Where Might Iran Strike First Becoming Increasingly Important

 

I was reading an article titled “Watch: Huckabee Declares ‘Iran’s Ultimate Goal is the US’” which triggered a slight case of déja vu as we had declared that at the top of the Iranian list for nations to strike once they have the nuclear capability and could attain sufficient staging abilities would not be Israel but the United States in our article “Iran Negotiations Continue Going Downhill” on April 15, 2014. For the sake of ease, below is the YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

With the technical out of the way, time for our comments on the statements in the video given by Dr. Joseph Frager and Former Governor Mike Huckabee in the video. Where we agree with the commentary that the United States is the ultimate goal that Iran desires to target, we go an additional step and claim that Iran desires to strike the United States before they make any attempt to strike Israel. We base this on a number of items with the simple fact that when Iran makes their claims they always place the United States as the Great Satan while Israel is the Little Satan. Another example were the yearly conventions held by Iran under Ahmadinejad when he was their figure head of a president which were named “A World Without the United States and Zionism” which featured a theme pictured in a photo of two balls crashing at the bottom of an hourglass with one representing Israel and the other the United States where the United States ball was already sitting at the bottom broken while the one representing Israel was falling towards its similar demise (see below). Many followers of the Middle East hold that everything done in the theater of politics and foreign relations, no matter how small or insignificant it may appear to some, is done in a particular manner with an exact meaning which must not be overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant. The fact that the sphere representing the United States is already broken and the sphere representing Israel is still falling towards its designated fate could be taken to depict the order Iran planned to strike. That would place the United States destruction taking place before the destruction of Israel; or it may be completely meaningless. Still, the picture combined fact that the United States is the Great Satan and Israel merely the Little Satan and the conference name placed the United States ahead of Zionism for being deleted from the world’s stage all add up to give solid evidence that Iran has placed the destruction of the United States as its primary goal and destroying Israel is a secondary aim and is considered less vital and important than the United States. Neither destruction, regardless of the order, is desirable nor should have any reference to such destructions be taken as simply political bluster used for consumption within Iran and the Muslim world having little if any meaning or signifying an actual battle plan and order of attack in the future of Iran.

 

Iconic picture depicting Iranian conference theme of “A World Without the United States and Zionism” hosted by Ahmadinejad

 

Mike Huckabee then goes into theoretical mode claiming that the United States should do what it can to support those Iranians who desire to replace the Ayatollahs and their theocratic and oppressive governance with a democratic government and begins to reset the relations of Iran with the rest of the world. He also claims that removing the sanctions was unwise, something almost everybody is on board and in agreement over with the possible exception of a few hardline Obama supporters who still hang on his every utterance. Then Mike Huckabee stated that the Iranian people do not represent the same views, desires and ends that the Ayatollahs, a questionable assumption when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program. Polls over the years have drawn a disconcerting line depicting a slow but inexorable rise in the support the Iranian people show towards continuing their nuclear program even should the Mullahs and their cohorts be removed from power and replaced with some form of democratic or republican form of governance. He is correct in his calls for supporting any future uprising though he fails to completely flush out exactly how far such support should go and whether the idea of support intends to place American boots on the ground, provide air cover as well as arming the revolutionaries, simply provide small arms along with some limited heavier weaponry or simply provide logistical and surveillance technical assistance and leave the rest to the people to fight to overthrow their oppressive government without direct assistance from the United States. He then concludes repeating his call for aiding Israel politically and militarily by taking a “stand with Israel and take whatever action is necessary to make sure there is no such thing as a nuclear Iran.” These statements are pretty much the standard boilerplate stands former governor Huckabee has stated as his core principles and the platform on which he stands. His standing firmly with Israel is greatly appreciated and may he be successful and find a route to elected office which is tenable and realistic such that his views for supporting Israel have a venue where their being expressed and used as a base for voting, especially on those items which most directly affect Israel.

 

Mike Huckabee handed the microphone to John Catsimatidis, a former New York mayoral candidate and also the owner of Gristedes Foods (a century old New York area supermarket chain), who added commentary of an economic war being waged using oil prices and being designed with respects to Saudi Arabia who he claimed are fighting Canada, the United States Iran and Russia. I am appreciative that he breached this subject as I have been mulling my thoughts over this lately and have a somewhat different take. Mr. Catsimatidis is correct that Saudi Arabia is fighting a war using the price of oil and that this is aimed at Iran and Russia. Saudi Arabia is not considering Canada in their equation and if Canada is suffering due to the lower price of oil, it is an unfortunate circumstance. Saudi Arabia is also taking a shot over the bough of the United States and President Obama in particular. This spurred my interest when at a recently held OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) meeting to discuss the price of oil the Saudis insisted that only the representatives of the OPEC nations invited to its conference were to be permitted access to those proceedings. This barred the media as well as any uninvited nations who may have had a desire to be included in the meetings and make their feelings known and potentially attempt to pressure some of the participating nations to help push their agenda. The Saudis also insisted on complete secrecy until the conference was completed at which time a press release was to be given, but there was not to be any question and answer with the press which likely left a number of upset media types who believe their being part of the media gives them special privileges. Saudi Arabia first target, as we all likely know, is Iran and the Saudis know that Iran needs to have oil prices somewhere around one-hundred to one-hundred-twenty dollars a barrel to make even a small profit and prefer even higher prices as their heavy oil is more difficult to process and makes a poorer breakdown producing less of the preferable products such as gasoline and diesel. Secondarily, the Saudis also potentially desire to place Russia in a tight spot though they most likely do not wish to be obvious about such a maneuver. Russia’s oil is also somewhat heavy, though not as poor a quality as is Iranian oil, thus they too prefer a higher price. Additionally, the Russians economy is being almost completely supported by their oil sales which derive much less revenue with these lower prices thus they too suffer. Canada is an unfortunate casualty as there are no hard feelings between the Saudis and Canada which is wonderful for Canada as far as that goes. But for the United States, this action by Saudi Arabia is a slap in the face of President Obama as they have partially crippled two of the national economies, or at least wounded them at least moderately, which the United States administration has been acting favorably towards even to the point of slighting traditional allies dumping them for Russia and especially Iran. This was a brilliant move by the Saudis though perhaps the brilliance was not so much on figuring how to put some hurt to three of the nations causing the Saudi Arabian leaders, government and others fitful nights’ sleep and general indigestion caused by feelings of rejection and indifference to their situation and desires when it came to foreign policy and such small items as preventing by whatever means were required a nuclear armed Iran. This pushing the price of oil lower was a direct threat to the United States administration and President Obama directly that if the United States was not going to bring the mullahs down to earth and make them toe the line of nuclear nonproliferation or face serious sanctions and potentially a military response to their continued flouting of the nuclear agreements, denying inspections while refusing to answer direct questions of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) then Saudi Arabia was going to apply their own sanctions by pushing the price of oil down to a point where Iran would find it near impossible to make any money from the oil sector of their economy. This controlling the price of oil and keeping it low was also part and parcel of the way that President Raegan financially strangled the Soviet Union leading to their eventual downfall, and Saudi Arabia is at it again this time without the need for an American request, not that one such request was even in the making. The other interesting item is that a majority of the OPEC nations agreed with Saudi Arabia and will be following the Saudi lead in keeping the price of oil deflated for the time being. It will be interesting to see what Saudi Arabia would do should the Iranians test fire a nuclear device. They might respond by dropping oil prices to a point where they would be making next to nothing for each barrel of their oil sold, and their oil is considered to be light sweet crude oil, the finest grade one could hope to receive at their refinery. Setting the price for oil that low would require Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, amongst others, to open their oil spigots full bore and place as much oil as they humanly could produce onto the market making for a glut and thus forcing the price to bottom out. The bright side of an all-out oil war where lowering the price by Saudi Arabia would determine a winner would also make the average European and American driver also a winner as they could very easily realize gasoline prices below a dollar a gallon, potentially well below. This would be the case of inside every black cloud (Iran being at breakout point on nuclear weapons) there is a silver lining (Iranian and Russian economies near collapse due to low oil revenues) with a golden center (gasoline prices at lowest levels in over fifty years potentially).

 

Dr. Joseph Frager followed up asking Mike Huckabee about anti-Semitism in the world and what might be done about confronting it. Mr. Huckabee pointedly stated that the rise of anti-Semitism was obvious the world over and that the government of the United States has added to the rise through their incitement against Israel. Furthermore, he spoke of it being evident in Europe and other parts of the world but finds it laser focused on Israeli Jews and Israel. Mr. Catsimatidis added that the slow economic growth and dire economics in many places was the impetus to find somebody on whom to place blame and that it always the Jews who are blamed. He mentioned the point that the United States has always been brotherly with Israel though he has his doubts that the Israeli government trusts the current American government in Washington. He also postulated that Israel would be unable to attack Iran as they could not be assured of any support and backup. He closed quoting the Obama slogan of change except the change he implied was for a new governmental outlook towards Israel which would be more favorable.

 

There is much to evidence that the critical and adversarial attitudes coming from the administration of President Obama has poisoned the wellspring of acceptance of the Jews especially in Europe. The severity of the assaults and the abundance of slurs and verbal abuse along with the defacing of Synagogues, destruction of Jewish cemeteries and the assaults on Jewish citizens and Rabbis have been committed by more than just immigrant populations in Europe. There has been an effort by many in the European media and in the governments who have attempted to explain the increased anti-Semitism completely on their immigrant population but too many of the reports have identified European indigenous populations with perpetrating attacks and other forms of anti-Semitism. There has also been a steep rise in anti-Zionist and especially anti-Israel hatred coming from all spots on the globe. Even places where there are literally a majority of the population who have never met or seen a Jewish person where the hatred still pours forth. That phenomenon is next to impossible to explain except that the pervasive anti-Semitism in the world’s media and on the Internet which has spread that anti-Semitism is not only acceptable but also warranted and really is the cause of all the evils and suffering in the world. When people are polled all over the globe and blood libels are claimed to be valid there is little more that needs to prove that anti-Semitism has become more of an epidemic than any disease as is apparently more communicable than any infectious disease known to modern medicine. The complete irony is that the anti-Semitic demonstrators and rioters often scream and charge the Jews to remove themselves from the nation and take themselves to Israel and then the same faces are in the crowd the next day demanding that Israel be erased and given to the Arabs for another Arab state. How any rational person can rectify holding such diametrically opposing views is beyond explanations. That is but one of the sets of beliefs which is beyond the cusp of having any sense of logic or consistency.

 

There have been claims that Israel is an Apartheid state despite the known fact that there is an Arab serving on the Israeli Supreme Court, a number of Arabs who are Ministers of the Knesset, Arabs go to the same schools, own land, own apartments, drive cars, work in hospitals, are doctors, nurses, lawyers and every other profession imaginable. If it exists in Israel, then an Arab is almost as likely as a Jews and all have equal opportunities and possibilities for their lives. There are Jewish managers who manage both Jews and Arabs, Arab managers who manage both Jews and Arabs, Arabs serving in the IDF, Arabs in the police force, Arabs in every walk of life. Jews and Arabs live peacefully and intermingle in most towns and cities in Israel. There are Synagogues, Churches, Mosques, Buddhist Temples, Shinto Shrines and Bahá’í gardens and worship house all within Israel and open to freely practice all religions. Yet it will be the Arab state the world is attempting to force onto Israel and to be cut from the Jewish heartland of their ancient homelands which will be free of Jews as demanded by Mahmoud Abbas. Israel has recognized the right of the Arabs to their state as an Arab state but the Arabs refuse to recognize Israel as the homeland for the Jewish People. The Arabs have claimed that they would be willing to allow Israel to continue to exist and end their incitement and terror war against Israel providing that Israel be changed such that it becomes an Arab Muslim run nation and the Jews accept their status as a protected people and as Dhimmi left to live at the pleasure of their Arab Muslim masters while Israel gives total freedom to the Arab citizens of Israel who have the right to vote, hold office, work where they please, live where they please and pretty much do as they please within the same laws as the Jews live under. The Arabs who would make up the Arab state which Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of Fatah and leader of the PLO and unity government where Hamas is an equal member along with Islamic Jihad and Fatah all currently live in their own semi-autonomous region where they have their own leaders who have not stood for an election before their people since 2006 and have cancelled or simply refused to schedule elections for fear that they may not be elected again and this proposition makes holding elections impossible. Meanwhile, the Israelis are about to hold another election as it appears that the Israelis prefer having elections to finishing their terms in office. When the Israeli elections are held on March 17, 2015 all Israelis of voting eligible ages, Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims (both Shia and Sunni), Bahá’í, Druze, Bedouin and any other Israeli will get to vote. All of these votes will be equal in their weight; nobody is granted special consideration or relegated to a lesser inferior status. Still, after the elections there will be those claiming that some group was denied their rights to vote or they were unable to vote because they did not get their voter package as they moved two years ago and since then they have not received any government notices or communications and they do not know why, oh wait, fill out a form, at the post office and also tell the city office of your new address; who knew?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Latest Iranian Taqiyya

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claimed during military parade on Friday marking the country’s National Army Day celebrations where he stated, “We are not after war, we are after logic, we are after talks. (Iran) will not invade any country but will resist any invasion.” Such statements will very likely be taken by President Obama and his administration as further proof that the talks to prevent, or at least delay, Iran becoming a nuclear armed nation and that their leadership of the P5+1 has produced results. There will be claims and commentary describing President Rouhani and his calming words as further proof of his being a moderate force and to be leading Iran back from the brink and doing what was required to return Iran from the wild and threatening positions taken under the leadership of former Iranian President Ahmadinejad to a its rightful place amongst the peace-loving nations of the world. Needless to point out that President Rouhani has in the past bragged about how he had completely hoodwinked the Western nations during his stint as the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator referring to his tactics of smiling and making small talk and making jokes thus disarming the United States and European negotiators. President Rouhani went on to point to the massive increase in the Iranian nuclear program from a mere ten centrifuges to over seventeen-thousand centrifuges and major construction on the heavy water reactor at Arak all while he was misleading the Western nations with so little effort. He was very proud of his mastery of the art of diplomatic negotiating and hiding the real activities of the Iranian nuclear program behind his affability and a smile.

 

The lauding of President Rouhani and his pleasant sounding words ignores the greater evidence of the intent of Iran to pursue nuclear weapons using basically the same method of using deception and false guarantees all the while developing their nuclear program. Their initial push under former President Ahmadinejad used a tactic of simply bull-headed driving forward despite any opposition or sanctions from the world at large. The Iranians did not alter their drive for nuclear weapons with the election of President Rouhani; they simply altered their camouflage hiding everything behind a handshake, a broad smile, and friendly familial small talk, the exact same ruse utilized by the very same Rouhani back in earlier days of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. In order to keep ahold of this illusion of Iranian cooperation and passivity the Western leadership must simultaneously take President Rouhani and his calming words of cooperation and peacefulness at face value while ignoring numerous comments, claims and even threats from other high ranking Iranians including many from the military and even from within the nuclear program itself. One such statement came in a television interview Sunday with Iran’s nuclear program chief Ali Akhbar Salehi who insisted that Iran has the right to enrich uranium to ninety percent purity. This claim would be complete evidence necessary that Iran was working towards nuclear weapons and not simply completing the fuel cycle. There does not exist a nuclear reactor that requires highly enriched uranium at ninety percent purity, such enrichment is only required to make weapons. The obvious unsuitability of uranium enriched to ninety percent is evidenced that there does not exist any way to contain a reaction once begun at such concentrations of uranium to utilize it in a reactor; thus it can only be utilized to produce an explosion in a weapon. Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi has also commented recently that Iran will require thirty-thousands of its new generation centrifuges to meet domestic fuel demands. This comment came amid the latest talks being held in Vienna. This statement came subsequent to his recent claiming, “We unveiled a new generation of centrifuges that surprised the Westerners … This new machine is 15 times more powerful than the previous generation.”

 

In recent speeches, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei explained how the Iranians were using the nuclear talks to stall for time while they continued their drive in developing nuclear weapons. He stated quite plainly that, “We had announced previously that on certain issues, if we feel it is expedient, we would negotiate with the Satan (the United States) to deter its evil.” Ayatollah Khamenei further claimed that, “the nuclear talks showed the enmity of America against Iran, Iranians, Islam and Muslims.” Al Arabiya reports that Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements are tantamount to a confession of employing the Islamic deception tactic of “taqiyya,” the utilization of deception and outright lies in order to conceal and advance efforts to advance a situation which would serve the interests and future spread of Islam. The tactic is used to great advantage throughout Islamic history in negotiations and during states of war, two main elements being applied to their military readiness and nuclear program very effectively by Iran today. So, while the centrifuges in Iran continue to spin and leaders of all stripe, political, military and even those directly involved with their nuclear program make threats and promises of coming destructions, President Obama and the negotiating team from the Western powers continue to laud praise on President Rouhani as those among us who are of a more suspicious nature simply wait for Rouhani to slowly melt from vies leaving his Cheshire Cat ominously evil smile as the only proof he was ever there.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Iran Using Same Old Ploy with a New Face

We just had another week of a new round of negotiations with Iran concerning their nuclear program and concerns whether it is designed to simply produce energy, as Iran claims, or working towards nuclear weapons, as Israel fears. The P5+1 (United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) had varied claims concerning the results of these initial talks, with President Obama’s spokesman James Carney was quoted claiming these talks showed a “level of seriousness and substance that we have not seen before.” The European Union spokesman Michael Mann said, “We have come here with a sense of cautious optimism and a great sense of determination because we believe it’s really time now for tangible results.” Both of these statements indicate the optimism and hopefulness by the Western leaders to find something, anything positive on which to pin their hopes and desires to avoid any situation which might necessitate their need to take actions to prevent the Iranians from reaching the goal of nuclear weapons production. Meanwhile, the intent of the Iranians was probably best represented by their new President, Hassan Rouhani, who said Saturday that his country is pursuing “a win-win game” in its talks with the West. Additionally, President Rouhani said meeting with Giulio Haas, the new Swiss ambassador to Tehran, “I believe that during the Geneva talks, the political will of the Islamic Republic of Iran became evident to both sides.” The duplicitous meanings of his statements is as apparent as they were when similar position statements and intents were couched in diplo-double-talk where each listener is able to take from the statements either assurances or suspicions while the speaker has actually not made a definitive statement defining anything.

 

The truth of these meetings is that the main agreement they actually were able to reach was to agree to meet again in Geneva on November 7th and 8th. If anyone is able to remember, a feat that appears to be beyond many Western politicians and negotiators, back to the previous initial meetings before President Rouhani was elected and the face of Iran was President Ahmadinejad, then you will recall that at those initial meetings also ended with the Western leaders finding great hope, promise, and a “new honesty” coming from the Iranian negotiators, especially when the Iranians had appointed a new lead negotiator, and these meetings too only honestly resulted in the sides agreeing to meet again sometime in the ensuing six to eight weeks. So, we once again find ourselves at the stage of the Iranian nuclear negotiations where hope springs eternal, Iran has just outlined a new honest approach showing a real sense of sincerity and willingness to make real progress towards allying the fears that they are seeking to make nuclear weapons. They have intimated their willingness to allowing inspections at all of their nuclear sites, the end to enrichment to or above 20%, conversion of current enriched Uranium into fuel rods (a technology that many believe may be beyond Tehran’s abilities to produce), snap surprise inspections by the IAEA, and a slew of other goodies all of which were stated with the design of whetting the appetites and spurring on the hopes of the Western leaders that a new dawn was at hand. All of this has such a “Peace in our time” feeling to it that is just downright scary. I am almost expecting one of the Western lead negotiators to deplane holding a piece of paper above his head as he walks up to the waiting press and a cluster of microphones to announce the great breakthrough and the end of all suspicions over the obviously innocence of the Iranian nuclear program and the mechanisms which will assure all but the most cynical disbeliever. Whether or not they add Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s name as that disbeliever or not, we here can add Beyond the Cusp as that disbeliever.

 

These new promises and revelations of the Iranians desire for openness and an honest deal which will ally all fears is nothing new. At the November meetings the Iranians will begin backpedalling from those positions as they start to define them back away from the optimistic interpretations currently all over the press coverage and new sticking points will soon begin to appear as those same optimistic Western leaders are faced with the reality that Iran was playing chess while they were engaging in tiddlywinks. It is the same old pattern but this time instead of the contorted screaming madman face of Ahmadinejad the Iranians have the new, improved, smiling face of President Hassan Rouhani to reassure that Iran is sincere and this time is truly different. When it comes to believing such all we can say is, not so much. Let’s see what you say down the road as we have seen this song and dance before. We have all taken the pony ride of the new Iranian negotiator and this new Iranian President has very much the same old feel of that previous game. The only sane approach to this new level of excitement and expectations of a great new beginning is to honestly admit that we have all seen this before and we will judge by what the Iranians are not only willing to sign on to in an agreement but furthermore, how well they abide by those same terms when the surprise inspections begin and the enforcements of the other stipulations. But first things first, we still have a long road to traverse before we even get to the first stages of writing the actual agreements, let alone signing and implementing them. We must do as was promised by President Reagan in his arms treaty with the Soviets, “Trust but verify!” That has to be our minimal demand before we can celebrate the new Iranian attitude.

 

Beyond the Cusp