North Korea Is The World's Problem Child

Iran Threatens And The US Under Obama Shivers With Fear

Iran Threatens the US and the Middle East: Stay Away from Our Redlines. Obama’s Response?

 04/08/2016 03:45 pm ET | Updated Apr 08, 2016

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Dr. Majid Rafizadeh President of the International American Council

There used to be a time when the Islamic Republic showed some discretion with regards to its regional hegemonic and ideological ambitions, or skirting and breaching international laws. At least the ruling clerics of Iran preferred soft power and were more covert about these issues.

But not anymore.

Iran’s partial discretion was limited to the period before the nuclear deal was reached between P5+1 and the Islamic Republic, and before President Obama began pursuing appeasement policies with the ruling clerics in order to secure the agreement.

Currently, Iran’s blatant aggression and provocative attitude has reached an unprecedented level, ranging from launching ballistic missiles in the middle of the day, to publicly supporting Bashar Al Assad, militarily and financially, and galvanizing the Shiite proxies to engage in war.

But Iran wants more. More recently, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Maassoud Jazzayeri was quoted by the Fars News Agency as warning the United States to stay away from Iran’s redlines- one of which is Iran’s ballistic missiles. Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was also quoted by the ISNA agency as stating, “The reason we designed our missiles with a range of 2000 km is to be able to hit our enemy the Zionist regime from a safe distance.” Iran has increased its short and medium-range ballistic missiles, and currently has the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Middle East.

But what will Obama’s response to these threats and Iran’s increasing application of hard power be? Will there be more appeasement policies, bowing to the ruling clerics of Iran and giving them more carrots?

For Iran: Intransigence Works! and For Khamenei: US Concessions means Weakness!

It is a simple rule that if you reward a student or your kid for bullying and breaking the rules, you will be encouraging his/her intransigent behavior which can ultimately become dangerous for everyone around that person. In addition if you show some students your weakness- such as being willing to give them extra points so that they give you good reviews at the end of the year- they will take advantage of that, or as the Persian proverb goes; they will milk you to the end.

And this is exactly what Iran is doing and how President Obama is encouraging the Islamic Republic. Iranian leaders have become cognizant of the fact that intransigence absolutely works with the White House, and that threatening Obama that Iran will pull out of the nuclear deal, or warning that a statement Obama has said, or that an American law is violating the nuclear deal, will lead to Obama offering more concessions to Iran.

This is a basic rule in Iran’s politics and in Iran’s Supreme Leader’s philosophy: concessions means weakness. Once someone shows you his/her weakness, you have to speed up getting more concessions until there is nothing is left to get out of them.

Here are a chain of events that can easily help us understand how we got here with Iran, and to project how President Obama and the White House will respond to Iran’s recent aggression and threat to the US, Israel and other countries in the region.

When the nuclear negotiations were initiated, Obama announced his terms. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei, gave an inflammatory speech, lashing out on the US. Obama’s response was to increase the number of centrifuges that Iran can hold and give Tehran more leverage in uranium enrichment. Obama also agreed not to include topics such as Iran’s ballistic missiles, the issue of human rights or the fate of those Americans imprisoned in Iran during the negotiations.

Khamenei, the second longest ruling leader, or autocrat, in modern Middle East, mastered the game; he used another shrewd tactic by giving another speech threatening the US that he will pull out of the negotiations if certain conditions were not met. Obama’s response was to immediately allow the Islamic Republic to receive all sanctions relief ( including the removal of United Nations Security Council’s sanctions) even before Iran finished its 10 year obligations. He agreed to include the issue of arms embargo in the negotiation and Obama also gave Iran a green light to basically become a nuclear state by enriching uranium at a level that they desire, spinning as many centrifuges as they like, and buying arms with no limits (by lifting the arms embargo), after the 10 year period.

As the Persian proverb goes, Khamenei and the IRGC leaders wanted to milk the cow more. Iran launched its ballistic missiles- in violation of the the JCPOA (UNSCR 2231 Annex II, paragraph three) which states that Iran should not undertake any ballistic missiles activity “until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day or until the date on which the IAEA submits a report confirming the Broader Conclusion, whichever is earlier.”

President Obama ignored it. Iran launched ballistics missiles couple of times more. President Obama issued a superficial statement criticizing Iran. Khamanei immediately gave his Nowruz speech heavily lashing out at the United States, the “Great Satan”, and implying that he will pull out of the nuclear deal.

Then to appease the ruling clerics of Iran, Obama immediately backed off his statements by breaking the promises that he made to the Congress when he was trying to get his crowning nuclear deal through. In other words, he is preparing to give Iran access to the US banking and financial system, and he has already lifted sanctions against Iran which are not related to the nuclear program, but to Iran’s ballistic missiles, terrorism and human rights violations. Iran was also removed from the list of countries for which there is travel ban, although it is prominent sponsor of terrorism.

Iran has a history which spans over 2500 years and it goes without saying that its politicians, particularly the ruling clerics, are among the most astute and shrewd politicians. They can smell weakness from thousands miles away and they know how to exploit it. It goes without saying that Obama’s weakness is that he fears his so-called crowning foreign policy legacy (the nuclear deal) might fall apart, and this has led to Iran’s bullying, using more hard power, acting as the policeman of the region, and also resulted in Obama’s carrots-but-no-stick policy towards Tehran. It appears that Obama is indeed so focused on scoring superficial achievements in his name - such as the nuclear deal with Iran or visiting Cuba. But there is no doubt that his so-called “accomplishments” will be forgotten soon in the dust of history. The things that are important are the lives which have been lost, the human rights violations, and escalations of regional conflicts at the hand of Iranian leaders, and due to the repercussions of Obama’s decisions and his self-oriented desires.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is an American political scientist, business advisor and the president of the International American Council on the Middle East. Harvard-educated, Rafizadeh serves on the advisory board of Harvard International Review. An American citizen, he is originally from Iran and Syria, lived most of his life in Iran and Syria till recently. He is a board member of several significant and influential international and governmental institutions, and he is native speaker of couple of languages including Arabic and Persian. He also speaks English and Dari, and can converse in French, Hebrew.

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You can contact him at Dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu or follow him at @Dr_Rafizadeh. This post first appeared on Al Arabiya.

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Iran Does Not Care About Sanctions As It Knows Obama Will Never Institute Them

jihadwatch.org, Robert Spencer

Iran: We designed our missiles to hit Israel from a safe distance

 April 5, 2016   0 Comment

That is a clear declaration of war. And at the same time they warned the U.S. to back off and remember who’s boss.

“Iranian military official warns US: Stay away from Iran’s red lines,” Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2016:

Iran warned the US on Monday that any attempt to encroach on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program would constitute the crossing of a “red line.”

“The US calculations about the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation are fully incorrect,” Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig-Gen Masoud Jazayeri was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying.

“The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it,” Jazayeri said.

Jazayeri accused US President Barack Obama of making vows and breaking them by saying removal of sanctions on Iran would be conditioned on the Islamic Republic halting its ballistic missile program.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) test-fired two ballistic missiles last month that it said were designed to be able to hit Israel, defying a threat of new sanctions from the United States.

The launches followed the test-firing of several missiles as part of a major military exercise that the IRGC says is intended to “show Iran’s deterrent power and… ability to confront any threat”.

The IRGC fired two Qadr missiles from northern Iran which hit targets in the southeast of the country 1,400 kms (870 miles) away, Iranian agencies said. The nearest point in Iran is around 1,000 km from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

“The reason we designed our missiles with a range of 2000 km is to be able to hit our enemy the Zionist regime from a safe distance,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the ISNA agency…

Hell Will Be Paid By US And Others For Setting The Table Allowing Iran To Get The Bomb

Obama: Iran not following 'spirit' of deal

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By Julian Hattem - 04/01/16 06:46 PM EDT

Obama- Iran not following 'spirit' of deal

TheHill.com

President Obama on Friday criticized Iranian leaders for undermining the “spirit” of last year’s historic nuclear agreement, even as they stick to the “letter” of the pact.

In comments following the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Obama denied speculation that the United States would ease rules preventing dollars from being used in financial transactions with Iran, in order to boost the country’s engagement with the rest of the world.

Instead, Obama claimed, that Iran’s troubles even after the lifting of sanctions under the nuclear deal were due to its continued support of Hezbollah, ballistic missile tests and other aggressive behavior.

“Iran so far has followed the letter of the agreement, but the spirit of the agreement involves Iran also sending signals to the world community and businesses that it is not going to be engaging in a range of provocative actions that are going to scare businesses off,” Obama said at a press conference.

“When they launch ballistic missiles with slogans calling for the destruction of Israel, that makes businesses nervous.”

“Iran has to understand what every country in the world understands, which is businesses want to go where they feel safe, where they don’t see massive controversy, where they can be confident that transactions are going to operate normally,” he added. “And that’s an adjustment that Iran’s going to have to make as well.”

Months after the U.S. and other global powers lifted sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, Iranian leaders complain that they have yet to reap the benefits.

“Our banking trade, our efforts to return wealth from their banks, various kinds of businesses that require financial services — all of these are still facing problems,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address last month. “When we investigate the issue, it becomes obvious that [the banks] are afraid of the United States.”

Despite the lifting of sanctions, American companies are still banned from doing business in Iran and foreign banks are prohibited from using the U.S. dollar for their Iranian dealings. Earlier this week, multiple reports indicated that the White House was considering easing financial rules to let foreign companies use the dollar to do business with Iran.

But on Friday, Obama appeared to shoot the idea down.

“That’s not actually the approach that we’re taking,” he said.

“It is not necessary that we take the approach of them going through dollar transactions,” he added. “It is possible for them to work through European financial institutions as well.”

Instead, Obama said, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and other U.S. officials would help “provide clarity” to global businesses about what kinds of work they can do in Iran under current rules.

We Agree With Krauthammer, However, This Deal, When All The Details Become Clear, Will Make The Chamberlain-Hitler Agreement Look Like Amateur Hour.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama's Iran deal is worse than we could have imagined

 July 21, 2015   0 Comment

When you write a column, as did I two weeks ago, headlined “The worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history,” you don’t expect to revisit the issue. We had hit bottom. Or so I thought. Then on Tuesday the final terms of the Iranian nuclear deal were published. I was wrong.

Who would have imagined we would be giving up the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes on Iran? In nuclear negotiations?

When asked at his Wednesday news conference why there is nothing in the deal about the four American hostages being held by Iran, President Obama explained that this is a separate issue, not part of nuclear talks.

Are conventional weapons not a separate issue? After all, conventional, by definition, means non-nuclear. Why are we giving up the embargoes?

Because Iran, joined by Russia — our “reset” partner — sprung the demand at the last minute, calculating that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were so desperate for a deal that they would cave. They did. And have convinced themselves that they scored a victory by delaying the lifting by five to eight years. (Ostensibly. The language is murky. The interval could be considerably shorter.)

Obama claimed in his Wednesday news conference that it really doesn’t matter because we can always intercept Iranian arms shipments to, say, Hezbollah.

But wait. Obama has insisted throughout that we are pursuing this Iranian diplomacy to avoid the use of force, yet now blithely discards a previous diplomatic achievement — the arms embargo — by suggesting, no matter, we can just shoot our way to interdiction.

Moreover, the most serious issue is not Iranian exports but Iranian imports — of sophisticated Russian and Chinese weapons. These are untouchable. We are not going to attack Russian and Chinese transports.

The net effect of this capitulation will be not only to endanger our Middle East allies now under threat from Iran and its proxies, but to endanger our own naval forces in the Persian Gulf. Imagine how Iran’s acquisition of the most advanced anti-ship missiles would threaten our control over the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, waterways we have kept open for international commerce for a half-century.

The other major shock in the final deal is what happened to our insistence on “anytime, anywhere” inspections. Under the final agreement, Iran has the right to deny international inspectors access to any undeclared nuclear site. The denial is then adjudicated by a committee — on which Iran sits. It then goes through several other bodies, on all of which Iran sits. Even if the inspectors’ request prevails, the approval process can take 24 days.

And what do you think will be left to be found, left unscrubbed, after 24 days? The whole process is farcical.

The action now shifts to Congress. The debate is being hailed as momentous. It is not. It’s irrelevant.

Congress won’t get to vote on the deal until September. But Obama is taking the agreement to the U.N. Security Council for approval within days. Approval there will cancel all previous U.N. resolutions outlawing and sanctioning Iran’s nuclear activities.

Meaning: Whatever Congress ultimately does, it won’t matter because the legal underpinning for the entire international sanctions regime against Iran will have been dismantled at the Security Council. Ten years of painstakingly constructed international sanctions will vanish overnight, irretrievably.

Even if Congress rejects the agreement, do you think the Europeans, the Chinese or the Russians will reinstate sanctions? The result: The United States is left isolated while the rest of the world does thriving business with Iran.

Should Congress then give up? No. Congress needs to act in order to rob this deal of, at least, its domestic legitimacy. Rejection will make little difference on the ground. But it will make it easier for a successor president to legitimately reconsider an executive agreement (Obama dare not call it a treaty — it would be instantly rejected by the Senate) that garnered such pathetically little backing in either house of Congress.

It’s a future hope, but amid dire circumstances. By then, Iran will be flush with cash, legitimized as a normal international actor in good standing, recognized (as Obama once said) as “a very successful regional power.” Stopping Iran from going nuclear at that point will be infinitely more difficult and risky.

Which is Obama’s triumph. He has locked in his folly. He has laid down his legacy and we will have to live with the consequences for decades.