Mauldin’s Cartoons for Veteran’s Day

He meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin’s drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubble infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines.

Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers for whom he drew; his gripes were their gripes, his laughs their laughs, his heartaches their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him.  He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut too close for comfort, superior officers tried to tone him down.

In one memorable incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, who informed Mauldin he wanted the pointed cartoons celebrating the fighting men, lampooning the high-ranking officers to stop. Now!  “I’m beginning to feel like a fugitive from the’ law of averages.”  The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin going to stand up to Gen. Patton? It seemed impossible.  Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, SCAFE, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. Ike put out the word: “Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants.” Mauldin won. Patton lost. If, in your line of work, you’ve ever considered yourself a young hotshot, or if you’ve ever known anyone who has felt that way about him or herself, the story of Mauldin’s young manhood will humble you. Here is what, by the time he was 23 years old, Mauldin had accomplished:+ “By the way, wot wuz them changes you wuz  gonna make when you took over last month, sir?”  He won the Pulitzer Prize & was on the cover of Time magazine. His book “Up Front” was the No. 1 best-seller in the United States. All of that at 23. Yet, when he returned to civilian life and grew older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, never outgrew his excitement about doing his job, never big-shotted or high-hatted the people with whom he worked every day. I was lucky enough to be one of them.

Mauldin roamed the hallways of the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s and early 1970s with no more officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That impish look on his face remained. He had achieved so much.

He won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should have won a third for what may be the single greatest editorial cartoon in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial, slumped in grief, its head cradled in its hands. But he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was still Mauldin, the enlisted man. During the late summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California nursing home, some of the old World War II infantry guys caught wind of it. They didn’t want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he should know he was still their hero.  “This is the’ town my pappy told me about.”  Gordon Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the call in Southern California for people in the area to send their best wishes to Mauldin. I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread the appeal nationally, so Bill would not feel so alone. Soon, more than 10,000 cards and letters had arrived at Mauldin’s bedside. Better than that, old soldiers began to show up just to sit with Mauldin, to let him know that they were there for him, as he, so long ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that there was a waiting list. Here is how Todd DePastino, in the first paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it: “Almost every day in the summer and fall of 2002, they came to Park Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to honor Army Sergeant, Technician Third Grade, Bill Mauldin. They came bearing relics of their youth: medals, insignia, photographs, and carefully folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison caps. Others arrived resplendent in uniforms over a half century old. Almost all of them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling some long-neglected obligation.”  One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important: “You would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes in a water-filled foxhole and then see one of his cartoons.”  “Th’ hell this ain’t th’ most important hole in the world. I’m in it.”  Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Last month, the kid cartoonist made it onto a first-class postage stamp. It’s an honor that most generals and admirals never receive.  What Mauldin would have loved most, I believe, is the sight of the two guys who keep him company on that stamp. Take a look at it. There’s Willie. There’s Joe. And there, to the side, drawing them and smiling that shy, quietly observant smile, is Mauldin himself. With his buddies, right where he belongs. Forever. 

What a story, and a fitting tribute to a man and to a time that few of us can still remember. But I say to you youngsters, you must most seriously learn of, and remember with respect, the sufferings and sacrifices of your fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers in times you cannot ever imagine today with all you have. But the only reason you are free to have it all is because of them.  

No Longer for Sale

With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service honors Bill Mauldin, one of America’s favorite cartoonists. During World War II, military readers got a knowing laugh from Mauldin’s characters Willie and Joe, who gave their civilian audience an idea of what life was like for soldiers. After the war, Mauldin became a popular and influential editorial cartoonist.

U.S. Postal Service art director Terry McCaffrey chose to honor Mauldin through a combination of photography and an example of Mauldin’s art. The photo of Bill Mauldin is by John Phillips, a photographer for Life magazine; it was taken in Italy on December 31, 1943. Mauldin’s cartoon, showing his characters Willie and Joe, is used courtesy of the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Read more here.

Gorbachev Warning Cold War, Useful Idiots

The phrase ‘useful idiots’, supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.
Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin used the term “polyezniy idiot” or “useful idiot” to describe sympathizers in the West who blindly supported Communist leaders.
The adulation of left-wing dictators and strongmen by Western intellectuals, journalists, and celebrities didn’t begin with Stalin (in 1921 Duranty had hailed Lenin for his “cool, far-sighted, reasoned sense of realities”), and it certainly didn’t end with him. Mona Charen chronicled the phenomenon in her superb 2003 book “Useful Idiots,” which recalls example after jaw-dropping example of American liberals defending, flattering, and excusing the crimes of one Communist ruler and regime after another. Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge, Leonid Brezhnev, Kim Il Sung, the Sandinistas: Over and over the pattern was repeated, from the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Iron Curtain — and beyond.
And so now we have a former Russia leader Gorbachev sounding the clarion call to the West, especially Europe that not only are you idiots but you are ‘irrelevant as a global power’, The matter did not begin with Lenin and Stalin and will not end with Putin until it goes far beyond Ukraine and into the Baltics, of which the KGB ‘useful idiot’ program for recruiting and indoctrination is already underway.
By Bettina Borgfeld 
BERLIN (Reuters) – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned in a speech in Berlin on Saturday that East-West tensions over the Ukraine crisis were threatening to push the world into a new Cold War, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Gorbachev, who is credited with forging a rapprochement with the West that led to the demise of communist regimes across Eastern Europe, accused the West, and the United States in particular, of not fulfilling their promises after 1989.

“The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some say that it has already begun,” said Gorbachev, who is feted in Germany for his pivotal role in helping create the conditions for the Berlin Wall’s peaceful opening on Nov. 9, 1989, heralding the end of the Cold War.

“And yet, while the situation is dramatic, we do not see the main international body, the U.N. Security Council, playing any role or taking any concrete action.”

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 4,000 people since the start of an uprising by pro-Russian separatists in mid-April.

Russia blames the crisis on Kiev and the West, but NATO says it has overwhelming evidence that Russia has aided the rebels militarily in the conflict.

Gorbachev, 83, also criticized Europe and said it was in danger of becoming irrelevant as a global power.

“Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world, Europe has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for spheres of influence and finally of military conflict,” he said.

“The consequence inevitably is Europe weakening at a time when other centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in global affairs and gradually become irrelevant.”

Speaking at an event at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Gorbachev said the West had exploited Russia’s weakness after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“Euphoria and triumphalism went to the heads of Western leaders,” he said. “Taking advantage of Russia’s weakening and the lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination of the world, refusing to heed words of caution from many of those present here,” he said.

Gorbachev said the West had made mistakes that upset Russia with the enlargement of NATO, with its actions in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria and with plans for a missile defense system.

“To put it metaphorically, a blister has now turned into a bloody, festering wound,” he said. “And who is suffering the most from what’s happening? I think the answer is more than clear: It is Europe.”

(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

By Nicolas Miletitch

Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Armoured convoys headed to bolster rebel positions in east Ukraine Sunday as shelling rocked separatist stronghold Donetsk and fears mounted of a return to full-scale fighting.

Shelling rumbled on throughout the afternoon on the edge of Donetsk, where government forces regularly exchange heavy fire with insurgent fighters, but was less intense than overnight when mortar fire was heard close to the centre for around two hours, an AFP journalist reported.

It was among the fiercest combat in the city since the September 5 signing of a frequently-violated ceasefire that halted all-out confrontations across most of the conflict zone but failed to end constant bombardments at strategic hotspots.

An AFP crew saw a convoy of 20 military vehicles and 14 howitzer cannons without number plates or markings driving through the rebel town of Makiivka in the direction of the nearby frontline around Donetsk.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) voiced concern Saturday after its monitors witnessed unmarked columns of tanks and troop carriers moving through east Ukraine in territory held by pro-Russia separatists.

The sightings of armoured columns came after Ukraine’s military said Friday a large convoy of tanks and other heavy weapons entered the country from Russia across a section of border that has fallen under the control of rebel fighters.

Russia denies being involved in the fighting in the east.

However, it openly gives the rebels political and humanitarian backing and it is not clear how the insurgents could themselves have access to so much sophisticated and well-maintained weaponry.

In March, Russian soldiers without identification markings took over the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea. Moscow annexed the peninsula shortly after.

The OSCE reports from the east came as fears mounted of a total breakdown in the two-month truce, with the war having already killed some 4,000 people, according to UN figures.

Ukraine’s military said Sunday that three servicemen were killed and thirteen injured as shelling hit government positions around the region.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko risked heavy fire Sunday morning as he toured the insurgents’ forward positions around the ruins of the Donetsk airport, where Ukrainian troops are battling fiercely to maintain a toe-hold, Russian outlet LifeNews reported.

“They continue to bombard our aiport, nothing is changing,” Zakharchenko was filmed as saying.

– Tanks, cannons, tankers –

Unidentified military columns have been seen increasingly by foreign journalists in the east in recent days, and Ukraine’s military on Sunday repeated allegations that Russia is covertly deploying troops to bolster rebels ahead of a fresh offensive.

The OSCE’s statement gives weight to concerns that the stuttering peace process could soon be ditched definitively.

“More than 40 trucks and tankers” were seen driving on a highway on the eastern outskirts of Makiivka, said the OSCE representatives, who are in Ukraine monitoring the ceasefire.

“Of these, 19 were large trucks –- Kamaz type, covered, and without markings or number plates –- each towing a 122mm howitzer and containing personnel in dark green uniforms without insignia. Fifteen were Kraz troop carriers,” the report said.

Separately, the OSCE monitors said they had seen “a convoy of nine tanks moving west, also unmarked” just southwest of Donetsk.

The OSCE said all these forces were on territory controlled by the separatists’ self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic.

The Swiss foreign minister and OSCE chairperson-in-office, Didier Burkhalter, said he was “very concerned about a resurgence of violence in the eastern regions of Ukraine”, and urged all sides to act responsibly.

– New Cold War? –

The conflict has sent relations between Western backers of Ukraine and Russia to their lowest level in decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is gearing up for a fraught week of diplomacy with visits to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing and Group of 20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia, where he looks likely to face a hostile reception from Western leaders.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said the world “is on the brink of a new Cold War” sparked by Ukraine.

“Some are even saying that it has already begun,” Gorbachev said at an event Saturday marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Russia’s economy is suffering from European Union and US sanctions imposed in response to Moscow’s support for the separatists.

With Russia welcoming last week’s rebel elections, which were billed as boosting the separatists’ claim to independence, the sanctions look set to remain in place — and possibly be reinforced.

Mexico, a Deadly State

The entire government of Mexico is infiltrated by barbaric drug cartels. We don’t hear much news about Mexico due mostly in part to journalists and media being kidnapped or killed. Mexico is a failed state, it is lawless and the leadership is morally bankrupt. Mexico is gruesome and that must be understood. Where is that ubiquitous United Nations Human Rights Council?

In 2013, the Bodies were headless and buried.

According to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, conflict between organized criminal groups has resulted in the beheading of 1,303 people in five years, a grisly tactic becoming the hallmark of the war between the country’s cartels.

El Universal reported that decapitations steadily increased during President Felipe Calderon’s term in office: just 32 beheadings were registered in 2007, while 2011 registered 493 such deaths between January and November.

The count will likely be similarly high for 2012. Last May saw the discovery of 49 headless and dismembered bodies in Nuevo Leon state, attributed to the Zetas, who are closely associated with the tactic.

MEXICO CITY, May 20 (Reuters) – Mexican soldiers have arrested an alleged perpetrator of the massacre of 49 people whose corpses were decapitated, dismembered and dumped on a highway last week.

Daniel Elizondo, alias “The Madman,” a leader of the Zetas drug cartel, was detained in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, a spokesman for the army said Sunday.

The list is long.

But the most recent outrage has sparked protests across Mexico and are calling fro President Nieto to resign over the missing students.

Federal police are investigating a case of 43 missing students last seen being put into police vehicles. Widespread protests have criticized the government’s handling of the case.

Protests occurred Nov. 8 throughout Mexico including the capital and the state of Guerrero. A group in Mexico City broke off from the main protest and tried to storm the ceremonial presidential palace. Hundreds descended on the Guerrero government headquarters, burning several vehicles.

“Ya me canse (I’ve had enough).” Jesus Murillo   

The comments by Murillo Nov. 7 at the end of press conference helped spark protests the next day. #YaMeCanse and #estoycansado were among the most trending Twitter hashtags in Mexico.

 

“We received a group of about 40 people… Some of them were unconscious or already dead.” 

Three suspects confessed to killing the students at a garbage dump in a video released by the attorney general’s office Nov. 7. The suspects said they burned the bodies using tires, logs and gasoline before putting the remains in trash bags and dumping them in a river. Authorities are testing bags they recovered.

Chilling video of gang members confessing to mass murder of missing Mexican students
Tens of thousands of people marched in Mexico City on Nov. 5 in protest of the government's inability to find the missing students 40 days after they were abducted. Some protesters have started to call for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to resign.Copyright 2014 Reuters

Tens of thousands of people marched in Mexico City on Nov. 5 in protest of the government’s inability to find the missing students 40 days after they were abducted. Some protesters have started to call for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to resign.

Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico

The students were last seen Sept. 26 in Iguala, Guerrero, during protests over job discrimination against rural teachers. Police opened fire on their buses. Six people died and more than 20 were wounded. 43 students were taken away, and were last seen being bundled into police vans.

©Mapbox ©OpenStreetMap Improve this map
Mass grave found in Mexican town where 43 students went missing
Mass grave found near Mexico town
Mass graves with charred victims found in southern Mexico
Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca (pictured) and wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda were arrested early Nov. 4 after evading police for weeks. Mexico's attorney general called the pair "the probable masterminds" behind the disappearance of the students. They were found in rented accommodation in Mexico City.Copyright 2014 Reuters

Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca (pictured) and wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda were arrested early Nov. 4 after evading police for weeks. Mexico’s attorney general called the pair “the probable masterminds” behind the disappearance of the students. They were found in rented accommodation in Mexico City.

Mexican mayor, wife arrested in case of missing students
José Ramón Salinas on Twitter: “Confirmada la detención en el DF por Policía Federal de José Luis Abarca y esposa.”

AG Jesus Murillo believes the mayor and his wife gave orders to police the day of the shootings and disappearances. Police shot and killed a student, and detained others before handing them over to the Guerreros Unidos gang, Murillo said. Sidronio Casarrubias, the gang’s leader, was arrested a week earlier.

Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre, 58, quit his post through a leave of absence Oct. 23 “to favor the political climate” after outcry over the disappearances and mass graves. He could not resign, according to Mexican law. Guerrero’s Congress elected Rogelio Ortega Oct. 26 to replace him through 2015.

Authorities arrested four suspected members of the Guerreros Unidos gang on Oct. 27. Dozens of police with ties to the gang have also been arrested. Several mass graves have been found in the aftermath of the students’ disappearance, but none contained the remains of the missing young people.

The Mexican government said Oct. 19 that federal police assumed control 13 towns within a 125-mile radius of Iguala, Guerrero. Police departments in those towns are under investigation for the students’ disappearance. The government announced Oct. 20 a reward of $111,000 for information on the students.

Terrorists Among Us

Who is in the United State of America living among us that are tied to terror organizations? ICE along with JTTF did some good work as noted below. However, what is being overlooked or waved off with regard to investigations?

 

ICE deports Afghan doctor with ties to terrorist group

PHILADELPHIA – An Afghan doctor convicted of immigration fraud was deported late Tuesday and turned over to authorities in Kabul, Afghanistan, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

Hayatullah Dawari, 62, of Philadelphia was sentenced to two years in federal prison Sept. 19 after an investigation found the man had ties to the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin anti-western insurgent group active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dawari pleaded guilty to two counts of immigration fraud, and the judge suspended the sentence in favor of immediate deportation.

Dawari became a lawful permanent resident Nov. 11, 2008, and applied for U.S. citizenship in November 2013. In his plea, he admitted that he lied about his ties to the organization in his application for U.S. citizenship and omitted that he had a previous arrest in Russia in the late 1980s.

“Our county is undoubtedly safer without this man whose ties to potential threats are alarming,” said Philadelphia ERO Field Office Director Tom Decker. “It’s a testament to the diligence of special agents and officers that this man was found out and is now back in the hands of the Afghanistan authorities.”

An investigation by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and the Philadelphia Police Department found Dawari still maintained contact with the group’s associates in the United States and Pakistan. HSI and JTTF special agents executed a search warrant at his home in January and seized a book sent from Pakistan that had a secret, coded message glued between two pages.

As part of Dawari’s guilty plea, it required that he would be sentenced to two years in prison but suspended due to an accompanying order requiring his transfer without undue delay into ICE custody for uncontested removal from the United States. He also agreed to relinquish his status as a lawful permanent resident, and he is now rendered permanently inadmissible to the United States.

——–

An Islamic village in Texas is reportedly a “jihadist enclave” and was investigated for possible links to terrorism by the FBI. Ryan Mauro, the journalist who broke the national security story, discussed the information released in FBI declassified during a Fox News interview this morning.

According to Mauro’s research, the Texas Islamic village is operated by the Muslims of the Americas group. The organization has reportedly been linked to Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a radical militant group in Pakistan. Group members are allegedly followers of Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, an allegedly extremist Pakistani cleric.

——-

Several dozen suspected terrorist bomb-makers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.

——-

A federal grand jury investigation going on all summer in St. Paul, Minnesota has been focused on a group of 20-30 Somali-Americans allegedly conspiring to join the fight with ISIS in Syria. Most of the youths being investigated have been going to the Al Farooq Youth and Family Center and mosque in Bloomington, where sources told the Star Tribune that 31-year-old Amir Meshal, an American of Egyptian descent, may have influenced them to join the jihadist movement.

Just do an internet search for yourself to determine who among us is a terrorist and imagine what we don’t know. The beheading in Moore, Oklahoma is but one of many clues at the risks in America. It is time to truly challenge the FBI and DHS.

Make the Deal with Iran in Spite of Allies

Cast aside allies, Cast aside the truth. Cast aside the potential for a Middle East nuclear arms race. If John Kerry and the White House write letters in secret, ask what other actions have commenced that are secret? We know that Bashir al Assad is relieved that he remains the tyrannical leader of Syria. We know that the Obama administration has fully legitimized Iran on the world stage. We know this is just bad.

Official: Israel independently learned of secret U.S. letter to Iran

Information in Israel’s hands suggests the letter stressed the need to reach a nuclear deal and made clear U.S.-led strikes in Syria aren’t aimed at toppling Assad.

Israel learned independently about the secret letter U.S. President Barack Obama sent to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to a Jerusalem official who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The official said Israel learned about the letter shortly after it was sent. The information arrived indirectly, through channels that are not part of Israel’s official contacts with the American administration.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story, reporting that the U.S. president had suggested to the Iranian leader to cooperate in the struggle against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), on condition that the Islamic Republic reach a nuclear agreement with the Western powers by November 24.

 

The information in Israel’s hands indicated that Obama was trying to allay Iranian fears. Obama made clear in the letter that the international coalition that had been established, and the air strikes in Syria, were meant for a war solely against ISIS, and that the U.S. administration had no aspirations of toppling President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Likewise, Obama stressed to Khamenei his desire to reach an agreement with Iran on a nuclear program, and that such a deal would release Iran from its international isolation.

The fact that the Obama administration kept Israel out of the loop, and that Israel found out about the letter indirectly, adds to already deep suspicions in the Prime Minister’s Office about the White House on the Iranian issue. The letter also strengthened fears in Israel that the struggle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria – two areas with a massive Iranian presence – will make the United States soften its position regarding Iranian nukes.

 

While the letter was kept secret, there was quiet Israeli-American dialogue on the issue. The matter probably arose during talks the Israeli delegation, headed by National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, held with a group of senior American officials, headed by U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice 10 days ago in Washington.

A senior Israeli official briefed on details of the talks remarked that Rice and Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who heads the U.S. negotiation team with Iran, noted that, despite continuous diplomatic efforts, they did not think they could reach a permanent deal with Iran by the November 24 deadline.

Cohen, together with the head of the Foreign Ministry’s strategic division, Jeremy Issacharoff, and other senior Israeli officials who participated in the talks, said that America’s handling of the negotiations is hardening Iran’s position.

The Israeli officials reportedly told their U.S. counterparts that the Iranians think the Americans want to reach a deal more than they do, and so they don’t want to close a deal now. They added that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wants to be flexible, but Khamenei won’t let him.

Marie Harf, deputy spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, said that “both the subjects and the details in that account of our recent consultations with the Israelis are inaccurate.” “Any attempt to misrepresent what has been a very constructive dialogue with our Israeli friends on the Iranian nuclear negotiations is disappointing,” she added.

Jerusalem responded harshly to the letter over the weekend. “I think the struggle with ISIS doesn’t need to come at the expense of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, before meeting with the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. “One has to act in both these directions, and not tie one to the other.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also said Israel opposed linking ISIS with Iranian nukes. “It’s not our job to advise the U.S. president, but we disagree on this matter,” Lieberman said ats a press conference with Mogherini. “We oppose this approach … we think it is a mistake … Iran is not an acceptable partner for any moderate coalition against ISIS, or any type of dialogue in the Middle East.”

The White House and U.S. State Department in Washington declined to comment on the existence of the Obama-Khamenei letter over the weekend, but did engage in damage control. “There is no linkage whatsoever of the nuclear discussions with any other issue, and I want to make that absolutely clear,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, at a press conference in Beijing yesterday. “The nuclear negotiations are on their own.”

A decisive trilateral summit opens today in Muscat, involving Kerry, Zarif and the EU’s negotiator on Iran, Catherine Ashton. Senior Iranian and U.S. officials stressed over the weekend that the summit’s goal is to make a breakthrough in the stalled talks.

According to website Al-Monitor, Ali Akbar Velayati – Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser – is expected to join the meeting. Velayati’s participation in the talks could signal that Iran’s supreme leader is preparing for the possibility of making decisive concessions on the nuclear issue, ones likely to lead to signing a deal by November 24.

Significant gaps remain between the Iranian positions and those of the United States and the five world powers. Prime Minister Netanyahu is reportedly very concerned about the summit in Oman, which revolves around the final round of negotiations set to commence in Vienna on November 18. Netanyahu, who reportedly believes Obama is set on a deal with Tehran, suspects the Americans and Iranians are cooking up a secret bargain, which will leave a large portion of nuclear infrastructure in Iran’s hands, and present the deal as a fait accompli to the rest of the world.

Netanyahu said at a press conference with Mogherini in Jerusalem on Friday that it would be a mistake to allow Iran to become a threshold nuclear state.

“If Iran is left with residual capacity to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb, ultimately this will destabilize the world – not just our region, not just pose a direct threat at Israel, whom Iran spells out for eradication, but also I think for all the Middle East and well beyond the Middle East,” he said. “I think this is something that should be prevented.”

Netanyahu added: “Better no deal than a bad deal that leaves Iran with a capacity to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb.”

By Haaretz