Iran: February 2009 Archives

The Twelfth Imam is no respecter of hopeandchange (via Newsmax Insider):

Iran’s launch of a satellite into orbit indicates that the Islamic Republic has the missile technology to target Western Europe once it acquires a nuclear weapon, a top Israeli official warns.

The satellite, called Omid or “Hope,” was launched early in the week using an Iranian-made Safir-2 rocket, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. A [Obam]agon official confirmed the launch.

“You need specific and added energy when firing a satellite that weighs between thirty and fifty kilograms [sixty-six and one hundred ten pounds],” Major General. Isaac Ben-Israel, former head of the Israel Space Agency, told the Jerusalem Post.

“If they succeeded, then the equivalent within the atmosphere is firing a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead that weighs one ton all the way to Western Europe.”

[Obam]agon spokesman Geoff Morrell echoed that fear, the Boston Globe reported.

“The technology that is used to get this satellite into orbit . . . is one that could also be used to propel long-range ballistic missiles,” he said.

And Uzi Rubin, a former Israeli defense official, said in an interview, “Once someone has the ability to launch something into space, it can in fact reach every place on the face of...[E]arth.”

The Iranian media stated that Omid is a telecommunications research satellite that will transmit data while orbiting [E]arth fifteen times a day. Tehran insists the satellite technology is only for peaceful purposes, such as the gathering of environmental data.

But U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood called the satellite launch “a matter of great concern.”

Ben-Israel said Israel has only a one-year window in which to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack urged the U.N. Security Council to tighten sanctions on Iran because “time is running out.”

Britain, meanwhile, is prepared to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran, Foreign Office Minister of State Bill Rammell told a parliament committee on Wednesday.

According to Reuters, Rammell also said London has been sending a “very strong message” to British banks and companies about the “undesirability of investing in Iran.”

I wonder, assuming there's enough of us left to look back on it and there's a Western civilization from which to look, if the clarity of hindsight will lay bare just how thoroughly and completely the USSSA, Europe, and even Israel deluded themselves about the Iranian mullahgarchy's true nuclear intentions and what it would take to pre-empt them.  I read stories like the aforequoted and it couldn't be any clearer that Tehran is building nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them on Israeli, European, and American targets.  And I keep reading the lame-assed responses of Foggy Bottom and its feckless EU and Israeli counterparts - expressions of "great concern," impotent appeals to the Islamist-dominated, Jew-hating, America-bashing United Nations, "strong messages" utterly unbacked by the only kind of strength the mullahs will ever take seriously.

The fact of the matter is that we had a window of opportunity to "disarm" the mullahs after Operation Iraqi Freedom.  That window started closing after 2006 and it slammed shut last November.  Now there is no chance - none - to avoid a nuclear war with Iran, and whichever other of their rogue friends want to join the atomic party.  Only question is when and how.

Well, okay, and will the EUnuchs start getting serious about pre-emption now that they are within the mullahgarchy's nuclear reach?

I wish I could see the expression on Red Barry's face when he gets the Ayahtollahs' ulimatum.  It'll probably be the first time in his misbegotten, mongrel life that he'll be rendered speechless.

One of the most unsung and underappreciated accomplisments of the Bush Administration was that they succeeded in preventing any sequels to 9/11 on American soil or against U.S. interests anywhere else in the world for over seven years.  One of the most unsung and underappreciated - and, yes, greatest - vice presidents in American history went out of his way to tell the Politico just exactly why there were no such sequels, and what will happen if that package of counter-terror policies is ousted in favor of a return to the weak-assed policies that gave us the Khobar Towers attack, the '98 African embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, and 9/11 in the first place:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is blasting the fledgling administration of Barack Obama, arguing that its policies dealing with terrorism and international foes are naïve and dangerous, making it all the more likely that terrorists will succeed in their next attempt at killing Americans, according to a report in Politico.

Simply by closing Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp for terrorists, Cheney said, Obama inadvertently will aid enemies eager to make another attack on the United States. Another major attack on this country — perhaps even using biological or nuclear materials — is very likely in the next few years, Cheney said.

“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt,” Cheney said. “Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”

As with the economic "stimulus" BS, this facts of this issue are not debatable.  A weak, conciliatory, pacifistic, reactive, "law enforcement" approach to the war on terror emboldens and strengthens Islamist terrorists and their state sponsors, like Iran, who are building nuclear weapons, and breeds ever more direct and horrific attacks.  We saw it throughout the Clinton years, culminating in the 9/11 attacks.  Whereas treating it as a war, launching military campaigns of liberation against terror-supporting states (Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom), and taking the tough, hardheaded, realistic homeland security steps necessary to prevent terrorist infiltration (Patriot Act) and communication (NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program) and financing (SWIFT program), prevents major attacks and neutralizes transnational terror networks like al Qaeda, like Hezbollah, like Hamas, as anything other than minor, local nuisances.

Big Time summed it up thusly:

“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy....

“If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”

Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”

No attacks against the U.S. at home or abroad since 9/11.   It is undeniable.  And when we get hit again even worse - a plague attack in Houston, a radiological attack in Chicago, a suitcase nuke in Washington, D.C., a mass conventional subway bombing in New York - it will be as a direct result of Barack Obama returning to the weak, conciliatory, pacifistic, reactive, "law enforcement" approach to the war on terror that raised al Qaeda to the level of national security threat in the first place.

And unlike President Bush, who never publicly blamed his predecessor (even though Sick Willie was very much to blame) but set about the business of making sure such an attack never happened again on his watch, you can count on Red Barry doing just the opposite to try and save his worthless political ass while We, The People bury our dead - and prepare for sequels.

It appears Red Barry didn't take any stray history courses along with this constitutional law major (via Newsmax Insider):

In his interview with a Saudi-owned TV channel on Tuesday, President Barack Obama referred to “an illusionary past” in the Muslim world that was in fact plagued by turmoil, a leading Middle Eastern expert declared.

Amir Taheri, in a New York Post column headlined “Pathetic Message,” said Obama “looked to the past rather than the future” when he told an Al-Arabiya interviewer he wanted a return to “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as twenty or thirty years ago.”

But thirty years ago, Taheri noted, American diplomats were being held hostage in Iran, Soviet troops were seeking to annex Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein was preparing to invade Iran, Saudi Arabia was under siege by Muslim militants, and Syrian troops were preparing to invade Lebanon.

Iranian-born Taheri, whose books include Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism, wrote in the Post that “other features of this ‘golden age’” were “the seizure of power by mullahs in Tehran, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the coming to power of communists in the Horn of Africa, the military coup in Turkey, the first Islamist terror attacks in Algeria, unprecedented waves of repression in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the imposition of military rule in Pakistan.”

Twenty years ago saw the U.S. arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, Iraq gassing thousands of Kurds and preparing to invade Kuwait, Iranian mullahs arming Hezbollah units in Lebanon, Turkey launching all-out attacks on Kurdish secessionists, and the Libyan terror network killing American soldiers in Europe and blowing up U.S. jets.

Meanwhile Obama offered only “trite” remarks regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and did not offer any support “to democratic forces facing crucial elections in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Algeria,” observed Taheri, who has written for more than two dozen publications around the world.

“Nor was there any nod toward reformers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.”

Obama sought to portray himself as a “bridge” between the U.S. and the Muslim world, according to Taheri, who added:

“Casting himself in the role of a ‘bridge’ and dreaming of a return to an illusionary past, Obama appeared unsure of his own identity and confused about the role that America should play in global politics.”

Oh, piffle, Mr. Taheri.  B.O. isn't confused or unsure of his identity; he's a Marxist and damn proud of it.  And Marxists live in their own demented reality and demand that everybody else live there as well.  His ideology dictates that America is the focus of evil in the modern world and thus does not have a role to play in global politics other than to perish.  Only when the modern American state withers away and all its power and wealth gets redistributed to the rest of the world will Mother Earth and human civilization have a chance to truly flourish - and "respect and partnership" with the Muslim world along with it.

It's the same neurotic, self-loathing, anti-nationalist dementia that ruled Jimmy Carter's thinking and cost us Iran in the first place, and nearly got us conquered by the old Soviet Union.  It's now simply being mouthed by Mr. Peanut's darker, suaver, and even more ignorant philosophical descendant - and before we can get rid of him in 2012, it will produce similar - or even worse - results.

The first inkling of which came wafting out of Tehran late last week:

State Department officials have been drafting a presidential letter to be sent to the supreme leader of Iran, offering significant U.S. concessions to the Iranian leadership, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday.

One draft of the letter reportedly includes assurances that the United States does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime and will not support opposition groups operating in the border regions with Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Iraq.

In his first sit-down television interview since taking office, President Obama told the Arabic-language al-Arabiya Network on Monday that he planned to fulfill his campaign promise of changing U.S. policies toward Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated that commitment on Tuesday, telling reporters in Washington, “There is a clear opportunity for the Iranians, as the president expressed in his interview, to demonstrate some willingness to engage meaningfully with the international community.”

But among Iran’s power elite, the make-nice diplomacy has been given a chilly reception.

Speaking to supporters in western Kermanshah province on Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cautiously welcomed Obama’s offer to “change” the dynamic of U.S-Iranian relations, then put a price on the type of “change” he expects from Washington that undoubtedly even the Obama White House would find unacceptable.

Calling Obama’s rhetoric “good words,” he warned that the U.S. could offer “fundamental change,” including a “reorientation” of its policies toward Iran and the Middle East, or merely a “tactical” change in approach.

A tactical change in the language the United States government uses toward Iran, such as abandoning the Bush Administration’s epithet “axis of evil” when referring to the Iranian regime, was mere “political rhetoric and tricks,” he said.

But Iran would welcome fundamental change, Ahmadinejad said. "The U.S. government must end its military presence in the world, which means the U.S. getting all their troops together and bringing them back to the U.S. to serve America within the territorial boundaries of the country.”

Fundamental change also would mean that the United States “should stop narcotics production in Afghanistan,” and “not intervene in internal affairs of other nations,” he said.

Ahmadinejad also demanded that the United States cut off support for Israel, “these rootless, uncultured, illegal, phony, murderous, killers of women of children, killers of babies, the Zionists.”

Finally, he demanded that the United States “apologize to the Iranian nation and compensate [it] for their crimes against the Iranians.”

More crazy rantings from Adolph The Younger?  Crazy like a fox, perhaps.  As I've written many times before, it never occurs to most people, and certainly not to Ameriphobic pacifists like Red Barry, that blowhard dictators may just mean exactly what they say.  Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, setting forth is blueprint for global war and conquest as well as the Holocaust, and nobody took it seriously.  All the evidence pointed toward his being a monster, but weakling Western fool pols like Neville Chamberlain and Eduard Daladier simply chose to believe instead in comforting myths that he was a "reasonable man" with whom they could "do business."  Sixty million human beings, a tenth of them Jews, had to pay the ultimate price for their criminal foreign policy negligence.

And now, it seems, the time for criminal foreign policy negligence has come 'round yet again.  Never mind that Ahmadinejad is the mouthpiece of the mullahgarchy's Guardian Council, the face of the Islamic regime they send out to speak for them to the world.  Never mind that he has never stopped, including in the aforequote, demanding the extermination of Israel.  If the Ayahtollahs didn't have genocidal intentions toward Europe, Israel, and the United States in particular, it's difficult to see why they'd send him out as their frontman.  Never mind that either.  King Hussein's ideology casts America as the eternal devil and the crook, murderer, and thug regimes of the world arming themselves to the teeth with WMDs as its poor, helpless victims in desperate need of "diplomacy" and "friendship" and "significant concessions".  And the Iranian reaction is to up the ante of "peace in our time" believing, quite unremarkably, that Barack Obama will do ANYTHING to get that piece of paper to wave around grinningly at the obligatory Rose Garden ceremony.

George W. Bush's biggest failure was to refrain from liberating Iran as he did Iraq and thus finish the war that the mullahs started when they stormed our embassy thirty years ago and that bin Laden escalated on 9/11.  Germany and Japan did not become close democratic allies and upstanding members of the industrialized West until they first were smashed by American military power beyond any possibility of deluding themselves that they had not, in fact, lost World War II utterly and completely.  Iraq is a stablizing democracy today for precisely the same reason.  But the larger "Muslim world," and particularly the terror regimes in Tehran and Damascus, remained undefeated and unengaged, and until that situation changes and changes decisively, the war on terror cannot be won.

Last November 4th, sixty-eight million Americans chose to quit the war and hope that Red Barry can wave his magic wand and make them like us.  No more overt and unmistakable signal could ever have been sent to the terror masters that no matter how devastatingly they attack us, no matter how many American civilians they massacre, and no matter how pulverizing the American counterattack, they will always be able to outlast us until they can ultimately destroy us.

That day of reckoning will not be long in coming.  False Messiah reels it ever closer every time he opens his big, fat mouth.

Check out this post over at Powerline for a perfect summation of Obama's disastrous foreign policy. He's already being mocked by Iran's government spokesman:

US President Barack Obama's offer to talk to Iran shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday. "This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

"Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change," he added.

This surprises no one except Obama's faithful disciples, who rocketed him to the Presidency based on the color of his skin. Period. What was the term Colin Powell used? Oh yes, "electrifying." Well, Mr. Powell, is this what you had in mind? As a military man and someone supposedly well versed on foreign policy, does this surprise you? DId you honestly think when you gave Barack Obama that boost right before the election, that he really was man enough to stand up to tyrants like Ahmadinejad? Or were you just looking for some face time on T.V.? This is the most unforgivable to me. I think Powell and others like him KNEW that Obama couldn't handle the job, but just like Democrats, put themselves above the safety of the nation. And Lieberman? I have nothing but contempt for the man. He tried to sound like he would stand on principle against the Democrats during their unwavering assault on America's security in the name of power, but where is he now? Yup. Still caucusing with the Democrats. Empty words, empty souls. They make me sick.

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

-Abigail Adams