Putin's Aggression in Syria Taking Advantage of Obama's Inaction, New Regional Architecture

A great piece, from Caroline Glick, at Town Hall, "Israel's Risk Aversion Problem":

On Wednesday the Obama administration was caught off guard by Russia’s rapid rise in Syria. As the Russians began bombing a US-supported militia along the Damascus-Homs highway, Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, at the UN. Just hours before their meeting Kerry was insisting that Russia’s presence in Syria would likely be a positive development.

Reacting to the administration’s humiliation, Republican Sen. John McCain said, “This administration has confused our friends, encouraged our enemies, mistaken an excess of caution for prudence and replaced the risks of action with the perils of inaction.”

McCain added that Russian President Vladimir Putin had stepped “into the wreckage of this administration’s Middle East policy.”

While directed at the administration, McCain’s general point is universally applicable. Today is no time for an overabundance of caution.

The system of centralized regimes that held sway in the Arab world since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has unraveled. The shape of the new order has yet to be determined.

The war in Syria and the chaos and instability engulfing the region are part and parcel of the birth pangs of a new regional governing architecture now taking form. Actions taken by regional and global actors today will likely will influence power relations for generations.

Putin understands the opportunity of the moment.

He views the decomposition of Syria as an opportunity to rebuild Russia’s power and influence in the Middle East – at America’s expense.

Russia isn’t the only strategic player seeking to exploit the war in Syria and the regional chaos. Turkey and Iran are also working assiduously to take advantage of the current absence of order to advance their long term interests.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exploiting the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq to fight the Kurds in both countries. Erdogan’s goal is twofold: to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdistan and to disenfranchise the Kurds in Turkey.

As for Iran, Syria is Iran’s bulwark against Sunni power in the Arab world and the logistical base for Tehran’s Shi’ite foreign legion Hezbollah. Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei is willing to fight to the bitter end to hold as much of Syrian territory as possible.

Broadly speaking, Iran views the breakup of the Arab state system as both a threat and an opportunity...

Keep reading.

State Department 'Transparency Czar'

This is actually bizarre.

Watch, at CNN, "The State Department has tapped Janice Jacobs as an 'email czar' to assist Secretary of State John Kerry."

Obama Hellbent of Pushing Personal Foreign Policy of Weakness and Treason

A righteous essay, from Phyllis Chesler, "The Situation":

The game was over the minute Americans elected President Obama for the second time. He then knew that he could implement, quite autocratically, despotically, some might even say, traitorously—his own personal foreign policy which consists of weakening America's importance in the world; humiliating Israel even further on the world stage; recognizing (communist) Cuba despite its enormous legacy of persecuting its own people and without demanding a single change; and financially arming (totalitarian) Iran so that the mad mullahs may wage further attacks against civilians, both in Israel, America, and throughout the Middle East.

Obama is a cold and calculating Doomsday machine. He is also a very angry man.

And yet, many Beautiful People share his point of view. Not one of them would agree with my opening paragraph. They would argue that most people are good and can change—even the leaders of a Death Cult; that we have to "give peace a chance;" that we cannot cruelly impose sanctions on a suffering populace—as if the mullahs actually plan to build hospitals and universities with this money.

They would further argue that America can't police the world—true enough; that delaying an Iranian nuclear holocaust by 15 years is a great accomplishment; that "black (male) lives matter" more—and that Arabs and Palestinians are like American black men who are, allegedly, being wantonly killed by white police officers; that jihadists who have killed American soldiers on American soil are really mentally ill loners with unfortunate access to guns; that the suffering of 60 million Christian, Muslim, and Yazidi refugees and displaced persons have little to do with Islamist terrorism; and, that we are not at war.

Yes, many educated and decent people really say and think and desperately want to believe all this. The alternative would mean that they would have to admit that there are radically evil people in the world who have declared war against Israel and America and against the values of Western civilization.

Obama may now believe that he can refuse to arm Israel with bunker-buster bombs. He may now think that by championing an anti-Zionist J Street that he "owns" (or has silenced) the Jewish-American street. He does not seem to care that the majority of Americans oppose this non-deal deal with Iran and the way he went about obtaining it, and that American media editorials from coast to coast are on record about this. He does not mind that he had to strong-arm Democrats into voting for a very bad deal.

Why should he? All despots--excuse me, all Beloved Leaders--know they have to break some eggs in order to make an omelet.

Continued frenzy over voting is now diversionary. Long ago, Obama chose to baldly bypass Congress when he went to the United Nations Security Council in order to lift sanctions. He cannot walk this back. Russia and China will be selling weapons to Iran as will Europe.

We must ensure that Obama does sell bunker-buster bombs to Israel. We must ensure that American sanctions are not lifted. In fact, we must work hard to impose even more American-only sanctions. Sanctions are the only reason Iranians bothered to talk to Secretary of State, John Kerry.

As former Navy Seal, Ken Stethem said at the anti-Iran deal rally in NYC: "People, this is a Paul Revere moment. Ride well."

Prep School Rape Trial: Suspect Owen Labrie Found Guilty on Lesser Charges of Misdemeanor Sexual Assault (VIDEO)

Watch, at ABC News, "Owen Labrie Found Not Guilty of Felony Sexual Assault."

Also at the Boston Globe, "Labrie acquitted of felony rape in St. Paul’s School trial."

The dude was convicted on lesser charges. At the Boston Herald, "Former student at elite prep school convicted of sex charges":

CONCORD, N.H. — A graduate of an exclusive New England prep school was cleared of rape but convicted Friday of lesser sex offenses against a 15-year-old freshman girl in a case that exposed a tradition in which seniors competed to see how many younger students they could have sex with.

A jury of nine men and three women took eight hours to reach its verdict in the case against Owen Labrie, who was accused of forcing himself on the girl in a dark and noisy mechanical room at St. Paul's School in Concord two days before he graduated in 2014.

Labrie, who was bound for Harvard and planned to take divinity classes before his arrest put everything on hold, could get as much as 11 years in prison at sentencing Oct. 29. The 19-year-old from Tunbridge, Vermont, will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

He wept upon hearing the verdict, and then, as his lawyers conferred with the judge, sat alone at the defense table, shaking his head slightly and looking up at the ceiling. His mother sobbed. His accuser appeared stoic and huddled with members of her family in the courtroom.

"Owen's future is forever changed," defense attorney J.W. Carney said, adding that the sex convictions will be like "a brand, a tattoo" that he will bear for life.

The scandal cast a harsh light on the 159-year-old boarding school that has long been a training ground for America's elite. Its alumni include Secretary of State John Kerry, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau, at least 13 U.S. ambassadors, three Pulitzer Prize winners, and sons of the Astor and Kennedy families. Students pay $53,810 a year in tuition, room and board.

Prosecutors said the rape was part of Senior Salute, which Labrie described to detectives as a competition in which graduating seniors tried to have sex with underclassmen and kept score on a wall behind a set of washing machines.

The young man was acquitted of the most serious charges against him — three counts of felony rape, each punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison. But he was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, using a computer to lure a minor for sex, and child endangerment.

Essentially, the jury by its verdicts signaled it didn't believe Labrie's assertion that there was no intercourse, but it also didn't believe the girl's contention that it was against her will. In the end, it found Labrie guilty of having sex with an underage girl.

The girl is "leaving with her head held high," said Laura Dunn, a spokeswoman for the teenager and her family. "It was a step in the right direction.

But the girl's family lashed out at the prep school, saying in a statement: "We still feel betrayed that St. Paul's School allowed and fostered a toxic culture that left our daughter and other students at risk to sexual violence. We trusted the school to protect her and it failed us."

St. Paul's rector Michael G. Hirschfeld commended "the remarkable moral courage and strength demonstrated by the young woman who has suffered through this nightmare," and said the prep school is committed to teaching its students to act honorably.

Labrie was allowed to remain free on $15,000 bail while he awaits sentencing...

More at that top link.

And here's the coverage at WMUR News 9 Manchester:

* "Raw video: Verdicts read in Owen Labrie trial."

* "Raw video: Prosecutors react to Labrie verdict."

* "Raw video: Victim's family attorney reacts to Owen Labrie verdict."

* "Raw video: County attorney reacts to Owen Labrie verdict."

* "Raw video: Attorney for victim's family reacts to Owen Labrie verdict."

Obama's Enduring Legacy of Appeasment, Staggering Debt, and Enormous Racial Animosity

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review, "What Obama Has Taught Us":

President Obama last week spiked the ball on the Supreme Court’s decisions to legalize gay marriage and to ratify the Affordable Care Act.

Yet it is difficult to see quite how Obama had much to do with these decisions — or, to the degree he did, that they are earth-shattering. He twice ran for president expressing opposition to gay marriage while emphasizing the religious element of holy matrimony, which, he argued, precluded same-sex marriages. Is he delighted that the Court ignored his prior views?

On the Obamacare front, all the Supreme Court did was to clean up the Affordable Care Act, in a postmodern ruling that the administration’s poorly worded law actually meant something other than what the text as written actually said. The Court’s intervention was an act of partisan salvation, not disinterested legal reasoning.

Obama’s trade pact passed only with Republican votes. Apparently free-traders in Congress wanted the deal more than they worried about the president’s taking credit for their eleventh-hour rescue of what otherwise would have been a strong rebuke from his own party.

Nonetheless, Obama still talks of his “change” legacy, as if altering something necessarily meant improving it. Pulling all U.S. peacekeepers out of Iraq certainly changed the dynamics there, as ISIS can testify. The current talks with Iran will change Iranian ideas about how best to get the bomb. Normalizing relations with Stalinist Cuba also changes — as in increases — that regime’s viability.

Nonetheless, Obama still talks of his “change” legacy, as if altering something necessarily meant improving it. Pulling all U.S. peacekeepers out of Iraq certainly changed the dynamics there, as ISIS can testify. The current talks with Iran will change Iranian ideas about how best to get the bomb. Normalizing relations with Stalinist Cuba also changes — as in increases — that regime’s viability.

Jimmy Carter was asked to evaluate President Obama’s foreign-policy record. He concluded that it was hard to identify any improvement in our relations with any nation since Obama took office, defining change as change for the worse. Carter for once is probably right. Some of our outright enemies — Vladimir Putin, for example — have changed by showing even more contempt for us than they did in 2008, apparently on the Munich pattern that appeasement wins, not praise for magnanimity, but rather contempt for obsequiousness. Hitler, remember, vowed to stomp on his benefactor, Neville Chamberlain, after the latter gave him what he wanted in 1938. “Worms,” the Führer scoffed of his appeasers.

Iran so far has repaid Obama’s indulgence by blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier in military drills, de facto running affairs in three other Middle Eastern states — Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen — and brazenly renouncing almost all the basic elements of prior nonproliferation understandings, from on-site inspections to cessation of enrichment to kickback sanctions in the event of noncompliance. Iran embraces change, and looks forward to a nuclear future.

Apparently, the theocracy sees Barack Obama and John Kerry as hell-bent changers, willing to achieve their own legacies at the expense of the interests of their country and its allies — and thus as bewildering and worthy of contempt in a world where leaders are expected to promote their own people’s interests. Expect the geriatric Castros to share the same contempt for American outreach, and to double down on their anti-Americanism and their ruthless suppression of freedom to add spite to the embarrassment of U.S. appeasement. They see U.S. recognition as a big change that will further empower their police state. What allies we have left in the Middle East seem either tired of the U.S. change or baffled by it.

What allies we have left in the Middle East seem either tired of the U.S. change or baffled by it — especially Israel, Jordan, the Gulf monarchies, and Egypt. All that can be said for a changing U.S. foreign policy is that our friends see the Iran deal as a framework for changing ideas about their own nuclear acquisition — on the logic that the institutionalization of American nonproliferation models makes it fairly easy for anyone to get a bomb. Not since Israel got the bomb has any other ally or friend of the United States gone nuclear. (China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea were hostile to the U.S. at the time of their nuclear acquisitions.) Obama may well change that trend too, as we see all sorts of former allies and friends. both in the Middle East and in the Pacific region. creeping toward becoming nuclear powers — fearing either that they are no longer protected by the U.S. or that, on Obama’s watch, too many crazy neighbors may go nuclear.

Our friends have come to resent American change, especially the Obama administration’s sense of self-righteousness that judges partners on impossible standards that it does not apply to enemies or neutrals, such as Iran, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority. Obama’s smugness turns old allies off — as by defining ISIS as a jayvee organization, or psychoanalyzing Putin as a class cut-up bent on a macho shtick when he gobbles up neighboring countries, or lecturing Israel on Obama’s rare insight on what is really in the Jewish state’s self-interest.

If one wants an exemplar of change-failure, then look to Iraq or Libya. The abrupt pullout of all U.S. peacekeepers changed postwar Iraq, just as, if we had left Kosovo in 2001 or South Korea in 1955, the result would have been utter chaos. The logical outcome of bombing Libya without worry about what would follow on the ground was ISIS’s beheadings and “what difference does it make?” lies about Benghazi. Libya and Iraq are the faces of change.

The Europeans are flummoxed...

Keep reading, if you want. VDH just speaks too much truth about this cluster of a faux-president.

Fall of Ramadi is Military Humiliation and Humanitarian Disaster

A blistering editorial, at the Wall Street Journal, "Losing in Iraq Again":

No matter how much the Pentagon and White House downplay it, the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State on Sunday shows that President Obama’s strategy is failing. The question now is whether Mr. Obama has the political courage to change or watch Iraq descend into more chaos and perhaps a Sunni-Shiite civil war.

For now U.S. officials prefer the sunny days school of military analysis. “Regrettable but not uncommon in warfare,” says Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary of State John Kerry added that “I am absolutely confident in the days ahead that [Ramadi’s fall] will be reversed.” This recalls the generals who said in 2006 that Iraq was making progress even as hundreds turned up in the morgues each night.

In reality, the fall of Ramadi is a military humiliation and humanitarian disaster with large political consequences. The city is the provincial capital of Anbar province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland. U.S. forces waged a block-by-block battle to reclaim Ramadi from insurgents during the 2007 surge because it is crucial to the sectarian geography of Iraq. Winning there proved that the U.S. could prevail anywhere, and it provided the psychological momentum to swing the Sunnis to America’s side.

So much for that. The Obama Administration strategy has rested on a plan to arm Sunni tribesmen friendly to the government in Baghdad to fight ISIS. That’s a good idea in theory, since the Iraqi army has proved mostly ineffective against ISIS while Iraq’s Shiite militias answer to Iran and are brutal and unwelcome in Anbar.

But wars aren’t waged in theory, and the effort to arm and train the tribes has foundered on Shiite resistance in Baghdad and America’s lack of commitment and urgency. A serious training program began only days ago and Mr. Obama refused to deploy U.S. combat troops to bolster vulnerable Iraqi positions. In Ramadi, ISIS took advantage of a sandstorm that prevented the U.S. from supporting the Iraqis with air strikes. But that only underscores the limitations of relying on air power alone.

The larger problem is that Mr. Obama wants to wage a de minimis campaign against an enemy with maximalist ambitions. The Administration often insists that Iraqis must defend their own country, which is true. But after making the ouster of then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a condition of U.S. support, the least the U.S. can do is provide meaningful support to his successor, Haider al-Abadi.

That hasn’t happened. “Until now our feeling is that the international support is not convincing,” Selim al-Jabouri, the speaker of Iraq’s parliament, told Reuters in January. Mr. Obama promised Mr. Abadi no new weapons when they met last month in Washington. The number of air sorties flown by the U.S. and its coalition partners—about 3,800 in all since September—averages about 14 a day. The U.S. flew some 47,000 sorties in the first month of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

The White House and its military commanders have also grossly underestimated the resilience of Islamic State. “The enemy is now in a defensive crouch and is unable to conduct major operations,” U.S. Centcom Commander Lloyd Austin told Congress in March, sounding like White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

U.S. attempts to stand up a dependable Sunni fighting force have been seriously damaged. Ramadi’s fall has humiliated Mr. Abadi and discredited his strategy of trusting the U.S. Mr. Maliki and his Iranian backers are angling to return to power—and unleash Shiite militias armed and trained by Iran. The danger is that on present trend the country will soon be divided into a Shiite east dominated by Iran and a Sunni west controlled by Islamic State.

All of this matters far beyond Iraq, or even the Middle East. ISIS is a global threat, attracting more than 22,000 foreign fighters, including 3,700 from the West. A recent recording from ISIS leader Abu-Bakr Baghdadi, released in English, Russian, Turkish, German and French, called on Muslims to “migrate to the Islamic State or fight in his land.” Nearly all of the “lone wolf” terrorists in the West—including the May 3 attack in Garland, Texas—were inspired by ISIS.

The best way to diminish Islamic’s State appeal is to drive it as quickly as possible from the territory it holds...

Pathetic. The fruits of Democrat Party foreign policy. A disaster all around. And all the left can do is blame the evil BOOOSSHHH!

More.

Calling Obama's Bluff on Climate Change

From Steven Hayward, at WSJ, "The president is threatening to bypass Congress and sign an international treaty. Here’s how to box him in":

From immigration to Internet regulation, there is scarcely an issue on which President Obama has not pushed the limits of executive power to achieve his ideological goals. The Republican Congress has been able only to react to these usurpations, often floundering, as seen in the recent debacle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Is there a way the GOP Congress can get ahead of Mr. Obama?

This question is especially salient with respect to climate change, as Mr. Obama has indicated that he intends, at the next United Nations climate-change summit to be held this November in Paris, to bypass Congress once again and settle on a “politically binding” climate agreement that he would implement through executive action. This is very different from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was regarded as a formal treaty that would have required Senate ratification to take effect. President Clinton never submitted Kyoto to the Senate for a vote: His own council of economic advisers told him it was an economic nonstarter.

This episode is relevant today. Before Vice President Al Gore embarked for Kyoto, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution warning the Clinton administration not to sign an asymmetrical deal that would disproportionately harm the U.S. economy. But that is exactly what Mr. Gore bought back from negotiations. Note that those voting for the resolution included climate-change true believers such as Barbara Boxer and John Kerry.

The basic international economics of greenhouse-gas reduction hasn’t changed in 20 years, and any new U.N. agreement is sure to be Kyoto revisited. Today’s Senate Democrats are so far gone into climate-change hysteria that they would never vote for the kind of resolution that passed in 1997. But GOP legislators might have other options to constrain Mr. Obama’s diplomacy...

More.

Why Our Pansy-Assed Prep-School Diplomats Fail Against Putin and Islamic State

From Ralph Peters, at the New York Post, "Why our prep-school diplomats fail against Putin and ISIS":

Why do our “best and brightest” fail when faced with a man like Putin? Or with charismatic fanatics? Or Iranian negotiators? Why do they misread our enemies so consistently, from Hitler and Stalin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph?

The answer is straightforward:

Social insularity: Our leaders know fellow insiders around the world; our enemies know everyone else.

The mandarin’s distaste for physicality: We are led through blood-smeared times by those who’ve never suffered a bloody nose.
And last but not least, bad educations in our very best schools: Our leadership has been educated in chaste political theory, while our enemies know, firsthand, the stuff of life.

Above all, there is arrogance based upon privilege. For revolving-door leaders in the U.S. and Europe, if you didn’t go to the right prep school and elite university, you couldn’t possibly be capable of comprehending, let alone changing, the world. It’s the old social “Not our kind, dahhhling…” attitude transferred to government.

That educational insularity is corrosive and potentially catastrophic: Our “best” universities prepare students to sustain the current system, instilling vague hopes of managing petty reforms.

But dramatic, revolutionary change in geopolitics never comes from insiders. It’s the outsiders who change the world. In the 21st century, our government suffers from the sclerosis of insider thinking that constantly reinforces itself and rejects conflicting evidence. The result is that we are being whipped by savages.

Of course, the insiders can’t accept so abhorrent a prospect as their own fallibility. So when new blood does enter — through those same “elite” institutions — it’s channeled into the same old calcium-clogged arteries. And we get generals with Ivy League Ph.D.s writing military doctrine that adheres cringingly to politically correct truisms and leaves out the very factors, such as the power of religion or ethnic hatred, that prove decisive. Or a usually astute commentator on Eastern European affairs who dismisses Vladimir Putin as a mere chinovnik, a petty bureaucrat, since Putin was only a lieutenant colonel in the KGB when the Soviet Union collapsed and didn’t go to a Swiss prep school like John Kerry.

That analyst overlooked the fact that Hitler had been a mere lance corporal. Stalin was a failed seminarian. Lenin was a destitute syphilitic. Ho Chi Minh washed dishes in the basement of a Paris Hotel. And when the French Revolution erupted, Napoleon was a junior artillery officer.

And sophisticated Germans assumed they could use Hitler and then dismiss him, while other Europeans mocked him. Stalin’s fellow Bolsheviks underestimated him, until it was too late and their fates were sealed. The French didn’t notice Ho. And Napoleon shocked even his own lethargic family. The “man on horseback” is often the man from nowhere, and the members of the club ignore the torches in the streets until the club burns down around them.

Put another way: We are led by men and women educated to believe in the irresistible authority of their own words. When they encounter others who use words solely to deflect and defraud, or, worse, when their opposite numbers ignore words completely and revel in ferocious violence, our best and brightest go into an intellectual stall and keep repeating the same empty phrases (in increasingly tortured tones):

“Violence never solves anything.” “There’s no military solution.” “War is never the answer.” “Only a negotiated solution can resolve this crisis.” “It isn’t about religion.”

Or the latest and lamest: “We need to have strategic patience,” and “Terrorists need jobs.”

Every one of those statements is, demonstrably, nonsense most — or all — of the time. But the end result of very expensive educations is a Manchurian Candidate effect that kicks in whenever the core convictions of the old regime are questioned. So we find ourselves with leaders who would rather defend platitudes than defend their country.

And negotiations become the opium of the chattering classes...

Ralph is the best.

Keep reading.

Hat Tip: Astute Bloggers.

Israel and the Democrats

From Bret Stephens, at WSJ, "The Democratic Party is on the cusp of abandoning the state of Israel. That’s a shame, though less for Israel than it is for the Democrats":

The Democrats’ historic support for the Jewish state has always been what’s best about the party. The understanding not only that Jews are entitled to a state, but also that a liberal democracy is entitled to defend itself—robustly and sometimes pre-emptively—against illiberal enemies, is why the party of Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan commands historic respect.

But that party is evaporating. A 2014 Pew survey found that just 39% of liberal Democrats are more sympathetic to Israel than they are to the Palestinians. That compares with 77% of conservative Republicans. During last summer’s war in Gaza, Pew found liberals about as likely to blame Israel as they were to blame Hamas for the violence.

That means the GOP is now the engine, the Democrats at best a wheel, in U.S. support for Israel. The Obama administration is the kill switch. Over the weekend, a defensive White House put out a statement noting the various ways it has supported Israel. It highlighted the 1985 U.S.-Israel free-trade agreement and a military assistance package concluded in 2007. When Barack Obama must cite the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as evidence of his pro-Israel bona fides, you know there is a problem.

True, there is also the administration’s financial support for the Iron Dome missile-defense system, along with votes at the U.N.’s General Assembly opposing the usual anti-Israel resolutions. The administration and its congressional lemmings are nothing if not heroic when it comes to easy votes.

But this week Democrats don’t have the luxury of an easy vote. Will they boycott the Israeli prime minister’s speech? Will they insist the administration put any deal it reaches with Iran to a vote in Congress? Will they support a fresh round of sanctions, vehemently opposed by the president, if no deal is reached?

The administration is now trying to dodge all this by waging an unprecedented campaign of personal vilification against Benjamin Netanyahu (of a sort they would never dream of waging against, say, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan ), accusing him of seeking political gain for himself in the U.S. at Mr. Obama’s expense.

Yet the calendar chiefly dictating the timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech was set by John Kerry , not John Boehner , when the secretary of state decided that the U.S. and Iran would have to conclude a framework deal by the end of this month. Mr. Netanyahu is only guilty of wanting to speak to Congress before it is handed a diplomatic fait accompli that amounts to a serial betrayal of every promise Mr. Obama ever made to Israel.

Among those betrayals...

Keep reading.

Cartoon Credit: William Warren.

Vile Israel-Hating Professor Stephen Walt Cheers Netanyahu 'Blowing Up' the U.S.-Israel 'Special Relationship'

From the reviled co-author of the "Israel Lobby," at Foreign Policy, "Bibi Blows Up the Special Relationship":

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be the only person who was looking forward to his visit to the United States this week. House Speaker John Boehner, who cooked up the invitation for Netanyahu to address Congress with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, has now been exposed as a narrow-minded partisan who put his party’s fortunes ahead of broader diplomatic interests. The White House is supremely ticked off, with National Security Advisor Susan Rice terming the visit “destructive” to the U.S.-Israel relationship and Secretary of State John Kerry pointedly reminding people of how bad Netanyahu’s past advice has been. A chorus of reliably “pro-Israel” pundits — including some prominent members of Israel’s national security establishment — appear to share Rice’s view (if not her choice of words) and have denounced Netanyahu’s refusal to reschedule in no uncertain terms.

Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the “leviathan among lobbies,” seems to be unhappy about the whole business. Sure, it’s giving Netanyahu a prominent platform at its policy conference this week and is reportedly twisting arms on Capitol Hill to keep more Democrats from boycotting Netanyahu’s speech, but AIPAC appears to have been blindsided by the invitation itself, and partisan wrangling over Israel goes against its entire political playbook.

But in point of fact, AIPAC and other key organizations in the lobby have only themselves to blame. The contretemps taking place now is at least partly the result of the policies they have supported and the tactics they have employed over many years. It’s not the end of U.S. support for Israel, but it may well mark an important and ultimately positive shift in what has become a dysfunctional — even bizarre — relationship.It’s not the end of U.S. support for Israel, but it may well mark an important and ultimately positive shift in what has become a dysfunctional — even bizarre — relationship.

To be sure, a small part of the problem lies with Netanyahu himself. He seems to get on well with Vladimir Putin, but his bombastic and self-righteous moralism grates on most of the foreign leaders who have had to deal with him. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy called him a liar, and then-President Bill Clinton once responded to Bibi’s antics by exploding, “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Netanyahu’s lack of chemistry with President Barack Obama is well known, of course, yet Netanyahu has done little to try to win the U.S. president over. Instead, he or his cabinet ministers have repeatedly treated Obama and other U.S. officials — including Vice President Joe Biden and Kerry — with a degree of disdain bordering on contempt.

But as Matt Duss notes in an important piece in Tablet, the real divide is about policy, not personality. The flap over Netanyahu’s speech is exposing what has long been obvious but is usually denied by politicians: U.S. and Israeli interests overlap on some issues but they are not identical. It might be in Israel’s interest for the United States to insist on zero Iranian enrichment and for the United States to go to war to secure that goal, but such an attack is definitely not in America’s interest. Instead, America’s strategic position would be enhanced if it could get a diplomatic deal that kept Iran from going nuclear and opened the door to a more constructive relationship.

Similarly, though Netanyahu and his government remain staunchly opposed to a genuine two-state solution with the Palestinians, that outcome would be very good for the United States. It is definitely not in America’s interest for its closest ally in the Middle East to deny millions of Palestinian Arabs either full equality in Israel proper or any semblance of political rights in the West Bank, and it hurts U.S. interests every time Israel launches another punishing attack on the captive population in Gaza, inevitably causing hundreds of civilian deaths. Such actions — conducted with U.S. weaponry and subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer — do enormous damage to America’s image in the Middle East and have long been a staple ingredient in the jihadi narrative.

Similarly, it might be in Israel’s interest to have its own nuclear deterrent, but having to turn a blind eye to Tel Aviv’s undeclared arsenal makes Washington look hypocritical and undermines its broader effort to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The point is that no two states have the same interests, and that is as true of the United States and Israel as it is of America’s relations with many other democracies.

The controversy over Netanyahu’s visit has also exposed a core of resentment that the power of the lobby has long suppressed...

Still more.

Notice how it's all Israel's fault. The conflict in U.S.-Israel relations, the absence of peace in the Middle East and "human rights" for those angelic "Palestinians" --- and frankly, Iran's nuclear proliferation regime itself. And notice the "Israel First" canards Walt slathers throughout the piece, including the idea that it would be in "Israel’s interest for the United States to insist on zero Iranian enrichment and for the United States to go to war to secure that goal." The Jewish tail wagging the American dog. Got it. And that blood libel of the so-called "punishing" attacks on Gaza's "captive population," you know, the same population that Hamas throws up as human shields every chance it gets? Priceless.

Anything that destroys the power of "the lobby" is good. You know, if Jews run an influential interest group in Washington anything that weakens that cabal ought to be cheered. "Who's the fucking superpower here"? Conspiracy much?

Professor Stephen Walt is a puny stinking wretch of a man, a seriously vile and disgusting anti-Semite who's never found a Jew-hating slur he didn't like. Screw him and the far-left BDS camel he rode in on.

Netanyahu to Target Obama in Speech to Joint Session of Congress

At the Washington Post, "Netanyahu’s address to Congress will be most important speech of his life":

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to a joint meeting of Congress will probably be the most important speech of his career — and one that has already jeopardized relations between Israel and the United States.

On Tuesday morning, Netanyahu will confront an American president and insist that the future of the State of Israel, and the world, is imperiled by a pending “bad deal” with Iran on its nuclear program.

Also hanging in the balance is Netanyahu’s own political future. Just two weeks after the speech, Netanyahu will either be reelected to a historic fourth term as prime minister or be out of a job.

Netanyahu has spent three terms as Israeli prime minister focused on the dangers posed by Iran. In his first address to Congress in 1996, he warned that an atomic Iran would “presage catastrophic consequences, not only for my country, and not only for the Middle East, but for all mankind.”

His supporters call him prescient; his detractors say Netanyahu has been warning for 20 years that “time is running out” on the Iran threat. His critics say Netanyahu is a broken record, a Cassandra obsessed, willing to deeply damage U.S.-Israeli relations in a futile confrontation with the United States that wins Israel nothing.

His opponents in Israel and the United States say the speech is mostly a cynical ploy to get reelected in a tight March 17 vote, by fear-mongering on Iran and by opposing an American president who is not very popular in Israel.

On Tuesday morning, as Secretary of State John F. Kerry meets with his counterparts in Switzerland to try to complete a framework accord with Iran by the end of March, Netanyahu will stand at the lectern in Congress to tell Americans, essentially, that President Obama is either foolhardy or weak and about to sign a deal with the devil.

Netanyahu will warn, as he has in the past, that the Americans are gambling on a radical Iranian regime run by Muslim clerics who deny the Holocaust, sponsor terrorist groups, support a murderous regime in Syria and pledge to destroy Israel.

As his chartered plane wings toward Washington on Sunday afternoon, Netanyahu’s advisers say the final author of the speech will be Netanyahu himself.

The prime minister’s press office released photographs of Netanyahu penning his speech in longhand.

Netanyahu will write the speech because he considers himself not only an authority on the minutiae of the Iran nuclear program — the number, type and productivity of the centrifuges and the estimates of low-enriched uranium to the kilogram — but also an expert on U.S. politics and the American people.

Netanyahu studied at MIT and served as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He has been called the “most American” of Israeli prime ministers.

This is his moment. Netanyahu’s English is fluid, conversational, persuasive and often blunt. He has a flair for stagecraft. His guiding light, says his inner circle, is Britain’s wartime premier and great orator, Winston Churchill, who is the only other foreign leader to have addressed a joint meeting of Congress three times.

During Netanyahu’s second speech to Congress in May 2009, he received 29 standing ovations.

Netanyahu’s critics in Israel and in the Obama administration warn that the Israeli leader is really no Churchill and that he has seriously miscalculated this time.

Israeli relations with Democrats and the Obama administration are at a historic low.

More.

Also, at Arutz Sheva, "Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike" (via Memeorandum).

Heh, and the idiot leftists are up in arms. So the vile William Saletan, at Slate, "Netanyahu's Speech in Congress is a Revolting and Dangerous Gamble." Lol. Tell us how you really feel about it!

Boko Haram Murders More than 200 as John Kerry Arrives in Nigeria

The Obama administration continues to demonstrate resolve in (not) fighting global Islamic jihad.

At Twitchy, "Boko Haram kills hundreds as John Kerry meets with Nigeria’s presidential candidates."

And video at Reuters, "Kerry arrives in Nigeria for talks."

Frankly, the Nigerian government is so corrupt it's almost as bad as Boko Haram. The administration of course won't lift a finger to fix that problem, so the terrorists won't be eliminated any time soon.

Added: At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Boko Haram Attacks Major Nigerian City in a Sustained Assault."

What the Paris No-Show Says About the Obama Administration — #CharlieHebdo

At the Wall Street Journal:

The failure of the U.S. government to send a high-level representative to the historic Paris march against Islamist terror on Sunday is being roundly criticized, even by anchors at CNN. We share the sentiment, but this is no mere diplomatic snafu.

Press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama regretted not joining more than 40 world leaders at the rally in defiance of the Charlie Hebdo killers and their al Qaeda sponsors. “I guess what I’m saying is that we agree that we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” Mr. Earnest added, which we guess passes for contrition.

Yet as recently as Sunday night officials dismissed criticism by noting the presence of Jane Hartley, the U.S. Ambassador to France nominated in June and an Obama campaign bundler. On Monday Mr. Earnest gestured at “security challenges.” Presumably the same risks attended the German Chancellor, the British and Israeli Prime Ministers, the Middle Eastern royals and African presidents.

If Mr. Obama was too much of a distraction, then surely someone else of cabinet rank was available. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed a previous commitment in India, but then why not Vice President Joe Biden or Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ? None would have to fly commercial. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris but still chose not to go.

A fair conclusion is that the White House didn’t think it mattered. This fits Mr. Obama’s generally dismissive attitude toward Europe. He was happy to use the symbolism of a speech before tens of thousands of adoring Berliners in 2008 to burnish his theme of restoring America’s image in the world. But as President he has treated foreign policy like a distraction from his work of, well, going to Tennessee to pitch “free” college. America’s image has worsened.

The other signal sent by his French omission is this Administration’s continuing failure to appreciate the nature and scope of the Islamist threat. The murders at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher deli were attacks on innocents and our ally France. But they also represent a political ideology that threatens Western freedom and civilization. The ostensible leader of the free world should want to show solidarity against such a profound menace that will require Western unity to defeat...

Reprehensible.

I'd thought by now my disgust with this administration had bottomed out. But no. Obama's shamelessness is a bottomless pit.

ObamaCare’s Casualty List

At WSJ, "Three elections later, the law continues to be a political catastrophe for Democrats":

Mary Landrieu ’s defeat in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate runoff was no surprise, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored as inevitable. Ms. Landrieu was a widely liked three-term incumbent, and her GOP foe was hardly a juggernaut, yet she lost by 14 points after Washington Democrats all but wrote her off. Think of Ms. Landrieu as one more Democrat who has sacrificed her career to ObamaCare.

It’s hard to find another vote in modern history that has laid waste to so many political careers. Sixty Democrats cast the deciding 60th vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, but come January only 30 will be left in the Senate. That’s an extraordinary political turnover in merely three elections, the largest in the post-Watergate era. As it happens, the law has been nearly as politically catastrophic for Democrats as Watergate was for Republicans.

Three of the ObamaCare 60 died in office, while 19 declined to run for re-election. Some of the retirees left for reasons such as becoming Secretary of State ( John Kerry ), but others left because their own re-election prospects were hardly stellar. Think Chris Dodd of Connecticut in 2010 or Virginia’s Jim Webb in 2012. At least Democrats succeeded them.

Yet no fewer than eight of the retirees handed their seats to Republicans: They include Ben Nelson, of Cornhusker Kickback fame, who deprived his state of the pleasure of returning him to private life in 2010. After five terms, Jay Rockefeller was increasingly out of step with West Virginia, not least on ObamaCare. Max Baucus (Montana), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) would have had rough rides had they tried to stick around.

When they got the chance, voters dumped eight ObamaCare incumbents who dared to seek re-election. In addition to Ms. Landrieu, four are moderate-in-name-only Democrats who went along with President Obama ’s lurch to the left: Mark Begich (Alaska), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (Arkansas).

But conventional liberals like Russ Feingold (Wisconsin) and Mark Udall (Colorado) also lost in states Mr. Obama carried twice. In Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter left the GOP to vote for ObamaCare after Republican Pat Toomey announced he’d run against him in a primary. Specter, since deceased, lost the Democratic primary to Joe Sestak, who lost to Mr. Toomey in two degrees of ObamaCare separation.

Mr. Obama told Democrats at a March 2010 pep rally that he knew they faced “a tough vote” but was “actually confident” that “it will end up being the smart thing to do politically because I believe that good policy is good politics.” That month, New York Senator Chuck Schumer claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “by November those who voted for health care will find it an asset, those who voted against it will find it a liability.”

Mr. Schumer has since recanted, calling ObamaCare a disaster for the party of government. Nancy Pelosi said his remarks were “beyond comprehension,” which for liberals like her happens to be true. Their goal is to expand the entitlement state whether the public likes it or not, figuring that sooner or later enmity will subside and new programs will acquire a constituency. So it has always been in the Entitlement Age—until ObamaCare...

More.

RELATED: At Politico, "The Dems' Final Insult: Landrieu Crushed."

Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran's Khamenei on Fighting #ISIS

Because the White House is all about cooperating with the congressional Republican majority.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State":

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence.

The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.

Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say.

The October letter marked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since taking office in 2009 and pledging to engage with Tehran’s Islamist government.

The correspondence underscores that Mr. Obama views Iran as important—whether in a potentially constructive or negative role—to his emerging military and diplomatic campaign to push Islamic State from the territories it has gained over the past six months.

Mr. Obama’s letter also sought to assuage Iran’s concerns about the future of its close ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, according to another person briefed on the letter. It states that the U.S.’s military operations inside Syria aren’t targeted at Mr. Assad or his security forces.

Mr. Obama and senior administration officials in recent days have placed the chances for a deal with Iran at only 50-50. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to begin intensive direct negotiations on the nuclear issue with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, on Sunday in the Persian Gulf country of Oman.

“There’s a sizable portion of the political elite that cut their teeth on anti-Americanism,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference on Wednesday about Iran’s leadership, without commenting on his personal overture. “Whether they can manage to say ‘Yes’…is an open question.”

For the first time this week, a senior administration official said negotiations could be extended beyond the Nov. 24 deadline, adding that the White House will know after Mr. Kerry’s trip to Oman whether a deal with Iran is possible by late November.

“We’ll know a lot more after that meeting as to whether or not we have a shot at an agreement by the deadline,” the senior official said. “If there’s an extension, there’re questions like: What are the terms?”

Mr. Obama’s push for a deal faces renewed resistance after Tuesday’s elections gave Republicans control of the Senate and added power to thwart an agreement and to impose new sanctions on Iran. Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) have introduced legislation to intensify sanctions.

“The best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to quickly pass the bipartisan Menendez-Kirk legislation—not to give the Iranians more time to build a bomb,” Mr. Kirk said Wednesday.

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) expressed concern when asked about the letter sent by Mr. Obama.

“I don’t trust the Iranians, I don’t think we need to bring them into this,” Mr. Boehner said. Referring to the continuing nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Mr. Boehner said he “would hope that the negotiations that are under way are serious negotiations, but I have my doubts.”

More at that top link.

Obama in George W. Bush Flight Suit on the Cover of The Economist

And the White House isn't pleased, via the Washington Times, "White House pans ‘unfair’ magazine cover with Obama in Bush’s flight suit."

Well, O's entire political skit has been the "anti-Bush," so no surprise they're no whining about being compared to a real president. It makes the Democrats look wrong, to say nothing of stupid and deceitful.

In any case, here's the Economist, "America and Islamic State: Mission Relaunched":

FOR more than three years, Barack Obama has been trying to avoid getting into a fight in Syria. But this week, with great tracts of the Middle East under the jihadist’s knife, he at last faced up to the inevitable. On September 23rd America led air strikes in Syria against both the warriors of Islamic State (IS) and a little-known al-Qaeda cell, called the Khorasan group, which it claimed was about to attack the West. A president who has always seen his main mission as nation-building at home is now using military force in six countries—Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The Syrian operation is an essential counterpart to America’s attacks against IS in Iraq. Preventing the group from carving out a caliphate means, at the very least, ensuring that neither of these two countries affords it a haven (see article). But more than the future of IS is at stake in the streets of Raqqa and Mosul. Mr Obama’s attempt to deal with the jihadists is also a test of America’s commitment to global security. It is a test that he has been failing until now.

IS et al

The sense that America is locked in relative decline has been growing in recent years, as it has languished under the shadow of the financial crisis and two long, difficult wars. Why should a newly rich country like China take lectures about how to run its affairs from a president who struggles even to get his own budget through? America, meanwhile, seems swamped by the forces of disorder, either unable or unwilling to steady a world that is spinning out of control. IS embodies this frightening trend. It is, in the jargon, a non-state actor, and it thrives on chaos. With each new humiliation of the governments in Iraq and Syria, it has accumulated more wealth, territory and recruits.

Its rise has also reflected American policy. First, the poorly thought-out intervention of George W. Bush, typified by the rash “Mission Accomplished” banner that greeted him on the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003 after his invasion of Iraq. Then Mr Obama’s studious inaction. When Syrians rose up against the regime of Bashar Assad, the president stood back in the hope that things would sort themselves out—leaving Mr Assad free to commit atrocities against his own people. Even when Mr Assad crossed “the red line” of using chemical weapons, the superpower did not punish him. About 200,000 Syrians have died and 10m have been driven from their homes. Denied early American support, the moderate Syrian opposition has fragmented, leaving the field to the ruthless and well-organised IS.

Standing back has not worked well elsewhere in the world, either. Mr Obama has spoken about the limits to American power—exhorting other governments with a stake in today’s system to do their bit to keep the world safe. He wanted the United States to be seen less as a unilateral bully, more as the leader of world opinion. Yet when America stepped back, its allies stepped back, too. The countries that most eagerly came forward were its rivals, such as Russia and China.

IS has induced a change of heart among the American people. Before vicious extremists seized the city of Mosul and began to cut off Western heads on social media, Americans doubted the merit of further military action in the Middle East. When they realised that IS threatened them directly, they began to demand protection. Mr Obama therefore has a chance not just to strike a blow for order in the Middle East, but also to give the declinists pause.

From axis of evil to network of death

He has brute force on his side. The disastrous mismanagement of post-invasion Iraq has tended to eclipse the overwhelming potency of American firepower at the beginning. In six short weeks in the spring of 2003 America and its allies defeated the 375,000 troops of Saddam Hussein with the loss of only 138 American lives. Never in history has a single country had such military dominance. It has not suddenly evaporated.

The bigger question is whether Mr Obama can carry off delicate diplomacy. The lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan is that firepower alone will not prevail. Indeed, if America comes to be seen by Sunni Arabs as nothing more than a Shia air force, strikes will only bind IS to the local people.

If he is to win the argument in Iraq and Syria, Mr Obama needs coalitions and partnerships. For that he must get the diplomacy right. So far he has done well. He insisted on the replacement of Nuri al-Maliki, the Shia-chauvinist former prime minister of Iraq, with Haider al-Abadi, who is making efforts to bring Sunnis into government. He sent John Kerry, his secretary of state, to recruit regional Sunni powers such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to try to persuade Sunnis in Iraq and Syria that he is not taking sides against their branch of Islam. America has argued to the United Nations that its intervention—requested by Iraq but not Syria—is legal under Article 51 of the UN’s charter. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, appears to have accepted that argument; so should Britain’s Parliament, which will vote on whether to help America.

There is much more for Mr Obama to do...

More.

And remember, the Economist is hardly alone in this analogy. See earlier, "Foreign Policy Editor David Rothkopf Hammers Obama's Foreign Policy: Says Barack Should Take a Page from George W. Bush's Second Term."

Western Survival Requires the End of Islamist Jihadism

Well, QED.

From Professor Michael Curtis, at the Commentator (via Blazing Cat Fur):

What the world needs now may be love, but more urgently it needs the end of Islamist jihadism: the greatest danger to Western civilization and values. The arrest on September 18, 2014 in Sydney, Australia of 15 alleged jihadists, local Islamic State supporters, preparing to kidnap at random innocent persons and behead them in a gruesome spectacle in the streets of Sydney, is another reminder of that urgent need.

No wakeup call is required to realize that the same kind of direct threat exists against the homeland of the U.S. It serves no purpose to minimize, as some spokespersons for the Obama Administration have done, the danger to the U.S. and Western countries of terrorist attacks.

Similarly shortsighted is the view of Daniel Benjamin, former State Department counterterrorism adviser, that public comments about the ISIS threat have been a “farce.”

It is equally pointless to relax one’s guard on the belief that there is no credible information of an impending attack on the West from IS. The world is now full of Jihadist groups, whether al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front, or the Islamic State, some of whose supporters are trained to carry out terrorist attacks in their Western countries of origin. For policy purposes, it is useful to list some of the groups to which attention should be paid.

The groups exist around the world: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrab (Aqim) in Mali; Boko Haram in Nigeria; Al-Shabab in Somalia; Taliban in Afghanistan; Ansar al-Sharia in Libya; Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia; Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia; Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines; Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis in Egypt.

Above them all is the Islamic State (IS), (formerly ISIS or ISIL), in Iraq and Syria, a ruling state, a Caliphate, as well as a terrorist organization.

It needs to be repeated that IS, a Caliphate with enormous wealth, large quantities of weapons, and an appetite for power, has ambitions to expand its territorial control in the Middle East. Under its ruthless leader the Caliph and Commander in Chief, formerly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who claims to be descended from the Prophet, the IS is first consolidating its rule, then plans to conquer the bordering Muslim states, and then to “battle against the Crusaders” (the West).

IS has a governing structure and a functioning bureaucracy with two parts, one for Syria and the other for Iraq, each with 12 Governors, an eight-man Shura Council, the religious monitor, and a number of committees, each responsible for specific services.

Along with the ambition of IS in the Middle East, the Western individuals who have joined the ranks of IS really do pose a potential danger to their countries of origin, including the U.S. homeland. Thus, the need for a strong Western response to the threat is urgent. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has reported on his attempts to form a coalition, to enlist allies in the fight, to obtain the support of ten Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and some promises from others...

More.

Oddly enough, even if the Obama administration agreed with the analysis, to actually act on it would repudiate all the President Obama has stood for since running in 2007. He's boxed in by his own "tide of war is receding" stupidity.

Secretary John Kerry Takes on Code Pink During Senate Testimony on #ISIS Threat

Heh, at Hot Air, "John Kerry to Code Pink: If you care about women, you should want to fight ISIS."

Video at that link.

They're all commies, lol.

9/11 and the Fog of Denial

From Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine:

Thirteen years after 9/11, there is one thing that virtually all our politicians, law enforcement officials, and mainstream media guardians of opinion know: that attack had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, and neither does any other jihad terror attack, anywhere, no matter how often its perpetrators quote the Qur’an and invoke Muhammad. Islam, we’re told again and again, is a good, benign thing – indeed, a positive force for societies, and to be encouraged in the West. Jihad terror is an aberration, an outrage against the Religion of Peace’s peaceful teachings. These lessons from our betters are coming more and more often in light of the advent of the Islamic State.

The caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has a PhD in Islamic Studies. But Barack Obama is unimpressed with his Islamic erudition: “ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.” State Department spokesperson Marie Harf emphasized that Obama meant what he said: “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion. The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said that for some members of the international coalition he hopes to build against the Islamic State, joining it “will mean demolishing the distortion of one of the world’s great peaceful religions.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron chimed in:

What we are witnessing is actually a battle between Islam on the one hand and extremists who want to abuse Islam on the other. These extremists, often funded by fanatics living far away from the battlefields, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology – and they do so not just in Iraq and Syria but right across the world, from Boko Haram and al-Shabaab to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Where is “Islam” actually battling these “extremists who want to abuse Islam”? Cameron didn’t say.

Showing as much grasp of the situation as Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond declared: “Isil’s so-called caliphate has no moral legitimacy; it is a regime of torture, arbitrary punishment and murder that goes against the most basic beliefs of Islam.” On the opposite side of the aisle, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper complained that Islamic State “extremists are beheading people and parading their heads on spikes, subjugating women and girls, killing Muslims, Christians and anyone who gets in their way. This is no liberation movement — only a perverted, oppressive ideology that bears no relation to Islam.”

Unfortunately, for every Islamic State atrocity she enumerated, there is Qur’anic sanction...

Keep reading.

And as always, it's in the Koran.

Former NSA Director Michael Hayden: Airstrikes Are Like 'Casual Sex'

At the Hill, "Ex-NSA chief: Airstrikes like ‘casual sex’":

The United States is at war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), the White House and Pentagon said Friday, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly declined to use that phrase.

"The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with Al Qaida and its Al Qaida affiliates all around the globe," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment, telling reporters that while the effort was "not the Iraq war," they should "make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL."