’ Shoulder advertisements resumed after Florida Family Association deactivated the email campaign.  Procter & Gamble is the ONLY MAJOR company advertising on Al Jazeera America.

Al Jazeera is a news company that is owned by a non-democratic, monarch styled emirate who does not afford citizens freedom of the press, espouses Islamic Sharia law, backs the leader of Hamas and supports the Muslim Brotherhood.  Al Jazeera, headquartered in the Middle East (Doha, Qatar), purchased the CurrentTV channel at the end of 2012 and officially changed its name to Al Jazeera America on August 20, 2013.

Procter & Gamble has the right to choose where they use their advertising dollars.  You have the same right to object and choose products from another company.   Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send to Procter and Gamble corporate officials, officials at the Grey Group which handles the advertising for Gillette Company, officials at Saatchi & Saatchi which is the advertising agency for the Head & Shoulders – Troy Polamalu ad and officials at the NFL, Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers.

To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also edit the subject or message text if you wish. Read more »

 

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PIP: Abbas: Meet Our Conditions, Then We Can Have Peace

PA Chairman tells university graduates in Jericho: Unless all our demands are met, there will not be a peace agreement with Israel.

Elad Benari

Israel’s “peace partner”, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has once again outright rejected an Israeli demand to ensure a peace agreement that does not harm its security.

In a speech on Sunday to graduates of a university in Jericho, Abbas also clarified that unless all of the PA’s demands are met, there will not be a peace agreement with Israel.

Abbas told the graduates that the eastern border of the State of Palestine along the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley will be with Jordan, thus essentially rejecting an Israeli demand for a special security arrangement in the Jordan Valley, that would allow IDF soldiers to remain in the region after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In the past, Abbas indicated his willingness to allow an international UN presence in a future Palestinian state, but stressed that not a single Israeli – civilian or soldier - will be allowed in “Palestine”.

Abbas also told the students that the current negotiations between Israel and the PA are intended to reach a two-state solution based on the borders that existed before June 4, 1967, end “the occupation”, bring about the realization of the independence of the State of Palestine whose capital is Jerusalem, and bring a settlement to all final status issues, including releasing PA Arab terrorists from Israeli jails.

“Unless all the demands and rights of our people are realized" there will not be an arrangement, he stressed.

The speech in Jericho is the latest example of Abbas saying one thing when he speaks in English to Western officials or to Israelis, then turning around and telling his own people the opposite in Arabic.

Most recently, members of the Israeli leftist party Meretz who met with Abbas claimed that the PA Chairman had reassured them that if a peace agreement is reached with Israel, it would bring an end to his people’s demands of the Jewish state. He also assured the Meretz members that the PA would give up its demand for the “right of return”, which would see millions of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 and their descendants flood Israel.

However, several days later an official statement from Abbas’s Fatah party made it clear that "the main goal of the negotiations with Israel is to establish an independent Palestinian state within the [pre-]1967 borders with its capital Al-Quds (Jerusalem -ed.), and the return of refugees in accordance with resolutions by international legitimate institutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.”

For years, the PA has demanded a state based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War. Israel refuses, as these borders, which were termed “Auschwitz borders” by the late former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, are indefensible and would guarantee its destruction.

Abbas agreed to resume negotiations with Israel in July after being pressured to do so by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Kerry asked both sides to keep the details of the negotiations secret in order to give the process a chance to work and, while Israeli officials have remain tight-lipped about the talks, PA officials have made several leaks to the press.

In the most recent leak, a PA official said that during the negotiations, Israel agreed to a wholesale deportation of thousands of Jews from Judea and Samaria and the transfer of their property to PA Arabs. However, the PA official who reported on that Israeli offer added that the PA side had rejected it as not going far enough.
In an earlier leak to the press, the PA's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told an Arabic radio station that the US has guaranteed the PA all of its key preconditions in advance of negotiations.

At the same time, PA officials have publicly stated that achieving peace with Israel was impossible, blaming the Jewish state and its “occupation” of Judea and Samaria for this.

Comment:  Why should Abbas agree to anything less than this demand? Note there have been no consequences for him, his team or his "people". Simply human psychology-a child misbehaving will not stop the behavior and certainly will not change the behavior until there are genuine consequences for the current behavior.  Who will do this-the mighty USA, the EU-no, we reward the aberrant behavior-it is this simple!

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Media Silent as Muslims Ethnically Cleanse 60,000 Christians in Philippines

Daniel Greenfield  


When thousands of Muslims become refugees, then you can’t get the media to shut up about it for weeks. Thousands of Muslim migrants invading Burma became “refugees” and the media has spent the better part of a year ranting about how evil the Buddhists are.

But when Muslim terrorists attack a Christian city creating tens of thousands of refugees, you couldn’t pay the media to cover the story, whether it’s in Syria, Egypt or closer to home in the Philippines.

Philippine troops have started to battle their way into coastal villages in the south where Muslim rebels have held scores of residents hostage in a six-day standoff, sparking fierce clashes that have killed 56 people and displaced more than 60,000, officials said Saturday.
President Benigno Aquino III said more firefights were expected but assured more than 62,000 displaced villagers being sheltered at a sports complex in Zamboanga city that the rebels’ capability to sow trouble has been degraded and the government was working to end the crisis soon.

Zamboanga is the 6th largest city in the country and 3/4 Christian and an obvious target for the MNLF Muslim terrorists (who are of course denying responsibility and blaming a rogue leader). It’s an obvious target because of its central influence in Mindanao. It’s the city that Muslims want. And it’s likely that the MNLF is finding shelter in the Muslim parts of the city.

Comment: I have been critical of the Western Christian community for several years.  I have asked repeatedly where is the outrage, where is the support for their fellow Christians? So many of these groups seemingly have taken positions antithetical to their Christian teachings, they have supported Islamists and blamed the Christians for self inflicting their difficulties. This is egregious at best and outright shameful at worst. History is repeating itself, we are experiencing an ideological war and yet for multiple reasons Christians are willing to stand down from their beliefs. The war arrived in America some time ago-this blog and others have fired the warnings; yet no one seems to be listening. No longer can you blame "not knowing" on the MSM-today's 24/7 news media with multiple delivery platforms provides the facts. To be uninformed is a choice.  It is a choice unworthy of you-time to step up to support your beliefs-the time is now!

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British commander to Post: Russian-US plan for Syria ‘not realistic’

YAAKOV LAPPIN

09/16/2013

Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Col. Richard Kemp, says Israel may be "the only reliable power in the region" and "only one the world can count on" to stop the Assad regime.

Children are seen in front of rising smoke from what activists said was Free Syrian Army fighters Photo: Reuters

 

The agreement reached between the US and Russia for the destruction of chemical weapons in the possession of the Assad regime is fraught with difficulty and danger and, in the best case scenario, would likely end up with a token show of disarmament, Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Speaking to the Post by phone, Kemp, who also served in the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee and Cabinet Office Briefing Room, said: “I think it’s extremely difficult to do something like this during an active conflict, during a war. I think it’ll take a very large amount of time, with a significant amount of military protection, so that the inspectors can be as safe as they can be. That aspect will present huge challenges. Which country, first of all, will provide the scientists who will take these risks and the military forces to back them up? It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Kemp observed that there is a wide variety of factions in Syria, including regime forces and jihadists, meaning that it would be difficult to send weapons inspectors to the country.


“Secondly, to get verification in this kind of situation, I would say, is impossible,” he stated. “It would be very easy for President Assad to hide or remove out of the country significant quantities of chemical weapons.

Crisis in Syria - full JPost.com coverage
What we might end up seeing is a token show of disarmament. I don’t think it is realistically feasible.”

In turn, it would end up harming regional – and global – security, the former military commander warned.

Assad’s position would be strengthened by a more positive international stance towards him, “combined with very active Russian support and American collusion with that support,” Kemp said. Iran’s position, too, would be strengthened significantly, he continued, as the value of American deterrence “appears to be degraded as a result of this, and Iran’s own position is obviously strengthened by what will be its closer relations with Russia.”

This spells bad news from Israel’s perspective, Kemp said, adding nonetheless that “Israel appears to be the only reliable power in the region. America’s power and American deterrence is reduced. Israel remains the one reliable power that the world can count on to intervene if the situation gets too dangerous.”
He noted the three times that Israel, according to foreign media reports, intervened in Syria to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons, and the alleged 2007 Israeli air strike on Syria’s nuclear project.

“It’s that sort of action we need to be prepared to do,” Kemp said. “If Israel hadn’t struck Syria’s nuclear project, the situation now could be very different. We could be trying to deal with nuclear-armed Syria, which would be an impossibility. Israel is showing itself to be the only reliable power.”

The UK and the US have, over the past few weeks, “demonstrated their complete lack of resolve to do the right thing when it’s needed. It’s all very well speaking and posturing, but when the chips are down and it’s time to put their money where their mouth is, both the UK and US have shown there’s no will,” he said, pointing to a negative effect on world security.

Public opinion in the UK and US is too focused on what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, “particularly, Iraq,” he added. “Many people are not able to look at this situation as a different situation to Iraq.”

In the UK, a wide part of public opinion is influenced by a fear of militant Islam and the desire to pursue short-term, low-risk goals, at the expense of ignoring wider risks, Kemp said.

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"Who Are They Kidding?"

I knew before going into Yom Kippur that a US-Russian deal for disarming Syria would be reached in Geneva while I and fellow Jews were observing Yom Kippur.  And so the news I picked up last night did not take me by surprise.  But it did sadden me immeasurably.

 

Thus do I ask: Does ANYONE really believe this deal is serious?  

 

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Clearly, Obama likes the deal because it gets him off the hook with regard to having to bomb Syria.  Which says nothing about a genuine commitment on his part to make the world safer. 

 

The fact that he was able to say yesterday that the international community expects Syria to "live up to its public commitments" to hand over its chemical weapons shows how unserious he is.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/15/obama-praises-deal-with-russia-on-syria-but-cautions-that-work-remains/#ixzz2exp7XzfY

 

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There is less than zero reason to believe that Assad will live up to any commitment regarding his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.  Anyone who is familiar with Assad's MO -- his utter ruthlessness and his disregard for truth -- understands this.  But there is, as well, concrete evidence as to how Assad is already playing it:

 

Last Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported that an "elite" Syrian unit -- "Unit 450-a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center that manages the regime's overall chemical weapons program" has been moving the stock of weapons around for months now, with material located in as many as 50 different sites.   

 

Until a year ago, the chemicals were stored in a few major sites in western Syria. But then Unit 450 began dispersing them to a couple dozen major sites and many smaller ones in all part of the country.  The US tracks Unit 450 vehicles by satellite, but tracking is imperfect. Acknowledged one US official, "We know a lot less than we did six months ago about where the chemical weapons are." (Emphasis added)

 

This unit, "from janitor to commander" is composed of Alawites and is absolutely loyal to Assad, to whom it reports directly.  The members of the unit are responsible not only for manufacturing and deploying the weapons, they also guard the sites where they are stored.  Their devotion to Assad's purposes makes it close to impossible to compromise them.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324755104579071330713553794?mg=reno64-wsj.html?dsk=y

 

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It would be difficult not to ponder whether there might have been a correlation between Obama's red line on Syrian use of chemical weapons and Assad's order to disperse those weapons more extensively -- timing seems to dovetail.  And then, there is the question of why the US -- tracking this dispersal -- didn't act at that very moment, when it was obvious that Assad's intentions were, shall we say, less then peaceful and forthright. 

 

But that's all water under the bridge...

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

I have picked up reports that some of Assad's weapons have been moved into Iraq, and some possibly into Lebanon, for Hezbollah:

 

"The Syrian regime has begun transferring its chemical weapons to neighboring countries to deceive U.N. inspectors, the anti-Syrian Lebanese daily al-Mustaqbal claimed on Sunday, a day after Russia and the U.S. announced a new agreement aimed at destroying Syria's chemical weapon arsenal.

"According to the paper, some 200 Syrian trucks were loaded with chemical-warfare-related equipment and were then sent to Iraq. The paper reported that the trucks arrived in Iraq on Thursday and Friday and were not inspected by border guards as they entered." 

 

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=11987

 

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According to Chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Avigdor Lieberman, speaking to Voice of Israel radio today, Israel has no information to confirm Syrian rebel claims that the Assad regime has sent chemical weapons to Iraq.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/liberman-no-confirmation-that-assad-sent-poison-gas-to-iraq/2013/09/15/
What especially fascinates me is that Free Syrian Army (FSA) spokesman Luai Al-Mekdad told Asharq Al-Awsat news (London) that Assad still plans to send such weapons to Iraq: he is "returning the Iraqi chemical arsenal, which Saddam Hussein had sent to Syria before the 2003 Iraq War." (Emphasis added)
This would be a confirmation of what I have always been convinced of: It was not true that the Bush administration was mistaken with regard to Saddam Hussein's possession of WMD -- they weren't found because he sent them to Syria.
How obvious, then, that Assad would follow Saddam's example, and move his weapons, or some part of his stockpiles, where they cannot be accessed by inspectors.
Al-Mekdad says Hezbollah also will be receiving WMD from Assad soon, and will be storing them in the Bekka Valley, near Syria.

~~~~~~~~~~

 

The charge regarding movement of weaponry to Lebanon -- on which I have no confirmation as I write -- would be the most disconcerting and is something to be watched with exceeding care. 

 

The concern is two fold: First, putting such weapons into the terrorist hands of Hezbollah means they might be used anywhere in the world.  Hezbollah is an world-wide terrorist operative. 

 

And then, this would be crossing Israel's very clear and oft-stated red line.  Either this information is incorrect or Israel must hit.  That is something Obama would not want to see happen now, as he's "solving" the problem without military action. And so it would require Netanyahu to order that attack in the face of American objections.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Putin clearly likes the agreement because it puts him in charge, makes a fool of his rival/adversary Obama, and protects his client Assad.  A fantastic situation for him. 

 

And that Assad is happy because he will not be attacked and expects to get away with a great deal is a given.

 

But what of the people? The people of Syria who have been hit with these weapons, and of surrounding regions that might yet be hit?  What of the wider Western world and the implications of pretending that all is well when it is not?

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

The deal was announced yesterday in Geneva by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

 

Credit: Reuters

 

The first stage of the "deal" requires Assad to make declaration within a week to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of all of his WMD and their location.  The OPCW will (as necessary) then report to the UN. 

 

A note of explanation:  the OPCW is the international organization, located in the Hague, that monitors compliance on the Chemical Weapons Convention.  At Russian urging, Syria has signed the Convention and will become a member of the OPCW in 30 days.  If Assad must make declaration within a week, this is before Syria's membership in OPCW has become operative.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

The Obama administration is claiming the declaration of his chemical weapon arsenal is a first "litmus test" of Assad's willingness to cooperate.

 

But wait just a second.  The US is saying Assad has "about" or "at least" 1,000 tons of chemical weapons.  Suppose they have 1,005 tons of such weaponry and account for 1,000 tons.  Five tons of chemical weapons can do a whole lot of human damage.  But how will the US or the OPCW know what is being held back -- especially as the material is so far scattered and intelligence is imprecise?

 

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By November, all sites that have been declared by Assad are to be inspected, and all production equipment destroyed.  By the middle of 2014, all chemical weapons are to be destroyed.

 

Kerry calls this "ambitious."  I call it impossible. A joke. 

 

All responsible experts whose opinions I've encountered say this operation, even if successful, would take years. There is a huge (humungous) amount of chemical material and equipment to contend with -- some of which would be moved out of Syria before being destroyed. 

 

And I would remind my readers that the civil war has not stopped and inspectors and other officials from OPCW would have to work in a dangerous environment that requires considerable security back up at some 50 different sites.

 

According to the agreement:

"The Russian Federation and the United States will work together closely, including with the OPCW, the UN and Syrian parties to arrange for the security of the monitoring and destruction mission, noting the primary responsibility of the Syrian government in this regard." (Emphasis added)
Understand: they are counting on Assad to provide security for the crews that will inspect and destroy his chemical weapons, while he continues to fight the rebels. And, the underlying assumption here is that he will willing cooperate in this regard and that his 450 unit forces will stand back. 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

There will be UN Security Council involvement at some level, but this seems amorphous in the agreement, with Russia still resisting anything in the way of major enforcement or punitive measures.  Russia is going to watch out for Assad to the best of its ability.

 

You can see the text of the agreement here:  http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=61890

 

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Obama is still claiming that the US will hit Syria if this falls apart.  Count me as exceedingly dubious.  Russia is resisting this, and did from the very beginning, saying that success depends upon no threats. Last week, Assad told Russian state television that he will only cooperate if the US stopped threatening him. (See the NY Sun article below for more on this.) 

 

Today Syrian Minister Ali Haidar told Moscow's RIA news agency: "These agreements ... are a victory for Syria, achieved thanks to our Russian friends."

 

http://news.yahoo.com/u-russia-agree-syria-weapons-obama-says-force-053226538.html

 

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The New York Sun is comparing what Obama has done with the 1938 appeasement at Munich (emphasis added):

 

The agreement between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Federation makes the Obama administration a partner of not only President Putin but also of President Al-Assad of Syria. The idea is that the Syrian will
destroy his chemical weapons, which the Kremlin helped him acquire, and accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention. In return - according to the Washington Post - the Obama administration may have agreed not only lay off a military attack but to forbear from bringing Mr. Al-Assad before the World Court."

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/imbeciles/88412/

 

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Faoud Ajami, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, is a savvy observer of the political scene.  I want to share with you what he has to say -- with astuteness and considerable insight -- about Obama's conduct, in "Obama Is Lost in the Mideast Bazaar" (emphasis added):

 

"There is a trick in the great labyrinthine bazaars of the Middle East: petty hucksters luring the vacationing  franjis into the market maze and then getting paid to lead them out. As dusk looms, the unnerved outsider is always glad to be steered to familiar surroundings. In the matter of Syria, and America's staggeringly inept diplomacy, Vladimir Putin is the clever trickster who has seized upon an unsuspecting prey...

 

"The survival of the Syrian regime was a 'red line' for the Russian ruler—a true red line. The dictatorship in Damascus had been forged four decades ago, when Soviet power was on the rise. Syrian armies and factories, the intelligence services and the architecture, were all in the Soviet mold. The sun may have set on the old Soviet empire, but on the shores of the Mediterranean, with a derelict naval base in Tartus waiting to be revived, Syria offered Russia the consolation that it could still play the game of the great powers. In the Syrian mirror, Mr. Putin sees a version of his own battle with Chechen insurgents.

 

"Now it is dusk, and the hapless Barack Obama has lost his old swagger.  He had feigned intimacy with 'the East,' he had thought he was at ease with that big Islamic world. Instead, he was befuddled by what awaited him, and now he finds himself at the mercy of a Russian skilled in the ruses of the bazaar...

 

"Mr. Putin has an eye for the fecklessness of the democracies.  He knew that the Obama administration, seized with panic, would take the bait he offered: custody of Syria's chemical weapons in return for giving the Damascus regime a new lease on life.

 

"We are war-weary, Mr. Obama intones repeatedly. He was elected to end wars, not to start them, the president reminds us. But none of our leaders—certainly not the ones who mattered, who answered the call of history—was elected to start wars.

 

"We anoint our leaders to rid us of our weariness when resolve is called for, to draw for us the connection between our security and menaces at a seeming far remove. The leaders of the past two decades who sent American forces to Bosnia, to Kosovo, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, were not thirsting for foreign wars. These leaders located America, and its interests, in the world. Pity the Syrians, they rose up in the time of Barack Obama."

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579070802007714622.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

And then, a biting Mark Steyn, also astute but with a very different tone, on "American Ineffectualism" (emphasis added):

 

Steyn begins his piece by writing about an op-ed Vladimir Putin did in the NY Times, in which he "warned against chest-thumping about 'American exceptionalism'"...

 

"Charles Crawford, Britain’s former ambassador in Serbia and Poland, called last Monday 'the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began.' Obama set it in motion at a press conference last year by drawing his famous 'red line'...Obama doesn’t interact enough with the press for it to become normal or real. So at this rare press conference he was, as usual, playing a leader who’s giving a press conference. The 'red line' line sounds like the sort of thing a guy playing a president in a movie would say.  It never occurred to him that out there in the world beyond the Republic of Cool he’d set an actual red line and some dime-store dictator would cross it with impunity... 

 

"...In the Obama era, to modify Teddy Roosevelt, America chatters unceasingly and carries an unbelievably small stick. In this, the wily Putin saw an opening, and offered a 'plan' so absurd that even Obama’s court eunuchs in the media had difficulty swallowing it. A month ago, Assad was a reviled war criminal and Putin his arms dealer. Now, Putin is the honest broker and Obama’s partner for peace, and the war criminal is at the negotiating table with his chances of survival better than they’ve looked in a year.

 

"Putin has pulled off something incredible: He’s gotten Washington to anoint him as the international community’s official peacemaker, even as he assists Iran in going nuclear and keeping their blood-soaked Syrian client in his presidential palace. Already, under the 'peace process,' Putin and Assad are running rings around the dull-witted Kerry, whose Botoxicated visage embodies all too well the expensively embalmed state of the superpower...

 

"As for Putin’s American-exceptionalism crack, he was attacking less the concept than Obama’s opportunist invocation of it as justification for military action in Syria. Nevertheless, Democrats and Republicans alike took the bait...Marco Rubio insisted...at National Review Online that America was still, like, totally exceptional.

"Sorry, this doesn’t pass muster even as leaden, staffer-written codswallop. It’s not the time — not when you’re a global joke, not when every American ally is cringing with embarrassment at the amateurishness of the last month. Nobody, friend or foe, wants to hear about American exceptionalism when the issue is American ineffectualism..."

 

http://m.nationalreview.com/article/358480/american-ineffectualism-mark-steyn  (With thanks to Barbara O.)

 

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At a memorial for the Yom Kippur War on Friday, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that what mattered with regard to Syria were not words but deeds.  If Syria can actually be stripped of its WMD, then that would be wonderful.

 

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171916

 

Very quickly, Netanyahu drew the parallel with Iran.  Today Kerry paid a quick visit, which was devoted primarily to briefing the prime minister on the situation with Syria. At the press conference that followed their meeting, Netanyahu said (emphasis added):

"The world needs to ensure that radical regimes don't have weapons of mass destruction because, as we've learned once again in Syria, if rogue regimes have weapons of mass destruction they will use them...
"If diplomacy has any chance to work it must be coupled with a credible military threat. What is true of... Syria is true of Iran."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4429942,00.html
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Kerry's visit, which had been scheduled some days ago, was supposed to provide an opportunity to "discuss" the "peace negotiations," but Syria seems to have trumped this as the main focus of discussion.  We must be grateful for small favors. 
Anticipation had been that Kerry was coming to pressure Netanyahu in order to achieve the semblance of a diplomatic success -- but now he's touting the agreement with Russia as a success.  He made all sorts of tough noises about the fact that the US means it and might still attack.  Which is, in essence what Netanyahu was responding to with a "show me, don't tell me," sort of message.
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And what do you know:  In an interview today on ABC. Obama said that the US threat to Syria, which transitioned to a diplomatic solution, signaled to Iran a possible solution. 
He believed, he said, that the situation with Syria increased US deterrence power. 
This is amazing poppycock. How does he have the nerve to say this?
The world knew he was looking for a way to back out of attacking, and knew that he could have attacked without Congressional approval and did not.  That, as I've described above, he grabbed the Russian deal out of panic.  Iran watched all of this. 
"They shouldn't draw a lesson ... to think we won't strike Iran [but] there is the potential of resolving these issues diplomatically."
Translation: See Iran, I'm talking tough. Be afraid. And then let's resolve things without military action. 
For the first time, in this interview, the president confirmed that he had corresponded with Iranian President Hassan Rohani.  So he's into the "diplomatic track" now. 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4429959,00.html
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And sure enough, the Iranians, seeing their opening have lost no time in responding:
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said today in an interview with Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen, which is Hezbollah-affiliated: "We are suffering from lack of mutual trust with the US," but we are willing to "build trust with the United States" on the issue of the Iranian nuclear program, which was "established for peaceful purposes."
Zarif wants the US to "present a genuine desire for peace and stop using the language of threats."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4430042,00.htmlThis is nauseating. But how will Obama respond?  Will he promote some picture of Iran turning more conciliatory because he talked tough?
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