The Iran deal was never meant to stop Iran from building a bomb—it was supposed to delay it until disaster happened on someone else’s watch
By Lee Smith Lee Smith is the author of The Consequences of Syria
EXCERPTS FROM THIS ARTICLE:
JCPOA advocates claim Trump left the U.S. and the entire world vulnerable by leaving the Iran deal. The JCPOA, they say, was working. This is not true and hasn’t been true since the very beginning of the deal, at least not on the terms sold to Congress and the U.S. public. From the start, Iran was given secret loopholes that made it appear they were meeting the publicly stated terms of deal. Among other recent violations: The Iranians have exceeded the amount of uranium they’re allowed to enrich; they’ve exceeded the levels of purity of enriched uranium; they’ve violated the types of centrifuges they were allowed to spin; and injected uranium into centrifuges they were not allowed to use for enrichment.
Perhaps most tellingly, Iran’s nuclear archives, which Israel seized from a Tehran warehouse in January 2018 and made public months later, show that the regime never gave up its intentions to build a military nuclear program, despite promises in the JCPOA to never pursue nuclear weapons……
The most infamous payoff was the $1.7 billion in cash the administration shipped off to the IRGC on wooden pallets in exchange for U.S. citizens held hostage by the regime. The White House said that there was no “quid pro quo,” that it was Iran’s money to begin with—$400 million the pre-revolutionary government had deposited in 1979 to buy U.S. arms, plus interest. But the U.S. had already used the $400 million to compensate terror victims of the Islamic Republic. That was Iran’s money. The $400 million the Obama administration used to “pay back” the Iranians belonged to the U.S. taxpayer.
The administration argued that the U.S. had to pay the ransom in cash because Tehran had been cut off from the financial system and there was no other way to transfer the funds. That was not true. The Obama administration had wired payments to Iran before and after the wooden pallets episode. The Iranians wanted cash so it would be harder to track their terror financing…….
The Obama administration even paid the Iranians when they violated the deal. The Iranians overproduced reactor coolant, (heavy water, a key ingredient in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons) in violation of the JCPOA, and the administration offered to buy it for $10 millionto keep them in compliance. But that wasn’t enough for Tehran—or the White House. In exchange for giving up the nuclear-related material they had promised not to have in the first place—the heavy water—the regime then demanded more nuclear material in exchange. And the American administration agreed: In January 2017, Obama greenlighted the shipment of 130 tons of uranium to Iran.
President Trump’s decision to kill him is good news for the Western Hemisphere.
By Mary Anastasia O’Grady January 12, 2020
The death of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani is a blow to the theocracy’s efforts to assert its power across the Middle East. By taking out Soleimani, President Trump also did Latin America a big favor.
As if to make the point, Cuba’s military dictatorship quickly condemned the U.S. action. The dead general was also mourned by the drug-trafficking terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, members of the Venezuelan dictatorship, and Iranian proxy networks in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, El Salvador and Mexico.
A hero of hemispheric criminality has been lost, and the gangsters are sad. They may also be worried. It has been a mistake to let Iran’s incursions into the region during the last two decades go unanswered. If the end of Soleimani is the beginning of a more muscular U.S. policy toward Tehran, it’s good news for Latin America.
Iran plays the long game in its effort to undermine U.S. leadership and expand its influence around the world. In the Western Hemisphere, the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence has taken the lead by establishing “cultural centers” in many urban areas, from which it can spread propaganda, proselytize, radicalize converts and recruit locals as spies.
But intelligence gathering has a deeper purpose, which is to support operations that follow. This is where Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, came in.
The force handles foreign assignments for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, engaging in asymmetric warfare through weapons trafficking as well as assassinations and attacks on enemy targets. In other words, it exports terrorism.
Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, WMD, and counterterrorism issues. Specific areas of expertise include Islam and Iran. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, and acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She has served in or visited over two dozen nations worldwide, and speaks several languages, including Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German, and Russian, and currently is studying Farsi.
Now a private consultant, Lopez also serves as Vice President of the non-profit forum, The Intelligence Summit, and is a Professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre), where she teaches courses on the Iranian Intelligence Services, and the expanding influence of Jihad and Sharia in Europe and the U.S. She is affiliated on a consultant basis with DoD contractors that provide clandestine operations training to military intelligence personnel. Lopez was Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank, from 2005-2006. She has served as a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute; a Senior Intelligence Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, and Program Manager at HawkEye Systems, LLC.; and previously produced Technical Threat Assessments for U.S. Embassies at the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she worked as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Chugach Systems Integration.
Finally, our government is going to start the process of protecting our national electric grid from an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) strike. Multiple high altitude nuclear explosions over the United States could wipe out our electrical grid system and destroy the electrical components of our computers, medical devices, ATM’s, cell phones and our cars and trucks. Life as we now know it would come to a standstill. Our government has known since the 1950’s how devastating this type of an attack would be and have done nothing to protect this country. Thank you, President Trump, for being the first president to take action to protect us. Nancy
President Trump has made preparing for an electromagnetic pulse attack cool.
Long met with eye-rolling, the growing threat of an EMP attack on the nation’s electric grid and military bases by Iran or other foes has suddenly gone mainstream following Trump’s March executive order to assess the risks of a man-made or natural EMP hit.
The latest evidence was in the just-passed 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which adopted Trump’s action and ordered the National Guard to draw up a plan to thwart disaster from an EMP.
And several states are moving even faster. Wyoming just produced its blueprint to respond to an EMP assault that could knock out electricity, water services, hospitals, ATMs, cellular phones, and even vehicles for months.
“These are big and very important results,” said Peter Pry, a longtime champion of EMP preparation and adviser to the White House and military. “Things are taking off. This is a significant change, in a positive way,” he told us.
For proponents of developing protections from EMP, the fight has been a decadeslong slog. Trump has taken the threat seriously, though it’s unclear if his national security team shares his concerns, especially after EMP preparation proponent John Bolton was ousted as the national security adviser.
Also, some insiders fear that a strong lobbying campaign from the electric utility industry, which does not want to spend money to upgrade its infrastructure, is working to dull the president’s executive order.
Hypocritical Dems Trash Trump but Are Fine with Obama’s 2,800 Strikes Congress Didn’t Approve
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By Randy DeSoto
Published January 6, 2020 at 4:20pm
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democratic leaders are decrying President Donald Trump’s use of force against Iranian Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani without congressional authorization but allowed former President Barack Obama free rein to carry out military operations.
Obama oversaw military actions in both Syria and Libya for months without seeking the approval of Congress.
The Washington Times reported in April 2015 that U.S. strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq surpassed 2,800 by that point in the conflict.
“The U.S. military has been conducting strikes in Iraq for 10 months, and began striking directly at targets in Syria last September as part of Mr. Obama’s announced campaign to degrade the capabilities of the Islamic State,” according to The Times.
By mid-April 2015, the U.S. had carried out 1,458 strikes in Iraq and 1,343 in Syria.
Obama pointed to his powers as commander in chief, as well as the September 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force” resolution passed by Congress, which recognizes, “the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.”
The Obama administration also relied on the 2002 AUMF resolution calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein as leader of Iraq.
The Times reported that Obama continued his military campaign in Iraq and Syria, even after a new authorization for the use of force against the Islamic State was introduced, but had not been passed by Congress.
Obama did not want anything to destroy his attempt to seal a nuclear agreement with Iran. The failed Iranian nuclear “deal” was Obama’s top priority as that was going to be his legacy. Obama’s “legacy” is rapidly turning to dust. Nancy
Just whose side was this man on? Yes, of course, he was just trying to avoid a costly war with Iran. That’s why he gave the mullahs billions that they used to finance jihad terrorist groups.
“Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating Soleimani in 2015,” by Tyler O’Neil, PJ Media, January 3, 2020:
When President Donald Trump gave the order to kill Iran’s Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, he not only made an arguably proportionate response to the invasion of the U.S. Embassy this week but he also reversed a policy of the Obama administration. According to a report from 2018, Israel was “on the verge” of assassinating Soleimani in 2015, but Obama’s officials foiled the plan. In fact, they reached out to Iran with news of Israel’s plans.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, gave Israel a green light to assassinate Soleimani, according to a January 1, 2018 report from the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. The paper quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that “there is an American-Israeli agreement” that Soleimani is a “threat to the two countries’ interests in the region.” According to Haaretz, Al-Jarida is generally assumed to be a platform for the Israeli government to disseminate its message to other Middle Eastern governments.
According to the report, the agreement between Israel and the U.S. came three years after Washington thwarted an Israeli attempt to kill the Iranian general.
“The report says Israel was ‘on the verge’ of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general,” Haaretz reported.
The incident “sparked a sharp disagreement between the Israeli and American security and intelligence apparatuses regarding the issue.” That sounds like an understatement.
President Barack Obama frequently snubbed Israel, considered by many to be America’s best ally in the Middle East. Yet the news that the Obama’s administration prevented Israel from assassinating the Quds Force leader seems particularly significant, since the Obama administration also kept a list of approximately 500 American soldierswho were murdered by Iranian IEDs. Since the Quds Force spearheads Iran’s operations outside the Islamic Republic, Soleimani would arguably be responsible for all of those deaths.
There needs to be a thorough and realistic reevaluation of this training program of foreign nationals. But that probably will not happen; it would be “Islamophobic.”
“Six Saudis are arrested over Pensacola naval base shooting including three who FILMED the attack by countryman who killed three and wounded eight before being shot dead – as FBI probes terror link,” by Andrew Court and Snejana Farberov, Dailymail.com, December 6, 2019:
The Air Force trainee who killed three and injured eight when he opened fire at a naval base in Florida assailed the United States as ‘a nation of evil’ before he went on his shooting rampage, AFP reports.
The man, first identified by NBC News as Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, opened fire inside a classroom at Naval Air Station in Pensacola early Friday morning. Police quickly responded to the scene and he was shot dead.
US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the suspect was a second lieutenant attending the aviation school at the base.
Meanwhile six other Saudi nationals were arrested near the base shortly after the attack, as investigators began to probe a terror link.
Three of the six were seen filming the entire incident as it unfolded, a source told The New York Times on Friday evening….
