dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ
@DahliaKurtz
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NEW TERROR ATTACK ON ISRAEL

At least 5 explosives detonated on buses in the Tel Aviv area.

Thankfully Hamas terrorists are the result of inbreeding. So bombs that were meant to go off at 9am — during rush hour — went off at 9pm.

Netanyahu has convened an emergency meeting. Show more

8:48 PM · Feb 20, 2025

Unfortunately for those in the streets, there are times when the hard won lessons of the past have to be relearned at great cost…and if not learned the price may well be your very soul. //

The original essay framed a two state solution upending the current paradigm that would have Israel trading land for peace as it has done so many times without securing peace. The solution would require the Arab nations and Turkey to trade land for peace…while creating a new nation.
“The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey drove out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese—and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.
Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.” Eric Hoffer
(Note: The late British historian Arnold Toynbee condemned Zionism vociferously but he eventually had to acknowledge his hostility was “disproportionate” and misplaced i.e. he ascribed to Zionism his contempt for Western colonialism. Toynbee was a Chatham House apologist ahead of his time) //

There are Middle East “experts” who believe Israel, Iran, Turkey and Egypt are vying to be the regional hegemon when in truth Israel simply wants to live in peace and Iran is in such a precarious position it cannot influence the emerging reality on the ground. On the other hand, after leaving tens of billions in equipment to the Taliban and strengthening Iran at every opportunity the Biden administration has continued the Obama policy of arming the enemies of Israel with the State Department informing Congress on December 20th 2024 it had approved the sale of $4.69 billion in equipment including 555 US-made M1A1 Abrams tanks and $630 million for 2,183 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles along with $30 million in precision-guided munitions to Egypt.
Egypt has no neighbors to defend against that would require 555 US-made M1A1 Abrams tanks and $630 million for 2,183 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles along with $30 million in precision-guided munitions…except Israel. The axis developing is that of a north, Turkey, and south, Egypt, alliance against Israel and controlling Syria would put Turkey on Israel’s border. Open your eyes; Egypt is remilitarizing the Sinai; building numerous highway tunnels under the Suez that open to numerous highways to nowhere in the Sinai while quadrupling its arms storage facilities along the canal i.e. preparing for war against Israel in violation of the Israel/Egypt peace treaty. .
Not only has Egypt militarized the Sinai and violate international law by not accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza into the Sinai as a signatory to the African Union Convention on Refugees it has now been proven the Rafah border was laced with tunnels allowing for Hamas to be armed. Egypt is not an ally of the west. //

Trump would be well advised to 1) remove the 60 or so B-60 nuclear gravity bombs from Incirlik, Turkey, before withdrawing given Erdogan has hinted the bombs belong to Turkey under adverse possession, then 2) stop the sale of military equipment to Egypt, and finally, 3)insist upon a NATO blackout of Turkey. The truth is Turkey is not an ally of the west and hasn’t been for decades; Turkey is an Islamic enemy that should be treated as such…with suspicion and utmost caution.
Defusing the situation will require a strong dose of fear God…the beginning of wisdom.

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
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TRUMP: “If those hostages aren’t back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas. They should’ve given them back a long time ago. They should’ve never taken them. There should’ve never been an attack on Oct 7th.”

12:34 PM · Jan 7, 2025 //

Trump and his choice for Middle East envoy intimated that some headway was being made behind the scenes: //

SESummers
5 hours ago
From the river to the sea, Palestine will no longer be.

bubbavirus
6 hours ago
From the liver to the knees blam blam blam 💥

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.

The troubled, terrorist-infested United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is preparing to close its doors after a half-century of fomenting violence rather than economic development and peace in Israel and Israeli-administered territory. The decision was not made because of some sudden wave of guilt and shame sweeping the agency after the savagery of the October 7, 2023, attacks launched on Israeli civilians but because of new Israeli laws; see Israel to UNRWA: Get Out. The laws, passed on October 28, 2024, forbid UNRWA to operate within Israel and, more importantly, forbid any Israeli official from communicating with UNRWA. //

Even though UNRWA resolutely denied all evidence of its complicity in the October 7 attacks and how its funding had been used to turn Gaza into a warren of terrorist tunnels (UNRWA Spokesman Gives Insane CNN Interview Amidst Hostage Scandal), there was a moment of high irony when Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed on October 17. Both of his bodyguards were UNRWA employees; see WILD: Incredible Footage Shows Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar Up-Close and Personal Just Before His Death.

Steve Guest @SteveGuest
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.@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
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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...

There is no Palestinian language. There is no distinct Palestinian ethnicity. The term didn't exist before the Roman Empire invented it to tweak rebellious Jews, leveraging the traditional Jewish foes, the Philistines. And yet the international community, especially the left, keeps joining the "Palestinian" activists in calling for a Palestinian homeland, to be carved out of the tiny state of Israel. Most of the Arab-Muslim nations in that part of the world don't recognize Israel, calling it by the Roman name "Palestine," even though before the Romans changed the name, it was called "Judea" — the homeland of the Jews, an appellation that goes back for thousands of years.

To the east of Judea/Palestine/Israel, there are a people who, unlike Palestinians, are ethnically distinct, linguistically distinct, a people who have been recognized as such for thousands of years — Kurdish warriors may have been among the forces that harried the Greek Xenophon during the March of the Ten Thousand in 401 BC, as documented in the Anabasis. The Kurds are like the Palestinians in one primary way: They do not have a homeland. There is no internationally recognized nation of Kurdistan.

So why does the left continually call for a homeland for the Palestinians and not for the Kurds? //

There is, sadly, little chance of the Kurds achieving a nation of their own. There will not be a Kurdistan. The best these people can hope for is a lessening of Turkish hostility and some increased autonomy for Kurdish people in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. This is a legacy of the Great War, the treaties that carved up the Ottoman Empire, and the rather arbitrary creation of borders by the victorious Allies. Fortunes of war and all that.

But the hypocrisy remains, and it is galling. It's also revealing. The American left, in particular, loves to shout about the need for a Palestinian homeland. Never mind that what passes for Palestinian leadership has turned down offers for a two-state solution many times. The American left, meanwhile, ignores the Kurds, who, again, unlike the Palestinians, are ethnically and linguistically distinct, and have been for thousands of years.

Why? I can only think of one reason. The Kurds, to achieve independence, would have to have territory carved out from majority-Muslim nations: Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The Palestinians want Israel. All of it. From the river to the sea. Kurdish independence would result in a Kurdish nation. Palestinian independence would result in the destruction (or, at least, the attempted destruction) of Israel.

Once you realize that, the left's hypocrisy starts to make sense. //

Dieter Schultz Jim Stewart
8 hours ago
From what I've read, the Israelis see the Kurds as a stabilizing and blocking force between the Israelis and the Iranians. The Israelis are already working behind the scenes to help establish the Kurds as a blocking force... I expect the Kurds to get something out of the dissolution of Syria. //

anon-89ic
9 hours ago
The Kurds are a real nation. The "Palestinians" are a myth. Those Arabs have a home--in Arabia. They should be deported there. //

norcalguy101
7 hours ago
Please stop referring to the residents of Gaza as “Palestinians”,
They are not Palestinians. The are Sunni Muslims.
In the cast social system of Islam, they are considered to be no better than dogs by the Arab states and Iran, a Persian state.
Rush Limbaugh. RIP, informed his audience long ago the coining the residents of Gaza as Palestinians was a ploy by Yassar Arafat to elicit the emotions of the brain dead in the Western World: liberals.
Please refer to them in the proper ethnic context.

Even by the horrifying standards of Middle East savagery, the mass grave discovered in Syria with 100,000-plus bodies stands out for its hideousness.

Indeed, the world hasn’t seen anything like it since the days of Hitler and Stalin.

And it’s just one of several such graves, courtesy of the country’s recently ousted barbaric strongman, Bashar al-Assad.

Since 2012, Assad is suspected of torturing and killing possibly hundreds of thousands of his own citizens and foes.

It’s a testament to his depravity, following in the footsteps of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who similarly slayed dissenters with abandon.

Democrats like President Biden, Veep Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weren’t outraged by the long-running Assad death factory but by an imaginary “genocide” the Jewish state is supposedly waging against Palestinians.

No, it didn’t start with them: Who can forget President Barack Obama’s “red line,” threatening a US military response if Assad deployed chemical weapons against his enemies?

Yet when the Syrian Army fired missiles laced with sarin gas into neighborhoods controlled by the opposition, killing more than 1,400 civilians, Obama did . . . nothing.

Actually, he and then-Secretary of State John Kerry invited in Vladimir Putin — asking Russia to help “resolve” the crisis (well, end Obama’s embarrassment) by coming in and saying it had collected Syria’s chems.

Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 @JewsFightBack
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Israel to Ireland: If you’re going to embrace extreme anti-Israel policies, don’t expect us to stick around for tea.

Embassy CLOSED.
Last edited
10:38 AM · Dec 15, 2024 //

“The antisemitic actions and rhetoric that Ireland is taking against Israel are based on delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state and on double standards,” says Foreign Minister Gideon] Sa’ar in a statement. “Ireland has crossed all red lines in its relationship with Israel. Israel will invest its resources in promoting bilateral relations with the countries of the world according to priorities that are also derived from the attitude of the various countries towards it.”

At the same time, Sa’ar announces that Israel will open an embassy in Moldova, which already has an embassy in Israel. The opening is expected to occur in the next year, and Israel is beginning the process of finding a site and appointing an ambassador.

“There are countries that are interested in strengthening their ties with Israel and do not yet have an Israeli embassy,” says Sa’ar. “We will adjust the Israeli diplomatic structure of our missions while giving weight, among other things, to the approach and actions of the various countries towards Israel in the political arena.”. //

jester6
24 minutes ago edited
I have known a few Irish, including natives, not just expats and immigrants. The Irish seem to have a reflexive response to side with rebels and underdogs, no matter the cause or politics. They love Palestinians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Iranians, and anyone fighting a bigger force. I honestly think if some whacky Ayn Rand inspired insurgency sought to overthrow the government of Canada, the Irish would send them military aid.

Maybe that's why my Irish friends in college seemed to only pick bar fights when the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against us.

Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society in London has spearheaded an effort to examine the Gaza Health Ministry figures, and the result is that the health ministry numbers are completely unreliable. //

The number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict has been inflated to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people, a report claims.

Researchers accuse the Gaza ministry of health of overstating casualty data by including natural deaths, failing to differentiate between civilian and combat casualties and over-reporting the numbers of women and children killed.

The study by the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, claims the figures have been manipulated by the Hamas-run authorities in Gaza for propaganda purposes, with international media outlets happy to repeat them uncritically…..

The report found numerous statistical anomalies and inaccuracies. Researchers say that around 5,000 natural deaths, which would have happened even without the conflict, appear to have been added to the list of casualties, including cancer patients who later appeared on lists of those still receiving hospital treatment….

“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living [in Israel].

He calls for the Syrian Druze to be freed from the “injustice and oppression” that was first imposed on them by the Assad regime, and which they fear will soon be imposed on them again by the Islamist rebel groups. //

Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby
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BREAKING: The Druze leader of al-Suwayda in southwestern Syria issued a statement for his village.

“We will not agree to live under the rule of the rebels, who are identical to ISIS, we want to live under Israeli rule and become part of Israel.”

8:44 PM · Dec 12, 2024. //

Stuytown | December 14, 2024 at 12:38 am
These people are in a very difficult position. I can’t imagine Israel taking them in. It would incur the wrath of the world, as usual, and Israel would need to expand its defenses to these Druze. The Druze are justified in their fear of the “rebels.” After this video of the meeting came out, a second video of a meeting was released. It had fewer people participating and looked staged. In it, the people vote to stay in Syria. They are scared.

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.

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.

Gili Cohen @gilicohen10
·
SCOOP: Qatar has conveyed to Hamas representatives on its soil - You're no longer welcomed here. More details on this major change - tonight at @kann_news
9:58 AM · Nov 8, 2024. //

While the Democrats preached fear about Trump, the reality is that bad actors fear strength and take advantage of weakness. They've had weakness with Biden and Harris for four years. They know the strength is coming back, and they're now backpedaling in the face of it.

Some like Townhall's Katie Pavlich are calling it the "Trump Effect."

We're likely to see a lot more of this as people realize sanity, and the real adults, are going to be back in charge in January.

Time of Israel : “The United States is continuing to send forces to the Middle East ahead of an expected Iranian attack on Israel, with flight tracking sites showing American F-15E aircraft en route to Jordan.” //

The U.S. is bolstering its military presence in the region after intelligence reports suggested that Iran might attack Israel using Iraqi territory.

“The U.S. is trying to deter Iran from attacking Israel and is concerned that if it does strike Israel from Iraqi soil it would further escalate the regional war,” the Axios reported Tuesday. “Israeli and U.S. intelligence indicates Iran is planning a significant attack against Israel from Iraqi soil in the coming days (…).”