Category Archives: Iran Israel

Behpajooh and John Kerry

Posted on by

At least four secret letters have been dispatched from the White House and sent to Iran. The full contents of the letters are still unknown except the most recent was revealed by the Wall Street Journal containing two items, points of collaboration over the ISIS war in Iraq and striking a final deal on the Iranian nuclear program.

Denials have been made by the White House that the United States was not working with Iran on the matter of Iraq as noted here. ‘Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S. wasn’t working with Iran on the fight against the Islamic State. “We are not in coordination or direct consultation with the Iranians about any aspect of the fight against ISIL,” Rice said, using an alternate acronym for the jihadist group. “It is a fact that, in Iraq, they also are supporting the Iraqis against ISIL, but we are not coordinating. We are doing this very differently and independently.”

After doing some deep research, it was found that under SecState John Kerry, nothing else matters when it comes to Iraq, Syria, Russia or Iran except gaining a nuclear deal with the help of the P5+1, a deal that has excluded the U.S. Congress and ALL allies in the Middle East.

The United States under the G. W. Bush administration worked a stealthy mission to halt the Iran program in coordination with Israel by creating and infecting the Iranian nuclear program with an undetected virus into the computers controlling the spinning centrifuges. Outside companies were identified and sanctions and later targeted via a thumb drive to infect the computer network to bring a halt to the cascading centrifuge system.

One such company was Behpajooh and there are many more, but all of these associated firms have been ignored by the State Department, Treasury, the interagency and the envoy working in cadence with John Kerry giving freedom to Iran to continue their program.

The betrayal of the State Department and the White House of allies and Congress is epic in nature, when this could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, a long future of hostilities with Daesh and a much sooner launch of a nuclear weapon by Iran on their targeted enemies the little Satan and the big Satan, Israel and the United States.

Here is the story on how Stuxnet came to be. Clearly, the Bush administration and Israel were clandestine in this regard and the mission was successful. It now begs the question, will it happen again if a deal is reached by the November 24 deadline?

An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World’s First Digital Weapon

In January 2010, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency visiting the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in Iran noticed that centrifuges used to enrich uranium gas were failing at an unprecedented rate. The cause was a complete mystery—apparently as much to the Iranian technicians replacing the centrifuges as to the inspectors observing them.

Five months later a seemingly unrelated event occurred. A computer security firm in Belarus was called in to troubleshoot a series of computers in Iran that were crashing and rebooting repeatedly. Again, the cause of the problem was a mystery. That is, until the researchers found a handful of malicious files on one of the systems and discovered the world’s first digital weapon.

Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm that came before. Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it escaped the digital realm to wreak physical destruction on equipment the computers controlled.

Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon, written by WIRED senior staff writer Kim Zetter, tells the story behind Stuxnet’s planning, execution and discovery. In this excerpt from the book, which will be released November 11, Stuxnet has already been at work silently sabotaging centrifuges at the Natanz plant for about a year. An early version of the attack weapon manipulated valves on the centrifuges to increase the pressure inside them and damage the devices as well as the enrichment process. Centrifuges are large cylindrical tubes—connected by pipes in a configuration known as a “cascade”—that spin at supersonic speed to separate isotopes in uranium gas for use in nuclear power plants and weapons. At the time of the attacks, each cascade at Natanz held 164 centrifuges. Uranium gas flows through the pipes into the centrifuges in a series of stages, becoming further “enriched” at each stage of the cascade as isotopes needed for a nuclear reaction are separated from other isotopes and become concentrated in the gas.

As the excerpt begins, it’s June 2009—a year or so since Stuxnet was first released, but still a year before the covert operation will be discovered and exposed. As Iran prepares for its presidential elections, the attackers behind Stuxnet are also preparing their next assault on the enrichment plant with a new version of the malware. They unleash it just as the enrichment plant is beginning to recover from the effects of the previous attack. Their weapon this time is designed to manipulate computer systems made by the German firm Siemens that control and monitor the speed of the centrifuges. Because the computers are air-gapped from the internet, however, they cannot be reached directly by the remote attackers. So the attackers have designed their weapon to spread via infected USB flash drives. To get Stuxnet to its target machines, the attackers first infect computers belonging to five outside companies that are believed to be connected in some way to the nuclear program. The aim is to make each “patient zero” an unwitting carrier who will help spread and transport the weapon on flash drives into the protected facility and the Siemens computers. Although the five companies have been referenced in previous news reports, they’ve never been identified. Four of them are identified in this excerpt.

The Lead-Up to the 2009 Attack

The two weeks leading up to the release of the next attack were tumultuous ones in Iran. On June 12, 2009, the presidential elections between incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi didn’t turn out the way most expected. The race was supposed to be close, but when the results were announced—two hours after the polls closed—Ahmadinejad had won with 63 percent of the vote over Mousavi’s 34 percent. The electorate cried foul, and the next day crowds of angry protesters poured into the streets of Tehran to register their outrage and disbelief. According to media reports, it was the largest civil protest the country had seen since the 1979 revolution ousted the shah and it wasn’t long before it became violent. Protesters vandalized stores and set fire to trash bins, while police and Basijis, government-loyal militias in plainclothes, tried to disperse them with batons, electric prods, and bullets.

That Sunday, Ahmadinejad gave a defiant victory speech, declaring a new era for Iran and dismissing the protesters as nothing more than soccer hooligans soured by the loss of their team. The protests continued throughout the week, though, and on June 19, in an attempt to calm the crowds, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sanctioned the election results, insisting that the margin of victory—11 million votes—was too large to have been achieved through fraud. The crowds, however, were not assuaged.

The next day, a twenty-six-year-old woman named Neda Agha-Soltan got caught in a traffic jam caused by protesters and was shot in the chest by a sniper’s bullet after she and her music teacher stepped out of their car to observe.

Two days later on June 22, a Monday, the Guardian Council, which oversees elections in Iran, officially declared Ahmadinejad the winner, and after nearly two weeks of protests, Tehran became eerily quiet. Police had used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators, and most of them were now gone from the streets. That afternoon, at around 4:30 p.m. local time, as Iranians nursed their shock and grief over events of the previous days, a new version of Stuxnet was being compiled and unleashed.

Recovery From Previous Attack

While the streets of Tehran had been in turmoil, technicians at Natanz had been experiencing a period of relative calm. Around the first of the year, they had begun installing new centrifuges again, and by the end of February they had about 5,400 of them in place, close to the 6,000 that Ahmadinejad had promised the previous year. Not all of the centrifuges were enriching uranium yet, but at least there was forward movement again, and by June the number had jumped to 7,052, with 4,092 of these enriching gas. In addition to the eighteen cascades enriching gas in unit A24, there were now twelve cascades in A26 enriching gas. An additional seven cascades had even been installed in A28 and were under vacuum, being prepared to receive gas.

The performance of the centrifuges was improving too. Iran’s daily production of low-enriched uranium was up 20 percent and would remain consistent throughout the summer of 2009. Despite the previous problems, Iran had crossed a technical milestone and had succeeded in producing 839 kilograms of low-enriched uranium—enough to achieve nuclear-weapons breakout capability. If it continued at this rate, Iran would have enough enriched uranium to make two nuclear weapons within a year. This estimate, however, was based on the capacity of the IR-1 centrifuges currently installed at Natanz. But Iran had already installed IR-2 centrifuges in a small cascade in the pilot plant, and once testing on these was complete and technicians began installing them in the underground hall, the estimate would have to be revised. The more advanced IR-2 centrifuges were more efficient. It took 3,000 IR-1s to produce enough uranium for a nuclear weapon in one year, but it would take just 1,200 IR-2 centrifuges to do the same.

Cue Stuxnet 1.001, which showed up in late June.

The Next Assault

To get their weapon into the plant, the attackers launched an offensive against computers owned by four companies. All of the companies were involved in industrial control and processing of some sort, either manufacturing products and assembling components or installing industrial control systems. They were all likely chosen because they had some connection to Natanz as contractors and provided a gateway through which to pass Stuxnet to Natanz through infected employees.

To ensure greater success at getting the code where it needed to go, this version of Stuxnet had two more ways to spread than the previous one. Stuxnet 0.5 could spread only by infecting Step 7 project files—the files used to program Siemens PLCs. This version, however, could spread via USB flash drives using the Windows Autorun feature or through a victim’s local network using the print-spooler zero-day exploit that Kaspersky Lab, the antivirus firm based in Russia, and Symantec later found in the code.

Based on the log files in Stuxnet, a company called Foolad Technic was the first victim. It was infected at 4:40 a.m. on June 23, a Tuesday. But then it was almost a week before the next company was hit.

The following Monday, about five thousand marchers walked silently through the streets of Tehran to the Qoba Mosque to honor victims killed during the recent election protests. Late that evening, around 11:20 p.m., Stuxnet struck machines belonging to its second victim—a company called Behpajooh.

It was easy to see why Behpajooh was a target. It was an engineering firm based in Esfahan—the site of Iran’s new uranium conversion plant, built to turn milled uranium ore into gas for enriching at Natanz, and was also the location of Iran’s Nuclear Technology Center, which was believed to be the base for Iran’s nuclear weapons development program. Behpajooh had also been named in US federal court documents in connection with Iran’s illegal procurement activities.

Behpajooh was in the business of installing and programming industrial control and automation systems, including Siemens systems. The company’s website made no mention of Natanz, but it did mention that the company had installed Siemens S7-400 PLCs, as well as the Step 7 and WinCC software and Profibus communication modules at a steel plant in Esfahan. This was, of course, all of the same equipment Stuxnet targeted at Natanz.

At 5:00 a.m. on July 7, nine days after Behpajooh was hit, Stuxnet struck computers at Neda Industrial Group, as well as a company identified in the logs only as CGJ, believed to be Control Gostar Jahed. Both companies designed or installed industrial control systems.

electrical systems for the oil and gas industry in Iran, as well as for power plants and mining and process facilities. In 2000 and 2001 the company had installed Siemens S7 PLCs in several gas pipeline operations in Iran and had also installed Siemens S7 systems at the Esfahan Steel Complex. Like Behpajooh, Neda had been identified on a proliferation watch list for its alleged involvement in illicit procurement activity and was named in a US indictment for receiving smuggled microcontrollers and other components.

About two weeks after it struck Neda, a control engineer who worked for the company popped up on a Siemens user forum on July 22 complaining about a problem that workers at his company were having with their machines. The engineer, who posted a note under the user name Behrooz, indicated that all PCs at his company were having an identical problem with a Siemens Step 7 .DLL file that kept producing an error message. He suspected the problem was a virus that spread via flash drives.

When he used a DVD or CD to transfer files from an infected system to a clean one, everything was fine, he wrote. But when he used a flash drive to transfer files, the new PC started having the same problems the other machine had. A USB flash drive, of course, was Stuxnet’s primary method of spreading. Although Behrooz and his colleagues scanned for viruses, they found no malware on their machines. There was no sign in the discussion thread that they ever resolved the problem at the time.

It’s not clear how long it took Stuxnet to reach its target after infecting machines at Neda and the other companies, but between June and August the number of centrifuges enriching uranium gas at Natanz began to drop. Whether this was the result solely of the new version of Stuxnet or the lingering effects of the previous version is unknown. But by August that year, only 4,592 centrifuges were enriching at the plant, a decrease of 328 centrifuges since June. By November, that number had dropped even further to 3,936, a difference of 984 in five months. What’s more, although new machines were still being installed, none of them were being fed gas.

Clearly there were problems with the cascades, and technicians had no idea what they were. The changes mapped precisely, however, to what Stuxnet was designed to do.

Reprinted from Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon Copyright © 2014 by Kim Zetter. Published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House LLC.

 

No Definition for Terror

Posted on by

I have no connections to anyone currently employed by the FBI but I do have several with former FBI’ers. Our formal and non-formal discussions are chilling when it comes to operations, assignments and investigations at the agency.

So FBI, here is a tip, this website http://islamophobia.org/ has listed names and organizations they deem as a threat to Islam. Is this some kind of hit list? What criteria creates such a list and is this approved by the FBI?

But take note FBI, those that are paying attention don’t feel safe in America. Your agency is doing little to sway our fears. Share that same sentiment with Jeh Johnson at DHS please.

It was a few years ago after doing some research and gathering evidence that I attempted to have a dialogue with the local FBI office, the agent on duty asked me if I was an Islamophobe and them hung up on me. It was clearly the time when the FBI was given an edict to be politically correct when it comes to investigations on Islam and all the manuals were stripped from the operating and training systems.

 

FBI Director Robert Mueller in 2012 capitulated with the American Muslim and Arab American lobby groups and announced that more than 700 documents and 300 presentations from training materials. Abed Ayoub was able to take a meeting with Mueller who represented groups including the Islamic Society of North America, Muslim Public Affairs Council, MPAC and CAIR. Included in the dialogue was also Thomas Perez of the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division. It all goes a step further as law enforcement agencies around the country are required to do Muslim outreach in a robust campaign of political correctness. No one in America is allowed to have independent thought regarding Islam, Muslims or terror as it is deemed offensive to Islam.

So in the meantime, America sadly has endured domestic terror attacks but government refuses to apply the term ‘terrorism’ instead using ‘work place violence’ as is noted in the Ft. Hood shooting by Major Nidal Hasan and beheading of Colleen Hufford in Moore, Oklahoma at the hands of Alton Nolen. The mosques are connected by a network of imams that are devoted followers of Anwar al Awlaki killed by an American drone in Yemen a few years ago. We cannot overlook the Tsarneav brothers the killers of the Boston bombing.

While we do have many that have left the shores of America to join Daesh we also witness the black flags and ISIS graffiti in many locations around the country. America also has agreements with many countries in a VISA waiver program, making it easier to made round trip journeys to rogue states like Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan.

So terror is here America and yet what does the FBI have to say or do about it? Crickets…

So when it comes to defining terror, here is a formal summary of the term. We can only hope that the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice will take note and behave and investigate accordingly.

Terrorism Defies Definition

by Daniel Pipes and Teri Blumenfeld The Washington Times October 24, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/4877/terrorism-defies-definition

 

Defining terrorism has practical implications because formally certifying an act of violence as terrorist has important consequences in U.S. law.

Terrorism suspects can be held longer than criminal suspects after arrest without an indictment They can be interrogated without a lawyer present. They receive longer prison sentences. “Terrorist inmates” are subject to many extra restrictions known as Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs. The “Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002” gives corporate victims of terrorism special breaks (it is currently up for renewal) and protects owners of buildings from certain lawsuits. When terrorism is invoked, families of victims, such as of the 2009 Ft. Hood attack, win extra benefits such as tax breaks, life insurance, and combat-related pay. They can even be handed a New York City skyscraper.

Despite the legal power of this term, however, terrorism remains undefined beyond a vague sense of “a non-state actor attacking civilian targets to spread fear for some putative political goal.” One study, Political Terrorism, lists 109 definitions. American security specialist David Tucker wryly remarks that “Above the gates of hell is the warning that all that who enter should abandon hope. Less dire but to the same effect is the warning given to those who try to define terrorism.” The Israeli counterterrorism specialist Boaz Ganor jokes that “The struggle to define terrorism is sometimes as hard as the struggle against terrorism itself.”

This lack of specificity wreaks chaos, especially among police, prosecutors, politicians, press, and professors.

“Violence carried out in connection with an internationally sanctioned terrorist group” such as Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, or Hamas has become the working police definition of terrorism. This explains such peculiar statements after an attack as, “We have not found any links to terrorism,” which absurdly implies that “lone wolves” are never terrorists.

The whole world, except the U.S. Department of the Treasury, sees the Boston Marathon bombings as terrorism.

If they are not terrorists, the police must find other explanation to account for their acts of violence. Usually, they offer up some personal problem: insanity, family tensions, a work dispute, “teen immigrant angst,” a prescription drug, or even a turbulent airplane ride. Emphasizing personal demons over ideology, they focus on an perpetrator’s (usually irrelevant) private life, ignoring his far more significant political motives.

But then, inconsistently, they do not require some connection to an international group. When Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez shot eight rounds at the White House in November 2011, the U.S. attorney asserted that “Firing an assault rifle at the White House to make a political statement is terrorism, plain and simple” – no international terrorist group needed. Similarly, after Paul Anthony Ciancia went on a shooting spree at Los Angeles International Airport in November 2013, killing a TSA officer, the indictment accused him of “substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person and to commit an act of terrorism.”

This terminological irregularity breeds utter confusion. The whole world calls the Boston Marathon bombings terrorism – except the Department of the Treasury, which, 1½ years on “has not determined that there has been an ‘act of terrorism’ under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.” The judge presiding over the terrorism trial in January 2014 of Jose Pimentel, accused of planning to set off pipe bombs in Manhattan, denied the prosecution’s request for an expert to justify a charge of terrorism. Government officials sometimes just throw up their hands: Asked in June 2013 if the U.S. government considers the Taliban a terrorist group, the State Department spokeswoman replied “Well, I’m not sure how they’re defined at this particular moment.”

The U.S. Department of State has yet to figure out whether the Taliban are or are not terrorists.

A May 2013 shooting in New Orleans, which injured 19, was even more muddled. An FBI spokeswoman called it not terrorism but “strictly an act of street violence.” The mayor disagreed; asked if he considered it terrorism, he said “I think so,” because families “are afraid of going outside.” Challenged to disentangle this contradiction, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s New Orleans field made matters even more opaque: “You can say this is definitely urban terrorism; it’s urban terror. But from the FBI standpoint and for what we deal with on a national level, it’s not what we consider terrorism, per se.” Got that?

This lack of clarity presents a significant public policy challenge. Terrorism, with all its legal and financial implications, cannot remain a vague, subjective concept but requires a precise and accurate definition, consistently applied.

After releasing the Taliban 5, matters are worse when it comes to Afghanistan, Syria Yemen, Qatar and Iraq. We witnessed carefully the hostilities between Israel and Hamas and then we watched the demonstrations in America and Europe of those standing in solidarity with Hamas. So, hey, FBI, if you are going to do outreach, it should be to those in America that don’t trust you or the lack of security we feel. Your agenda is misplaced and sadly I would think any agents would be demanding a pro-active objective against jihad in America have long memories. This is shameful.

 

 

 

John Kerry in the Middle of the Iranian Circle Jerk

Posted on by

Sheesh, is it dementia? Is it willful blindness? Is it the quest for the Nobel Peace Prize? What the hell is John Kerry doing marching to the orders of Barack Obama and Susan Rice? C’mon America, you low information types have a duty to pay attention, start here.

Iran is a state sponsor of terror, the historical facts prove that. Iran was named a terror state in 1984 by the State Department. Surely Kerry has the memo on that. Okay, so in case the reader and even John Kerry along with Marie Harf, Jen Psaki should check with Victoria Nuland on this…oh wait…let us review some factual history.

 

 

It should also be noted that the State Department has its own intelligence division and situation room such that real-time intelligence reports are created and received there as well as in the White House, ignorance is no excuse, except for State Department leadership.

Last Thursday marked the 31st anniversary of Hezbollah’s twin attack on the US Marine barracks and the French paratroopers base in Beirut in 1983. The date passed quietly; ancient history as far as the Obama White House is concerned. Then it is important to know that Iran supports Palestinian terror organizations. Even the liberal think tank the Brookings Institute gave detailed testimony to Congress just two years ago about Iran and their terrorism activities.
Now lets bring this forward to Syria as Assad has fighters fighting within his regime from Afghanistan. This is especially chilling as they are paid transplants coordinated by whom? IRAN !!


From CNN:

“My name is Sayed Ahmad Hussaini. The Iranians pay people like me to come here and fight. I am from Afghanistan and I am an immigrant in Iran. The Iranians brought us to Syria to fight to defend the Zainab shrine. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

He says he wants to go home, and that he was paid about $500 a month to fight. There are many Afghan immigrants in Iran, trying to find some shelter from the decades of war that have torn apart their land. He says he was trained and then sent to assist the regime.

It is potentially a serious development in the Syrian war, and explains in some ways how the Syrian regime has gained ground in some areas after months of appearing exhausted.

So understand this, John Kerry and the White House has postured America on the side of the Iranians and that of Bashir al Assad in the fight against Islamic State. But we also want to destroy the Assad regime, or do we? Assad is the core reason for the millions of Syrian refugees straining countries like Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Yet, Assad has had years of help from Iran and Russia, so this chessboard has too many rook(ies) and under this administration a checkmate is clearly not in the near future.

Daesh was operating in Iraq in late 2010 as well as in Syria and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is based in Syria pulling all the strings for the organization.  Susan Rice, the Obama National Security Advisor is completely micro-managing this war with Daesh (ISIS) which was not born in Syria but headquarters in Syria.  The Pentagon is ripping angry over the White House designed rules of engagement in Iraq and Syria such that even Secretary Hagel has pushed back.

The Pentagon brass placed in charge of implementing Obama’s war against ISIS are getting fed up with the short leash the White House put them on.
Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army.

As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters will do when they return to Syria. Most of the rebels to be trained by the U.S. will never be sent to fight against ISIS.

Maybe retired General John Allen who is the personal envoy of John Kerry can sort it all out. That is a big NO….he does not enjoy any regard from the Pentagon either.

An article posted at Foreign Policy on Thursday by Mark Perry lists a surprising number of detractors to Allen’s appointment, including many in and out of uniform. The most obvious rift comes from Gen. Lloyd Austin, the man in charge of Central Command, tasked with carrying out the military plan to “degrade and destroy” ISIL, the administration’s preferred acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“Why the hell do we need a special envoy — isn’t that what [Secretary of State] John Kerry’s for?” a senior officer close to Austin told Perry, of the potential for confusion since Gen. Allen reports directly to President Obama.

Allen, 60, was given an incredibly difficult task upon his appointment. With the Islamic State consuming much of Iraq and Syria and boasting roughly 31,000 fighters, his role as special envoy is to “help build and sustain the coalition,” and coordinate their efforts, according to the State Department.

But Allen —  now inside the State Department and no longer wearing military rank — commands a role  not very far outside the scope of duties of Gen. Austin at Centcom, who is charged with overseeing relationships, offering military support, and carrying out operations when necessary in 20 Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Syria.

Simply in summary, just wait until after the mid-term elections, maybe everyone will have more flexibility. Iran is enjoying most of it now courtesy of John Kerry the White House dissed soldier on diplomacy.

Sheesh…

 

 

 

Israel’s Future

Posted on by

Much has been written about Israel and her standing in the world. Under the Barack Obama administration, a movement has gained traction to isolate Israel and to reduce this democracy to rubble. Countless times the White House has snubbed Israeli leaderships in their respective visits to the United States. The disdain from the Obama administration has filtered through the ranks of the United Nations, most recently during the conflict(s) against Hamas in Gaza. Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote a scathing piece against Benjamin Netanyahu in the Atlantic magazine that has blown the relationship apart, as tolerance is forced to prevail. Yet how does Israel endure for the remainder of the Obama term in the White House?

Nothing matters more to the National Security Council, to the White House, to progressive think tanks and to the State Department but to gain an historic nuclear agreement with Iran. Libya, North Korea, Russia, Iraq Afghanistan or Syria are all of no real consequence when it comes to a signature by Iran on suspending, only suspending their nuclear program, the single focused objective of foreign policy. Lost in the brouhaha over an unnamed Obama official insulting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was a shocking admission by the Obama Administration – that it is “too late” for Israel to do anything about Iranian nuclear capabilities.

A striking and truthful rebuttal is found here and the text is below. In an article published in The Atlantic, an unnamed “senior Obama official” is quoted as saying the Obama Administration thinks that Netanyahu will not launch a preemptive strike on Iran over its nuclear program. “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.” It remains unknown who this unnamed official was, and what their role is in the White House. The quote “reflects the Obama Administration’s policy, which has been engagement with Iran and not military preemption,” said Yoram Ettinger, retired Minister for Congressional Affairs in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. with the rank of Ambassador. “ANY [diplomatic] deal with Iran, in Obama’s mind, is better than military preemption.” Ettinger also believes that failing to remove the threat of a nuclear Iran is a policy mistake for Obama, more so than a threat to Israel, as the United States is Iran’s chief target. “Israel is only a tertiary, or even 4th rate target for Iran. The United States is their number one target, followed by US-friendly oil producing Gulf states, and then perhaps NATO.” However, Ettinger concludes, “Israel will err historically and dramatically” if it fails to remove the Iranian threat, should the United States fail to do so.

So what is Israel future and how does Israel deliver a policy outside of internal concentration? I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Martin Sherman from Israel on radio who took the time to telegraph the truth and future of his home country. Dr. Sherman has been broadcasting and forecasting the years ahead for Israel.

Please listen to the interview with Dr. Martin Sherman:

Come with us America, join in the full pledge and support of Israel, the only democratic ally in the Middle East. Force the United Nations, the White House, the National Security Council and most especially John Kerry at the State Department to apologize but especially to back down and isolate Iran rather than legitimize Iran on the world stage.

Hillary, Haqqani, Taliban and Bergdahl

Posted on by

Bowe Bergdahl was a proven risk in Afghanistan going back as far as 2009, when more than once he left his post telling some in his unit he no longer believed in the American mission and wanted to do something else. A full (AR-15-6) investigation began then and remains classified. Bergdahl has a charge sheet and there is indisputable evidence that he willingly and with purpose left his base. It must be noted and remembered that at least 6 fellow soldiers died looking for Bergdahl and an unknown number to date were injured due to IED’s.

So, it is important to put some historical facts in this summary that may put some other perspective into the discussion.

 

Richard Holbrooke, a longtime diplomat, died in 2010. During his career, Holbrooke had many foreign policy roles and could have eventually been Secretary of State, given his work for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Prior to Holbrooke’s death, he was the special envoy to AFPAK (Afganistan/Pakistan), which was closely guarded and managed by the White House. Holbrooke was assigned negotiate with the Taliban and Haqqani but the White House devised the mission and (June 2011) announced the withdraw of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and this changed the trump cards Holbrooke had previously established and was later turned over t0 Marc Grossman for his resumption of talks with the enemy.  The best deals with the Taliban/Haqqani were when America and ISAF had the most forces in country.

In the quest for a deal with the Taliban, they were removed from the list and given amnesty for war crimes. It should be noted that in 2001 directly after the U.S. defeated in a matter of a few months, the Taliban tried to deal with the Bush Administration and was profoundly rejected.

Early in the Obama administration, the White House staff and the State Department under Hillary Clinton sought a pragmatic approach with enemies of America such that ‘isolating’ them was the sole objective, same as it is today with Putin, Bashir al Assad and ISIS in Iraq. Barack Obama’s team approached the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, collaborating on the concept of negotiating with the Taliban. Mechanisms for these talks and use of sanctions included such times as:

  • Easing U.S., European and United Nations sanctions
  • Removing the Taliban from any black listings
  • Establishing a political mainstream headquarter location in Doha, Qatar
  • Installing the Taliban into the power structure of the whole governmental process in Afghanistan
  • To work with financial powerbrokers globally to establish an economic platform for the Taliban
  • Continued and scheduled release of Taliban prisoners in worldwide locations beginning in Bagram and later Guantanamo. Specifically, the Taliban wanted Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a direct lieutenant of Mullah Omar. Baradar ran the Taliban operations and is/was the leader of the Quetta Shura based in Pakistan.

In several versions of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between the United States and Afghanistan, text remained on negotiations and conditions for inclusion of the Taliban. As the BSA process continued to be delayed over many disagreements and secret machinations, the United States chose another course for Taliban talks and that included the use of Qatar. Particular sticking points of the Taliban were their demands of releasing of guerilla commanders, including 5 located in Guantanamo and Helman Abdul Bari, Nuruddin Turabi, Allah Daad Tabib, Duad Jan and Mir Ahmed Gul all from detention facilities held by the United States.

Marc Grossman has moved on from the assignment of AfPak and is now at The Cohen Group, a strategic foreign investment think tank with interesting connections to central Asia, south Asia that includes Afghanistan Pakistan, India, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. This is important and worth a mention for several reasons, most of which, nothing needs to impede private equity and investment when it comes to the region being a transit state for a pipeline connecting central Asia to south Asia which has the Asian Development Bank as the financial advisor. The pipeline includes all transit routes for oil, natural gas and power grids.

 

As the Brits and the United States took down the flag the last time today in Helmand Province of Camp Bastion and Camp Leatherneck, no future conflicts can be tolerated by al Qaeda and the Taliban. As the West leaves Afghanistan, so goes the money as well which will not only impact economics in Afghanistan but in Pakistan as well. There will be likely a rise in drug productions, kidnapping, transit taxes and ransoms on businesses. These are all factored into the negotiations with Haqqani, Taliban and global business interests.

So today, the Taliban 5 (having their passports terminate and provided provisional citizenship of Qatar) released from Guantanamo are enjoying life in Doha only being under house arrest, due to the secretive deal between the White House, Taliban and Qatar that included Beau Bergdahl. The Taliban are receiving guests and old friends at their Qatari funded safehouse. One set of visitors included 2 senior members of Haqqani named Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari and Anas Haqqani. When the headquarters office for the Taliban closed after a short term, many of the Taliban leadership stayed in Doha under the protections of Qatari security that also includes protections for Muslim Brotherhood leadership, Hamas and top players of the Shiite regime of Iran.

In summary, the dealing with Haqqani/Taliban goes back to 2009 and had underlying objectives such that many players worked the deal(s) extending sweet honey to Haqqani/Taliban masked in a trade for Bergdahl. Those involved are located globally and there is still the unknown of the Bergdahl investigation the AR 15-6.

Nothing is ever as it seems, there is always much more, a multi-track agenda where money and fame are all realized….Hillary knows, Grossman knows, Kerry knows, Susan Rice knows, and the list goes on, but we will not know more about Bergdahl…you can bet he gets a pass and he deserted.