"I’ve left instructions," Trump said. "If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left. And they shouldn’t be able to do it."

The comments came as the president signed an executive order restoring a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, something he indicated he was "unhappy" to do because it was really tough on Iran but necessary since he believes they are "close" to building a nuclear weapon. //

President Trump's threat to obliterate Iran if they dare carry out threats on his life is reminiscent of a similar warning he issued to Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Baradar, now Afghanistan's acting first deputy prime minister, was involved in negotiations for the United States withdrawal with Trump during his first term. And he received a hell of a threat from the then-president, reminding him not to harm a single American.

“Under my conversations with Abdul, who’s the leader of the Taliban, for 18 months, we didn’t lose one soldier,” Trump bragged in an interview with Sean Hannity, adding that he told Baradar he’d “obliterate” him if he failed to follow orders in their negotiations to withdraw.

To drive home the point, Trump sent him a lovely picture.

"I sent him a picture of his house,” he revealed. “He said, ‘But why, but why do you send me a picture of my house?’ I said, ‘You have to figure that one out.'”

Damocles Gordon of Cartoon
9 hours ago
This from Wikipedia:
In 2016, the BBC published a report which stated that the administration of United States President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) had extensive contact with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his entourage in the prelude to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.[1][2] The report was based on "newly declassified US diplomatic cables".[1][2] According to the report, as mentioned by The Guardian, Khomeini "went to great lengths to ensure the Americans would not jeopardise his plans to return to Iran - and even personally wrote to US officials" and assured them not to worry about their interests in Iran, particularly oil.[1][2] According to the report, in turn, Carter and his administration helped Khomeini and made sure that the Imperial Iranian army would not launch a military coup

There are a lot of people here in the USA that do not know that Carter Gave the Ayatollah Khomeini a crap ton of money (read: Millions) and allowed them to take over Iran. The thanks for using our tax money was a bunch of hostages held for over a year.
Look it up people! //

epaddon
9 hours ago
The context of giving away the Panama Canal stemmed from all the 1970s self-flagellation America went through in the wake of Vietnam. The idea of America a force of evil in the world, which gained ascendancy with opposition to the Vietnam War, combined with the rise of "revisionist" scholarship on the Cold War which blamed America, not Stalin for why the Cold War started, and all the trashing of America over getting rid of Marxist regimes in Guatemala and Chile is why Jimmy Carter felt that giving away the Canal would be a way of showing America making amends for all those things they never had to apologize for in the first place.

It didn't help that he not only got the backing RINO Senator Howard Baker, but also the backing of William F. Buckley. Indeed, there was a big "Firing Line" debate between Buckley and Reagan on the Canal and its telling that on Buckley's side was George Will, while Reagan's side had Pat Buchanan. George Will of course now stands exposed as Never-Trumper fake. //

Almost Sane
7 hours ago
Jimmy Carter was a virulent anti-Semite. He hated Israel and did his best to always side with their enemies, even after he was out of office. He was responsible for the ayatollah taking over Iran and responsible for our embassy being overrun and our diplomats taken hostage for over 440 days. Everybody praised him for his Habitat for Humanity project, but failed to read his antisemitic writings long after he was no longer president. //

anon-pabn
9 hours ago
This all may be Trump leveraging the canal to bring to light what China is trying to do with Taiwan. "Go after Taiwan and say goodbye to controlling the Panama Canal." Of course he would refuse to take military action off the board. He is playing 3 dimensional chess while the MSM is playing Candy Crush.

While it is much too early to tell what will happen in Syria, the initial signs are encouraging. Unlike nearly any other Arab civil war, reconciliation is given a priority over vengeance. An effort is being made to bring all parts of Syrian society together. While there is no doubt it will be a distinctly Islamic society, al-Julani seems to understand that Syria has enough religious and ethnic diversity that the "one size fits all" model we see in most of the Islamic world will not work. The Russians have abandoned their naval and airbase, removing the Kremlin's meddling in a delicate situation. //

In his Farewell Address, Washington left us with this warning.

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. //

Lord Palmerston treats the same subject in a much pithier quote, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

I fear that many on the right have fallen into the trap of seeing American and Muslim relations through the lens of 9/11, and they are willing to see the change of government in Syria as the creation of yet another terrorist breeding ground. Indeed, on social media, some of the accounts most adamantly against US support for Ukraine and so-called "forever wars" by the "neocons" are also in favor of doing nothing to influence the outcome in Syria because of 9/11 and the 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan that they decry.

The initial moves of al-Julani seem to be focused on keeping much of the same multicultural tolerance of the Assad regime without, so far as we can see right now, the terror and repression. //

The fact is that when given the opportunity to break with al-Qaeda, he did. And he fought ISIS even when it got him nothing of value. //

In those early years of his post-presidency, the general agreement was that Carter meant well, and was just the poster child of the Peter Principle, having been promoted infinitely beyond his limited ability.

As the years went on, however, and as Carter continued his post-presidential activism, it became more and more difficult to make this argument.

During his presidency, the American people didn’t see a general worldview from Jimmy Carter. His support of nuclear weapons parity (favoring plans allowing Russia to build more while requiring the USA to reduce our stock), his support of giving away the Panama Canal that we built and paid for, his support of a new education bureaucracy at the federal level, and his capitulation to OPEC, are all just a few examples of the countless issues that may look like unrelated issues at first.

It is only with the advantage of hindsight that we see that, in fact, Jimmy Carter did have a coherent worldview: he worked constantly and intentionally toward increasing the general weakness of the United States of America and our allies.

Americans didn’t want to admit this, at the time. Many of us still don’t.

Americans are not a vindictive people; we were happy to see him out of the White House, and we preferred to give them the benefit of the doubt and just call him a dummy, for years and years.

But we can no longer deceive ourselves.

Between his writing, his speeches, and his endorsement of blatantly corrupt global elections, it has become undeniable that Carter long supported the prevailing Leftist theory, more commonly associated with Barack Obama today, that Americans and the West need to be brought down a few pegs.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his mishandling of the middle east.

As president, he convinced Israel to give a huge amount of land – the Sinai Peninsula – to Egypt, in return for nothing but a peace treaty. Israel has so little land, they could hardly spare so much; they should have demanded a solution to the problem of the arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. But Carter talked them into giving up the Sinai for nothing, and now, here we are, 45 years later, and Israel still suffers from this problem.

Also as president, he refused to support our solid ally, Iran, when its Shah was sick, enabling the mullahs to take over the country and enslave what had been the happiest, most modern, most westernized country in the muslim world.

It is therefore undeniable today, with the advantage of hindsight, that Carter is responsible for most of the jihadist terrorism of the past 40 years. He supported the PLO over Israel, and he supported the mullahs over the Shah. //

This one-time Sunday school teacher became a supporter of abortion. This one-time Naval officer supervised the downgrading of our military preparedness and materiel. This one-time southern politician supported the massive expansion of federal bureaucracy. And this once-noble veteran supported the growth and empowerment of numerous foreign terrorist organizations, from the PLO on.

A daring Israeli commando raid deep into Bashar Assad's Syria in early September not only destroyed an Iranian factory producing missiles for Hezbollah to shoot into Israel, it may have been a test of a concept that puts all of Iran's nuclear facilities at risk.

On the night of September 8-9, a 120-man unit of elite Israeli Air Force Shaldag commandos in CH-53 attacked the underground factory in the Masyaf area of Syria, west of Hama, using a combination of landing and fast roping.

This is a video of US Marines fast roping from the same type of helicopter used in the Israeli operation. //

So why the big media rollout on a raid that happened three months ago? I think the first reason is to impress the locals with Israeli military capabilities. This media event, in addition to the happenings on the ground, goes a long way toward undoing any damage to the psychological dominance Israel has established over its enemies since 1948 by the October 7. 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians. The second reason is to send a message to the Iranians that you can't dig a facility deep enough to get away from the IDF if they want you.

The attack at Masyaf looked a lot like a rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. In the aftermath of the rout of Assad's forces and the fall of the Ba'athist regime, Israel carried out a punishing campaign of air attacks on Syrian radar, fighter bases, and air defense sites. So much so that it is fair to say that Syria is incapable of knowing who is using its airspace, much less contesting that usage; see Israel Bombs Syria's Military Capability and Infrastructure Flat to Send a Message to Iran.

While Operation EAGLE CLAW, the attempted rescue of US hostages held by Iran in April 1980, was a humiliation of American arms, the same basic plan is imminently viable to take out Iran's nuclear weapons research and production facilities. The destruction of Syrian air defenses and early warning systems means a relatively large Israeli force could seize a foothold within helicopter range of the target area and, under the cover of airstrikes, penetrate Iranian nuclear facilities and destroy them.

And we can never ignore that third possible reason. Given the obvious inferences from the Masyaf raid, the Iranians may very well react by reinforcing their nuclear facilities and, in the process, reveal nuclear sites that were previously unknown.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities if the Iranians move towards a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20, in a meeting several weeks ago that remained secret until now, three sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios. //

Biden and his national security team discussed various options and scenarios during the meeting, which took place roughly one month ago, but the president did not make any final decision, according to the sources. ///

This is supposed to be a message to Iran but I don't think it will have the impact it might have if this discussion were to take place in 3 weeks.

Steve Guest @SteveGuest
·
.@ScottJenningsKY: “In the run up to the Persian Gulf War, [Jimmy Carter] wrote letters, to all of our allies, and to Arab States, asking them to abandon their cooperation and coalition with the USA.. if it’s not treasonous, it’s borderline treasonous.” 🔥

11:18 PM · Dec 30, 2024

JENNINGS: In the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, he wrote letters to all of our allies and to Arab states, asking them to abandon their cooperation and coalition with the United States of America. If it's not treasonous, it's borderline treasonous, and so I hear what you're saying about the humanitarianism, but when you're an ex-president, and you have served in that office, I think you have a duty to the United States and only to the United States, and when he did that and other instances, to me, it showed that he cared more about his own legacy than he did about the country, and I think that is wrong. //

Scott Jennings @ScottJenningsKY
·
My thoughts on Jimmy Carter’s legacy last night on @cnn: terrible president, soundly rejected by the American people. Even worse ex-president, whose meddling in US foreign policy & virulent anti-Israel/anti-Semitic views must not be forgotten. Undermined US interests repeatedly.

6:58 AM · Dec 31, 2024
https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1874062472384307315

Ricardo Dale
4 hours ago
Carter handed us the current terror state that is Iran. Then he called Israel an "apartheid state." He is only partially redeemed by the fact that Joe Biden was worse by a large margin...

The IDF conducted at least 500 airstrikes since Assad fled to Moscow, and his military melted away in the face of an Islamic rebel offensive. In less than a week, the Israeli strikes “had destroyed around 80% of Syria’s larger-scale firepower,” the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday. Israel now had virtual air superiority in Syria after “destroying over 90% of the identified strategic surface-to-air missiles,” the IDF declared Thursday. //

The Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah continues to violate President Joe Biden-backed ceasefire along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The Israeli military targeted Hezbollah terrorists and infrastructure along the northern border in retaliatory operations.

“The IAF struck a loaded and ready-to-use launcher aimed at Israel in violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the military said Saturday.

People of Iran, as we see history unfold before our very eyes, I can only imagine what you’re feeling right now. Your oppressors spent over 30 billion supporting Assad in Syria. Today, after only 11 days of fighting, his regime collapsed into the dust. Your presence spent billions supporting Hamas and Gaza. Today their regime lies in ruins.

Your oppressors over $20 billion supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon. In a matter of weeks, most of Hezbollah’s leaders, its rockets, and thousands of its terrorists went up in smioke. The money your oppressors stole from you literally went up in smoke. You must be furious imagining the new roads, schools, hospitals, that could have been built with the tens of billions of dollars your dictators wasted backing terrorists who lose over and over and over again.

Do you know why Iran's oppressors keep losing? It's not only because they're incompetent and cruel -- they are. It's because they seek to conquer other nations, to impose a fundamentalist journey on the Middle East, on the entire world. The only thing Israel seeks is to defend our state, but in so doing we're defending civilization against barbarism. //

I want to make clear: Israel wants peace. We want peace with all those who truly want peace with us, and I have no doubt that you, the people of Iran, know this. I know that just as we want peace with you, you want peace with us, but you suffer under the rule of a regime that subjugates you and threatens us.

You know what this regime is truly terrified of? It's terrified of you. The people of Iran. And one day, I know that this will change.

One day Iran will be free.

That is the future of Iran, that is the future of peace. And I have no doubt that we will realize that future together a lot sooner than people think. I know and I believe we will transform the Middle East into a beacon of prosperity, progress and peace.

In addition to the airstrikes throughout the depths of Syria, Israel has also reoccupied the Syrian portion of the Golan Heights that it relinquished to UN supervision in 1974 (Netanyahu Abrogates 1974 Peace Deal With Syria and Orders IDF Into Buffer Zone). Possession of Mount Hermon, the highest location of Israel, Jordan, and Syria, increases the early warning Israel will have of missile and drone attacks. It also provides continuous surveillance of the routes used by Iran and Hezbollah to move weapons into Lebanon. This move opens a secure and unimpeded air corridor from Israel to Iran. In the past, Israeli aircraft had to avoid Syrian interceptors and surface-to-air missiles, while Syrian radar provided invaluable information to Iran.

The major accomplishment of these strikes is the disarmament of Syria, and any future regime will have to start from scratch. //

The demolition of Syria's military capability has bought Israel several years of enhanced security and makes any direct action by Iran a decidedly high-risk affair.

The Biden-Harris administration waived sanctions on Iran three days after the November election, providing Tehran access upward of $10 billion in once-frozen funds, according to a copy of the non-public order transmitted to Congress and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined on November 8 that "it is in the national security interest of the United States" to waive mandatory economic sanctions that bar Iraq from transferring upward of $10 billion to Iran in electricity import payments. //

Though the first Trump administration did green-light the same waiver—causing tension with some congressional Republicans—it narrowly tailored the waiver to restrict Iranian access to the cash. The Biden State Department tweaked the waiver last year to allow Tehran to convert the funds from Iraqi dinars to euros, then hold those euros in bank accounts based in Oman. Access to a widely traded currency like the euro enables Iran to more easily spend the cash in international markets. Under the first Trump administration, Iran had to keep the cash in an escrow account in Baghdad, making it more difficult to access.

Is that what's happening here? I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't put it past the corrupt hangers-on at the FBI to "protect the shield" in such a way. They certainly don't want Patel coming in and providing real reform and accountability. They've still got more pro-lifers to raid at gunpoint and Catholics to treat as domestic terrorists. For now, though, we'll call the above theory a hypothesis.

We'll see if the communications reportedly taken are leaked. I would assume they will be, and if they are, Republican senators should pretend they don't exist and confirm anyway, no matter what they contain. There is zero reason to trust anything at this point that would benefit the FBI.

Out of all the nominees that one might call "controversial," Patel getting through is the most important. The only way to stop the weaponization of federal law enforcement is to bring sweeping changes to the FBI, and that's only because there's no realistic way to shut it down. Patel is the right man for that job, and these last-minute games, whatever they amount to, should not stop his nomination. //

Deplorable Extraordinarius
32 minutes ago
Sounds like the FBI has wised up to how anything labeled Russia Russia Russia is no longer seen as credible. So some genius has just swapped in Iran, Iran, Iran. The Deep State is busy doing its black ops in pursuit of its survival. //

anon-rda0
27 minutes ago
I hope Patel kept absolutely quiet during the “briefing”. There’s a dang good chance the purpose of the briefing was to trap him in a lie.

anon-isiz anon-rda0
23 minutes ago
No one should receive an FBI briefing without an attorney present. //

EMCM(SS)
4 minutes ago
Everyone knows this is all hogwash, so why are they doing it?
Cover!
This is all cover for Collins, Murkowski, Thune and the rest of Mitch’s tufthunters to scuttle the nomination. Same as the lies about Hegseth. Not even the Democrats believe this stuff. It’s just a fig leaf for the coming failure theater.

Iran thundered in apocalyptic prose: Israel will be destroyed! Death to America! Destroy the infidels! Kill the Jews! The future is ours!

General Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, smugly told the media, “Iran’s response to the Zionist aggression is definite. We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation.”

At least, Fadavi felt that way on October 31, when he issued that statement. Since then, America had a pretty big presidential election. (You might’ve heard about it.) But if you haven’t, here’s the highlight: The crazy, scary Orange Man is back in the saddle.

And suddenly, Iran’s singing a dramatically different tune.

It was released on Thanksgiving Day, so most people probably didn’t see it, but The New York Times released a fascinating story yesterday: “With Trump Returning and Hezbollah Weakened, Iran Strikes a Conciliatory Tone.”

The sub-header: “As Iran faces domestic and foreign challenges, its bellicose rhetoric on the United States and Israel has given way to signs that it wants less confrontation.”

The contrast is striking: Just weeks earlier, Iran was vowing to utterly eviscerate its enemies. No compromises, no exceptions! And remarkably, the world was largely falling into line: Biden even pressured America’s allies to “respond in proportion” to Iranian missile attacks on civilian targets.

But after Election Day? Even The New York Times noted the Iranian sea change:

In mid-November, Iran dispatched a top official to Beirut to urge Hezbollah to accept a cease-fire with Israel. Around the same time, Iran’s U.N. ambassador met with Elon Musk, as overture to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inner circle. And on Friday, it will hold talks in Geneva with European countries on a range of issues, including its nuclear program.

Get ready for the money quote:

Five Iranian officials, one of them a Revolutionary Guards member, and two former officials said the decision to recalibrate was prompted by Mr. Trump winning the Nov. 5 election, with concerns about an unpredictable leader who, in his first term, pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. [emphasis added]

During the Nixon years, we called it the madman theory: When foreign adversaries cannot predict the actions of a “mad” U.S. president, they’re suddenly risk-adverse. It’s a very old idea: Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in 1517 that sometimes, it’s “a very wise thing to simulate madness.”

But there’s nothing “mad” about it.

All nations make risk-reward calculations. //

Flawed worldviews lead to flawed results.

Iran isn’t motivated by insecurity; Iran is motivated by self-interest. When you’re not a superpower, your actions aren’t driven by utopian ideals, but risk-reward calculations: How much can we get away with before the cost is too great?

During the Obama-Biden-Harris years, they read the numbers one way. With Trump, it’s an entirely different calculation.

It’s not just morning again in America: It’s morning again in the Middle East, too.

The Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to three U.S. officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.

Why it matters: The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran's effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

   One former Israeli official briefed on the strike said it destroyed sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it.
   Iran has denied it is pursuing nuclear weapons. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement last week that "Iran is not after nuclear weapons, period."
   The Iranian mission to the UN declined to comment for this story.
   The incoming Trump administration will include several key national security and foreign policy officials who are hawkish on Iran, which could lead to increased U.S. pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Some added flavor here:

Flashback: Last June, the White House officials privately warned the Iranians in direct conversations about the suspicious research activities, Axios reported.

   The U.S. hoped the warning would make the Iranians stop their nuclear activity, but they continued, the officials said.

A U.S. official said that in the months before the Israeli attack "there was concern across the board" about the Iranian activity at the Taleghan 2 facility.

   The Iranian nuclear weapons research even led the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to change its assessment about the Iranian nuclear program.

You don't say?

The news comes on the heels of the arrest of a former CIA official for leaking classified documents regarding Israel's plans ahead of the strike. //

Cafeblue32 Musicman an hour ago edited

Just make us a net exporter of fuels again instead of an importer, and Trump can drop the price of oil by dumping more in the market. He did that in 2020, in April taking it down to 20 bucks a barrel. He told the bad actors that are oil nations that he would drop it down to 1o bucks if they kept it up. That's why we didn't have war. A strong military deterrent is smart. But using business to make it to they couldn't afford war is how we had no wars last time without firing a shot.

Trump knows what Democrats will never admit: whoever controls the oil controls the world. He proved it last time.

What is it Roosevelt said? "Speak softly, but carry a big stick"? With Trump we have the double whammy- a great business strategy to drive the baddies broke, backed by the most terrifyingly badass military ever seen on earth. Under Hegseth, I expect we'll see that.

A criminal complaint against an Iranian agent and two U.S. citizens charged with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump and other enemies of the Iranian regime was unsealed Friday. //

jester6
a day ago edited
Just skimmed the indictment. The alleged illegal activities go back over a year. The alleged conspirators have been in communication with FBI informants, have been surveilled and maybe even searched using sneak and peak warrants for most of 2024.

There have been rumors about foreign assassin teams for a few months, but pundits in the MSM have been dismissing them as "unsubstantiated" and "without evidence."

So for those keeping score, the DOJ (via Jack Smith) can drop a boatload of unsubstantiated material detrimental to Trump shortly before the election. But the same DOJ needs to keep an indictment of potential assassins under until a few days after the election. //

DonttreaDonme
a day ago
Is it interesting that the secret serviceleft gaping holes in protection of Trump while knowing these threats existed? It seems interesting.

Based on recent IAEA reports, one nuclear watchdog group concludes that Iran has completed all the steps needed for full nuclear weapons breakout and — whenever it makes the decision to go nuclear — could produce up to nine nuclear warheads in a month, and 15 in five months. Moreover, it was discovered last year that Iran has built a new nuclear facility under a mountain near Natanz that is so deep underground that it might be beyond the reach of conventional weapons. With this facility, it will be able to make nuclear warheads even faster.

Whatever the scope of Iran’s secret nuclear activities, it almost certainly has not been producing nuclear weapons. Rather, what Iran has been trying to do in secret is get ready to produce nuclear weapons. In order to engage in serial production of nuclear weapons, Iran will need the far-flung facilities that it has developed under the guise of a civilian program. All it has to do is to stop cooperating with the IAEA and withdraw from the NPT (whether formally or de facto) so that it can pull a veil of secrecy over the entire program.

From that point forward, we will have to assume that Iran is a nuclear weapon state. North Korea didn’t conduct its first test of a nuclear device until 2006, but by then the U.S. had long since been forced to accept the high probability that it was a nuclear weapons state.

Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT will result in a cascade of disastrous consequences. Saudi Arabia has said that if Iran gets the bomb, it will get one, too. Turkey and Egypt are then likely to join the club. And consider how desperate Israel’s position will become. It will have to assume not just that any ballistic or cruise missile launched from Iran could be nuclear-tipped, justifying the use of its own nuclear deterrent, but that Iran could smuggle a nuclear device into Tel Aviv with plausible deniability that it had done so. //

As practiced by Iran and its proxies, on the other hand, missile terrorism is an entirely different kind of threat, as the July War itself had shown. The 100+ rockets that Hezbollah fired at northern Israel every day for a month caused few casualties. But they scared a third of Israel’s population into bomb shelters for weeks. Many Israelis started leaving for the United States, in many cases indefinitely.

Hence, missile terrorism poses a threat to the existence of Israel that is far beyond the potential casualty figures: A state that cannot make its people feel safe going about their daily lives, that can’t even keep its airports open because of terrorism, is in danger of failing. Whereas Palestinian terrorism targets Jews for the sheer satisfaction of murdering them, Iranian terrorism targets Israelis’ faith in the state of Israel. Iran has realized what too many Israeli leaders have not: that missile terrorism is an existential threat. Missile defenses such as Iron Dome have lulled too many Israelis into thinking that the threat is manageable. It isn’t.

So here is the question. After holding back from helping Hamas in its confrontations with Israel for nearly 20 years, why did Iran decide to join the fight this time? Perhaps Iran sensed a unique opportunity to combine the missile terrorism of all its proxies and the mayhem that antisemites and wannabe terrorists could cause in Western cities and universities to deliver a fatal blow to the morale of Israel.

Maybe. But alas, Iran’s decision to fight Israel now was likely part of a much more dangerous plan. //

The NPT allows states to withdraw with 90 days’ notice. When North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 1993, it waited to see what America’s reaction would be. When it seemed that Clinton might be prepared to use force, North Korea went down to the wire and “suspended” its withdrawal from the NPT a few days before the 90 days were up. North Korea then bluffed its way to nuclear weapons by threatening to unleash war on the Korean peninsula, a real bluff considering North Korea’s dictatorship could not have survived three days of such a war.

We should expect similar gamesmanship from Iran. We are at “the River” in Texas Hold’em. All the community cards have been revealed. Iran has a weaker hand than its enemies but is willing to risk far more. Israel is keeping its cards close to the vest, American surveillance and leaks notwithstanding, but its one ace — nuclear weapons — is worthless now. America has by far the strongest hand in the round, but it has become risk-averse to the point of torpor: its increasingly besotted national security establishment equates deterrence with provocation, which is the strategic equivalent of unilateral disarmament. Iran likes its chances.

Obama Undermined the Diplomatic Option to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program.

When Iran’s nuclear program was first discovered in 2003, the U.S. could have nipped it in the bud with a single airstrike. The argument against that move at the time (and against military action since) was that Iran would quickly reconstitute the program.

If that was the right answer, it was the wrong question. The military option on Iran’s nuclear program has to be assessed in terms of what Thomas Schelling would call a “tacit negotiation” between the U.S. and Iran: Properly conceived, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program would be an important but incidental benefit of military force; the right goal — as with sanctions — would be to convince Iran to abandon the program.

And for that strategic objective, the target list is much broader and includes everything the regime needs to survive in the short term. That means oil refineries, power plants, ports, and military command-and-control, up to and including Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the offices of the Atomic Organization of Iran. Targeting any of those early on could have fatally undermined the internal influence of Iran’s nuclear hawks.

Solving problems before they become crises is always a good idea. In international relations, the time to stop a dangerous deterioration in the status quo is at the start, before it has run its course. That is the single most important lesson of the chain of events that led to World War II, and it is particularly true in the case of a rogue nuclear program. It would have been much easier to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions when it had just one pilot facility that it half-expected somebody to bomb at any moment.

Now the nuclear weapons program is the crown jewel of the Islamic Revolution, to which the mullahs have subordinated all other priorities. As Henry Kissinger wrote, in order to avoid the use of force, it is sometimes necessary to threaten its use. Because we have not done that, we are now playing defense at the one-yard line and may have no other option.

Though its chances of success were never very high, there was a diplomatic option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program — until President Barack Obama cashiered it in his Joint Comprehensive Plan Action (JCPOA), one of the most consequential examples of aiding and abetting terrorism in world history.

During the administration of George W. Bush, the U.S. was able to orchestrate a powerful Iran sanctions regime, backed by the U.N. Security Council with the support of Russia and China. That was a remarkable feat considering that Iran is an important client of Russia and China is more dependent on Iranian oil than any other major economy. Obama, to his credit, built on those sanctions, which soon brought Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. In 2014, Iran’s currency lost more than half its value.

But just in the nick of time, Obama came to the mullahs’ rescue with the JCPOA, which dismantled the sanctions regime and provided Iran with a massive infusion of cash, just to secure Iran’s forbearance to go nuclear for a few more years. Needless to say, Iran took the money and ran.

Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. moved quickly to abandon the JCPOA. But alas, its benefits for Iran had already largely accrued. Obama’s cash infusion (which his dunce Secretary of State John Kerry had promised would not be used for terrorism) allowed Iran to lavishly fund the IRGC and Hezbollah. Even worse, the international sanctions regime could not be resurrected. The U.S. imposed “maximum pressure” through sanctions of its own, but while those exacted a heavy price, the reality was that Obama had fatally undermined the diplomatic option for stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

In the supposed interest of peace and stability, the U.S. has waited until its most virulent enemy is in a position to turn the world upside down. The moment that the mullahs have been waiting so patiently for, suffering through decades of sanctions and privations, is finally here. They have a nuclear weapon within their grasp. They need but seize it, knowing that the odds of America’s folding are in their favor, and overwhelmingly so, as long as Joe Biden or Kamala Harris is in power.

All Iran needs to do now is withdraw from the NPT, and it will be a brave new world.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced this week that it is moving military assets to the Middle East to deter continued Iranian aggression against the U.S. and Israel after Iran vowed this week to hit Israel following last week’s strikes in Iran.

The Pentagon ordered the deployment of “additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.”

The forces will arrive in the region in the coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to leave the region.

The move of B-52s and missile defense is interesting. The B-52, it should be noted, is strictly an offensive platform, and its use presumes U.S. air superiority where the BUFFs are deployed, thus perhaps the movement of fighters. //

“These deployments build on the recent decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Israel as well as DoD’s sustained Amphibious Ready Group Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) posture in the Eastern Mediterranean,” a statement said. //

anon-nn7q
11 hours ago
Is this a decision made by our senile president Biden? If not, then by whom?

This decision is a very big deal, irrespective of whether one thinks we should or should not intervene. Harris, as VP, does not have the Constitutional authority to give such an order. Biden doesn't have the mental capacity to do anything other than what someone tells him to do.

Is this Doctor Jill's decision? //

anon-x8p1
12 hours ago
JOE BIDEN is the sole commander-in chief. He gives the orders.
Let that sink in. Harris does not care. let that sink in too.

The Obama game plan is to leave a huge stinking pile of garbage on your successors lap, before you get booted out the door.

Obama's plan is still working perfectly. Obama made sure all the biggest Obamacare costs and impact kicked in only after he left office. Then Trump gets blamed for raising the public debt.

You cannot hate Democrats enough.

Tabatabai's move to a role where she won't have access to classified information about special programs, the current location of U.S. special forces, intelligence assessments, and much more, is considered by some observers as essentially a demotion and a tacit admission that she was, in fact, the leaker, and they are working to contain the damage while the investigation continues. //

According to counterterrorism analysts who spoke to RedState in October 2023, Tabatabai's been a subversive force at the Pentagon since she arrived from the State Department in 2022:

"[C]ounterterrorism analysts speaking to RedState on condition of anonymity, whose reports would have crossed Tabatabai's desk, say that for at least the past year their product has been watered down, misquoted, or outright quashed. Tabatabai had the opportunity to shape the intelligence to meet her needs, the analysts say, and they say it's likely that the overt intel collected during that period went to Iran."

Tabatabai's position at State was as a policy adviser to disgraced Iran envoy Robert Malley, who's accused of mishandling classified information himself. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, Tabatabai has been a frequent guest at the White House courtesy of Phil Gordon, who's Kamala Harris' national security advisor and who's collaborated with Tabatabai on multiple opinion pieces "argu[ing] against sanctions on the Iranian regime": //

Anyone who would be appointed as DoD's chief learning officer at this point is undoubtedly woke and likely not extremely helpful in terms of readiness and quality training, but having Tabatabai there is an insult. She should be nowhere near the Pentagon due to her relationship with the Iranian regime, but this is a very slight move in the right direction.

Israel has temporarily shifted the focus of its air campaign in Lebanon and Syria from plinking jihadists cowering in bunkers to wiping out Hezbollah's infrastructure. Israeli strike fighters hit eleven locations associated with Hezbollah's financial operation after giving people in the target areas 20 minutes' notice to evacuate. //

This has created a cash shortage for an organization that needs a large cash flow to pay fighters, benefits to the families of slain fighters, and to carry out the social work that propelled Hezbollah into prominence in Lebanese politics. Because Hezbollah doesn't have access to international banking channels, it requires large quantities of cash to operate. Recall that when the Israelis bounced a JDAM off Hasan Nasrallah's turban, over $500 million in cash and gold was also lost. //

“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” Asher noted.

“I’ve heard from my Israeli counterparts that the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons,” he added.

Jennifer Van Laar
@jenvanlaar
·
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🚨🚨 NEW: A US intelligence source tells RedState that the Top Secret documents leaked were leaked from the Pentagon's office of low intensity conflict/special operations - which is where suspected Iranian spy Ariane Tabatabai works with Christopher Maier https://wilsoncenter.org/person/ariane-tabatabai
11:04 PM · Oct 19, 2024

As Van Laar and Streiff have reported, numerous red flags have been raised regarding Tabatabai and Biden's special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley. //

Rep. Mike Waltz
@michaelgwaltz
·
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It’s crystal clear: the Biden-Harris administration has been infiltrated by pro-Iranian apologists.
Jason Brodsky
@JasonMBrodsky
Very serious: CNN reports the documents that appeared on a pro #Iran regime Telegram channel are authentic and were marked top secret and have markings indicating they are to be seen only by the Five Eyes.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics/us-israel-iran-intelligence-documents/index.html
8:35 PM · Oct 19, 2024 //

Indeed. Biden's and Harris' silence on the matter thus far speaks volumes. //
StPHarper
an hour ago
In the mid-1970s, other soldiers and I were told that; because we were 'in the know,' as holders of TSSI clearances, if we ever simply commented on the validity or falseness of any published articles, we would be subject to punishment. Such punishment could include: loss of clearance, reduction in rank, court martial, and possibly time in Leavenworth. And now we can read this:

According to CNN, one person in the intelligence community confirmed the authenticity of the documents, thereby raising the level of seriousness of the breach.

We are not the same country for which others, and I, have served. This sh*t has got to stop.

soxfan4life StPHarper
37 minutes ago
Weird I was told for the rest of my natural life. These people spill the beans and face zero consequences. And then wonder why we hate them. //

bk
2 hours ago

Waltz: "It’s crystal clear: the Biden-Harris administration has been infiltrated by pro-Iranian apologists."

I wouldn't say "infiltrated", since that means they sneaked in for nefarious reasons opposed to what is intended.