Engagement Archive

Weekly TOCS, “Mainstreaming Hamas” at 6:30pm PDT, The Iran’s Lobby’s New Campaign, Rolling Back Disengagement Assurances, Etc.

By
Omri Ceren
Published: June 30, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Foreign Policy Experts, Israel, Palestinians, Sticky, The Omri Ceren ShowTags: , , , , , , , ,

hamas-omri-ceren-show-mark-perry

After a month of wall-to-wall Flotilla-related episodes on One Jerusalem Radio’s Omri Ceren Show, I think we’re ready to go back to our standard fare: what’s going on in the Middle East, how the White House Iran Lobby is using the media to mislead Americans about it, and how they’re pushing a series of brazen and unapologetic screwjobs that roll back assurances Israel recieved in exchange for territorial concessions. This week it’s the push to engage Hamas which has suddenly emerged in a series of articles and scoops as (a) what’s happening and (b) a good idea.

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Iran’s Fist, Still Clenched. “The Reformers They’ve All But Totally Destroyed…” Edition

By
Omri Ceren
Published: June 30, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Foreign Policy Experts, IranTags: , , , ,

iran-protests-obama-diplomacy

Selected updates from Is Iran’s Fist Still Clenched, checking in on the extended hands, carrots and sticks, reset buttons, walls of fear, and whatever other hackneyed metaphors are being used to articulate White House Smart Power in Central Asia and beyond.

Iran’s Fist Is Still Clenched… Against The Reformers They’ve All But Totally Destroyed

Iran’s Fist Is Still Clenched… Against The Opposition Activists They’re Killing In Mass Hangings

Iran’s Fist Is Still Clenched… And Producing Computer Games Where The Goal Is To Murder And "Destroy" Reformers

Iran’s Fist Is Still Clenched… Against Women With Separate And Unequal Segregated Banking

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Engagement All Around! Syrian Rep To UNHRC: Israeli Kids Sing Merrily About Drinking Blood, Killing Victims With Their Teeth

By
Omri Ceren
Published: June 8, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Human Rights, State Department, Syria, United NationsTags: , , , , , , , , ,

obama-hillary-clinton-state-department-engagement

A victory for bilateral and multilateral engagement, all wrapped up in a shiny albeit venomously Jew-hating little bow. Before I give you the punchline qua story, let’s review the the Obama administration’s obnoxious tough guy act – something that’s rapidly becoming a veritable tic with these tools – when it comes to engaging Syria and the UN Human Rights Council. Here’s Clinton defending outreach to Syria in the immediate aftermath of the Syria-to-Hezbollah SCUD revelations, which came right after Assad and Ahmadinejad publicly mocked her by name, which came right after Damascus threatened to saturation bomb Israeli population centers:

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Omri Ceren Show – 6:30pm PDT – “Conventional Aggression” With JE Dyer On Iran, Obama’s Charm Offensive, Etc.

By
Omri Ceren
Published: May 19, 2010Posted in: American Politics, Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, Jewish Politics, The Omri Ceren ShowTags: , , , , , , ,

omri-ceren-show-je-dyer

We’re just a very few minutes away from this week’s episode of One Jerusalem Radio’s Omri Ceren Show, where we finally get around to analyzing Iran’s increasingly sharp conventional threat. Of course they’re also openly sneering about how their nuclear ambitions will never be curbed – they just leaped over another technological hurdle a few days ago – and certainly yesterday’s watered down sanctions won’t do anything. But when top regime elements are talking about covering the Middle East with a “Greater Iran” and are installing proxies in Lebanon and Iraq – that’s a goal they’ll need naval and land forces to achieve.

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Obama Defense Dept: We’re Not Going To Attack Iran, And If Israel Tries We Might Shoot Down Their Jets

By
Omri Ceren
Published: April 21, 2010Posted in: American Politics, Anti-Israel Diplomacy, Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, Israel, Military NewsTags: , , , , , , ,

iran-nuclear-weapons-israel-mullen

Done…

The United States has ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear program in the short term, a top Defense Department official said on Wednesday. Instead, the US will focus on negotiations with Teheran and continue its aggressive pursuit of United Nations sanctions against the Islamic regime. “Military force is an option of last resort,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy told reporters during a briefing in Singapore. “It’s off the table in the near term.” Flournoy said the US has not seen Iran engage productively. But, “right now the focus is a combination of engagement and pressure in the form of sanctions.” Israeli officials, who have called for tough sanctions on Iran, did not immediately recalibrate their policy, and emphasized their strategic partnership with the US.

… and done:

America’s top military officer wouldn’t rule the possibility today of U.S. forces firing on Israeli jets, if Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran… a young Air Force ROTC cadet asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen to respond to a “rumor.” If Israel decided to attack Iran, the speculation went, those jet would need to fly through Iraqi airspace to reach their targets… might U.S. troops shoot down the Israeli jets… Mullen tried to sidestep the question…”I am hopeful that this will be resolved in a way where we never have to answer a question like that.” The cadet followed-up: “Would an airmen like me ever be ordered to fire on an Israeli – aircraft or personnel?” Mullen’s second answer was much the same as his first… it was interesting to hear America’s top military officer decline to knock down the idea that U.S. troops might fire on America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

Hot Air thinks that the Mullen story is silly, since of course he wouldn’t take a stand one way or another. I dunno about that. If the Pentagon is committed to studious noncommittal on Iran, mealy-mouthed bromides about strong carrots and weak sticks are an awfully nuanced way of going about that. The timing of the statement also leaves something to be desired, coming as it does a few days after Ahmadinejad bragged during Army Day that the Islamic regime is “so strong no one will even think about attacking it.” Which was a few days after he threatened to light up the Middle East if Obama pressures Iran. Which was a few days after the Iranian foreign ministry urged the West to punish Israel over settlements.

Now the hardliners get to garner prestige from the perception that they intimidated the United States, forced the Americans to back down, and moved the White House in an anti-Israel direction. These are the same hardliners who have taken to using their domestic political power to signal quite definitively that engagement is a non-starter.

As for sanctions, Iran has drawn Turkey and Brazil and Japan to circumvent even a halfhearted sanctions regime, part of their global strategy to create an anti-American block on nuclear issues. Turkey’s been a lock for a while and continues to be a vocal opponent of sanctions. For Japan the Iranians – classy rascals that they are – trotted out pictures of charred children in the aftermath Hiroshima. The Japanese have now declared themselves to be firlmy for more diplomacy. And Brazil has been particularly gracious, with Lula not only opposing sanctions but explicitly echoing Ahmadinejad’s call to construct a “new global order.”

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Surprise: French FM Says No Iran Sanctions Before June

By
Omri Ceren
Published: March 16, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Foreign Policy Experts, IranTags: , , , , , ,

Surprise

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…

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Obama Giving Up On “Crippling” Iran Sanctions

By
Omri Ceren
Published: February 26, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, IranTags: , , , , ,

Watered-Down

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…

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Syria Responds To Obama’s Engagement, Publicly Mocks Clinton And Embraces Iran

By
Omri Ceren
Published: February 25, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, SyriaTags: , , , , , ,

Responsive

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…

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Syria Responds To Obama’s Engagement, Threatens To Saturation Bomb Israeli Civilians

By
Omri Ceren
Published: February 22, 2010Posted in: Anti-Israel Diplomacy, Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, SyriaTags: , , , , , ,

Engaged

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…

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Iran To US: No Visa For Kerry, Please Consider Yourself Officially Humiliated

By
Omri Ceren
Published: January 3, 2010Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, IranTags: , , , , , ,

Humiliated

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…

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Of Course: Obama WH Pushing Back Iran Sanctions Deadline Again

By
Omri Ceren
Published: December 22, 2009Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Foreign Policy Experts, IranTags: , , , , , ,

Pushed Back

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?

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Obama DOD: Iran’s New More Accurate Solid Fuel Missile Is No Big Deal (Plus: Developing An H-Bomb?)

By
Omri Ceren
Published: December 19, 2009Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, IranTags: , , , , , ,

Big Deal

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:

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Carter II: Obama’s Losing Turkey To Political Islam

By
Omri Ceren
Published: November 16, 2009Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Democratic Politics, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, TurkeyTags: , , , , , , , , ,

Losing

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.

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Watchers Council Results – Putting Israeli Self-Defense Out Of Bounds

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 13, 2009Posted in: Anti-Israel Journalism, Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, Media BiasTags: , , , , ,

Out Of Bounds

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…

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Video Flashback: Obama Rips Pakistan For “Making Peace Treaties With The Taliban” During Election

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 8, 2009Posted in: AfPak, Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, EngagementTags: , , , , ,

Peace In Our Time

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:

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