The inevitable followup to Clinton's own timeline walk down, which was the inevitable followup to her walk down on "crippling sanctions." Keep in mind that France is probably the most hard line P5+1 country on Iran, and feast your eyes on the "strong sticks" that Obama is bringing to bear on the mullahs:

A United Nations resolution on new sanctions against Iran may not be ready until June and if a vote on it fails, European states could take unilateral measures instead, French and Finnish ministers said on Sunday. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France remained determined to get UN backing for sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program, but indicated that the support of Russia and China among the five permanent Security Council members was some way off... "Before June I hope, but who am I to hope or decide," he said, pointing out that France had originally hoped to get a UN sanctions package prepared in February, when it was chairing the Security Council

You know what's weird? A few weeks ago when it seemed like China was unmovable - and that military action was the only option - a rush of articles and statements came out saying the exact opposite. The AFP headlined with "Chances good for China to yield on Iran sanctions: experts," suggesting that Beijing wouldn't risk isolation over Iran. Reuters found their own experts to say the same thing. Then a month later British officials also said the exact same thing. But here we are and here China is still blocking any kind of robust restrictions regime, just like they've always done.

The WH is desperately trying to pretend that Obama's super-keen "strong sticks" profundity was something other than empty bluster. So maybe carve out a trade exemption for China so they'll symbolically affirm a broader hard line policy? Nope. How about unilateral action against Western companies that do business with Iran? Nope. It turns out that biting sanctions are politically impossible and roundabout sanctions are pragmatically unworkable. Even if Iran couldn't use states like Brazil to avoid restrictions - and they certainly can - the US can't even stop itself from funding sanctions-busting US firms. How are we going to enforce an international regime?

Meanwhile the Iranian nuclear program continues to roll ahead, soon to be protected by an upgraded air defense system. You can tell that we're nearing the point of no return. The Iran experts who used to insist that the mullahs had neither the political will nor the technical means for weaponization are now saying that Iran can be contained. Even Brzezinski agrees, and if anyone's good at reading the mullahs it's the guy who lost Iran to political Islam. Some experts have even explained - at length - why an Iranian bomb would be a great idea. Very sophisticated!

But not to worry, because their Iran expert friends think that China's about to get on board an effective sanctions regime. Any day now.

References and related after the jump...

David Gerstman sent me this IHT op-ed a few days ago, along with an acerbic comment about how photographs posted on MR the week before had pre-relegated it to the "utter anti-Israel bullshit" pile (my language, not David's). The author is Michael Martin, foreign minister of the multicultural paradise that is Ireland:

Last week I visited Gaza... to see for myself the impact of a blockade that has now been imposed on the people of Gaza for some two-and-a-half years and to meet with the courageous and dedicated staff of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including its director of operations, Irishman John Ging... the deprivations and hardships resulting from the blockade were all too evident. Visiting an UNRWA food distribution center, I could see for myself the despair and suffering etched in the faces of those who queued for the most basic rations of rice, milk powder and sunflower oil... UNRWA is encountering increasing levels of abject poverty where people basically do not have enough food, even with their meager food allocations, to live.

The tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis... One can imagine how hard it is not to give in to despair and hopelessness... what was most impressive and heartening during my visit was the resilience and incredible dignity of ordinary people. In particular, I want to mention two young girls whom I met during a visit to the UNRWA girls' preparatory school in Rafah... I was similarly struck by what I heard from a business group at the Karni industrial park. This group of predominantly young businessmen and women graphically described the devastation that has been wrought on the private sector in Gaza, an economy that is now only operating at some 10-15 percent of capacity.

In no particular order: Gaza's economy has been booming for years, the "no food" canard is especially dishonest, pretending that Hamas allows Gaza women to have business careers is risible, the Gaza private sector is financially overwhelmed by Hamas and Fatah public employers using Iranian and US funds, the UN has at times imposed its own blockade on Gaza, and whatever humanitarian crisis does exist is deliberately manufactured by Hamas. But that's not what we're here to discuss.

What we're here to discuss is how the Canadians - who as a nation have never met an anti-Israel NGO they didn't want to subsidize - have cut off UNRWA's funding because it's a cesspool of incitement and corruption. The Obama administration? Exactly the opposite:

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric P. Schwartz welcomed Filippo Grandi, recently appointed Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), to Washington DC on March 11, 2010, and announced that the U.S. will make an additional planned contribution of $55 million to UNRWA. The United States is UNRWA's largest donor. The announced contribution of $55 million includes $30 million to UNRWA's General Fund, which provides core services to Palestinian refugees across the region, and $25 million to UNRWA's Emergency Appeal for the West Bank and Gaza. This additional funding will bring total U.S contributions to UNRWA thus far in Fiscal Year 2010 to $95 million. In 2009, the United States provided more than $267 million to UNRWA.

UNRWA's 60th birthday party in 2009 - yes, they're now caring for 5th generation "refugees" - became a major fund raising event. Not enough! The UN says they need $100 million more for this year. And really, how can you not give them additional money? In between covering up Hamas's aid supply hijacking and fabricating Israeli attacks on schools - well, they get things done:

Noah Pollak already wrote the measured and reasoned version of this post yesterday so pretty much all that's left for me is vitriol. It's worth emphasizing, then, the unblinking, unthinking hypocrisy that this administration hides behind when they get called out on their Allies Last Enemies First diplomacy. A verifiable mix-up...

It was self-evident that Netanyahu's "stupidity not malice" explanation for Ramat Shlomo was accurate. Just days earlier, he had moved effectively to shut down Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's incendiary plan to demolish dozens of Arab homes in Silwan. And yet, acting doubtless on the orders of her president, she resorted to what the ADL - no hysterical critic of the Obama administration - termed "gross overreaction."

... constitutes a mortal "insult" to Secretary Clinton. But Assad and Ahmadinejad standing side by side and actually literally insulting her by name?

Which part of the new "positive, constructive U.S.-Syrian relationship" involves having the US Secretary of State getting publicly mocked by grinning totalitarian thugs? "President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital... "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said. "I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added. Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria." He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies.""

Suffice to say that our outreach to Syria continues apace.

Also apropos of this nonsense, you should check out the NY Sun editorial on Clinton's credibility as she heads into AIPAC. It turns out that the woman who smooched blood libeler Suha Arafat before becoming pro-Israel before becoming mildly anti-Israel before detonating the US-Israeli alliance - it turns out that she actually has a history of strong Arab financial connections. Strange, that.

For what its worth Shmuel Rosner thinks she'll get plenty of applause. Presumably he imagines that she'll mouth empty banalities - "Israel's security" etc etc - and that the crowd will pretend to believe her. I think he's wrong. I think she'll go in there talking about how Israel's future requires concessions - "difficult choices" etc etc - and that she'll be greeted by stony silence.

Then I think that anti-Israel journalists will muse sophisticatedly about how Obama had to rough up Israel because "Netanyahu's intransigence" was stymieing the President's vigorous appeasement of the Muslim world (my language, not theirs). In between they'll gloat about how the all-powerful Israel Lobby has been cut down, which after all is what Jesse Jackson promised Obama would do.

References and related after the jump...

This is the second time in as many weeks that the State Department has, for reasons that are largely unfathomable, unilaterally taken an anti-Iran option off the table. Two Wednesdays ago Clinton told Al-Arabiya that military action wasn't even a consideration, which had the predictable effect of emboldening the mullahs. Now comes this announcement, which basically tells Tehran they don't have anything to fear from sanctions. Wonderful.

Remember during the election, when Obama's surrogates wouldn't shut up about "strong sticks and strong carrots"? The original liberal tagline was actually "real sticks and real carrots" but apparently "strong" focused better than "real" so that's what we got. Dennis Ross was even dispatched to reassure Jewish voters that the era of "weak sticks and weak carrots" was over. Then after the election Clinton went to the Hill and - trying to reassure Congresspeople who were nervous about Obama's appeasement - she explicitly promised to mobilize "crippling" international sanctions if outreach failed.

Nope:

The United States said on Thursday it does not aim to impose crippling sanctions on Iran but rather to pressure the Iranian government to change course on its nuclear program while protecting ordinary people. "It is not our intent to have crippling sanctions that have... a significant impact on the Iranian people," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters. "Our actual intent is... to find ways to pressure the government while protecting the people."

On the plus side, this is more honest than the last few months' of spin. Obama doesn't have the means to establish a robust international sanctions regime, even if he wanted to. The Iranians knew that and bragged about it. The pretense of credible sticks was meant for American audiences, the better to buy Obama breathing room for ever more engagement. Just because previous efforts had drawn humiliating responses didn't mean the approach was misguided. It was just that Iran's "unsettled political situation" was getting in the way!

But that only takes you so far. Eventually you need new excuses for why a crippling sanctions regime has failed to materialize. Giving up on the whole idea - that's certainly one excuse.

The other option was to continue unblinkingly asserting that Iran was still open for talks, no matter how many previous deadlines they had brazenly ignored. Again - remember "Obama says he wants progress with Iran by year's end?" If 2009 ended without a deal - the President intoned - then sanctions would be used "to ensure that Iran understands we are serious." Believable!

References and related after the jump...

Which part of the new "positive, constructive U.S.-Syrian relationship" involves having the US Secretary of State getting publicly mocked by grinning totalitarian thugs?

President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital... "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said. "I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added. Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria." He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies."

Interesting bit about enemies at the end. If Khamenei had recently and officially emphasized that the US was an enemy of Iran, that would be even more troubling than Assad's sneering jokes about bad translations.

In any case - very disappointing. Sure Assad rebuffed Obama's craven obsequiousness - six high-level delegations to Syria, promises to restore relations, waivers for aircraft parts, deals worth billions in cash, and so on. And sure he's exporting jihadism across the Middle East, financing among others the AQI cretins trying to reignite the insurgency. And sure his interference in Iraq got so severe that the Iraqis appealed directly to the UN. And sure he just threatened to saturation bomb Israeli civilians. And sure he's reestablishing Syria's stranglehold on Lebanon, having forced Hariri to capitulate.. And sure he's extending his strategy of building multiple, redundant nuclear sites.

But I really thought he'd come around this time.

Guess not.

References and related after the jump...

The picture was too small to copy over, but if you click through you can see a mosque in the background while she's on her knees getting beaten. Picturesque:

As a result of Shariah law being imposed in Malaysia, Muslim women were caned on Tuesday for engaging in illicit sex... The three women are reportedly the first to receive such a brutal punishment under Shariah law. According to the Home Minister, Datuk Hishmmudin Hussein, two of the women were struck six times while the third was hit four times with a "cane" or "rotan."... Malaysians have witnessed an increase in canings as a result of the nation moving from a secular legal system to one based on the Koran and the teachings of radical imams. Many were shocked to learn that last Summer a 32-year old woman... was sentenced to be caned for the crime of consuming an alcoholic beverage.

And the punchline:

Hishammuddin claimed that he decided to bring to public attention the punishment given to the three women because there had been "too much hype" over Kartika's sentence. "People are saying that no woman has been caned before and that Kartika should not be caned. Today I am announcing that we have already done it...." he stated during a press conference yesterday. The staunchly Islamic minister declared that the three women did not suffer any cuts or abrasions from their beatings but assured the media that the punishment had a rehabilitative effect.

Malaysia is also where there's been that recent rash of church bombings. Apparently "Allah" is the local non-sectarian word for "God." God being of central concern to Christians, it comes up now and again in services. But political Islam being a pathological ideology mixed equal parts of seething resentment and unremitting expansionism, they've decreed that Allah is theirs, dammit. Christians have been formally banned from using the word by Malaysian courts. And just to make sure the message gets through - firebombings.

Man, this stuff's going to go over like gangbusters when it finally hits Britain.

References:
* Women beaten in Malaysia under Shariah law [The Examiner]
* Fourth Church Hit by Firebombs Over 'Allah' Ban [Fox News]
* Shariamania Sweeps Across Syria, Britain, and... US Treasury Dept [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Malaysia
* Women In Islam
* Sharia

Too bad...

A multi-branch team of PA agents found an Arab-driven car carrying 20,000 shekels' worth of cleaning products several days ago. The "contraband" was manufactured in the Jewish community of Karnei Shomron... and was therefore promptly confiscated and destroyed... PA police, tax officials, customs agents, and PA Preventive Security personnel banded together to carry out a recent PA Finance Ministry decision... The destruction operation was described in the PA as a "Palestinian national moral obligation" in safeguarding PA "interests and its economy."

... they really could have used those supplies for that shiny new Palestinian city they're building:

The construction of the new Palestinian city Rawabi, north of Ramallah, is proceeding... Israel is not obstructing the progress of this important project. Israel has repeatedly declared that it views economic peace as an essential stage on the path to political peace... Improvement of living standards there will assist in lowering the value of violence, will encourage moderation, will allow the incremental building of confidence and will portend a horizon of hope.

The factory which produced the goods, by the by, was owned by Israeli-Arabs who just happened to be located in a Jewish community. Which means that these tools are now destroying goods that were produced by Arabs living in West Bank territory that the Palestinians claim for... Arabs.

No word yet on whether Prime Minister Fayyad - the ne plus ultra of Palestinian moderation, the one the State Department holds up us the linchpin of Palestinian good governance - showed up this time to burn the Jewish goods. He was certainly there last time:

Your tax dollars at work (h/t: Doris).

References:
* PA Agents Destroy 20,000 Shekels' Worth of Jewish Products [A7]
* Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press [Yisrael Hayom via MFA]
* U.S. warns it won't recognize PA unity gov't sans Fayyad [Ha'aretz]
* Fayyad helps burn settlement products [YNet]
* Obama Bundles $200 Million Palestinian Aid Into Emergency Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process
* Israel

It'll be interesting to watch the guy who proved so critical to Iranian nuclearization...

The poor management of the crisis with Iran has to be attributed largely to [ElBaradei]. The Egyptian diplomat is responsible for his organization's placatory approach toward the Iranian nuclear program. For almost a decade, starting in 1992, the agency inspectors did not notice that Iran had a secret nuclear program that violated its international commitments. Even when the agency had the information, in 2002... ElBaradei ignored it and made every possible effort to undermine its reliability. He intervened repeatedly to distort his inspectors' reports on Iran's nuclear sites, and he made sure that the IAEA's periodic reports about Iran would be camouflaged in diplomatic gibberish. Time and again they repeated the phrase that "no proof was found" that Iran's nuclear program had military aspects, even though they were blatantly obvious. ElBaradei was opposed to sanctioning Iran, not to mention military action, and repeatedly attempted to conduct a dialogue with Tehran in order to reach a compromise.

... take control of Tehran's most powerful Arab rival. From a certain perspective it almost seems like the basis for a kind of de facto anti-Western alliance:

Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, is awaited in Cairo as police warn his supporters not to mark the homecoming of a would-be electoral challenger to President Hosni Mubarak. ElBaradei, who is expected to fly home on Friday, has repeatedly called for democratic change in Egypt since stepping down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in November. On the eve of his return, he reaffirmed his determination to "do everything I can for Egypt to advance toward democracy and economic and social progress."

When he wasn't busy denying Iranian weaponization - here he is calling highly enriched Iranian uranium "of little significance" - he was perennially promising to "pin down" deals with the mullahs. When his summits fell through, as they inevitably did, he delayed Western responses by asserting that Iran was still considering offers. And in the twilight of his term - when it was clear that Iran was intent on weaponization and that negotiations were a cover - he continued deriding even non-military solutions because sanctions "really don't resolve issues." From "no problem" to "no solution" in just a few years.

Though you know who really does merit close IAEA scrutiny, per this tool? Israel. Because someone hatched a feverish tale that the IDF used uranium against Gazans, so of course that had to be probed. And not only are Israelis a bigger threat than North Korea - another country that got nukes under ElBaradei's watch - they're actually the number one threat in the Middle East. Not Iran, which is actively engaged in undermining the stability of the Egyptian government. Israel.

Should ElBaradei become President, those kinds of geopolitical delusions probably won't be a problem. The Middle East is a pretty forgiving region. You can afford to indulge in the occasional fantasy.

Speaking of the region, he's also pledging to open up Gaza. That's an extremely popular position domestically and it fits in addition to fitting the rest of his political inclinations would be an extremely popular campaign platform. Sure it would be an invaluable boost to Hamas, facilitating their contacts with Iran and giving them an endless supply of goods to siphon off for military purposes (think of all the medicine grenades!) But he's a humanitarian. You don't hate humanitarianism, do you?

Regardless. He's pretty popular in Egypt right now. He hopes - and I'm quoting - "to be an instrument for change." So this is probably going to become a thing.

References and related after the jump...

Fresh off creeping rapprochement with the US - Obama just reinstated our ambassador and State has dropped their travel advisory - Syria wants you to know that they're ready to return to the Western fold. Or to light up the Middle East in the process of completing a decade-old genocidal war against the Middle East's sole, beleaguered democracy. But definitely one of the two:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem recently told Israelis that "you know that war at this time will reach your cities." The statement bolsters the recognition that the Syrian strategy in a future war will be based on targeting population centers in Israel. It seems that after the enemy's attempts to act through conventional military means and terrorism failed, it tried to locate Israel's weak point. Damascus sees our cities as a weak point. The Syrian minister's comments show the extent to which Damascus has adopted a terrorist modus operandi that is no different from that of Hezbollah or Hamas.

It must be nice to have the freedom to explicitly threaten the other side's civilians. Israel, of course, focuses exclusively on military targets. Which isn't something they should be rewarded for - it's what decent countries do - but the contrast is stark. Not only does the Israeli political echelon refrain from threatening war crimes, but the IDF really does goes out of its way to limit civilian casualties. And yet for some reason, over the last year, Syria has grown closer to America while US/Israeli relations are at historic lows. Strange, that.

Syria's also skirting their NPT obligations and refusing the IAEA access to their bombed nuclear site. Israel haters will point out that the Jewish State isn't even a member of the NPT, so Syria is more in line with global norms than is the Jewish State. Then someone will remind them that Israel's entire concern is that international law is politicized, and that Israel's Arab enemies don't live up to their treaty obligations. So this spectacle crystallizes exactly why Israel refuses to sign ostensibly balanced treaties that in practice allow totalitarian regimes to cheat with impunity. Then the Israel haters will scream about how it's not right to accuse them of antisemitism and shoot off an email to Andrew Sullivan.

Rational debate.

References and related after the jump...

I'm trying to find the anti-Israel angle here, ala that Cast Lead HuffPo comment "the narcotic is one thing the Israeli occupiers will allow to get smuggled thru the blockade. No accident, I am sure. Tear down the Apartheid Wall, you Israeli criminals!!" (sic)

Maybe Israel hasn't bombed Hamas's smuggling tunnels because they want to flood Gaza with so many goods that the Palestinians become decadent, neglecting their glorious resistance. Or maybe it's a plot to get them to sink their money into foodstuffs and luxury products, draining resources away from the glorious resistance. It definitely has something to do with the glorious resistance.

Anyway, this is exactly what Auschwitz was like:

Owners of the smuggling tunnels bordering the Gaza Strip and Egypt have been suffering from financial problems due to their tunnels' inactivity, according to Palestinian sources. The reason, it turns out, actually stems from the overall success of smuggling tunnels in Gaza. Hamas has recently set up 'legal' tunnels, which... are used to bring in merchandise intended for sale in markets, such as food products and home appliances. Palestinians believe that the overflow of goods caused a complete smuggling standstill in dozens of underground channels...

The increase in merchandise in Gaza made prices sharply decrease, which seriously reduced the earnings from the 'illegal' smuggling industry... Under Hamas rule, hundreds of underground channels have been dug between Gaza and Egypt. The recent increase in smuggled goods in Gaza caused many factories to renew activity. Overall, if judging by the two most smuggled products - gasoline and cement - tunnel activity has actually caused Gaza to experience an economic reawakening.

"Economic reawakening" is only part of the story. Another part is that, between their tunnels and their Iranian-funded military, Hamas has become the second largest employer in the Gaza Strip (the PA, which pays its employees with the help of Obama's largess on behalf of US taxpayers, is number one). No word on whether Goldstone headscarves are Hamas-sanctioned products, but given these cretins' affinity for his blood libel they at the very least look the other way.

Anyway, I can't remember where I found these pictures. I'd guess either Carl or Elder. They were originally posted to PalToday last November (Google Translate). Again - it looks exactly like a Nazi death camp. The similarities are so eerie that you can't help but marvel at the level-headed objectivity of those "Jews = Nazis" smears so favored by the Islamic world and the Western left.

Old CW: the Middle East is "everybody vs. Israel." New CW, for at least some people at least for some of the time: the Middle East is "Israel and US-backed Arab states vs. Iran and its state and non-state proxies." Much less pithy, and - for a bunch of reasons - orders of magnitude less straightforward. We can start with the central problem, which is that no one knows whether it really is the new geopolitical situation. After that's resolved there are questions of how stable the redrawn map is, to what degree Sunni antisemitism influences their thinking, whether nation-state calculations pushing Arab countries into the Iranian orbit are outweighed by sectarian antipathy for Shiites, and so on.

Ergo tonight's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, on the Sunni/Shiite rift and its consequences. Last week was handed over to the intentions and capabilities of Israel's Iran-backed enemies. This week we'll do the other side of the divide. As always you can tune in live to ask questions via phone and chatroom, or just pick up the podcast afterward.

Rounding out the geopolitics stuff - Egypt, Yemen, and Iraq if we get to it - I'll also have a segment on the hit that the Mossad may or may not have carried out in Dubai. It's relevant because the vigor with which Dubai is conducting their investigation is tied to their suspicions of Hamas. It's also kind of awesome.

Harold Rhode - senior Hudson Institute advisor, former Middle East and Islamic World analyst in Rumsfeld's Defense Department, decades-long Pentagon specialist, etc - makes a brief appearance via phone. He gives his evaluation on the odds that Sunni/Shiite tensions might solidify some kind of Israeli/Sunni pact. Teaser: not great.

As always Dan Diker joins the show from Israel. He's got a broad overview on the topic - one of many on which he's counted an expert - plus a bunch of specific details. In fact here he is interviewing Bernard Lewis on "The Sunni-Shiite Split and the Iranian Threat" at the just-concluded Jerusalem Conference. Keep in mind that Lewis arguably the greatest Orientalist alive and look out for the line "there is a scenario for the end of time... [and] in the view of a certain section within the Iranian leadership... that time is now." Sweet dreams!

That and more in a few hours.

References:
* The Erstwhile Sunni/Shiite Rift [Omri Ceren Show]
* Israeli security officials convinced Mossad behind Dubai slaying [AP]
* Israel: No reason to think Mossad killed Hamas man [AP]
* The Sunni-Shiite Split and the Iranian Threat [JCPA]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Political Islam
* Arab and Muslim World

On one hand, yeah we're losing to a bunch of clowns. On the other hand, admirable message discipline. These tools can't decide on their media strategy for the West - "are we genocidal fanatics who can't be stopped or peace loving victims who must be cared for" - but give them a cloying anti-American fantasy with overtly sexualized blue cat people and they'll focus on it like a laser.

You'll have to go over to the Telegraph for the full picture gallery, but I recommend to your attention pictures #4 and #8. On Zombietime's definitive taxonomy of fauxtography they fall under numero tres, "photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring." I can see an argument for why they might be examples of numero dos, "photographing scenes staged by [the Palestinians] and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events." But honestly I don't think these tools have the wherewithal to frame a shot.

Anyway, here are the Avatar reviews from the single greatest film critic of our generation. If you have some time you should make a point of checking out the rest of the reviews on Red Letter Media. If you don't have a couple hours to spare I wouldn't click through though, since you'll have wasted a couple hours and you didn't have them to spare. You will never be the same. Also, content warning:

H/t goes to SP. Again.

References:
* Filmmaker: You Know Who's A Lot Like Avatar's Na'vi? The Palestinians. [MR]
* Palestinians dressed as the Na'vi from the film Avatar stage a protest against Israel's separation barrier [Telegraph]
* Media Fauxtography Now In Full Swing [MR]
* Reviews [Red Letter Media]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Media Bias
* Anti-Israel Journalism

Stan Shivell and I have been IM'ing back and forth about what Iran's February 11 saber rattling. is all about. It's the 31st anniversary of the Islamic takeover and both the government and the opposition will be out in force. But there's also this other element - and the Iranians do this periodically - where they attach some kind of mystical significance to a day and predict "surprises" and "demises" and so on. Probably as good a time as any to look at how a regional war between Israel and Iran might play out.

Ergo today's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, going on the air at 6:30pm. As always you can tune in live via either the episode page or the main Omri Ceren Show page. Chat room available, phone lines open, etc. Segments in the queue: the calculations and capabilities of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Egypt. This crap about Apaches will also come up. I've been trying to chase the story down a little bit and it turns out to be pointedly different than original press reports implied.

Dan Diker joins the show for three full segments today. We'll go over the specifics of recent Israeli/Syrian relations before moving into how the Syrian military would get dragged into a regional war. Even measured by the amount of game Diker usually brings to these discussions, there's just a ton of information in each section. Two specific things for which to keep an ear out: the significance of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal specifically in the context of peace talks and the degree to which Iran can impose its will on Damascus's behavior.

References:
* Clenched With A Weird Feb 11th Deadline For The "Demise Of Capitalism" And America [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* What Would A Middle East War Look Like? [One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show]
* Wonderful: Obama Blocking Apache Sales To Israel, "Dismayed" At Use During Cast Lead [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Syria
* Iran

There's an Al Jazeera expose at the bottom of the post, outlining the massive indigenous weapons industry that Hamas is running in the middle of the "world's largest concentration camp" (because that's exactly how Auschwitz was - lots of spare missiles and raw materials just lying around!) They're back to mass weapons production, which as a sheer matter of statistics means a bump in "work accidents." And in the Sinai the Egyptians are literally tripping over huge weapons caches.

And - ust as they were doing on the eve of Cast Lead - Hamas is back to strutting around about taking on the IDF:

One year after Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said this week that the Islamist group would not shirk away from a new battle with Israel... Israel has said the brigades, which some observers estimate have 25,000 fighters, have been seeking with Syrian and Iranian help to upgrade their rocket capabilities and put the Israeli heartland and the commercial capital of Tel Aviv within range. Abu Ubaida said Hamas had no choice but to improve its arsenal.

Rocket barrages are again routine, having escalated from the merely sporadic attacks that Hamas launched at the end of 2009 in violation of the ceasefire. Why not? They fired on Israeli civilians 29 out of 35 consecutive days, and the Obama administration responded by demanding Israeli security concessions. Plus - if nothing else - they've got all of these rockets and missiles just piling up in the living room. They've got to do something with them:

If only Israel would lift the siege on Gaza! The way things are right now, Hamas is limited to using their VIP tunnels - electricity and telephones included - to smuggle food, missile materials, and anything else they want up to and including cars. The sheer scope of the humanitarian crisis is well-nigh overwhelming.

References and related after the jump...

Availing themselves of blatant vote rigging, the Fatah "Old Guard" reasserted themselves last August, reaffirmed terrorism as a strategy, and formally rolling back the peace process. Or, per the AP's Mohammed Daragmeh, "new Fatah leadership boosts Mideast peace efforts" in contrast to "a reluctant Israel."

Given that they're neither new nor particularly peace-boosting, it makes sense that Fatah leaders would still be wallowing in decades of financial corruption. Here to explain is whistle-blower Fahmi Shabaneh, who likely will not be with us much longer:

A senior Palestinian official who in recent days has confirmed the large-scale corruption in the Palestinian Authority that most long suspected said he doesn't expect to be alive much longer... Fahmi Shabaneh [was] until recently the head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service... [he] revealed that most of the senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) officials who came from Tunis when the Palestinian Authority was established in 1993 have for years siphoned off taxes and foreign aid and today have millions of dollars stashed away and own extravagant palaces at home and abroad... he realized that all the money he returned to the PA's coffers was only being stolen by someone different.

That's a little hard to square with any of the official anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian narratives. It turns out that the West Bank's economy is being stifled by something other than Israeli security measures. It seems that the Palestinians are less than ready for a state. And as for Fatah's civic institutions and how they'll stem Hamas's encroachment into the West Bank - these revelations certainly don't help.

In fairness, not all international assistance makes its way into private bank accounts. There's definitely a good chunk of UK money that's gone to fund systematic torture by Fatah operatives. So let's be careful about exaggerating the scope of the corruption.

References and related after the jump...

I haven't had a chance to post about the gigantic steel wall that Egypt is quietly building along their Gaza border, though it sounds even even more apartheidrific than the one that Saudi Arabia built - for which they also didn't catch any international flack. Diker unpacked the hypocrisy on an Omri Ceren Show episode at the end of December, so if you're interested in background that's the place to go. Apparently only Israel, which is uniquely subject to terrorist attacks as a genocidal tactic, deserves criticism for their defensive barriers.

In any case Hamas can't understand why - if the world is so anxious to condemn Israel's Gaza closure - Egypt's role is passing without much global notice. Domestic and regional opinion has been running strongly negative but the UN isn't exactly rushing to pass anti-Cairo resolutions. Curious, that:

Hamas on Monday sharply criticized Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak's defense of his country's expanded fortifications on its border with the Gaza Strip... "Mubarak's remarks defending the steel wall are an address on the blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri told reporters in Gaza City. The Egyptian president's statements "contradict his earlier remarks that he would not allow the starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza," al-Masri accused. On Sunday Mubarak marked the national annual Police Day holiday by declaring: "Fortifications along our eastern border are a work of Egyptian sovereignty, and we refuse to enter into a debate with anyone [about them]."

You do have to admire Hamas's consistency. They opened fire on Egyptian civilians and their snipers murdered an Egyptian soldier. They instigated riots across the country. And then - when the Egyptians responded as they were bound to respond - Hamas whined about victimization. Because of course they did.

References and related after the jump...

Last seem on MR endorsing John Kerry for President on anti-Bush grounds, this cretin has resurfaced with even more sage wisdom:

"There is strong evidence that the attacks were staged. If they can make Avatar, they can make anything," Mahathir told the Conference for the Support of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), as quoted by local media... Voicing his disappointment that Barack Obama had not yet ended the war in Afghanistan or closed the US terror detention center at Guantanamo, he explained that "there are forces in the United States which prevent the president from doing some things. One of the forces is the Jewish lobby." Jews "had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom," Mahathir said.

It's true. If they can make Avatar they really can make anything. And although as a theological matter there's "nothing Jewish" about Avatar, "Navi" is Hebrew for prophet and that's certainly more than enough to conclude that Jews were behind 9/11. Given this kind of incisive analysis from this kind of powerful politician, it's difficult to understand why Muslim public discourse is stuck in a conspiracy-wallowing rut.

Speaking of which: have you ever noticed how Walt and Mearsheimer's Israel Lobby thesis - which they insist absolutely must not be understood as a Jewish Lobby thesis - keeps getting cashed out as a Jewish Lobby thesis? It's almost as if they courted popularity by vaguely confirming people's worst prejudices, smirking throughout about how they're merely raising questions.

That little dig about Kerry at the beginning, incidentally, wasn't meant as a guilt-by-association thing. John Kerry has lots of bad ideas, but genocidal anti-Jewish scheming aren't among them. It's just interesting to see the kinds of people who find the Democratic agenda amenable to their geopolitical and social goals. Cf. Hamas, endorsement of Obama. (Via Courier Mail)

References:
* Kerry Scores Another Huge Endorsement [MR]
* If US Could Create 'Avatar', It Could Fake 9/11 Attacks: Mahathir [Jakarta Globe]
* Tzvee's Talmudic Blog: Is James Cameron's film Avatar Jewish? [Tzvee's Talmudic Blog]
* Carter hugs Hamas, Hamas hugs ... Obama? [Hot Air]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Global Antisemitism
* Islamic Antisemitism
* World News

They irreversibly erased an utterly priceless inscription on a UNESCO site central to the history of roughly half the world's population. No worries though. It was an accident:

Iraqi workers erased an ancient Hebrew inscription from the tomb of biblical prophet Ezekiel while renovating a nearby mosque, Army Radio reported on Sunday. The tomb is located south of Baghdad in the village of Al Kilf... Professor Shmuel Morre of Hebrew University, who was born in Baghdad, says the istorical damage is irreversible. "There are Muslim elements that are attempting to erase the Jewish character of the tomb," Army Radio quoted Morre as saying... the Iraqi government dispelled claims the damage was done on purpose, and asserted that it sees the Jewish sites as assets important for tourism.

First of all, no. Reports have been trickling out for weeks predicting that something this outrage was in the works. The plan is to build a mosque on the site and you can't have the tomb being all Jewish in the middle of a mosque.

But let's play along. The Iraqi government genuinely has been focusing on tourism and - the state's hostility to Israel aside - this stunt can't help. So maybe these workers were just really clumsy and, in the process of restoration, sandblasted an ancient inscription. Failing that, the best-case scenario for the government is that the workers were just freelancing.

Then this would merely be a destruction of ancient artifacts done to further the Islamist goal of wiping out pre-Islamic history, part and parcel of the Taliban's destruction of the Buddha statues or the Turks' ongoing claims on Hagia Sophia. If that's the case then you have to appreciate how even the official narrative involves renovating a nearby mosque. Metaphorical!

Iraqi Muslims have also taken to attacking churches and Christian schools, indulging in the occasional random murder and baby killing:

Last week 100 Christian leaders and politicians of all religions held an emergency meeting just before fresh violence broke out in the northern city of Mosul, with attacks on churches and Christian schools. On Tuesday a baby was killed and 40 people, including schoolchildren, were injured in three simultaneous bombings. Two days ago a Christian man was shot dead as he travelled to work... In late 2008, killings of Christians in Mosul by insurgent groups left 40 dead and 12,000 fleeing their homes. Fadi reeled off a string of recent, smaller-scale attacks against Christians, fearful that the same level of violence would return.

I've got an idea. Let's put the Palestinian Authority in charge of Jewish and Christian holy sites. Sure they're actively destroying Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount and in Hebron, to say nothing of how they desecrated Joseph's Tomb and turned it into a mosque. In fact this "tombs to mosques" thing is in danger of becoming something of a pattern.

But respect for non-Islamic faiths is an integral part of practicing "real Islam." I read that somewhere. So let's take a chance.

References and related after the jump...

I'm not sure if this list includes the 20+ mothers who were preemptively rounded up at the beginning of December - from the way it reads it seems to be about a totally different group - but in any case many of the mothers landed in the hospital on their way to being disappeared. Current status: unknown:

A rights group is demanding Iran release 33 mothers detained during their weekly memorial vigils for their children killed in the nation's ongoing violence. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says that nine of the jailed woman received emergency medical treatment after they were rounded up by security forces Saturday... The women are part of a "mourning mothers" gathering held by women whose children have been killed in unrest since disputed elections in June.

Meanwhile even Guardian columnists are declaring themselves less than sanguine about how the mullahs are trying protesters for being "Enemies Of God." No one's gone so far as to acknowledge the paper's years of dishonest pro-Iran defenses - nor are they inclined to talk about how conservatives have been slandered as warmongers for predicting exactly this - but at least there's a limit to the degree of theocratic fascism they'll defend. Maybe.

Now for my own part, I would have stopped spinning pseudo-sophisticated "Iran is moderate" pretexts back when Ahmadinejad offered "documented proof" that America was conspiring to block the return of the Messiah. But I can see how the international left and their ilk might have thought he was just being funny.

References:
* Mothers Arrested Before Opposition Rally in Iran [NYT]
* Iran rights group calls for release of 'mourning mothers' [AP]
* Iran's judiciary takes a military colour [Guardian]
* Clenched With Promises To Crush Pro-Reform "Enemies Of God" [IIFSC]
* Guardian: We're Not Sure that Hezbollah and Iran are Working Together [MR]
* Iran Has Proof US Blocking Return of Messiah or Something [Jawa]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Iran
* Arab and Muslim World
* Political Islam

Because, as the AP writeup takes zero time in pointing out, that's worked out so well in the recent past:

Yemen's president said he is ready to open a dialogue with al-Qaida fighters who lay down their weapons and renounce violence, despite U.S. pressure to crack down on the terror group. The United States has complained in the past that Yemen struck deals with al-Qaida fighters and freed them from prison after they promised not to engage in terrorism. Some later broke those promises and are now believed to be active in al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed that his government is "determined to stand up to the challenges" of al-Qaida and that his security forces will track down as many al-Qaida fighters as possible among those who refuse to stop violence. But he left the door open for negotiations. "Dialogue is the best way ... even with al-Qaida, if they set aside their weapons and return to reason," he said in an interview with Abu Dhabi TV aired late Saturday. "We are ready to reach (an) understanding with anyone who renounces violence and terrorism."

Simply as a technical matter, dialogue with an enemy who's committed to your annihilation is actually not the "best way." There's simply not that much to talk about. In fact, to the extent that the balance of power in Yemen is shifting towards AQ and away from the central government, wasting time in the hope of dialogue is likely to be a disaster.

Meanwhile AQ has established residence in Yemen because it sets them up for attacks on Saudi Arabia, a target that Iranian-funded Shiite jihadists have also been attacking with regularity and visible success. Saudi Arabia has responded with everything up to and including a formal naval blockade on northern Yemeni cities that - on top of everything else - further weakened the government.

Oh: and the entire civilian population is literally physically crippled by a massive drug epidemic. So even when they want to do something they can't get people into work. It's that bad. Of course it's been that bad for a while, and until recently the Obama administration was going to send a bunch of Gitmo jihadists into the country. Smart power.

As for renouncing violence and terrorism - and I hate to be the bearer of bad news - they don't really mean it. The 170 jihadists released in February certainly didn't mean it. That's why they did things like "break their promises" and returned to AQ's ranks.

References and related after the jump...

You can't really blame them for betting on the strong horse:

While the West is discussing sanctions against Iran, Turkey is discussing the establishment of a joint industrial area with Iran on their shared border the Iranian state news agency, Fars, reported on Friday. Iran's industry minister, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, met on Friday with Turkey's trade minister, Nahat Argon to discuss increasing economic activities between the two nations. Mehrabian said after the meeting that there was a lot of potential for joint economic activities between the two countries.

These aren't just bilateral moves either. The Turks are also boosting their ties with Syria. They've chosen a side and they're making and breaking alliances accordingly:

Two factors in particular seem to have led to Turkey's shift away from Israel and toward Syria. First, Turkey no longer needed Israeli assistance to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy of providing safe-haven to the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Organization (PKK). Second, in the past seven years, once secular Turkish politics have undergone a profound Islamist transformation. At the same time, the dynamic between the Turkish military and the state's civilian leadership has changed. No longer does the military have the upper hand. Today, the Turkish military can do little to impact the policies of the Islamist AKP, which promote solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes while dismissing secular, pro-Western Muslim governments.

That also answers the brainteasers that were getting thrown around mid-2009, about whether Turkey can be politically moved in a secular direction. Turns out when a population keeps electing Islamists who promise to move away from the West, the country ends up moving away from the West. And I was really hoping they were just kidding about all that.

Meanwhile the State Department is trying to jumpstart Israeli-Syrian negotiations via Turkish mediation. Because apparently - at least to George Mitchell - the Turks seem like neutral and objective arbiters. George Mitchell, by the way - there's a guy who's really been building bridges between the US and Israel this week.

References and related after the jump...

Of course:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday the Obama administration remains open to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, despite intransigence from Tehran... Clinton said it is clear that administration efforts to engage Iran in talks to restrain its nuclear program in 2009 fell short... Obama had said that if Iran did not respond positively to his overtures by the start of 2010 he would move toward tougher sanctions. Clinton said the administration is consulting with other nations about new sanctions, but she stressed that this does not mean the administration is abandoning its effort to start a dialogue with Iran. There is no hard-and-fast deadline for Iran to respond, she said.

I'm a little sad they're giving up on deadlines. Iranian laughter in the face of Obama's blustering - plus the inevitable US crumbling - made for some easy content. Though the WH probably didn't have a choice now that China, after years of evading existing sanctions, just said no to new UN sanctions. So Obama's oh-so-sophisticated charade - that there were ever any "genuine sticks" behind all of the "genuine carrots" - wasn't going to last much longer.

Of course the Iranians still sneeringly chortled in victory about how they agree with Clinton that sanctions are meaningless. They've been so emboldened by this WH's appeasement that they're now setting their own deadlines on negotiations, a nice little demonstration of just how brazen they've gotten:

Iran's foreign minister warned the West on Saturday that it had one month to accept Iran's counterproposal to a deal brokered by the United Nations aimed at slowing the Iranian nuclear program, or else Iran would begin further enriching its nuclear fuel stockpile on its own. The comments by the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, were broadcast on state television and presented as an "ultimatum" to the West just two days after Iran missed a deadline set by the United States and its allies to accept a deal that was brokered in October in Geneva.

They're also holding large-scale military exercises next month, right about the time that their "ultimatum" will be expiring. No worries though. This isn't anything that the WH's vaunted "targeted sanctions" - specifically designed to be watered down - can't fix right up. Smart power and all the rest.

References and related after the jump...

At least we can be sure they'll get a full pat-down on their way over. Maybe:

The State Department is planning to welcome thousands of immigrants from terror-watch list countries into the United States this year through a "diversity visa" lottery -- a giant legal loophole some lawmakers say is a "serious national security threat" that has gone unchecked for years. Ostensibly designed to increase ethnic diversity among immigrants, the program invites in thousands of poorly educated laborers with few job skills -- and that's only the beginning of its problems, according to lawmakers and government investigations.

The State Department, for its part, insists that it's awesome it is to bring in poor and uneducated - and often unassimilable - immigrants from countries crawling with jihadists. Because they won't be anything like that "model assimilated immigrant" in Denmark, who ended up shooting two Jews in a mall because they were just too Jewish. They're going to be different kinds of model assimilated immigrants.

On the upside, this isn't going to make or break American border security. It's pretty frustrating when you consider to whom the State Department is denying visas, but it's not nearly as damaging as the administration's broader anti-enforcement policies. And trust the Council on Foreign Relations to have someone who thinks that loosening border enforcement is the height of nuanced sophistication. From the policy community that brought you circa 2006 op-eds about how Ahmadinejad wasn't a problem, 2009 op-eds about how locking down our borders is a wingnut overreaction to 9/11:

The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks... The measure is the latest in a string of little-noticed initiatives by the Obama DHS to reconsider some of the most controversial enforcement policies of the past decade. The administration in August launched an overhaul of the immigration detention system... The Obama administration's new policy, which will end such routine incarceration, had been urged by everyone from the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. And there is no reason to believe that the risks will rise significantly. There is considerable evidence, for instance, that alternative programs to monitor those released will ensure that they comply with whatever ruling a judge finally reaches.

Napolitano refused to even use the word "terrorism" during her March Congressional hearings, a lack of seriousness that more or less confirms Cheney's "they're trying to pretend we are not at war" criticism. From airline security to border security, it does kind of seem like they're happily traipsing through a pre-9/11 world.

Well, except for the 9/11 Commission's calls for new bureaucratic layers, federal expansion, and thousands of new government workers. That's a change Democrats - to judge by their weirdly coordinated defenses of Napolitano - seem to regard with something almost approaching warmth.

References and related after the jump...

The awesome thing is that the two statements came out on the exact same day, a nicely pointed illustration of the differences between Israel and its partner in peace. Netanyahu proposed a reinvigorated peace summit in Egypt, and promptly got his answer:

The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy. "Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation," the movement said in a statement. The group said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel's controversial separation barrier. Fatah, which marks the 45th anniversary of the start of its armed struggle on Friday, also vowed to "increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law."

The really elegant part is how they bundled together (a) threats of Palestinian violence and (b) international efforts to delegitimize Israeli self-defense in the face of Palestinian violence ("to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law"). Only Israel's Arab enemies could be so confidently brazen about crowing that they'll attack Israeli civilians and then whine about Israeli retaliation. Of course only Israel's Arab enemies are justified in that brazen confidence, so it's hard to blame them. The organizations behind the sentiment - Human Rights Watch, the UN committees who back Goldstone and his ilk, etc. - they might on the other hand be worthy of mild disapprobation.

Meanwhile - just should Abbas consider trying to reciprocate Israeli gestures - Palestinian civilians and Fatah soldiers want him to know there's more than enough violence to go around:

The killing of the three Fatah operatives in Nablus by the IDF over the weekend could trigger a third intifada, Fatah officials warned on Sunday. But the new intifada, they said, would be different from the first two - this time it would be directed against the Palestinian Authority. During the funerals of the three men, all veteran members and leaders of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, thousands of Palestinians chanted slogans accusing the PA of collusion with Israel and calling for an end to security coordination with Israel and the dismantling of the PA.

Nothing that a couple square miles of Israeli territory can't solve. Because that's what this is about. Right? Right.

And lest you think no one could be so obliviously stupid, here's Barry Rubin's recent article to disillusion you. The phrase "pressures Israel" appears in the headline, after which the post continues at length and in detail. Turns out the Obama administration might well be exactly that obliviously stupid.

References:
* Israel's Netanyahu proposes Egypt peace summit [Reuters]
* Fatah vows to escalate struggle against occupation [AFP]
* Fatah warns of intifada against PA [JPost]
* The Palestinian Authority Sets its New Strategy: Tempts Obama Administration with Instant Peace if it Pressures Israel [Rubin Report]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process

The Iranians can't even muster enough respect for Obama to let him send envoys to debase themselves in front of the mullahs. The administration wanted to dispatch Kerry to Tehran in the midst of the most recent crackdown, a move naturally seen as a shameless betrayal by the Iranian dissidents being beaten and shot and run over by basij cars. Nope.

Pathetic:

Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media. "Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency. Several Iranian news outlets reported last week that Kerry had submitted an official request to visit Tehran in an emissary role... On Saturday, Iranian legislators stepped up the rhetoric against the news that Kerry was considering traveling to Tehran with the blessing of the White House.

At least we're not also trading top Iranian-backed Iraqi terrorists for British computer specialists who were brutally kidnapped while tracing exactly how Iran interferes in Iraqi affairs. The raid that captured the specialist involved the kidnap of four British body guards who were later executed - bound - with bullets to the head. Which is exactly how Khazali's gang murdered the American soldiers they had kidnapped in a separate raid:

So mind-bendingly insane is this that I thought Roggio might have been duped by his sources. Not so: Both the Guardian and now Jake Tapper have independently confirmed that it's true. Remember Qais Khazali?... He used to be an al-Sadr deputy, then broke away and hooked up with Iran to start his own little mini-Hezbollah. That group, the "League of the Righteous," ended up pulling off one of the most notorious, sophisticated anti-American operations of the Iraq war in Karbala. The toll: Five Americans murdered, four of them after they were kidnapped, bound, and shot in the head like animals. U.S. troops caught up to Khazali... Petraeus ... accused Iran's Quds Force -- the creme de la creme of the Revolutionary Guard, responsible for assisting Iranian proxy jihadis like Hezbollah in other countries -- of bankrolling the whole thing. And now, after three years in U.S. custody, he's free.

Obama wanted to send the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Tehran to - what? Explain how there's no hard feelings about the whole "brutalizing their people and executing our captured soldiers" thing? Insist that we're willing to look the other way if they'll pretend to think about maybe not laughing at our threats of toothless sanctions?

And they wouldn't even let us go through the motions of groveling to them.

Remember when conservatives ridiculed "smart power" as a faux sophisticated excuse for US obsequiousness? And the left said that conservatives were thoughtless warmongers and - in fact - Obama was going to restore America's dignity and respect? That's definitely the sense I'm getting from this gambit. Dignity. And. Respect.

References and related after the jump...

I'm about to start uploading the clips for this evening's very special holiday edition of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. In acknowledgment of the season we've scheduled even more optimism and cheer than usual, starting with a segment about the religiously-driven return of polygamy to the UK and Chechnya. Suffice to say that it's not because fundamentalist Methodists are sweeping across the region. From there things only get better with segments about the newest additions to Iran's arsenal, Hamas's Islamization of the Gaza Strip, and of course this nonsense. Per the usual routine you can tune in live to ask questions and participate in the chatroom, or you can grab the podcast afterward directly from the episode archive.

In between Dan Diker will join the show, this week to talk about how Egypt and Saudi Arabia are reacting to Iran's growing regional assertiveness. Small example of the pool balls bouncing off each other just on the issue of Egyptian/Israeli relations: Arab nationalism 101 is that you use Israel as a scapegoat to funnel internal dissent outward but in the Middle East the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now plant that enemy's proxy in Gaza right between Egypt and Israel, boosting the incentive for government-to-government cooperation even though Egyptians would turn against Mubarak if he publicly colluded Egypt's "Gazan brothers and sisters."

Now add in a weird dynamic where Israel and Egypt usually compete for functionally zero-sum US ties, except they're both so frustrated with the US stance on Iran that they might close the triangle and cooperate to undermine Iran - except the Obama administration would oppose that, putting them in a position where they're blocking rapprochement between two ostensible allies. Terrific.

I already linked to this April article yesterday in the context of Hamas as an outpost of political Islam but let me link it again as prep for today's Diker segment:

In the last week, Egypt has moved against Iran and its allies in the Arab world. Cairo arrested a Hizballah cell that was preparing terrorist operations on Egyptian soil, organized a campaign against Hamas weapons and money smugglers in the Sinai Peninsula, and stepped up efforts to displace Qatar -- an Iranian sympathizer -- as a mediator on Sudan, Lebanon, and other inter-Arab issues. It remains to be seen whether this policy shift will become a sustained part of a grand strategy to restore Egypt's leadership among Arab states or, instead, a more-defensive approach designed to parry previous humiliations from Iran's allies. It is apparent, however, that Cairo is sending a signal to Washington that the "nuclear file" is not the only -- or even the most urgent -- aspect of the Iranian threat.

The US went to Egypt and said "we're really committed to helping you out with this Israel thing," and the Egyptians responded by insisting that they pay attention to Iran. If for no other reason, you should tune in today to hear what happened when the Bush and Obama White Houses tried the same stunt with Saudi Arabia.

References:
* Obligatory Post About New Organ Harvesting Story That Provides "No Evidence" For Organ Harvesting Libel (UPDATED) [MR]
* Arab Countries In Iran's Middle East [Omri Ceren Show]
* Media Outlets Shocked To Find Hamas Imposing Islam, Digging Up Dead Christians Because They "Pollute The Earth" [MR]
* Egypt's Campaign against Iran Sends Washington a Signal [Washington Institute]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Egypt
* Saudi Arabia

I posted theses quotes about Hamas - one from Larijani and the other from Ahmadinejad - on Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched? yesterday. But they're worth reposting here so that maybe we can puzzle them out together. Because Sunnis and Shiites don't cooperate, and yet here are Sunnis and Shiites seemingly cooperating. Mindbending:

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Sunday defended his country's support for Hamas, during a high-profile visit to Cairo. Larijani told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Teheran is proud of its "moral" support for Hamas. He also denied that Iran is undermining Egypt's efforts to reconcile between Hamas and Fatah. The Iranian official called his meeting with Mubarak "constructive," and noted that Iran and Egypt shared a "positive vision on bilateral relations," according to Iranian Press TV.

And:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday reiterated his support for Hamas, during a visit by the Palestinian group's Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal, according to Iran's official news agency. "The government and the people of Iran will always stand by the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people," Ahmadinejad said during the meeting with Mashaal.

Larijani used similar language in February, saying "it's an honor to support Hamas." In March Iran confirmed that support by throwing a fundraising party for their Gaza proxies. In April month Egypt made clear that the two were linked, targeting Hamas as part of a broader anti-Iran regional push. And so on.

Of course there are 2007 papers outlining the full-blown Hamas/Iranian alliance, with Tehran's financial and military support transforming Gaza into a de facto Iranian statelet. Quite the opposite from being stymied by Sunni/Shiite tensions, Iran is positioning itself as the unique unifying force that transcends those tensions. Historical tensions do exist in the Muslim world. But they're the basis for Iran's pan-Islamist identity not a barrier to it:

Driven by its desire to achieve the status of a world Islamic power, Iran is now a uniting force between Sunni and Shi'ite radical groups. This new bloc of Iranian allies not only poses a threat to the West, it challenges the moderate states of the Middle East, who used to fear a "Shiite Crescent" spanning from Iran through Lebanon. Threats of a crescent are now replaced by a wider fear of Iran-sponsored radicalism that spans the region. Indeed, the influence of Iranian radicalism knows no boundaries, thanks to Tehran's increasingly pragmatic approach toward Sunni groups.

Liberal sophisticates who point to historical Sunni/Shiite dynamics as some kind of argument are - predictably - stalled at the beginning of a debate they think they're ending. Which doesn't stop the media from quoting them extensively. But at least it also makes them extra obnoxious!

References and related after the jump...

Iran's building next-generation centrifuges and has just formalized the construction of 10 new nuclear sites. Those 10 new facilities were supposed to lock in their "isolation" according to the White House. Instead Obama will push back the so-called drop dead date for a third or fourth time. I don't think anyone's under any illusions any more. This is what it is:

Obama has long proclaimed a Dec. 31 deadline for cooperation or retaliation of some unspecified kind. But Iran and, before it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, has confidently counted on years of international dithering on enforcing printed sanctions. So naturally on ABC's "This Week" this week, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama adviser and ex-newspaper reporter David Axelrod about the approaching Obama deadline. Axelrod started to say something about talking but checked himself and spoke instead of "consequences." But, as often occurs in diplomatic-speak -- and politics-speak too, come to think of it -- it's what you don't say that's often more important than what you do utter. Axelrod declined to reiterate the Dec. 31 date.

Now you might think that Iran officially settled on confrontation months ago when Mottaki confirmed the "no" that had been coming from every Iranian lawmaker. Certainly his his followup - "we'll only accept the kind of swap where we don't have to really swap anything" - was seen as a diplomatic non-starter.

But what you don't understand is that Iran has actually been very secretly demonstrating a clear willingness to negotiate. Here's how it probably went down. First Iran decided to export their radical ideology and expand their sphere of influence by broadly and continuously supporting a Shiite insurgency in Yemen. Then we gave them a super-secret signal that we would look the other way by having a State Department Undersecretary announce at a conference that we don't think they're involved. Then Iran didn't do something that our experts retroactively decided they had been planning to do, which was a covert signal back from the mullahs that they were interested in negotiations.

Or maybe it happened differently. Maybe the signal was our continued inaction in response to Iran's bloody interference in Iraq. We didn't do anything. Then they invaded Iraqi territory. Then we still didn't do anything. Now they're staying on Iraqi territory. And that's a sign that they're open to low-level confidence building measures. Because why else would they grab territory except as a setup for making concessions during negotiations?

And I was so sure that - per this characteristic Times of London description from last December - "Gaza is a secular society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and many women walk the streets unveiled." I was even considering acceding to the headline's demand that I "adjust my distorted image of Hamas." And now I find out they're a pack of political Islamists driven by a fetishistic obsession with the unclean flesh of their Christian enemies. Who knew:

"Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities. During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries.

Hamas has also recently banned women from dancing, imposed a conservative dress code on professional women and schoolgirls, and now there's even a "Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" security force.

That story about the new dress code for professional women, by the by, comes from the Guardian and includes the line "for the first time since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections... the group is trying to Islamise Gazan society." Now that's very much not true. But even if it was, it still wouldn't justify the slack jawed naivete of international apologists.

In 2006 Hamas ran and won on a platform "of implementing Islamic law in the Palestinian territories" as a replacement for Arab nationalism. As soon as they took over they began promoting global Islamic supremacy, to be achieved through the annihilation of Jews, via schoolbooks and mosque sermons and TV shows about child martyrs. So it seems like maybe - just maybe - Islamization was on the horizon. Though in fairness, they might just have been joking about all that.

References and related after the jump...

Iran provokes. The US responds with milquetoast banalities. Like clockwork:

The new medium-range missile tested by Iran is "not particularly different than what we've seen in the past," said Pentagon defense spokesman Geoff Morrell on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. The report quoted Morrell as saying that US intelligence shows the missile - said to be capable of targeting parts of Israel - is not a sign of advanced military capabilities acquired by Teheran... "Such actions will increase the seriousness and resolve of the international community to hold Iran accountable for its continued defiance of its international obligations on its nuclear program," he said.

Really? Because according to the NYT the new missile is more accurate and can be launched faster than all of their previous missiles. Meir Javedanfar - writing an article titled "The plus side of an arms race with Iran" - also admits it's "a sign that Iran is making significant advances in its missile programme" and moving past its inaccurate Shahab-3's.

Now Iran is threatening to launch precision strikes against Tel Aviv's skyscrapers and against Israeli nuclear sites. In the former case Israel would have to respond with overwhelming force well beyond its conventional capabilities. In the latter case Israel would interpret the attack a non-conventional strike and respond accordingly. So in a very real way, the inaccuracy of Iran's missiles is all that prevents an inevitable Israeli/Iranian war from going nuclear.

Now just for completion's sake. Iran's got enough material to build a nuclear bomb. They've been developing nuclear warheads for years and the IAEA - for all that they've been hiding the fact - undeniably knows it. They've been developing nuclear triggers for years and the US - for all that the 2007 NIE authors misled Americans about it - has known it all along.

Oh. And they might building an H-Bomb:

Hamas is promising to get involved in an Israeli/Iranian war - an inevitable Israeli/Iranian war - by blanketing millions of Israeli civilians with rockets. That's not exactly surprising given that they're functionally a wing of the Iranian military, armed in precisely the way the international community promised would never happen if Israel evacuated Gaza and called off Cast Lead. Now they can destroy Israel's airport and they can knock down Tel Aviv's skyscrapers. Risks for peace!

And when Hamas does get involved you'll still see Israel get blamed for "drawing them into the conflict." So just in advance, let's all be clear that these lunatics are already sufficiently motivated to commit mass genocide:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that gaining control of the Gaza Strip was "just a step toward liberating all of Palestine." "This movement liberated the Gaza Strip with the help of the militant factions," said Haniyeh... "Brothers and sisters, we will not be satisfied with Gaza," he declared. "Hamas looks toward the whole of Palestine."... Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City... Gaza was decked out in Islamic green, with Hamas flags fluttering from rooftops, lampposts and cars. Some parents dressed small children in combat fatigues and green Hamas headbands.

That follows similar statements from November and October and September and so on. But maybe they're just kidding about that, and a couple more Israeli concessions would empower whatever fictional "moderate camp" our foreign policy establishment has invented this week. Could be!

The Palestinian child abuse thing was a nice touch on the genocidal festivities, I thought. It was a little too routine for my taste - via Elder, here are 100,000 Hamas kids being brainwashed to kill Jews - but still a nice touch:

700 summer camps, for children and teenagers, operated this summer by terror organizations along the Gaza Strip - operating under the slogan - A "Victory for Gaza - The Glory of Jerusalem". The camps are operated by the Hamas in order to encourage the next generation of this organization.... 100 thousand children and teenagers participated in Hamas camps this year. The budget of these camps is estimated to be 2 Million Dollars. The youths were guided by 1,500 counselors that went through special training courses. A marketing campaign of the Al-Aqsa channel of the Hamas and a special internet site encouraged participation of children in these camps.

And I thought Gaza was awash in breaking poverty, bereft of even the resources to purchase basic necessities. Weird.

References and related after the jump...

So much for that vaunted UN ceasefire:

Lebanon's new government Wednesday endorsed Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons, the latest sign that the Iran-backed group has no intention of meeting a United Nations resolution calling for it to disarm. Lebanon's government is a shaky coalition of Western-backed factions and the militant group Hezbollah, which has virtual veto power over the government. The group is believed to have thousands of rockets and missiles hidden in basements and bunkers throughout Shiite Muslim areas of the tiny country. The government decision came as the Lebanese army opened fire at four Israel Air Force warplanes that were flying above southern Lebanon, a Lebanese news agency reported. According to the report, the jets were forced to leave Lebanese airspace and return to Israel as a result of the anti-aircraft fire.

Shocking that a Lebanese unity government which includes Hezbollah would be pro-Hezbollah. Israel's reaction is the logical one: if you want them, you own them. Any future attack by Hezbollah will, per Barak, be interpreted as an attack by Lebanon. I'm not sure why he thinks that's credible.

Whether Hezbollah is considered a part of Lebanon will be - as it always is - a function of what's best for Hezbollah and worst for Israel. If there's a ceasefire in place and the US needs excuses for engagement then the State Department describes Hezbollah unity agreements as "positive and necessary steps." If Hezbollah has just started a hot war and Israeli jets are destroying their facilities throughout the country then suddenly State Department officials insist that Lebanon bears no responsibility and should be insulated. It's a rigged game but it's not exactly a subtle game.

And there will be another war. Hezbollah isn't bringing in hundreds of tons of Katyushas and long-range rockets and shells and bullets from Iran and Syria to let them rust. Those weapons are also coming in - thanks to Hezbollah's global fundraising network - via the United States. Hezbollah's pretty open about how they'll be used:

Although the organisation denied last week that the weapons were intended for its use, senior commanders have done little to disguise the scale of rearmament. "Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006," said a Hezbollah commander, speaking on condition of anonymity... "We had to blow up or leave some of our bunkers and fighting positions, but we still have plenty of capabilities in the south. We expect the Israelis to come soon, if not this winter, then they will wait until spring, when the ground isn't too soft for their tanks."

Unblinkingly contradictory anti-Israel diplomacy won't be the only deja vu part of the next war. The enlarged contingent of UN peacekeepers - which has been threatening military action against Israel since day 1 and long ago started busting Israeli intel assets - will again and predictably serve as human shields for Hezbollah soldiers.

And of course ditto for civilians:

One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show goes on the air at 2pm PST today. Head over to the main Blog Talk Radio site to chat with other listeners, submit questions, and get on the air live. Last week's show had a discussion that began in the chat room and eventually ended up on the air, moving from Bill Clinton's specific trip to Israel to the general shamelessness of US liberals who undermine Israeli leaders then ask for Israelis' trust. This week: more of that, plus extra doses of despair. Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's show will be the last before we switch up formats. Based on your input we're moving the show to later in the day and running longer. Tune into today's for more details on those changes, plus the full results of the "how should TOCS change" poll that you voted on.

Also on the agenda for today: expert-level pessimism on a large scale, courtesy of Dan Diker of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs. Have you heard that a deal on Shalit may be close or that it'll be anything but a disaster? Sorry. Thinking that that Israeli/Turkish relationship is on the mend? Don't get your hopes up. Down on unilateral Palestinian diplomatic gambits or worried about Iran? Not enough.

In between I'll be talking about Obama's latest excuses for Iranian foot-dragging, about his Bow Mocked 'Round The World, about new levels of United Nations mendacity, and about European antisemitism. Hating Jews is fun again on the Continent.

References:
* The Omri Ceren Show [MR]
* The Omri Ceren Show - Martin Sherman Wrap Up, Changes To The Show (POLL!) [MR]
* Israel awaiting Hamas chief response on Shalit deal [Ha'aretz]
* Resuming the Turkish track [Ha'aretz]
* Crisis in the Palestinian Authority [Right Side News]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israel News and Coverage
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy

I know. Despite the security assurances swirling around Israel's decision to call off Cast Lead. I mean, sure the international community made identical assurances in the context of Israel's original withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. And sure those first assurances were provided with an extra exclamation point, where Palestinian shelling was understood to justify massive Israeli retaliation. And certainly the shameless historical revisionism that greeted Israel's defensive war proved all that to be empty.

But gosh darn it this time I really believed. Bummer:

Smuggling into the Gaza Strip from Egypt beneath the Philadelphi Corridor has returned to the busy levels that prevailed before Operation Cast Lead last winter, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Estimates of how many tunnels are now functioning range from several hundred to 1,000, although the most authoritative figures indicate that between 350 and 500 are currently operating. The IDF claimed to have destroyed about 300 tunnels during Cast Lead. Israel has long asserted that the Egyptians could put an end to the entire smuggling industry within 24 hours if they wanted to, using military obstructions along the length of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Not to worry. It's not like all those weapons are staying in Gaza. There are Israeli civilians to bomb after all:

A Qassam rocket was launched from the northern Gaza Strip and has apparently fallen in an open area in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council. There were no reports of injury or damage. A Color Red siren was sounded before the rocket landed.

Ditto for February and March and April and May and June and July and August and September and October. Mortars and small weapons fire are also back in play, and of course the kidnapping attempts started again immediately.

None of which is surprising since Gaza residents - for all the coverage they get about wanting to live normal lives - have never stopped supporting war crimes against Israelis. Something to think about the next time the State Department ritualistically intones that Gazans are "being held hostage" by unpopular Hamas forces.

Israel will object to the international community. That objection will be ignored. Then the IAF will have to launch one of their periodic anti-tunnel bombing raids. That's how it's been since the end of Cast Lead, as far back as March: rocket fire that eventually hit a synagogue, followed by a complaint to the UN, followed by nothing, followed by the inevitable. And when it happens again I have no doubt that the international community will react with exactly the self-reflection and fairness that we've all come to expect.

References and related after the jump...

At least now we know what unblinking pretexts Obama's getting from his Iran advisers. They need to explain why all their nuanced Tehranology - which always ends with some new inscrutable justification for pro-Iran gestures - has merely emboldened Khamenei into confidently coming out as a hardline thug. It can't be that liberal foreign policy experts have spent the last few decades disingenuously denying that the Iranian political echelon is controlled by apocalyptic hardliners.

It's not that they produced paper after paper in the 90's predicting - incorrectly - that "moderates" would be electorally empowered if Albright made apologies and Clinton offered back channel concessions. It's not that they spent the Bush years howling - untenably - that offering a Grand Bargain would enable "conservative pragmatists" to "get Khamenei's ear." And it's certainly not that they made up tales - suspiciously - of Iranian wiggle room on nukes while lunatics were being installed as negotiators.

Sure it all looks exactly that way. And sure a genuinely nuanced analysis of Iranian ideology explains why it looks that way, since Khamenei's commitment to pan-Islamism would stymie state-level negotiations even if he wasn't the ultra-hardliner that he is.

But what you don't understand is that there are all these factions. And they're fighting with one another. And - even though it might appear like one side keeps winning, indicating either that there's no internal struggle or that it doesn't matter - you need to ignore that in the same way you ignore decades of failed diplomatic outreach. Just a few more weeks of sophistication and all this carefully calibrated groveling will yield a modus vivendi. You'll see!

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday an unsettled political situation in Iran may be complicating efforts to seal a nuclear fuel deal between Tehran and major world powers... "But it is going to take time, and part of the challenge that we face is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues," he told Reuters in an interview at the White House.

Which is weird, because it certainly looks like the regime came to a quick decision. Here's how the talks have been going post-Qom, pegged either to the dateline or - where the lede was explicit - to when specific statements were made:

The elegant thing about Turkey's slide from the West is how starkly it juxtaposes liberal pseudo-sophistication with conservative warnings. On one side you have Obama's ephemeral charisma, where Turkey was the first Muslim country he visited as part of his global Presidential apology tour. At a minimum that should have made Ankara more rather than less inclined to lean toward the US and NATO.

On the other side you have the hard geopolitical realities being created by Obama's supine foreign policy, where a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran is pushing back US allies and installing proxies across Asia and South America. If Obama's critics are right then the prospect of regional Shiite hegemony will force states to accommodate the Islamic Republic, cut whatever deals they can, and try to exist within the Iranian orbit.

Interesting debate:

Relations between Turkey and Iran appear to be getting closer and those ties are raising concerns among some of Turkey's Western allies... Turkish President Abdullah Gul said... his country is keen to bolster relations with neighboring Iran. Increasing closeness between Turkish leaders and Iran, and Turkey's quest for better ties in the broader Muslim world, have fueled concerns in the West that this key U.S. ally is... is turning its back on the West to embrace Islamist regimes to the East - a vast region that extends from the Middle East to the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Obama's obsequious engagement can't even provide diplomatic wiggle room, where both sides would put on a show of agreement for public consumption:

The growing number of disagreements over global and regional affairs between Turkey and the United States signals a "bumpy road" to Washington, D.C., for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in early December. The deterioration in ties between the two allies was obvious during Philip Gordon's trip to Ankara last week. At a press conference held here, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs hinted that "there were more points of disagreement than of agreement with Turkey."

This is after Turkey banned Israel from US/NATO air exercises as a way of nixing the drills completely, the immediate and predictable withdrawal of the US and Italy being a feature rather than a bug. If they had just been targeting Israel they wouldn't have followed up two days later with joint Turkish-Syrian military maneuvers. That stunt, plus the 10 Turkish ministers they sent to Damascus in the context of a formal cooperation deal, goes deeper than a Turkish/Israeli temporary spat.

Today's TOCS episode goes on the air a little less than an hour, with highlights from my interview with Prof. Barry Rubin, analysis from Dan Diker, and the weekly roundup of US, Israeli, and international news. To hear the show live - and to submit questions via the chat room or get on the air through the phone lines - head over to the show's Blog Talk Radio page at 2pm PST.

The call with Diker covered (1) the increasingly pointed tensions between Obama and our NATO allies over Iranian nuclearization and (2) the so-called Fayyad peace plan, where Prime Minister Fayyad wants to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state. To give you an idea of the kind of game Diker brings to the latter debate, here's Sunday's CSM article on the plan:

Fayyad's plan was recently analyzed in depth by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), a right-of-center think tank. Dan Diker, the JCPA's senior foreign analyst, says that the plan is potentially dangerous because it doesn't call for working in tandem with Israel on issues that the Jewish state sees as essential to its security... "For Israel to be 12 kilometers [7 miles] away from a Palestinian state that is 3,000 feet above sea level, which is looking down on Ben Gurion airport with most of Israel's infrastructure? After the rockets from Gaza, people are saying, 'Yikes, this is a dangerous proposal,'" Diker says... Fayyad, who clearly does his homework, already has Diker's report from the JCPA printed out in his office in Ramallah.

As always, make sure you grab the full Barry Rubin interview from the One Jerusalem audio page after the show. Prof. Rubin sat down for 35 minutes of questions, only a dozen or so of which made it into the highlight cut.

Topics that you'll get only in the full interview: the decades-long campaign of anti-American mass murder and torture waged by Iran's proxies in Lebanon, the pitfalls of security assistance to the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon, and how Obama's engagement-centric diplomacy pushes moderate countries into the Iranian orbit. There's also an extended bit about the Obama Effect. It turns out that The One's personal popularity doesn't exactly change the calculations of our allies and enemies. Which isn't to say that Middle East writers like Hendrik Hertzberg are cutting their Obama hagiography out of whole cloth. But, in the final analysis, they're probably not winning any prizes for rigorous and levelheaded social scientific analysis either.

References:
* RubinReports [Official Site]
* Dan Diker Home Page [FreedomOutpost]
* The Omri Ceren Show [Blog Talk Radio]
* Interview: How Salam Fayyad plans to save the Palestinian dream | csmonitor.com
* New Middle East Events Prove it: Obama Right About Most Everything - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine [Reason]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Diplomacy
* Lebanon and Hezbollah

I just checked this to be sure, and "AfPak" definitely stands for Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's the region in which we're currently engaged in a hot war that we're desperately trying not to lose. So - at least in theory - alienating the leaders of both Afghanistan and Pakistan would be one of those geopolitical blunders that we've been assured were hallmarks of the Bush administration. Smart...

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai questioned the reliability of the United States as a partner Sunday, as he fought off criticism of his government's legitimacy following fraud-marred elections... underscoring the political headache that Washington faces if Karzai wins a run-off against Abdullah next month, Karzai pointed the finger at the United States in a separate, pre-recorded CNN interview. "Is the United States a reliable partner with Afghanistan? Is the West a reliable partner with Afghanistan?" Karzai asked... The comments appeared to allude to Karzai's longstanding criticism of civilian deaths in US air strikes, and to President Barack Obama's still unresolved review of US strategy and his commander's request for up to 40,000 more US troops.

... power:

In Lahore, Pakistan, today Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a blunt message to six prominent Pakistani newspaper editors. Asked by Asha'ar Rehman, an editor of Dawn, why the US war on terror is so localized to Pakistan, Clinton did not mince words. "Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002," she said. "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to... there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment.''

Which is not to say that Clinton was wrong to be concerned about everything from Pakistan's internal stability to the reliability of their security forces. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is most definitely not secure. And it's no secret that the ISI has some gentlemen who are disinclined to view the West favorably. When Pakistan finally becomes a failed state - and ignoring the geopolitical situation its economic freefall will ensure that it does - things are going to get real dicey real fast.

But Clinton's job as a diplomat is to express those concerns in a way that doesn't cause potentially irreparable rifts with countries we rely on for military victory. Though she did find the time to blame it all on Bush! So at least there was that.

There's a much broader discussion to be had about the sheer self-absorbed gullibility of liberal foreign policy experts. They've spent the last 7 or 8 years in conferences at Geneva and Doha, and they actually belied the cocktail party chatter about how things would be copacetic if only Bush was out of office. "Emir so and so, don't you think that President Bush is destroying the US's credibility in the Arab and Muslim world?" "Certainly Madam such and such, Islam would totally abandon its thousand year ebb-and-flow intrusions into the West if the US had a 3 point electoral shift."

Morons.

References and related after the jump...

Well sure it sounds batshit crazy. But if you look at it from the perspective of a conspiracy-addled antisemite - "whatever helps Israel must have been instigated by Israel, including the genocidal wars Arab States start and lose" - then it makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn't Israel fire on its own citizens, thereby exposing Lebanon to the unbearably withering prospect of an Israeli complaint to the UN:

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman claimed Tuesday's Katyusha rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona was in Israel's interest, and suggested that an Israeli agent may have launched the projectile. In an interview with the Lebanese Arab-language newspaper Al Akhbar published Thursday, Suleiman said that an Israeli agent may have launched the rocket, stressing that one "must not rule out" the possibility that Israel was behind the attack. On Tuesday night, a Katyusha fired from the Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) area slammed into a field not far from Kiryat Shmona, causing a fire but no casualties. The IDF immediately shelled the Lebanese territory from which the projectile was launched, using several rounds of artillery.

Presumably those four rockets aimed at Israel that the LAF just dismantled were also planted by Israeli agents. It's not that Lebanon has been systematically ignoring Hezbollah's rearmament in violation of even its symbolic obligations under UNSC 1701. It's that the agents of the Jewish State are really sneaky. And they're everywhere.

When Sunni/Shiite tensions finally erupt - and they will, not least of all because the country has been infiltrated hundreds of Al Qaeda operatives ready to wage jihad against Jews and Hezbollah-backed Shiites - that'll be Israel's fault too.

That the "UNSC" in UNSC 1701 stands for "United Nations Security Council" is particularly ironic given how Lebanon currently sits on the Security Council. I don't really think that's fair. The UN is supposed to be a one-state one-vote kind of place and Iran and Syria already had their turn.

References and related after the jump...

As part of my determined and ongoing campaign to dilute the Mere Rhetoric brand - strongly linked as it is now to an ethos of online anonymity and amatuer ranting - I'm co-sponsoring a real-life expert event with Dore Gold on Monday Nov. 2nd at the Skirball. The official co-sponsor list: Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, One Jerusalem, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Mere Rhetoric Media, which is a fake entity I just made up to cover MR's "dyanmic and growing stable of political and academic blogs, social media assets, and multimedia offerings" (see? branding!).

More importantly: Dore Gold on Iran. Skirball. November 2nd. I've pasted the full flier, which is nicely laid out and includes some more logistical information, after the jump. Click on it to download a full-sized copy.

You can also click through to the CJHS writeup or just RSVP preemtively because it's Dore Gold and he'll be talking about Iran on the week where the IAEA will be declaring "so we looked into that Qom site that we gave Iran weeks to clean out, and it turns out it was empty - nothing to worry about!" CJHS put on a Skirball event with Norman Podhoretz about a month ago that sold out and had an overflow line stretching almost out the door. So if you're going to attend - and you should, given how what Gold said in August is happening now and what he'll be saying next week will be happening in December - it behooves you to RSVP sooner rather than later.

Partial blurb:

One of Israel's greatest living foreign policy experts, Ambassador Gold will be speaking about his new book The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West and about the threats posed by a resurgent Iran arming itself with weapons of mass destruction... The Rise of Nuclear Iran systematically lays out the elements of Iran's weaponization program: highly enriched nuclear material, long-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable warheads. The revelation of the Qom enrichment facility and Iran's subsequent missile tests have confirmed all of Gold's warnings, making his book required reading for anyone who seeks to understand Tehran's current and future plans. Now Ambassador Gold will lay out a bleak case against the West's "sticks and carrots" engagement policy and highlight the consequences of its likely failure: a "nuclear umbrella" for global terrorists, a Middle East dominated by Shiite hegemony, a Western hemisphere subject to Iranian threats, and a ever-present genocidal shadow over the Jewish State.

RSVP: Click.

But this time they pinky swear they'll be enthusiastic about supporting any US war effort. Not like when they promised to support "the necessary war" in Afghanistan if only we would abandon Iraq. For realsies this time.

This FP post from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow David Rothkopf, subtly titled "Afghanistan is just not that important", is the second appearance in a week for this nuanced position. It includes the querulous insistence that Obama shouldn't be tied down by his over-the-top campaign posing, where he obnoxiously lectured Republicans about military priorities. Because why should Democrats have to run on what they actually intend to do? If they did that they might never get elected.

Of course changing circumstances require changing tactics, and if the left was making that argument it'd be a different debate. But that's not the argument they're making. They're not saying the Taliban or Al Qaeda have become less "the people who attacked us on 9/11," which was one of the left's tropes ad nauseam during the campaign. Instead they're saying - explicitly - that Afghanistan's just not that important. Now it's true that Obama convinced the American people to trust him as Commander in Chief by saying the exact opposite. But the left didn't really believe him at the time - they know Democrats have to say moderate-sounding things to get elected, and they don't hold that against them - so what's the big deal if he flip-flops now?

Of course The One will need a sophisticated-sounding excuse. And right on cue, here's the matriarch of the nutroots herself. In this post she's advocating that Biden should resign as part of a principled stance against putting more troops in Afghanistan, a decision she insists "generations to come will always be grateful for." Technically true, but obviously not for the reasons she thinks. Anyway:

If Biden truly believes that what we're doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security -- and what issue is more important than that? -- it's simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs. Though it would be a crowning moment in a distinguished career, such an act of courage would likely be only the beginning. Biden would then become the natural leader of the movement to wind down this disastrous war and focus on the real dangers in Pakistan.

That same post also had Huffington comparing Biden to Socrates. Unironically. Because when I think "the most honest and wisest of all men," I think about a a serial liar who, having declared that we have to bankrupt the country to avoid bankrupting it, this week announced that we're in a depressing. This is a thinker of such geostrategic genius that he managed to get every single thing wrong on Iraq, voting for the war, voting against the surge, and in between proposing a 3-way partition plan of such incandescent stupidity that factions engaged in a genocidal civil war came together to oppose it. This is ostensibly our military Socrates, a modern day warrior-scholar.

So in addition to being reflexive appeasers who coat their whimpering pro-surrender histrionics with tough-sounding pseudo-sophistication, leftists also appear to be thoroughly serious people.

References and previously after the jump...

Remember that Hezbollah warehouse / living room from last week where they were very unsafely storing explosives? Having moved everything out after it detonated - an IDF drone caught the entire clean up, video below - Hezbollah's been going out of their way to fabricate evidence of an IDF conspiracy. Today's update involves the discovery of a super-secret explosive laden Zionist spying device. I have no idea what that means, but I put the picture up above and here's caption, both courtesy of the AP's Mohammed Zaatari:

A suspected Israeli spying device is seen in the southern village of Houla, near the border with Israel, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009. Lebanese-Israeli border was rocked by an explosion Saturday night which a Lebanese official said was caused by Israel detonating two Israeli spying devices planted on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Houla. A third one was set off in the same area by Lebanese troops, the official added. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Nice to see the media bringing a critical eye to bear on Hezbollah's feverish fantasies. This is in addition to the elaborate mock-up Hezbollah staged and videotaped after the explosion, where they pretended to demonstrate that there were no weapons in the warehouse. It was also dutifully picked up by Reuters, because who can argue with video?

Very convincing. Minus the fact that the explosion happened at night, that Hezbollah sealed off the area afterward, that the IDF video showed a different truck removing weapons, and that UNIFIL stooges were obviously let into the area the next day after the cover-up was finished. But other than that, air tight.

This would be exploding warehouse number two from over the last few months, incidentally:

All these unblinking fabrications beg a pretty fundamental question: who is the show for? Are the Lebanese people really so gullible that they'll nod along with these laughably thin conspiracy theories? And if so shouldn't we stop giving them billions in weapons and logistical training, on the off chance that eventually they'll be fighting one of our allies because they're certifiable? (h/t: Soccer Dad for the spying device, AL for the rest)

References:
* BREAKING: Hezbollah Living Room / Weapons Depot Explodes (Plus: Kills Senior Operative?) [MR]
* Mideast Conflict [Yahoo News]
* Hezbollah says blast footage shows door not rocket [Reuters]
* US Security Assistance To Lebanon Already Being Turned Against Israel [MR]

Previously:
* Great News: UNIFIL Breaking Up Israel's Anti-Hezbollah Spy Rings
* Jimmy Carter Gets His Wish: Hezbollah Has Anti-Aircraft Missiles
* Hezbollah And Neo-Nazis Agree: Pat Oliphant's Anti-Semitic Cartoon Is Exquisite

The full interview with Dr. Ledeen is now available on the One Jerusalem audio page. It's more than double the length of the highlight clips I played as part of Wednesday's show. If you haven't heard the Wednesday show, by the by, you should hit the widget on the MR sidebar or hop directly to the Blog Talk Radio page. There are still no people calling in but other than that I've almost entirely managed to make the equipment not be broke.

The full interview gets into a lot more detail about the scope of the Iranian threat and about internal Iranian political dynamics. At one point there's a kind of an indirect crash course on the Iranian hierarchy, which will be useful if you're participating in one of those "who's getting arrested today" fantasy leagues that have been springing up. There's also a series of musings on exactly what species of stupid must be swaying our historically-stunted diplomatic community. "What would they have to believe to think that" is always an interesting question, though it'd be a lot more entertaining if it wasn't for their Memento-like approach to Iranian engagement wasn't pushing the Middle East into nonconventional war.

Two final teaser quotes to sweeten the pot on the full interview: (1) Dr. Ledeen answers the question "where do you see the next 6 months going inside of Iran" and (2) there's an extended discussion about Tehran palace intrigue that culminates in the line "people very close to them are betraying them." Genuine inside baseball stuff.

In the meantime you obviously should grab Ledeen's new book Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West. If there was any sense in the world it'd be required reading in the White House. Instead Obama and his staff are engrossed in a book about how the White House needs to be wary of Pentagon wartime advice. What could go wrong?

References:
* AUDIO EXCLUSIVE :: Michael Ledeen, Author of 'Iran & The War Against the West' -- Full Interview! [One Jerusalem]
* Michael Ledeen - Iran's Accomplices To Evil [The Omri Ceren Show]
* Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West by Michael Ledeen [Amazon]
* Reading "Lessons in Disaster" in the White House [Politico]

Previously:
* Khamenei Seizes Control Of Iranian Republican Guard Militias, Installs Son As Head Thug
* HuffPo: Conservatives "Insist The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion Are Real"
* The Omri Ceren Show - Wednesday At 2pm PST - Michael Ledeen On His New Book "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West"

Lots of people are saying Obama's done nothing to promote global peace. Certainly, the refrain goes, he hadn't done anything by day 12 of his Presidency, which is when he was nominated to share in the same glory as Yasser Arafat and Iranian stooge Mohamed ElBaradei. I think that's just so unfair.

If you believe - as I do - that continued Israeli territorial concessions in the context of ongoing Palestinian intransigence are a recipe for war, you have to concede Obama's got at least some case. Before he came along the Israeli electorate was inclined to support further peace gestures. Palestinian leaders were willing to sit across the table from Israeli negotiators and offer unenforceable intangible promises in exchange for tangible land - promises Israeli diplomats were loath to reject.

Just two years ago the Bush administration - by pushing on Israeli leaders slowly without alarming the Israeli public - managed to stage Annapolis. It was predicted by secular Israeli centrists to be a total disaster for the Jewish State. It turned out merely to be a substantial disaster. That's the drip drip drip method you have to use if you want to get Israelis to buy into one bad diplomatic deal after another.

Instead last Spring the Obama White House decided to kind of sort of spectacularly detonate the US-Israel alliance. They leaked to everyone that they were going to kick Netanyahu's ass and ordered Israel to come up with a peace plan by July. Somehow that managed to backfire. I'm not sure if it was because Obama telegraphed his sellout on Arab TV or because Mitchell announced that America would push for the "Israel has to commit suicide" Saudi Initiative or because pipsqueak State Department officials publicly reveled in slapping around a sitting Prime Minister. But somehow Israeli officials got the distinct impression that Obama really didn't like them.

And just to keep things topical, yes Obama's counterproductive anti-Israel moves began before that crucial twelfth Presidential day. On the eve of the inauguration he promised to make a point of investigating Cast Lead literally on Day 1. Because why would Israel get nervous about promises to "address" their self-defense against Hamas?

It was Obama's weird demand for a total Israeli settlement freeze, though, that was really inspired. Netanyahu was willing to commit to offering the Palestinians statehood. So something else had to be found so Obama could pick a fight with Israel and build some anti-Israel cred in the Arab world. Settlements seemed like a good target since someone in Obama's inner circle really thought they could be used as a wedge issue with the Israeli electorate.

Sure the utterly shameless bait and switch on Bush's "settlement blocs" promises was particularly ill advised, given that Israel needs to believe in US security assurances to take "risks for peace." Sure it turned Israelis against Obama, united them behind Netanyahu, and even brought Ehud Olmert out of retirement to support the Israeli right that defeated him. Sure average Israelis started urging their leaders to reject Obama's demands, which Israel subsequently and loudly did on Jerusalem. And sure the situation became so grim that ostensibly pro-Israel liberal American Jews started openly whining that Israelis are spoiled (because that's persuasive!)

But it was the dustup's effect on the Palestinians that was really magical.

If I was the Israeli government and I knew I'd be attacking Iran in 2 months, I'd be doing everything possible now to preemptively expand the IDF's operational freedom in Gaza and South Lebanon. Once the attack happens there's no red line the other side won't cross so the less assets they have the better. In Gaza that might involve getting Shalit the hell out of Hamas's hands no matter what the price. In South Lebanon it would involve eliminating senior Hezbollah operatives.

I haven't written about the Shalit swap, half because I've been crunched for time and half because I've always hated blogging about prisoner exchanges. Protests aside, I kind of think it's going to happen. Hamas needs their prisoner release for the Palestinian elections and Israel's Cabinet seems willing to pay for Shalit. But the strategic picture in Gaza is a sideshow compared to Lebanon.

Speaking of which...

At least two people were killed in an explosion in a building in a small Lebanese village near the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon, sources said on Monday evening. The building is reportedly the home of senior Hizbullah official Abd al-Nasser Issa. Security forces in Lebanon reported that both Issa and his son were killed in the explosion. Three other people were reportedly killed in the blast. Hizbullah denied any casualties, saying that only one person was wounded.

Hezbollah has been warning their operatives to watch out for assassinations, but this actually doesn't look like an Israeli hit. It looks like Issa was using his house as a weapons depot and natural selection took its course. Something to keep in mind the next time Human Rights Watch or the UN mouth off about how there's no evidence Hezbollah uses human shields.

These war criminals are eventually going to end up sharing formal control over Lebanon, Netanyahu's "if you want them you own them" warnings notwithstanding. And because our liberal foreign policy community needs a reminder now and again, that means Iran.

So Israel will be dealing with an Iranian controlled army in the service of a Lebanese government entity storing missiles in civilian bunkers and firing them at Israeli skyscrapers - and the Israelis will still get blamed.

References and previously after the jump...

As promised, here are last week's Council winners. The top post was from Soccer Dad, who pointed out a week ago what Netanyahu was slamming the table about yesterday:

The media likes to boast that they are the "first rough draft of history." Part of that claim is that they are disinterested parties just reporting the facts as they are. Rafael Broch of Just Journalism had an excellent op-ed in Ha'aretz demonstrating the falseness of that claim... And so every Israeli self-defense is subject to a filter, which suggests that each such action might well be a violation worthy of condemnation if not punishment. Consider the other side of the coin. On Friday Israel released twenty female security prisoners in exhange for a video of captured soldier, Gilad Schalit. Schalit has been held for three years and not allowed any visits by the Red Cross. How did the Associated Press orient its story? On the plight of the prisoners!

Also on the subject of media mendacity, the runner up non-Council post was from Jammie Wearing Fool on CBS's attempt to discredit conservative blogs. CBS's demonstrably and embarrassingly failed attempt to discredit conservative blogs. We've now reached a point where the media rushes to defend Obama against "spurious" charges without actually checking whether those charges are spurious. You have to click on the links guys.

Back to Council posts, the runner up post was from Joshuapundit on the sham negotiations in Geneva:

We're not going to discuss 'sanctions', or anything like that with Iran, but we'd like to talk to them one on one about whatever's on their mind if that works out. But of course, we're not insisting or anything like that. We'd really, really like the Iranians to let the IAEA take a peek at their hidden nuclear facility near Qom, (as if the IAEA is going to be able to find its behind with both hands)but we don't insist on it. And we're certainly not going to try to get Iran to comply even by mentioning the prospect of sanctions against them, let alone force. And nothing harsh like any deadlines. Whenever things are all tidied up and it's convenient, El Baradi and the boys will drop by - if that's OK.

On a largely unrelated note, has anyone noticed the Kafkaesque turn domestic law enforcement has taken? The top non-Council post is about the age of opaque law enforcement we've apparently entered. Closer to home, the FTC is defending their new anti-blogger regulations specifically by promising they'll only selectively enforce them. I have yet to go to law school - and while we're on that topic, if you'd be so kind - but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to work that way.

References and previously after the jump...

A counterpoint to today's new found Taliban-related sophistication, this comes from the second Obama/McCain debate and was and parcel of Obama's empty blustering about going hardline on Pakistan if they didn't crack down on militants. After the inauguration Karzai had to intervene and tell our nuance-filled international celebrity to "settle down" and use "better judgment," lest he find himself without even erstwhile allies in Central Asia.

Bonus: this is the same answer where Obama talked about sending more troops to Afghanistan and linked AfPak instability to resources diverted into Iraq. I cropped out the the resources part because I'm not sure why he made the claim, given that he started running from it even during the primaries. The "more troops" promise is a bit more timely given how he's barely clinging to "keep troop numbers stable" these days. He was on quite the roll that night, wasn't he?

They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism. But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants. What I've said is we're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if you want to know why CBS's Lora Logan was so emphatic about tearing into the WH's moronic pronouncements today, here's Obama during the campaign bloviating to her about what a grim anti-Pakistani realist he is. Yes, of course the word "I" was prominently featured:

Hot Air has the substantive critique of the WH's discovery that the Taliban aren't really our enemy. It's also worth noting that Obama's been peddling similar-but-not-identical nonsense for a while - CT Blog was already ripping our super-keen CiC's myth of two Talibans back in March.

And isn't it interesting how administration officials have now become literal mouthpieces for Taliban propaganda. I saw this Taliban statement in the wires yesterday and wanted to blog it with a line like "how long before this gets picked up as the new sophisticated liberal read on the AfPak theater?" Good thing for you guys I didn't get to it. Can you imagine how insufferable I'd be right now?

Afghanistan's insurgent Taliban marked the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion Wednesday saying they have no "agenda" to harm other countries but would continue fighting as long as America and its allies remain in the troubled nation. The Taliban insistence that it would pose no threat to other countries appeared aimed at countering suspicions that the Islamist movement would support al-Qaida's global jihad if they returned to power. Supporters of the war fear that al-Qaida would regain its once-dominant position in Afghanistan if the Taliban topple the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

In an Internet statement Wednesday obtained by the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors terror messages, the Taliban said their goal was "independence and establishment of an Islamic system. We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe, nor we have such agenda today," the group said. "Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war."

First, Europe isn't a country, regardless of what Obama said during the primaries. More importantly, I'm trying to square yesterday's wide-eyed claim of innocence with previous Taliban threats to destroy Paris, but I'm coming up short. Maybe someone in the administration can untangle it for me.

References:
* New White House spin: Taliban not really an enemy, has role in Afghanistan's future [Hot Air]
* The Myth of the Two Talibans [CT Blog]
* Taliban say they're no threat to other countries [MSNBC]
* NO WONDER THEY'RE AFRAID OF BRIT HUME [Ann Coulter]
* Taliban says maybe we won't always have Paris [Jihad Watch]

Previously:
* AfPak [MR]
* Obama Vs. Obama On Victory In Afghanistan
* AfPak | Mere Rhetoric

I guess I was wrong during yesterday's TOCS news segment when I said that Geneva would give Iran time to limp across the nuclear finish line. They're actually sprinting ahead:

Iran plans to install a more advanced type of centrifuge at its newly revealed uranium enrichment site, an Iranian newspaper reported Tuesday, a development certain to add to international concerns about the country's nuclear work. Iranian scientists have carried out research and development in recent months for the new generation of more efficient centrifuges, and most of the machines' components are made domestically, said the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, according to the Kayhan daily newspaper.... Iran insists its enrichment work is only meant for use in generating power.

The size and nature of the Qom facility put to rest even the pretense that they might be telling the truth only wanting to generate power. But it's nice to see they're still willing to unblinkingly trot out the line. Saves people the trouble of unpacking new lies.

On sanctions, here's that NYT story about how we couldn't implement a robust sanctions regime even if we got Russia or China on board. Luckily we can get neither Russia nor China on board so that's not an issue.

Not that Obama seems particularly interested in trying. First there was that September deadline that he set and that the Iranians made a huge show of totally and completely blowing off. It promptly and mysteriously vanished, only to be replaced by a new December deadline.

Then there was that hardline announcement that Iran had two weeks to let inspectors into Qom. Guess how it went:

The One laid down the two-week deadline yesterday at around 3 p.m. ET; this dispatch from The Hill was posted at 2:23 this afternoon. The big "ultimatum" didn't last 24 hours: "A State Department spokesperson on Friday signaled the president's mandate that Iran has two weeks to permit inspections of its recently unveiled uranium refinement plant was not "written in stone." "I don't think that there's a hard-and-fast deadline," State Department Spokesperson Ian C. Kelley said during Friday's press briefing, after a reporter asked what the consequences of Iran's inaction might be."

As for our broader strategy - I can't blockquote this entire Fox News blog post so I'll just send you there directly. Title: "US Won't Push for Sanctions in Nuke Talks With Iran, Open to Direct Negotiations, Denial of Access to Covert Enrichment Facility Not a Deal-Breaker."

Meanwhile our State Department has taken to granting emergency visas to Iranian regime toadies "with unusual speed." Just to be nice, ya know?

References and previously after the jump...

It turns out that decades of treating totalitarian cretins like totalitarian cretins is having its effect on Syria. This is coming Farid Ghadry - one of the anti-Syrian activists in Lebanon that Assad hasn't gotten around to killing yet - so it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand it can't be any less credible than the wild fantasies that professional Syria watchers routinely make up about peeling Syria away from the Iranian orbit.

Plus - again in contrast to the prognostications of our liberal foreign policy establishment - it has the benefit of kind of making sense:

Between US sanctions, a severe drought in an agrarian-based economy, sustained terror that has caused the migration of over 1 million Iraqis to Syria, political risks promoting "resistance" instead of cooperation, dwindling oil revenues, an alarming increase in Syrian population and a determined new Israeli government, Assad is being squeezed like a Syrian olive for its oil. Very few people grasp the reality Assad faces now that he has systematically destroyed whatever he inherited from his father through ill-advised policies. Some Middle East analysts are aware of the economic pressure Assad is under, but the extent of the harm his policies have caused the Syrian treasury is largely unknown.

Ghadry emphasizes that delegitimatizing Iran will bring enormous pressure to bear on Assad, which would be great news except for how the Geneva talks have allowed Tehran to rehabilitate itself. I wouldn't focus too much on the Iranian angle though, since Obama is doing his best to relegitimize the Syrian regime directly:

A senior Syrian official has been invited to Washington for talks, a U.S. Embassy official said Monday, in the latest signal of the Obama administration's efforts to improve relations with a country deemed a state sponsor of terrorism. The upcoming visit by Syria's deputy foreign minister, Fayssal Mekdad, is the first in about five years and is part of U.S. efforts to improve strained relations with Damascus. Mekdad, who is currently in New York as part of the Syrian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly meetings, will fly to Washington on Monday for talks with U.S. government officials on a range of issues, the embassy official said.

I wonder if we brought up the thing about how Syria refuse to budge on their ongoing incitement of violence in Iraq. Probably not. Wouldn't want to spoil the mood.

References and previously after the jump...

Thirty minutes till the very first episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. You should be able to listen to it either here or at One Jerusalem via the Blog Talk Radio widget. If it's not streaming correctly then you can head over to the main TOCS page where it'll definitely be working. You might want to take a stroll over there anyway since there's all kinds of information about calling in and sharing the show.

I wrapped up the interview with Ambassador Gold this morning and I'll be playing highlights from that plus whatever news segments we have time for. The full 25 minute interview will be made available after the show exclusively on the One Jerusalem audio page. The highlights I'll be playing focus mainly on the Ambassador's new book Rise Of Nuclear Iran and how it relates to - and predicted - the last few weeks of Iran-related news. The full interview also includes comments on Obama's Middle East diplomacy and about a couple other domestic and geopolitical controversies. Definitely something to check out.

In the meantime we're unwrapping the plastic here at the palatial One Jerusalem studios and we'll be on the air shortly. If you want to try to get on the air the number is 347-857-2022. We're only going 30 minutes today - 15 less than what we'll be doing during our regular Wednesday time slot - but I'll still try to fir a few folks in.

References:
* One Jerusalem
* The Omri Ceren Show [Blog Talk Radio]
* Rise Of Nuclear Iran by Dore Gold [Amazon]

Previously:
* One Jerusalem Conference Call With Dore Gold: The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West [Video]
* Mere Rhetoric Updates - Site Changes And News
* The Omri Ceren Show Debuts Monday At 11am PST With Dore Gold Interview, Vitriol

Per the last post, the debut episode of The Omri Ceren Show - hereinafter labeled TOCS in a desperate attempt not to sound clownish - will air tomorrow at 11am. This opportunity is courtesy the newly-minted One Jerusalem Radio, where the thinking apparently goes "our dignified high-level podcasts with noted politicians, scholars, and authors go like gangbusters - just think how popular an anger-filled hour of sarcasm and bile courtesy of an unknown blogger will be!" See also: trust, misplaced.

Tomorrow's interview is going to be with Ambassador Dore Gold, who'll be discussing among other things his new book The Rise Of Nuclear Iran. Gold's recent work got him tagged - by as erudite and careful a leftist mind as Max Blumenthal no less - as a member of the Party Of Death. Apparently the suggestion that Iran has a weapons program comprised of secret enrichment facilities, long-range ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable warheads constitutes "a gigantic vaudeville of doom, despair, and destruction." So hopefully I'll get to ask the Ambassador why he hates life.

Around 10:30am I'll push a post live with a widget that looks very much like this thing, except it'll hopefully have a working link instead of the "undefined" tag showing now:

I'll also give you information on how to call in, light up the switchboard, and get on the air with questions. I can't imagine any of this will actually work so you should probably count on accessing the show from the main TOCS page on Blog Talk Radio. It has tools for streaming, information on calling in, and lots of social media buttons for sharing and participating.

I'm hoping that after a couple episodes a community of affirmation will coalesce around the show, very much like a group therapy session except with an extra heaping helping of warmth and comfort. Because isn't making a human connection what we're all really here for anyway?

References:
* Mere Rhetoric Updates - Site Changes And News [MR]
* Pastor Hagee's party of death (with Lieberman and Dore Gold) [Blumenthal]
* Reports: Obama Knew About Secret Iran Facility During Transition, Experts Pushed Engagement Anyway With Pro-Iran Pretexts [MR]
* Iran: Surprise, We've Got Working Ballistic Missiles [Video] [MR]
* Intel Shows Iran Fitting Missiles With Nuclear-capable Warheads [National Terror Alert]

Previously:
* Video: Israeli Missile Defense Group Emphasizes Need, Technological Feasibility Of Anti-Missile Systems
* One Jerusalem Conference Call With Dore Gold: The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West [Video]
* One Jerusalem Conference Call: Ambassador Dore Gold On How Current Limited Negotiations Are A Slippery Slope To Losing Jerusalem

On the eve of the Palestinian unity government that will finally allow Obama to backslide on his promise not to deal with Hamas, a little reminder of exactly the kind of genocidal cretins our government will be talking to:

You have to appreciate the headline on the Jerusalem Post writeup though - "Hamas children's TV program again calls for the 'slaughter of Jews'":

All Jews must be "erased from our land," Nassur, a stuffed bear... explained to a child who called in to a September 22 show. "We want to slaughter them, Saraa, so they will be expelled from our land... we'll have to [do it] by slaughter."... "Generally the program also transmits good messages to kids like drinking milk or asking parents permission to do something, but we also find these very problematic messages like the call to kill Jews," she said.

And that's just this specific show. It doesn't even cover Hamas stage productions like "Jews Drink the Blood of Muslims to Please Their God":

It'd be easy to think of this as high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment, not least of which because it's high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment:

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi called on Monday for a new global definition of terrorism. Meeting a day after the end of a summit of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms defining terrorism. Neither spoke publicly about the document, which rejects "attempts to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination" with terrorism, according to a Venezuelan government website.

Next up: a redefinition of "Holocaust" that excludes genocides where the murderers were merely seeking Lebensraum. Subtle these tools are not. Not that they have to be: we've now reached a point in global geopolitics where Chavez is the one urging his fellow cretins to help the President of the United States, ostensibly the leader of the free world. Explicitly:

Meanwhile, Stone's new buddy gushed about Barack Obama, short one Communist buddy since Van Jones departed in the dark of night over the weekend. Maybe the two can pal around and have a beer at the White House: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama..."I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice. "With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can't deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He's intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him."

In fairness, Chavez and Obama do have a few overlapping perspectives. It's not just big things like reinstalling Zelaya or engaging Iran. It's the little things, the everyday things, the things at the level of sensibility. Like their mutual vaguely reflexive need to trash former President Bush in front of international forums. Those are the kind of shared eccentricities that really bring two people together.

Not in the way that Chavez is being "brought together" with African countries in an "anti-imperial" alliance. Or the way he's being "brought together" with Iran to create what Costa Rica's former US ambassador calls "a menace to the Western Hemisphere." Or the way he's being "brought together" with Qaddafi to build up a new world order. Those are much more robust alliance, built on shared anti-Western interests.

But it's still kind of heartwarming.

References and previously after jump...

Within a few minutes of the Iran nuke revelation Mark Knoller had a "senior US official" spinning it as some kind of "victory." It wasn't the most credible spin ever offered by an administration - and making it into an unblinking party line didn't help - but it wasn't "Honduras is a coup" deplorable or anything like that. It's undeniably dumb - Iran not only forced Obama to tip his hand but did it in a way that strengthened their negotiating position - but at least it was kind of sort of in the ballpark:

Paul Ingram, executive director of the British-American Security Information Council in London, an independent research and advocacy organization, said the timing of Iran's revelation -- in between United Nations General Assembly sessions and and the key meeting between Iran and key Western powers -- is deliberate on Iran's part. "It is not at all surprising that Iran would want this news to come out now," Ingram said. "It strengthens their hand." The fact that Iran has proactively informed the world helps Iran diplomatically in conducting nuclear negotiations, Ingram said, adding that to characterize this second facility as a covert operation is misleading. The Iranians have yet to start production at Qom and are revealing it before that happens.

So "US victory" isn't really a tenable argument. But it's what you're supposed to do and it's what they did. So points for that.

As it turns out, though, spinning diplomatic setbacks as victories doesn't only mean you're being inane. In this White House it also means you're off message:

Reid: "Thank you Mr. President, you just mentioned sanctions that have bite, what kinds of sanction, and I know you can't get into details but what kind of sanctions at all would have bite with Iran, do you really think that any kind of sanctions would have any effect on somebody like Ahmadinejad, secondly some of your advisers today said that this announcement was a victory, do you consider it a victory and if so why didn't you announce it earlier since you have known since you were President elect?." Obama flustered by the question: "I'm not interested in victory, I'm interested in solving the problem"

That's quite the nuance-infused take on the international scene, and it's certainly justified when countries can come together for mutual benefit. International relations obviously doesn't have to be a zero sum game. Except - weirdly - when it is a zero sum game. Like when one country wants to build a nuclear bomb and another country wants them not to, that's a situation where you'll have a winner and a loser. Best case scenario for pretending otherwise: you look moronic. Worst case scenario: the other side actually believes you and hardens their posture accordingly.

I guess the actual worst case is that Obama's not pretending. But that's just silly. Video via Gateway Pundit:

This is more or less the same stunt he pulled when he couldn't make up his mind on "victory in Afghanistan." So at least he's consistently inconsistent.

References and previously after the jump...

The stuff about the transition comes from what Knoller's reporting, and in retrospect it makes sense. If the NIE estimated that there were 10-15 hidden facilities - and they did - presumably they had explicit game on at least a few of them. Nice of Obama to trot out surrogate after surrogate to threaten Israel against taking out the facilities, always under the pretense that he had things under control. Speaking of which, how did Iran get wind that their cover was blown?

As for Russia, they still see Iran as critical to their economic health, so don't expect much from Moscow. Earlier this week, they sounded fatalistic about new sanctions, and some wondered if Obama hadn't worked out some quid pro quo based on the shift on missile defense in eastern Europe. Instead, it looks as though Obama may have shared this intel with Russia, which is probably how Iran found out about it.

Since this post is supposed to be about engagement and the faux sophisticates who fabricate pretexts for it, here are the Sept. 8 and Sept. 19 LA Times editorials urging "conversations" with Iran. In between the paper published a third pro-engagement Opinion, this one about how Iran was ever-so-close to moderation.

The drip drip drip consistency of the engagement push might cause some people to suspect that a loose group of pro-Iran journalists, intellectuals, and politicians were manipulating the news cycle. But the alternative - that the LA Times is filled with morons who didn't get the "no one really believes engagement will work any more" memo - shouldn't be totally dismissed.

Taking a step back: I was always kind of fond of the left's anodyne Bush-era assurances about how Iran could never get their centrifuges running. There were all kinds of reasons: contamination of the equipment, impurity of the uranium, the misalignment of the moons of Saturn, etc. It was the specificity coupled with the bluster in the context of the mindblowing stupidity that was always so delightful.

This current crop of Iran apologists is just unimaginative.

Why not? Iran already got precisely the right read on Western resolve when we let them blow off that September deadline. What's this going to do? Give the impression of appeasement?

The consequences of letting the September deadline pass without demonstrating a decisive response is clearly not understood in Western capitals. Iran will carefully calibrate its next moves on the basis of how it believes the U.S. and its allies will act in the weeks ahead. Up until now, President Obama's efforts to reach out to the Iranian leadership with carefully-crafted public messages and private letters have elicited the opposite response of what he intended... What might have been seen in Washington as a magnanimous gesture was perceived in Tehran as a sign of reduced Western resolve.

And so this morning - somehow knowing that their cover was blown - the mullahs went ahead and let slip a second previously undisclosed nuke facility. This one's not big enough to be helpful with energy generation. But if you were intent on, say, building a nuclear bomb - if that was your intention then it's quite useful.

This is the first facility out of the 10-15 secret ones that the 2007 NIE said Iran probably had. It's the third one they've been caught lying about. So in response we've issued a strong statement about how we're going to give them until December to explain themselves. Because maybe this whole thing is just a giant misunderstanding!

Obama called "disturbing information" -- a secret uranium enrichment facility Western intelligence agencies have discovered near Qom, 97 miles southwest of Tehran. Calling the news "a challenge made to the entire international community," President Sarkozy said that "if by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken." Brown said the "level of deception by the Iranian government and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments will shock and anger the whole international community and it will harden our resolve...We will not let this matter rest.

So disturbed was Obama, per Tapper, that he began to experience "great and increasing doubts about the strictly peaceful nature" of Iran's nuke program. You know, they might actually be up to something!

References and previously after the jump...

Naturally:

Three Katyusha rockets struck open fields near Nahariya on Friday. There have been no reports of casualties. The rockets were fired from southern Lebanon and Israel Radio has reported that the Israel Defense Forces have launched retaliatory artillery into southern Lebanon... Channel 10 reported that an electric tower was struck by one of the rockets.

Apparently Hezbollah found somewhere else to plant a few of their tens of thousands of rockets. They were having some problems after Lebanese villagers disabused them of the notion that the villagers were willing to become human shields (not that Hezbollah uses human shields - cf. Human Rights Watch's "no basis" strutting).

Interesting few days for Hezbollah. First they block the government from forming, forcing Hariri to resign. Now this. Someone's having a good week.

References:
* Three Katyusha rockets strike northern Israel [Ha'aretz]
* Lebanese villagers recorded driving away Hezbollah men [YNet]
* HRW: "No Basis" For Claims That Hezbollah Used Human Shields. MR: What About All The Photos And Videos [Video] [MR]
* Hariri fails to form cabinet, resigns [JPost]

Previously:
* Great News: UNIFIL Breaking Up Israel's Anti-Hezbollah Spy Rings
* UNIFIL Peacekeepers Now Actively Trying To Start A War In Lebanon
* Surveillance Video Shows Hezbollah Moving Some Of Their 40,000 Rockets To Israeli Border, War Could "Explode At Any Minute" [Video]

Bouthaina Shaaban is a Syrian Minister, a Warwick PhD, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was once awarded the Arab League's "Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position" Award, something I'm assuming they rotate among their two or three eligible contestants. She's also kind of an antisemitic cretin, and this week she's particularly excited about that excerable Swedish blood libel:

The investigative report written by Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom... about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs raised a political and media storm in Israel meant to cover up a horrible crime perpetrated for years... [in 1992] Palestinians started to witness a sharp rise in the number of young Palestinians disappearing and of bodies of Palestinians killed by occupation forces being returned with organs like hearts, kidneys, livers and eyes missing...

Bostrom writes. "On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it... I traveled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza... who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Ahmed Ghanam".

Of course those same Palestinian families have reported that they told Bostrom no such thing. And of course the editor of Bostrom's paper, the venerable Aftonbladet, also admits that there's no evidence of organ theft.

None of that matters: conspiracy theories do their persuasive work not by achieving mainstream public acceptance but by bringing something into the realm of acceptable public debate. Done and done.

Shaaban then elaborates on her antisemitic fantasy, breathlessly recounting lurid details that would have made the Nazis roll their eyes. The line "it was clear that Bilal's body was slit from his abdomen up to his chin" is particularly striking, though you won't want to miss her full paragraph about an impromptu Israeli torture scene. It involves IDF soldiers shooting the victim in his limbs and his stomach before dragging him through a field. How that left his organs sufficiently intact for transplant remains unclear, though it's obviously not an operation beyond the means of diabolical Zionist Jew medicine.

The constant repetition of expertise, the whiff of slightly-too-specific details, and the hint of overcompensation in words like "definitely" and "clear" - those are all part and parcel of conspiracy rhetoric. But those verbal tics plus the gruesome obsession with imagined Jewish atrocities is a combination rarely found in such perfect form outside the Arab world. Pay particular attention to how the usual threads of conspiracism - expertise, details, overcompensation - get seamlessly woven into the rest of this feverish antisemitic tapestry:

Charming:

Dozens of Malaysian Muslims paraded Friday with the head of a cow, a sacred animal in Hinduism, in a dramatic protest against the proposed construction of a Hindu temple in their neighborhood... The demonstrators who marched from a nearby mosque after Friday prayers dumped the cow head outside the gates of the state government headquarters. Selangor adjoins Kuala Lumpur. Protesters stomped on the head and spat on it before leaving the site, Xavier Jeyakumar, a state government official in charge of non-Muslim affairs, told The Associated Press. "This is a sign of disrespect, insensitivity and a huge insult to the Indian community," he said.

I like how he clarified that bit at the end, in case anybody was confused by the decapitation and the spitting. In other Malaysia news, they've recently freed an Al Qaeda pilot who targeted the US, they're still on course to cane that model for drinking, and the "freedom of religion" clause in their Constitution apparently doesn't apply to anyone who wants the freedom to leave Islam.

I can't wait to hear them join the chorus of anti-Israel incitement at the UN opening. It's going to be exquisite.

References:
* Malaysia Muslims protest proposed Hindu temple [AP]
* Malaysia frees suspected al Qaeda pilot - report [Reuters]
* Model in Malaysia to be caned for drinking beer [AP]
* Malaysia: Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion "doesn't apply" to Muslims who want to leave Islam [Jihad Watch]

Previously:
* Malaysian Official Dispenses Life Advice: Don't Be Like American Jews Who Control The Economy And Government
* Pro-Islam Christian Leaders Seemingly Untroubled By Muslim World's Surreal Anti-Christian Oppression And Murder
* Malaysia: Actually This 9/11-Linked Bio-Weapons Expert Seems On The Up And Up

Typical fare from these cretins, though there's probably something to be said for how naturally he expects UN resources to flow according to his pathological demands. It makes perfect sense - the UN already funds Hamas's terrorist and military operations and feeds laughingly false Hamas propaganda to international media outlets - but the combination of unblinking entitlement and hysterical venom is still a little unsettling.

Anyway, your tax dollars at work:

Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce lessons about the Holocaust to Gaza students. Adding the Holocaust to the curriculum would amount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," al-Astal wrote in a statement. "I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonizers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies," he wrote...

UNRWA provides education, health care and welfare services to more than half of Gaza's 1.4 million people. Spokesman Chris Gunness said a final decision has not been made about the Holocaust course for Gaza schools. "While the Holocaust is currently not included on the basis of age appropriateness, all elements (of the curriculum) remain under review and under evolution," he said. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also objected to including what he referred to as the "so-called Holocaust" in the lesson plan.

Obligatory links about how the Arab world can't decide between celebrating or denying the Holocaust here and here. And just to change things up a little, here's a link to top Sunni clerics praising the Holocaust while insisting it didn't go far enough - a nice combination of celebration and minimization.

A fun question to take you out of the post, albeit one implying some vexing legal consequences: what do Hamas and Facebook have in common?

References and previously after the jump...

Well it only makes sense. Now that Pakistan's back to ramping up their nuke production and building brand new nuclear facilities, they probably need the advice of a guy like Khan.

Of course it's an symbolic and potentially tactical disaster from our point of view. But since Obama's smart power has given us leverage over states like Pakistan - cf. Jim Jones's hosannas from yesterday about how The One's "radically different" approach to foreign policy has increased global cooperation and decreased terrorism - this will probably get cleared up in no time:

Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, said Tuesday restrictions on his movements had been lifted. Asked if local newspaper reports that the government restrictions had been removed were correct, Khan told AFP: "By the grace of Allah, yes." In February, a Pakistani court declared Khan a free man, five years after the reputed father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb was effectively put under house arrest for operating a proliferation network... The United States in February had expressed concern that Khan's release could lead to renewed nuclear proliferation.

Then again we also criticized Pakistan over Khan's initial release back in February, and that didn't help. Though in fairness our pushback fell somewhat short of strident:

At today's press briefing, this was Robert Gibbs' response to a question about whether Barack Obama is concerned about the release of nuclear black marketeer A.Q. Khan: "Uh, obviously we've seen the reports of the release, but have not received, uh, have yet to receive official word, uh, from the government. Uh. Obviously this President has made clear, uh, many times, the great concern he has for nuclear proliferation, uh, and, uh, as we hear from the government about, uh, these reports, uh, obviously, uh, the President, uh, and this government want assurances that, uh, that Dr. Khan is not involved or engaged in, uh, any of the activity, uh, uh, that resulted in, uh, in, in his house arrest earlier."

I'm sure this time it'll be different.

References and previously after the jump...

Foreign policy and business experts have this endless celebratory fascination with Dubai, as if building a Las Vegas in the middle of an Islamic theocracy wasn't straightforwardly moronic. This is a country where pregnant women who lose their babies in traffic accidents get rung up for blood money, because how dare they be seen out of the house when they're pregnant?

Or, more broadly, how dare they be seen at all?

All female staff at Dubai Bank, Muslim and non-Muslim, must wear a shailah (head scarf) and abaya (black cloak covering the whole body) starting this Ramadan... A memo sent to staff on Thursday says the bank has decided that all Muslim and non-Muslim female staff must wear a shailah and abaya... all female employees must wear a shailah and abaya regardless of their religion. "Our bank is Islamic and must follow Sharia in all respects, which will satisfy our clients," he said. While the decision takes effect beginning first of Ramadan, it has become a rule and part of the dress code for female employees at all times.

The delightful thing about this theocratic micro-fascism is that it applies even to non-Muslim women. I'd talk about what an outrage it is to force Jewish women in Dubai to cover themselves in traditionally Muslim garb, but I think we all know the flaw in that argument.

References:
* Goodbye Dubai [Smashing Telly]
* UAE fines mother over baby death [BBC]
* Dubai Bank says all female staff must wear abayas [Muslims Against Sharia]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Iran Has Legal Slavery And Rape Of Prepubescent Girls. They Call It "Temporary Marriage".
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Commit Adultery You Only Have To Serve 11 Years In Prison (Your Lover, Though, Still Has To Die)
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Have An Affair In Pakistan Your Husband Will Feed You To Dogs, Kill You, And Then Marry Three Prepubescent Girls From Your Lover's Family

Not the first time he's trotted this out: in February he blamed the genocide in Darfur on the Jewish State. But that was theoretically the old bad Gaddafi. This is the rehabilitated Gaddafi who's reaching out to the West in response to Obama's super-sophisticated engagement. This is the re-legitimized Gaddafi who gets to hug returning arch-terrorists released by Western countries.

Turns out, once a batshit crazy antisemite always a batshit crazy antisemite:

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi blasted Israel at a special African Union summit on Monday on the eve of celebrations to mark his 40-year rule, accusing the Jewish state of causing all the woes facing Africa. Israel is "behind all of Africa's conflicts," Kadhafi told some 30 African leaders gathered under a huge tent at Tripoli airport for the summit focused on the continent's trouble spots, including Sudan's Darfur and Somalia. He demanded the closure of all Israeli embassies across Africa, describing Israel as a "gang" and saying it uses "the protection of minorities as an excuse to launch conflicts."... "As African brothers we must find solutions to stop the superpowers who are pillaging our continent," he said.

Sure he's coming from a place of frothing pathological hatred. The desire to find a central villain whose removal would solve everything the central impulse behind conspiracy theories.

But is the upshot really all that different from the central assumption of Obama's Mideast foreign policy, which blames regional instability on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on insufficient Israeli concessions? There's certainly not much daylight between Gaddafi's garbage and Chas Freeman's wild-eyed histrionics about "The Lobby" that controls US publishing and distorts the close alignment between the "values" of the US and Arab States.

The degree to which Freeman's visceral sensibilities line up with the rest of the Obama administration is something that people might want to debate. But the degree to which "linkage" is the official policy of this administration is a lot less cloudy.

References and previously after the jump...

You know what's so weird about this? There were a whole slew of foreign policy experts who predicted that engagement by newly inaugurated President Obama would moderate Assad and peel Syria away from Iran. And now the exact opposite is happening. Not only is Assad - by his own admission - closer to Iran than ever, but the Syrians have even returned to destabilizing Iraq and directly endangering American lives:

An al-Qaida front group said Tuesday it carried out last week's truck bombings on government targets in Baghdad, attacks that Iraq has said also involved plotters among Saddam Hussein loyalists based in Syria. As the Iraqi government tries to fend off criticism for security lapses, it has focused its anger on Syria and demanded that Damascus hand over two suspected members of Saddam's ousted Baath Party whom it has linked to the attacks.

On Tuesday, Iraq escalated the diplomatic confrontation with its neighbor by recalling its ambassador to Syria. Syria, in turn, ordered its ambassador home and said that unless the Iraqi government provided evidence, Syria would consider the claims to be fabricated "for political goals." The Aug. 19 blasts that tore through the foreign, finance and defense ministries killed more than 100 people, weakening confidence in Iraq's security forces.

I wonder if the Al Qaeda cretin who confessed that Syria trained him to fight in Iraq counts as sufficient "evidence" for Assad:

Iraq aired a confession from a suspected al Qaeda militant Sunday who accused Syrian intelligence agents of training foreign fighters like himself in a camp before sending them to fight in Iraq. The videotaped accusations, aired by Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi in a news conference, could worsen a row between Iraq and Syria over accusations that Syria supports Islamist militants responsible for attacks in Iraq. Iraq and Syria recalled their ambassadors last week after Baghdad demanded Damascus hand over two alleged masterminds of bombings in Baghdad that killed almost 100 people, mainly at two government ministries.

I'm thinking it must, given how exquisitely rational the regime is, per our vaunted foreign policy establishment.

References:
* US the key to Syrian rehabilitation: analysts [AFP]
* Syria And Iran Pretty Psyched About Renewed Alliance, "Resistance Front" Against US And Israel [MR]
* Iraq focuses bombings blame on operatives in Syria [AP]
* Iraq al Qaeda militant says Syria trained him [WaPo]

Previously:
* Syria Responds To Obama's Outreach By Strengthening Ties With Iran
* Aww: Al Jazeera Reports On "Real Appreciation" For Obama In Syria
* Obama's Anti-Israel Diplomacy Spectacularly Fails To Win Even A Single Arab Or Muslim Concessions

About time. The UAE has been the gaping hole in the Iran sanctions net for years:

The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean weapons to Iran, marking the first time a nation has acted on UN sanctions to stop the communist state's proliferation, a diplomat said Friday... A diplomat, speaking to AFP in New York on condition of anonymity, said UAE government officials had informed the UN Security Council's sanctions committee, which is responsible for implementing sanctions on Pyongyang. "It is an issue that is being processed by the committee," said the source, who declined further comment on details on the weapons.

I was going to end with the MR post from last April about how Obama prevented our cutting-edge missile defense from getting deployed lest it "provoke" the North Koreans. But instead here's a post from last Tuesday about how Obama's diplomatic push toward Pyongyang is paying off.

Do you think the informal club of celebrity tyrants who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy community actually laugh out loud when they talk about Obama?

With regime change off the table, and President Obama dishing out "mutual respect" faster than the rulers of Tehran, Tripoli, Pyongyang or Caracas can spit their contempt right back in his face, tyrants are becoming ever more weirdly trendy. They are globalized, in our face, on the Web, on television--and as New York braces for the September opening of the United Nations General Assembly, some of them, with considerable ceremony, are coming to town.

The most flamboyant among them enter a VIP orbit, in which they may be officially reviled, but also eagerly sought after. Recall the banquet hosted by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September at the midtown Manhattan Grand Hyatt for 1,000 or so of his closest friends. Or remember the gushing accounts two years ago of the invitations sent out, as Time magazine described it, on "creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy," to a select 50 or so American opinion-makers to sup with Ahmadinejad at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York. Whatever the protesters shouted outside the security cordon, it has become an accepted part of New York's fall season that Ahmadinejad and his retinue arrive for a hoopla of motorcades, talk shows, press conferences and banquets.

It's easy to forget that Ahmadinejad was endlessly fascinating to the left, right up until his "no gays in Iran" stunt made it declasse to defend him. Before that happened foreign policy experts were actually flirting with painting him - apocalyptic lunatic though he is - as a relative moderate:

There have been rumors swirling for the past week that the IAEA is keeping an explosive Iran report in a drawer. Israel apparently got wind of it and went so ballistic that the US and Europe had to pick it up and push ElBaradei:

"What we and all the allies are pressing for is for the full case to be laid out, in public," one senior Obama administration official said last week, speaking anonymously because he was discussing intelligence data... But agency officials say that Mohamed ElBaradei, the departing director general, resisted a public airing, fearing that such a presentation would make the agency appear biased toward the West in the effort to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently called "crippling" sanctions. Dr. ElBaradei, who has argued for allowing Iran to maintain a token capacity to produce uranium under strict inspection, has said that the evidence does not create an airtight case against Iran.

Yeah, ElBaradei would never want to appear biased. That's why he refers to the "Arab world" as "we", calls the WMD-producing Syrians his "brothers," engages in personal boycotts of media organizations that are insufficiently hostile to Israel, won't acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, regurgitates untenable pro-engagement talking points on Iran, and goes out of his way to undermine the West's military options against the mullahs. Because he doesn't want to appear biased.

On the plus side, the IAEA pinky-swears they're not hiding any report, that Iran is slowing down their nuke development, and that there's no "evidence in the agency's files that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability":

The U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday hit back at reports that it had hidden information about Iran's disputed atomic programme, in a rare public comment on the agency's sensitive inspections work... The IAEA has no evidence showing undeniably that Iran has a bomb agenda, a diplomat close to the IAEA said earlier this week. The diplomat said ElBaradei had been loath to publish information that could be used for political ends and make the agency look biased against Iran... His successor, Japan's veteran IAEA envoy Yukiya Amano, has said he has not seen any evidence in the agency's files that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.

Meanwhile there are undiscovered tribes in the Amazon without access to electricity who have "seen evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons." At this rate the UN's vaunted nuclear watchdog will be very last organization on the planet to discover that those lunatics really do have a nuke program. Or at least the last one to admit it.

References and previously after the jump...

Last week it was Rafsanjani, who had to pledge allegiance to Khamenei in front of the powerful Expediency Council and repudiate "law breakers." This week it's Hajjarian, arguably the closest thing Iran has ever had to a genuine reformist, brought out to denounce everything he's ever stood for. Pure Orwell:

Saeed Hajjarian was a die-hard hero of Iran's reform movement, campaigning to reduce the power of the Islamic clerics even after being shot in the head in an assassination attempt that left him partially paralyzed. On Tuesday, he was brought into a courtroom propped up by men who put him in the front row of defendants in Iran's biggest political trial in decades, where he proceeded to renounce his entire career as a reformist.

His speech slurred and nearly unintelligible from the 2000 attack, Hajjarian had a statement read proclaiming that Iran's supreme leader represents the rule of God on Earth and asking for forgiveness for his "incorrect" ideas... A procession of the biggest names in the reform movement has taken the stand during the past month, some looking thin and tired, all dressed in blue pajama-like prison uniforms and slippers. They have confessed to taking part in what the government says was a plot backed by foreign enemies to overthrow Iran's clerical leadership in a "velvet revolution."

"Thin and tired" is an understatement. Unremitting solitary confinement, imprisonment in literal tombs, regular beatings, and ritualized rape have left some of Iran's top reformers looking like this. Even TIME - one of the outlets more rather than less prone to publishing pro-engagement talking points as news - is considering the possibility that maybe possibly the IRG is in charge.

The drip drip drip of coerced confessions is developing into something of a pattern:

Iranian authorities put on trial Sunday a group of demonstrators who said they were directed by campaign officials of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to destroy public property in the chaotic aftermath of the June 12 election. The arrested demonstrators made their statements, which could become part of a case against Mousavi if he is arrested, in the third session of a mass trial of politicians, journalists and academics. There has been widespread criticism of the confessions, which many government opponents say are coerced.

Actual Associated Press headline from the middle of this month: "Waiting on Iran: West seeking signs of Tehran's global direction after turmoil." Seriously. Because they could go either way!

References and previously after the jump...

This morning's One Jerusalem conference call was with Amb. Dore Gold, who's on a media blitz for his just-published book The Rise Of Nuclear Iran. Also on the call: Avi Green (Tel Chai Nation), Jerry Gordon (IsraPundit), and Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit). The audio will be up on their frontpage in a couple hours but in the meantime there's a Fox and Friends video of Gold discussing the book below, also via One Jerusalem.

Basic points from the book and the call: (1) Engagement has already been tried and won't work, (2) Iran will keep their nukes off-limits during negotiations anyway, (3) the mullahs are very deliberately running out the clock, and (4) they already has enough nuclear material to build the Bomb plus the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver it.

Not that they'd need to, since some of their tests show they're preparing for a shore-based EMP attack.

Where the book gets particularly detailed is on the grinding diplomatic and military dynamics of a post-nuclear Iran: an Iranian "nuclear umbrella" to terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas that detonates the War on Terror, Iranian hegemony over the Middle East that puts stability at the whim of the IRG, and increasing Iranian interference in Latin America at the cost of US influence.

The book is systematic, it has documents that have rarely seen the light of day, and it's as on-point to the next few months as any dead tree publication can be. Grab the audio from One Jerusalem and then buy it.

References and previously after the jump...

Before you try to line up this insanity with the old Inquisition garbage on destroying the sinner's body to save the soul - that's not what's happening here. This isn't a theocratic justification for torture, which would almost be too clean and honest for these cretins. That's the kind of spectacle that, for better or worse, you still have to own.

This even goes beyond old-fashioned brazen totalitarian denial, though there's some of that ala the regime's brazen "prison rapes, what prison rapes" party line. What's added here is sneering anti-clerical populism, where a "salt-of-the-earth" Ahmadinejad thug mocks an ostensibly decadent cleric for breaking under weeks of torture. Charming:

A close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist critic of the president, appeared so gaunt during his televised confession this month because he himself had decided to take off some weight. "It's natural that when someone has become fat, in prison he understands that his fatness harmed his body and spirit," said Ali Akbar Javanfekr."So maybe Mr. Abtahi took advantage of this opportunity to lose weight."

Observers were stunned when Abtahi, who served as a vice president for former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, publicly confessed to conspiring against Ahmadinejad. It wasn't just that his words appeared to be copied verbatim from Iran's hardline press. But the 51-year-old looked terrible... The mid-ranking cleric appeared gaunt, withdrawn and without his turban.

Here's the pre and post, via the LAT and courtesy Iranian news agencies. The reports say that he spent weeks under interrogation and in solitary confinement, which in Evin means you're locked up in a tomb-like box, taken out occasionally for beatings, and - even if you're male - regularly raped.

Remember when Iran got a slot on the UN Human Rights Council's Durban steering committee, the better to plan a conference that demonized Israel for human rights abuses? There are literally billions of people, to say nothing of a decent swath of the US foreign policy commitunity, who think that the appointment was perfectly reasonable. But at least when our foreign policy experts explain their reasoning it has an air of nuance.

On the plus side, maybe this is something Obama can ask the mullahs about if they ever deign to let him personally try to appease them.

References:
* Mohammad Ali Abtahi [Babyon And Beyond]
* Figures: Iranian Prison Guards Rape Female Prisoners Before Execution "Lest They Go To Paradise" [MR]
* Clenched Against The Male Prisoners They're Raping [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* Iran Elected To UN Human Rights Council, Appointed To Plan Anti-Racism Conference. Hey, Why Not? [MR]

Previously:
* Clinton: Iran Protests Are An "Internal Matter"
* Media Slightly Exaggerating Ahmadinejad's Acceptance Of Israel, Willingness To Give Up Nukes
* United Nations: Iran's Murder Of Peaceful Protesters Raises "Troubling Questions"

Pressure on Israel to give up the Golan, reinvigorated US-Syrian diplomatic ties despite Assad's continued interference with the Hariri tribunal, and a generous offer by Obama to look the other way while Damascus continues to develop WMDs - smart power is very smart:

Iran's supreme leader called his country's alliance with Syria a symbol of resistance in the Middle East on Wednesday, seeking to reinforce a key relationship as Tehran fends off continued criticism over its response to post-election unrest. Visiting Syrian President Bashar Assad exemplified that resistance by criticizing foreign countries for provoking the massive protests that followed Iran's disputed June presidential election. His comments will likely disappoint the Obama administration, which has stepped up diplomatic efforts to pull Syria away from Iran. "I've come here today to personally convey my warm congratulations to you and the Iranian nation," Assad was quoted.

Not only has Obama "stepped up efforts" to suck up to Syria: he's gone so far as to repeatedly trot out surrogates to announce that his oh-so-sophisticated strategy was paying dividends. Turns out not so much.

Iranian press spun Assad's visit as a veritably divine signal that regional actors need to open up a "resistance front" because Israel and the US have become "weak." Terrific:

In a telephone conversation, the Iranian and Syrian Presidents have stated Israel and its allies are getting "weaker" and instead the tide is turning in favor of regional Muslim nations, the Presidential office said in a press report on Friday. According to Mehr News Agency, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "the enemies of regional peace are losing the ground but the formidable alliance of friendly countries like Iran and Syria are getting more powerful." The Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad also insisted that regional developments "are turning in favor of Muslim countries and to the detriment of the Zionist regime and its allies."

No worries though - I'm sure that our renewed promise to deliver Israel and the security team we're sending to Damascus will cause Assad to like us the bestest.

References and previously after the jump...

First Ahmadinejad's tirade from last week, a neat little example of the anti-British conspiracy theories that make up the fabric of daily life in Iran:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that enemy states will be "slapped in the face" if they do not cease interfering in Iran's internal affairs. "The Iranian nation has for 30 years endured the actions of enemy states with magnanimity, but if you do not desist from your interference, it [Iran] will slap you in the face so hard that you will not be able to find your way back home... Ahmadinejad pointed to British interference in Iran's post-election unrest, saying, "Some of this country's officials thought that by launching a Persian-language channel they will be able to reach their objectives in the Islamic Republic, but they underestimated the Iranian nation's love for the rule of its just jurisprudent [Ayatollah Khamenei]."

And now a news petulant fit, this time directed at the US's Farsi language efforts:

Iranian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Sunday for a bill creating a $20 million fund intended in part to expose human rights violations by the United States, the ILNA news agency reported... The U.S. Senate passed a bill in July that would allocate $30 million for technologies to allow the U.S. government's Farsi-language satellite and radio stations to bypass Iranian government efforts to jam their broadcasts. An additional $20 million would be set aside for developing Web sites and other technologies that will improve Iranian access to censored information. An additional $5 million is authorized for documenting information about human rights in Iran.

"We must respond in kind to America's injustice and tyranny and the interference of this country against Iran," Boroujerdi said, according to Press TV. The lawmakers need to vote again on the bill within six months in order to finalize it.

The WaPo goes on to muse that maybe - maybe - this might be a sign that Obama's outreach isn't going to work because of lingering "distrust." Which is weird because just a few weeks ago the WaPo was channeling Scowcroft and Brzezinski on the point that The One's charming charmfulness had gotten rid of anti-Americanism.

It is interesting that there are foreign policy experts who ritualistically intone that Iran's paranoia over foreign interference is "unfortunately" justified and foreign policy experts who insist that we have to embrace public diplomacy and those are often the same foreign policy experts. Not there's anything wrong in theory with trying to win Arab and Muslim hearts and minds. It's only when State's institutional imperatives for success run up against the reality that there's a deep ideological conflict between the West and large swaths of the Islamic world - only then do we get our diplomats going on obsequious apology tours and our foreign media outlets broadcasting antisemitic cant.

Which also wouldn't matter, except that's all the time.

References and previously after the jump...

Happy Wednesday!

U.S. President Barack Obama has started reaching out to some of Pakistan's most fervent Islamist and anti-American parties, including one that helped give rise to the Taliban, trying to improve Washington's image in the nuclear-armed state. Obama's special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, is initiating dialogue between the United States and religious parties previous administrations had largely shunned, both sides said. "The purpose is to broaden the base of American relations in Pakistan beyond the relatively narrow circle of leaders Washington has previously dealt with," explained Vali Nasr, senior adviser to Holbrooke.

I'd love to know the paper trail behind this stroke of sophistication. Do you think that it originated in one of those roundtables that State occasionally organizes, where academics earn their consulting fees by spinning outlandish pro-diplomacy scenarios (top prize: a guaranteed invitation to the next roundtable!) Or did State's South Asia people just skip the formalities and conclude that (a) engaging people ideologically committed to our destruction is good and (b) Pakistani Islamists are really, really ideologically committed to destroying us so (c) engaging Pakistani Islamists must be super-good?

I wonder if we'll ask them about how radical Pakistani clerics are urging kids to spread Islam violently because "the tree of Islam was irrigated with the blood of martyrs?" Or about Pakistani intelligence, increasingly controlled by their side of the political spectrum, is outing US intelligence officials to Al Qaeda? Or about how Pakistani officials willfully destroyed a Christian graveyard to make room for a shopping mall? Or about how rampaging Pakistani mobs have taken to snatching up Christian women and children and openly torturing them? Or about how hardline Pakistani officials forced the government to free AQ Khan? Or about how the rape of Christian girls in the context of persecuting non-Muslims is now a thing?

I'm thinking we'll gloss over most of that and go straight to explaining all the reasons they should give us a second look. Because that's the problem - they just don't understand us enough.

References and previously after the jump...

That was fast:

An Iranian official has denied he said Tehran was ready for talks with the West on its nuclear programme based on mutual respect and without conditions. State television had earlier reported that Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the UN's nuclear watchdog, had announced its willingness to negotiate. "There have been no comments or interviews with TV networks on nuclear talks or conditions," he later said. Iran has been given until September to end its uranium enrichment programme. Otherwise it faces tougher sanctions. The West suspects Iran is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its programme is solely peaceful.

On the upside, now we're in for a month of eyeroll-inducing Tehranology from our oh-so-sophisticated foreign policy community. I can't wait to learn what kind of subtle signal Khamenei was trying to send to Obama by having Soltanieh announce Iran's willingness to negotiate without preconditions and then immediately backtrack.

It can't be that someone got their signals crossed. It's obviously got to be that Khamenei was sending a note in a bottle about how there's an internal power struggle between him and the IRG, and so Obama should urgently reach out to Khamenei to isolate the IRG. Obviously.

For the record, even Clinton all but admits that engagement with Iran isn't going to work. It's clever of the administration to hold back the largely futile sanctions Obama's supposedly holding over the Islamic Republic - the better to ensure they don't visibly fail before negotiations state - but I think the Iranians cracked that secret a while ago.

Maybe another obsequiousness letter to the mullahs will work!

References and previously after the jump...

References:
* Iran denies nuclear talks offer [BBC]
* Official: Iran Ready for Nuclear Talks With West [Fox News]
* Khamenei Seizes Control Of Iranian Republican Guard Militias, Installs Son As Head Thug [MR]
* Great News: Obama And House Dems Blocking National, International Sanctions On Iran [MR]
* Clinton: Just A Head's Up, But Engagement With Iran Probably Won't Work [MR]
* Bolton: Israel Will Attack Iran By January (Plus: New EU Sanctions Somewhat Underwhelming, Still Better Than What Obama Will Do) [MR]
* EXCLUSIVE: U.S. contacted Iran's ayatollah before election [Washington Times]

Previously:
* Obama WH: When We Confirmed Ahmadinejad's Legitimacy Yesterday, We Didn't Mean To Do That
* Perfect: Iran Creates Propaganda Gold Out Of Hillary's Empty "We Empowered The Protesters" Bragging [Video]
* Iran PressTV Blows The Lid Off Anti-Obama Birther Conspiracy Theories. Turns Out: Jews.

UPDATE (1:45am PST): Last one for the night. @AtiaAbawi:

ISAF let journos film some 100 meters at scene. CNN will try to get you more images as the day progresses...so far 4 killed, 91 injured.

UPDATE (11:48pm PST): @Hairan:

6 killed and 75 wounded in Kabul attack, confirmed health ministry

UPDATE (11:45pm PST): Given their total failure to penetrate the embassy, you'd think they'd be a little more reticent in their braggadocio. Not so much. @pajhwok:

Taliban spokesman: 'attacker resident of Bagrami district in #Kabul, we put 500 kg explosives in this car'

UPDATE (11:35pm PST): They got mostly civilians and kids. Well done filthbags. @W7VOA:

US Embassy spokesperson in Kabul tells VOA News no damage to compound nor to any Embassy personnel from car bomb blast nearby.

UPDATE (11:20pm PST): AFP says 3 dead, which lines up with what @W7VOA - VOA South Asia - is saying about minimal casualties. That said, the number of injured is creeping toward three digits.

UPDATE (11:15pm PST): @W7VOA:

Reuters: Taliban claim responsibility for Kabul blast, say target was US Embassy. (If that's so, they missed but managed to maim some kids)... Injury toll from Kabul blast outside NATO ISAF HQ climbing. But only few fatalities confirmed... Taliban claim in phone call to AP that Kabul car bomb contained 500kg of explosives.

UPDATE (11:05pm PST): @AFGMatters:

Blast was in front of transportation ministry - I think this is between HQ ISAF and US Embassy - difficult to get in there!

UPDATE (11:00pm PST): Good lord. @AtiaAbawi:

So far at least 55 injured at ONE hospital according to source. Working on more info.

UPDATE (10:15pm PST): @jimsciuttoABC:

Explosion was huge, felt it more than a mile away. This is first attack inside capital in months. It's a blow to security svces who had covered Kabul in checkpoints, security forces.

UPDATE (10:13pm PST): @BreakingNews:

AFP: Afghan Ministry of Defense confirms 3 dead, 14 injured after the suicide car bombing near NATO headquarters in Kabul.

UPDATE (9:45pm PST): CNN has it but naturally without anything useful.

UPDATE (9:42pm PST): @BreakingNews:

AP: Defense ministry spokesman says blast in Afghan capital was suicide car bomb.

ORIGINAL: I saw it through Twitter first but now AP has it:

A huge blast has echoed through the Afghan capital. A plume of smoke was rising Saturday morning in the direction of the U.S. embassy in Kabul. There was no immediate word on casualties. The explosion comes less than a week before the country holds elections for president and provincial councils.

There should be some rally-round-the-flag rhetoric from the right when the East Coast wakes up, followed by the President's "deep outrage," followed by a few hours of stomach-sinking dread in response to conciliatory White House statements, followed by comparisons to Mogadishu and the way it emboldened OBL, followed by a weekend's worth worth of MSM "Obama is so careful and sophisticated" agitprop.

Or Obama might respond with the wrath of the Almighty Himself. That was in one of the West Wing episodes that Favreau et al are convinced they're living. So there's that.

References:
* Huge blast rocks Afghan capital [AP]

Previously:
* Watcher's Council Results: Obama's Afghanistan Is Going To Be A Disaster But No One Knows It. Or Anything Else.
* UN Afghan Envoy: Obama Should Negotiate With The Taliban. All Of Them.
* Obama Vs. Obama On Victory In Afghanistan

When the post-election protests broke out the WH went out of its way to obsequiously suck up to the mullahs, taking the risk of deflating the dissidents, until public outrage forced them to withdraw their hot dogs and lemonade offers. Then Gibbs confirmed Ahmadinejad's legitimacy on the eve of the inauguration, potentially tipping the decision calculus of protesters, until public outcry forced him to issue noncommittal "the Iranian people will decide" talking points. The goal all along has been to avoid the perception of meddling by never taking a stand when it mattered, among other things on the gamble that the regime would survive and Obama would want to engage it.

It was a supine and disgraceful policy. It would never have been convincing because Iran and its leaders are true believers in conspiracy theories about omnipresent Western manipulation. Even if it had been convincing it would have been futile because engagement won't work. But at least it was a consistent supine, disgraceful, unconvincing, and ultimately futile policy.

And now this crap:

"We did not want to get between the legitimate protests and demonstrations of the Iranian people and the leadership," Clinton said in an interview with CNN broadcast on Sunday. "And we knew that if we stepped in too soon, too hard... the leadership would try to use us to unify the country against the protestors." "Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot," Clinton said. "We were doing a lot to really empower the protestors without getting in the way. And we're continuing to speak out and support the opposition."

I only caught the interview because Iranian Tweeters are going ballistic about it. Apparently Iran state media is plastering it all over the airwaves. No wonder Iranian MPs just doubled down on Western "meddling."

This gem recently appeared as a brand new YouTube video on an account with this bio: "Sign the petition to try the corrupted Iranian opposition leaders (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi). While some responsible of the attempt of 'velvet revolution' against Iran are facing trials and admitting cooperation with foreign powers, intelligence agencies and terrorist groups, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, makes her own confessions." If this is what they're pushing into the English-speaking world, imagine what's being produced for domestic consumption.

I've removed the final frames from this propaganda. The clip originally ended with a pictures of Mousavi, Khatami, and Rafsanjani underneath text calling to "FREE IRAN from the Reformist/Moderate mafias," plus the url of the anti-dissident petition. It also had a menu with links to a range of other filth, including a video implying Neda was killed by "secularists."

Perfect:

Actually the State Department had little to nothing to do with Twitter staying open. The Twitter CEOs were more than smart enough to figure out that a "highly visible global event" was an opportunity they didn't want to screw up. As for giving Iranian dissidents financial or logistical support: Obama zeroed that out of the 2010 budget.

And yet Clinton's comments still forced Larijani - who once had come perilously close to opposing the election - to respond by siding with the regime against "Western powers."

Somehow the Obama administration has managed to garner all the negatives of boosting Iranian pro-democracy dissidents without actually doing anything to boost Iranian pro-democracy dissidents. Smart power!

References and previously after the jump...