Listen and Read How Wrong Obama is on Iran

Posted on June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Even the Russians did not lie as badly as the Iranians have and Kerry at the behest of the White House is ignoring the historical lies.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has sent a blistering letter to President Obama denouncing reported Iran concessions. It reads:

Dear Mr. President:

It is breathtaking to see how far from your original goals and statements the P5+1 have come during negotiations with Iran. Under your leadership, six of the world’s most important nations have allowed an isolated country with roguish policies to move from having its nuclear program dismantled to having its nuclear proliferation managed. Negotiators have moved from a 20-year agreement to what is in essence a 10-year agreement that allows Iran to simultaneously continue development of an advanced ballistic missile program and research and development of advanced centrifuges. This also will allow Iran’s economy to be restored with billions of dollars returned to its coffers, a development that administration officials concede will be used at some level to export terrorism in the region.

I am alarmed by recent reports that your team may be considering allowing the deal to erode even further. Only you and those at the table know whether there is any truth to these allegations, and I hope reports indicating potential concessions on inspections and on the full disclosure of Iran’s possible military dimensions (PMDs) are inaccurate.

Regarding inspections, surely your administration and those involved in the negotiations will adhere to an “anytime, anywhere” standard. No bureaucratic committees. No moving the ball. No sites off limits.

You have publicly acknowledged Iran’s long history of covert nuclear activity. We all are aware of the importance of having a full understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, including PMDs of those activities as part of any agreement. Yet, recently I have heard of a potential cumbersome process where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with no confirmation from Iran, will make PMD determinations about Iran’s nuclear program in order to protect Iran’s national pride, meaning Iran will not have to publicly admit to these activities. Today, the IAEA cannot get access to information Iran agreed to share pursuant to a 2013 agreement. By not requiring Iran to explicitly disclose their previous weaponization efforts on the front end of any final agreement, we will likely never know, in a timely fashion, the full extent of Iranian capabilities.

I understand the dynamics that can develop when a group believes they are close to a deal and how your aides may view this as a major legacy accomplishment. However, as you know, the stakes here are incredibly high and the security implications of these negotiations are difficult to overstate. As your team continues their work, if Iran tries to cross these few remaining red lines, I would urge you to please pause and consider rethinking the entire approach. Walking away from a bad deal at this point would take courage, but it would be the best thing for the United States, the region and the world.

One hopes that Corker’s colleagues are paying attention and that they are ready to prevent a catastrophic deal.

Faceoff with Russia

Posted on June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Russia a threat to Baltic states after Ukraine conflict, warns Michael Fallon

Russian president Vladimir Putin could repeat the tactics used to destabilise Ukraine in Baltic members of the Nato alliance, the defence secretary has warned.

Michael Fallon said Nato must be ready for Russian aggression in “whatever form it takes” as he acknowledged tensions between the alliance and Moscow were “warming up”.

His comments came after prime minister David Cameron called on Europe to make clear to Russia that it faces economic and financial consequences for “many years to come” if it does not stop destabilising Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces pulled out from the strategically important town of Debaltseve after fierce fighting, which had continued despite the ceasefire agreed following international talks.

‘Nato’s resolve’

Lieutenant James Byrn, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, US Army, said: “We’re actually here training, obviously with our Polish and other Nato allies, just to demonstrate Nato’s resolve and to prepare our allies to be able to work with us and us work with them jointly, in order to succeed against any potential adversaries we may face.”

The exercises span various locations in Poland and the Baltic states, and will involve troops from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as Denmark, Finland, the United States, Germany, France and Portugal. Last year the exercise involved 4,500 troops from several nations.

*** Russian troops took control of Ukraine’s Crimea region. The Kremlin also is backing militant separatists fighting Kiev.

In response to all of this, Washington stepped up military exercises in Europe to help calm its friends and allies. The Marines have been heavily involved in this “European Reassurance Initiative,” now called Operation Atlantic Resolve. The Marines have been stockpiling tanks and other equipment in Scandinavia since last year, 2014.

The Marine Corps’ Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) and Marine Corps Prepositioning Program – Norway (MCPP-N) have been operationally invaluable in supporting our Nation’s interests across the world. These two unique programs provide the essential elements needed to support and execute crisis response, global reach, and forward presence. The Marine Corps’ Prepositioning Programs enable the rapid deployment of Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) and/or augment individual Marine units forward deployed. These forces are uniquely capable of strengthening alliances, securing strategic access, and defeating hostile adversaries. MPF and MCPP-N are keystones in the Marine Corps’ capability for setting the conditions for national security.

*** RIGA, Latvia – Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division offload an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank from the transportation vessel “Liberty Promise” March 9 at the Riga Universal Terminal docks. More than 100 pieces of equipment, including the tanks, M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and assorted military cargo, will move on to sites in other areas of Latvia as well as Estonia and Lithuania in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.

WASHINGTON — Russian SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in international waters in the Black Sea late in May, just days after the Royal Air Force scrambled to intercept nuclear-capable Bear bombers near British airspace. These dangerous Russian games of chicken are now regular occurrences and come hard upon a Russian threat in March to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defense system.

As tensions between the West and Moscow sharpen over Ukraine, NATO countries have seen a dramatic spike in provocative actions that risk a harrowing accident or devastating miscalculation. A NATO-Russia military-to-military dialogue would reduce these risks — if President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin allow it.

NATO has ratcheted down its political dialogue with Moscow in protest over Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. But the alliance should seek to engage Russia on a professional military level to minimize the danger of missteps or misunderstandings when their forces operate in close proximity or near each other’s territory. They would have good antecedents to draw on: a set of Cold War agreements whose titles clearly convey their purposes.

Russia China Pact with Snowden in the Middle

Posted on June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Going beyond the major hack by China into the Office of Personnel Management that cultivated at least 14 million personnel files of government, intelligence and military, China is building a database of individuals in America. Would they share it with Russia? The wake of destruction is yet to be known and future predictions are impossible to imagine.

Russia is turning to China and likewise China is delighted for the relationship as proven by the Silk Road Economic objectives.

Putin’s vision of a ‘greater Europe’ from Lisbon to Vladivostok, made up of the European Union and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, is being replaced by a ‘greater Asia’ from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

China's silk road

In part:

The rupture between Russia and the West stemming from the 2014 crisis over Ukraine has wide-ranging geopolitical implications. Russia has reverted to its traditional position as a Eurasian power sitting between the East and the West, and it is tilting toward China in the face of political and economic pressure from the United States and Europe. This does not presage a new Sino-Russian bloc, but the epoch of post-communist Russia’s integration with the West is over. In the new epoch, Russia will seek to expand and deepen its relations with non-Western nations, focusing on Asia. Western leaders need to take this shift seriously.

Russia’s Pivot to Asia
Russia’s pivot to Asia predates the Ukraine crisis, but it has become more pronounced since then. This is in part because China is the largest economy outside of the coalition that has imposed sanctions on Russia as a result of the crisis.

What was originally Moscow’s “marriage of convenience” with Beijing has turned into a much closer partnership that includes cooperation on energy trade, infrastructure development, and defense.

Putin’s vision of a “greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok, made up of the European Union and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, is being replaced by a “greater Asia” from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

Russia is now more likely to back China in the steadily growing competition between Beijing and Washington, which will strengthen China’s hand.
Takeaways for Western Leaders
Russia’s confrontation with the United States will help mitigate Sino-Russian rivalries, mostly to China’s advantage. But this doesn’t mean Russia will be dominated by China—Moscow is likely to find a way to craft a special relationship with its partner.

With China’s economic might and Russia’s great-power expertise, the BRICS group (of which Russia is a part, along with Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) will increasingly challenge the G7 as a parallel center of global governance.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, due to include India and Pakistan this year, is on its way to becoming the principal development and security forum for continental Asia.

Through its enhanced relations with non-Western countries, Russia will actively promote a concept of world order that seeks to reduce U.S. global dominance and replace it with a broader great-power consensus. Much more detail here.

Enter Snowden

Confirmed: UK agents ‘moved over Snowden files’

Russia, China Decrypt Snowden Files

Russia and China have allegedly decrypted the top-secret cache of files stolen by whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to a report from The Sunday Times, to be published tomorrow.

The info has compelled British intelligence agency MI6 to withdraw some of its agents from active operations and other Western intelligence agencies are now actively involved in rescue operations. In a July 2013 email to a former U.S. Senator, Snowden stated that, “No intelligence service—not even our own—has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).” Many in the intelligence agencies at the time greeted this claim with scepticism. Now, one senior British official said Snowden had “blood on his hands,” but another said there’s yet no evidence anyone was harmed. Snowden eventually fled to Russia via Hong Kong after downloading some 1.7 million documents from U.S. government computers and leaking them to journalists out of a desire to protect “privacy and basic liberties.” The revelations of mass spying outraged populations and governments around the world, at least temporarily damaged relations, and eventually led to changes in the mass surveillance policies of the NSA and British GCHQ.

Iran Supplies Cash and Weapons to Taliban

Posted on June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

No one can say for sure if the Taliban in designated as a terror group by the United States, other countries or by the United Nations. We do know that the Obama regime has declared that hostilities with the Taliban has terminated. Depending on the day and per the White House, the Taliban has a slippery designation. All the while peace talks continue with the Taliban so, deferring to both Pakistan and Afghanistan appears to be unsettled as the peace envoys are hosted in China.

Iran reportedly stepping up shipments of arms, cash to Taliban

The Iranian government reportedly has stepped up shipments of weapons and money to the Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited Afghan and Western officials in its report, Iran’s motivations for stepping up support for the militants are to prevent ISIS from gaining a foothold in Afghanistan and providing a check on U.S. influence ahead of the planned withdrawal of most American troops by the end of 2016.

The report quotes a Taliban fighter as saying that the militants receive weapons from smugglers paid by Iran’s government who traffic the contraband through the remote border region where Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan meet. Among the weapons Taliban units allegedly receive are mortars, machine guns, rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades.

Iran has repeatedly denied providing financial or military aid to the Taliban. No Iranian officials immediately commented on the Journal’s report.

Republican critics of ongoing negotiations between Western powers and Tehran over the future of Iran’s nuclear program say that Iran’s support for the Taliban, Hezbollah, and other militant groups in the Middle East would only increase thanks to the possibility of relief from sanctions have throttled the country’s economy.

“This is further evidence of the administration’s continued willful disregard for the facts on the ground in light of Iranian aggression in the region,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told the Journal.

According to the paper, a report compiled by the Pentagon in October of last year says that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps have been delivering weapons to the Taliban since at least 2007. The relationship between Tehran and the Taliban solidified in the summer of 2013 when a Taliban delegation was invited to participate in a conference on Islam.

For the past two years, Afghan officials and the Taliban fighter tell the Journal, Iran has been operating training camps for Taliban inside its territory. At least four of the camps are currently operating.

In at least one case, Iran is even supplying fighters for the Taliban by turning to Afghan immigrants who fled to Iran to escape Afghanistan’s ongoing turmoil. One of them, the Taliban fighter quoted in the report, says he was approached by an Iranian intelligence officer after being detained for working as an illegal laborer.

“At the beginning Iran was supporting [the] Taliban financially,” a senior Afghan official tells the Journal. “But now they are training and equipping them, too.”

***

While the United States continues to advance talks with Iran, Iran betrays all pledges and integrity at the negotiation table. John Kerry and the White House are fine with that. Iran has not given up a single position or any true information as the West gives up ground each day, to what end is still not clear.

U.S. and Western diplomats say they are willing to accept a nuclear deal with Iran that doesn’t require Tehran to immediately disclose alleged work on atomic weapons prior to 2003, when the program first came to light.

After a November 2013 interim accord, the Obama administration said a comprehensive solution “would include resolution of questions concerning the possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program.”

But officials told the Associated Press those questions won’t be answered by the June 30 deadline for a final deal, echoing an assessment by the U.N. nuclear agency’s top official earlier this week. Nevertheless, the officials said an accord remains possible. One senior Western official on Thursday described diplomats as “more likely to get a deal than not” over the next three weeks.

Western intelligence agencies say they don’t know the extent of Iran’s alleged work on warheads, delivery systems and detonators before 2003, or if Iran persisted in covert efforts. An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation has been foiled for more than a decade by Iranian refusals to allow monitors to visit suspicious sites or interview individuals allegedly involved in secret weapons development.

Instead of resolving such questions this month, officials said the U.S. and its negotiating partners are working on a list of future commitments Iran must fulfill in an agreement setting decade-long curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

The suspension of some sanctions would be tied to Iran finally answering all questions, giving world powers greater leverage, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the private discussions and demanded anonymity.

WH Ignoring Iran’s $6Billion for Syria Iraq Terror

Posted on June 11, 2015June 11, 2015 by Denise Simon

John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Tony Blinken, Tom Donilon, Samantha Power, Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama are but part of the team that knew and ignored the billions for years that Iran used to support Bashir al Assad’s terror in Syria and later Iraq. The Obama regime has been gifting Iran money by lifting sanctions for the sake of humanitarian purposes in Iran when the money was not used for that but rather to support the Assad tyrannical power in Syria. Sanction waivers under the Obama regime regarding Iran have been common since the Iranian nuclear talks began.

Now the question is will this White House and State Department come clean and walk away from the P5+1 Iranian nuclear talks? This betrayal is historic.

Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad

By Eli Lake
Iran is spending billions of dollars a year to prop up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to the U.N.’s envoy to Syria and other outside experts. These estimates are far higher than what the Barack Obama administration, busy negotiating a nuclear deal with the Tehran government, has implied Iran spends on its policy to destabilize the Middle East.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told me that the envoy estimates Iran spends $6 billion annually on Assad’s government. Other experts I spoke to put the number even higher. Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, said his research shows that Iran spent between $14 and $15 billion in military and economic aid to the Damascus regime in 2012 and 2013, even though Iran’s banks and businesses were cut off from the international financial system.

Such figures undermine recent claims from Obama and his top officials suggesting that Iran spends a relative pittance to challenge U.S. interests and allies in the region. While the administration has never disclosed its own estimates on how much Iran spends to back Syria and other allies in the Middle East, Obama himself has played down the financial dimension of the regime’s support.

“The great danger that the region has faced from Iran is not because they have so much money. Their budget — their military budget is $15 billion compared to $150 billion for the Gulf States,” he said in an interview last week with Israel’s Channel 2.

But experts see it another way. The Christian Science Monitor last month reported that de Mistura told a think tank in Washington that Iran was spending three times its official military budget–$35 billion annually–to support Assad in Syria. When asked about that earlier event, Jessy Chahine, the spokeswoman for de Mistura, e-mailed me: “The Special Envoy has estimated Iran spends $6 billion annually on supporting the Assad regime in Syria. So it’s $6 billion not $35 billion.”

Either way, that figure is significant. Many members of Congress and close U.S. regional allies have raised concerns that Iran will see a windfall of cash as a condition of any nuclear deal it signs this summer. Obama himself has said there is at least $150 billion worth of Iranian money being held in overseas banks as part of the crippling sanctions. If Iran spends billions of its limited resources today to support its proxies in the Middle East, it would follow that it will spend even more once sanctions are lifted.

The Obama administration disagrees. It says the amount Iran spends on mischief in the region is so low that any future sanctions relief will not make a difference in its behavior. Speaking at a conference this weekend sponsored by the Jerusalem Post, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that even as Iran’s economy has suffered from sanctions in recent years, it has been able to maintain its “small” level of assistance to terrorists and other proxies. “The unfortunate truth remains that the cost of this support is sufficiently small, that we will need to remain vigilant with or without a nuclear deal to use our other tools to deter the funding of terror and regional destabilization,” he said.

Shehadi and other experts acknowledged that their figures were estimates, because the Tehran regime does not publicize budgets for its Revolutionary Guard Corps or the full subsidies it provides to allies. Nonetheless, Shehadi says, Iranian support to Syria today is substantial, especially when factoring in the line of credit, oil subsidies and other kinds of economic assistance Iran provides the Syrian regime.

Steven Heydemann, who was the vice president for applied research on conflict at the U.S. Institute of Peace until last month, told me earlier this year that the value of Iranian oil transfers, lines of credit, military personnel costs and subsidies for weapons for the Syrian government was likely between $3.5 and $4 billion annually. He said that did not factor in how much Iran spent on supporting Hezbollah and other militias fighting Assad’s opponents in Syria. Heydamann said he estimated the total support from Iran for Assad would be between $15 and $20 billion annually.

A Pentagon report released last week was quite clear about what Iran hopes to achieve with its spending: “Iran has not substantively changed its national security and military strategies over the past year. However, Tehran has adjusted its approach to achieve its enduring objectives, by increasing its diplomatic outreach and decreasing its bellicose rhetoric.” The report says Iran’s strategy is intended to preserve its Islamic system of governance, protect it from outside threats, attain economic prosperity and “establish Iran as the dominant regional power.”

If Iran ends up accepting a deal on its nuclear program, it will see an infusion of cash to pursue that regional agenda. Shehadi said this fits a pattern for dictatorships in the Middle East: they preoccupy the international community with proliferation issues while, behind the scene, they continue to commit atrocities.

“In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein was massacring his people and we were worried about the weapons inspectors,” Shehadi said. “Bashar al-Assad did that too. He kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people. Iran is keeping us busy with a nuclear deal and we are giving them carte blanche in Syria and the region.”