Why Iran is more dangerous than Islamic State

Los Angeles Times ^ | September 29, 2016 4:00 AM | Moshe Ya’alon

[ETL]

Israel also would not condemn Russia on some sort of UN action condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Donald Trump: 'Putin has eaten Obama's lunch' on Ukraine

Mar 13, 2014
Eun Kyung Kim: TODAY

Donald Trump slammed President Obama Thursday on TODAY for failing to take a stronger line against President Vladimir Putin in dealing with Ukraine, saying he feared Obama would now make up for lost time with imprudent moves to "show his manhood."

The real estate mogul and reality-TV star, who has criticized Putin for sending military troops into Crimea, said Obama must now take fierce steps to prevent the situation from escalating further.

"We should definitely do sanctions and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time," Trump said. ..."

http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-putin-has-eaten-obamas-lunch-ukraine-2D79372098

[ETL]

Trump: Iran Deal Requires U.S. Protecting Iran in Event of Israeli Strike

by Jacob Kornbluh
Sept 2, 2015

In a phone interview with CNN Tuesday evening, Trump claimed that there's "something in the Iran deal" that "people don't understand" saying if someone attacks Iran, "we have to come to their defense."

"Does that include Israel?" Trump asked. "And most people say yes, they don't have an exclusion for Israel. So if Israel attacks Iran, according to that deal, I believe, the way it reads, unless they have a codicil or they have something to it, that we have to fight with Iran against Israel." ..."

Trump was most probably referring to language highlighted by the opponents of the deal. On page 142, the deal includes a clause that states, "Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran's ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems."

Washington-based Center for Security Policy asserted that Annex III appears "to commit the United States and other world powers to the defense of Iran's nuclear program."

http://jpupdates.com/2015/09/02/trump-iran-deal-requires-u-s-protecting-iran-in-event-of-israeli-strike/

[ETL]

Soviet documents ‘show Abbas was KGB agent’; Fatah decries ‘smear campaign’

Israeli researchers: Notes from USSR archivist who defected indicate PA president was working for Soviets in Damascus in 1980s while Putin’s current Mideast envoy was stationed there

By Tamar Pileggi September 7, 2016.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel’s Channel 1 television reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an archive smuggled out of the USSR.

According to Channel 1’s foreign news editor Oren Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983.

The documents — obtained by Israeli researchers Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez — purportedly show that Abbas, code-named Krotov (mole), was involved with the Soviets while Mikhail Bogdanov, today Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East. was stationed in Damascus.

Bogdanov was caught in a diplomatic tussle earlier this week after trying to broker a summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, who both claimed a willingness to meet while decrying the other for allegedly refusing. ..."

http://www.timesofisrael.com/soviet-documents-said-to-reveal-abbas-was-kgb-agent-in-syria/

[Tours]

“There is more of an alliance between Iran and ISIS than meets the eye, furthermore.”

Really?? Last I saw Iran is working with Assad to wipe out Saudi (and likely U.S.) backed ISIS. What we are seeing is a Civil War that is far more than being just about who controls Syria. It is a Sunni v. Shiite Civil War. If they wish to slaughter themselves - so be it, but Uncle Sam needs to stay out of it.

[Tours]

Not falling for anybody’s propaganda, including yours.
The U.S. needs to stay out of intra-Islamic slaughter.

[Olog-hai]

Not happening. Stop believing the propaganda. Obama and Iran collaborated to turn Al-Qa’eda in Iraq into ISIS (which Obama calls “ISIL” or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, acknowledging them to have a claim on Israel); part of that was his unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, and of course his phony “red lines” in Syria, ad libitum et nauseam.

Now Iran is even so bold as to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz. And if their Houthi proxies in Yemen take over there, they could even have a grip on the Mandeb Strait. All with Obama’s help.

Also, what happened in Libya? Working to Iran’s advantage.

[BeadCounter]

Thanks ETL, Olog, Mad Max and everyone, sorry if I forget some names, remember, we can’t really hash it out unless we talk about things. I’m calling it a day.

And yes, I know we hear Assad protects Christians but you do get some counter stories and even one “healthy” opposition leader is Christian.

Assad emptied his jails of Jihadists to fight the American forces in Iraq; Saddam did similar.

There’s a whole lot to this. That’s all I’ve got to say, I do consider the Islamo-Nazi ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters to be more of a threat.

I know Michelle Bachmann even wanted to give Obama a blank check to fight Iran. I’m just not there though on this.

[Olog-hai]

There is no “intra-Islamic slaughter”. Read Sun Tzu’s book, “The Art Of War”: one of the chief tenets of defeating one’s enemy is to feign internecine disorder.

And the weaker we get over there, the stronger they get towards our coasts. Never mind Kerry opening the floodgates to Islamic terrorists south of our border with his absurd declaration of the Monroe Doctrine to be dead.

[Olog-hai]

The caliber of Christians in Syria that have gone along with the Ba’ath Party are not the kind of Christians I would associate with. The Ba’ath doctrine is national-socialist, literally (thus a Nazi doctrine, albeit more centered around so-called pan-Arabism than specifically Islamic, but still accentuates the supremacy of Islam and the dhimmitude of Christianity). Any non-Ba’ath Christian would be regarded as an enemy by the regime.

[The Westerner]

Hitler also told the German people exactly what he planned to do. They elected him freely. Many Jews believed him and left there homes for other lands; most did not think it possible.

[Olog-hai]

PS. Got any criticism of Obama? Any at all?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

#77. You raise some good points about what Netanyahu is thinking in going to see Putin and vice versa.

Could be the old “Keep your friends close, but your enemies (or potential enemies, or those who arm your enemies), closer.

I don’t know but I do know that Bibi will do whatever is possible (with a few restraints imposed by Obama) to preserve the very existence of Israel, and that might include a nuclear strike on Iran’s nuclear sites and weapons systems (ICBMs etc).

He might be letting Putin know that he is just the man who will do it. Putin is no fool. He has to way his desires to redominate a lot of Europe while keeping a friendly psychopathic regime with nuclear weapons (in existence or easily to assembly and use), or to risk losing all of the Middle East influence he has built up in the past 10 years (Syrian bases, Iran as a shield against Sunni/Wahabist terrorism, oil supplies, etc).

This is more than a “Game of Thrones”. It is a game of survival and dominance. Right now the US is losing in both arenas and it isn’t going to get any better.

The Russians launched more airstrikes in Syria against everyone in a month than we did in a year. That says it all.

Remember about 75% of our aircraft, for a long time, never dropped their ordnance on targets in Iraq (ISIS, esp. convoys), or in Syria (for fear of hitting civilians - ROE).
That is no way to win a war, and JCS (under Gen. Dempsey, a curse on his cowardice)folded before Obama like a cheap suit in the sun.

As a reporter I used to cover the Pentagon, SVN/Cambodia, etc. and got to meet a lot of real generals and admirals, as I have often mentioned at FR before. Just a brief recap (Adm. Arleigh Burke, Dan Galley, Middendorf, McCain (CINCOMPAC), Jerry Denton; Generals Lemniter, Taylor, Chappie James (USAF); Ed Lansdale’s top aide in SVN Gen. Bernie Yoh (SACO - Kuomintang; Gen. John Singlaub (WW2, VN-SOG, So. Korea -fought Carter on troop withdrawals; Gen. Daniel Graham, DIA, CIA, US Military Chief in VN, and post-war classmate of mine.

These were realistic fighters. They knew who the enemy was and that they had to be fought and defeated when allowed. They were not risk-taskers, but very smart men who had to make tremendous life and death decisions. Obviously they were right because we are still here and free (in VN they were betrayed at home by a weak president and a Democrat-red Congress). Otherwise we would have won the war much earlier than anyone could have thought. (I even got that from a No. Vietnamese Colonel and a possible General (my notes list him as a General) who defected. I interviewed in Saigon in 1970. They knew we could defeat them.

Long comment but I’ve been in the journalism/research/internal security fields since 1968 and have met our “best and bravest”. They always served/fought to win. Today, our gutless “leaders” only fight to keep their seats in Congress and political positions. Some are still trying to sell us out and it looks like they are winning.

Obama can proudly say about his efforts to “fundamentally transform America” and to “disarm it”, “YES I DID”. Clinton would only be the next batter in line to finish the game.

[Olog-hai]

The more I see how war has been waged after 1945, the more I’m convinced that the communists’ goal of taking over both major US political parties (outlined in the twelfth chapter of “The Naked Communist”) had been achieved during the years beforehand. Especially with respect to the creation of the UN (as Alger Hiss had set it up, with the charter being a clone of the USSR’s constitution) and the sudden nuclear proliferation in the Second World.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

#87. Good comments about Assad sending jailed jihadists to fight the US in Iraq. Well worth noting.

However, forgotten in this discussion is that in the 1990’s, we a probable, very dangerous situation arising in the Middle East (also the Osirik nuclear facility that Israel destroyed in Iraq, I think it was 1988 or ).

This was the development of a “Nuclear Triad” of radical Arab/Moslem states - Iran, Iraq and Syria. We know that Iran definitely had a program (with aid from Pakistan - which could have also involved No. Korea, possibly Red China and even Russia (some equipment).

Syria, we know, has tried to build secret nuclear facilities for decades. Fortunately the Israelis keep taking them out.

Saddam had dreams and physical plans for a nuclear arsenal eventhough a lot of his speeches were bluster at that time, but IN THE 15 years from the time the Israelis took out a basically functioning nuclear weapons research facility in Iraq, to the invasion in 2003, Iran and Syria were definitely trying to build nuclear weapons.

If the US hadn’t taken out Saddam’s invasion forces of Kuwait in 1991, no one knows how far along his nuclear program, even if in its infancy, would have been.

Jump forward to the 2010’s and what would we have been facing if Saddam’s program wasn’t stopped and Syria’s program wasn’t destroyed.

You guessed it. Three totalitarian Middle Eastern regimes with some basic to advanced nuclear bombs and missile systems (Syria is only a missile throw from most major Israeli cities).

If you don’t think that Israel was going to stand by and allow their own annihilation, then have I got some news for you.

Today we have the psychopaths of Teheran with nukes or nukes on the verge of birth, but the real threats from Syria have been destroyed and the potential threats from Iraq obliterated.

Just an assessment of what was out there that people too often forget about when viewing Iran, Syria, etc.

The game was bigger than most could comprehend, and the stakes higher. But do to the cowardice of Obama (or a clever plan to make Iran the balancer of power in the ME as against Israel and the US), we are now faced with the rise of ISIS, the Russian saving of the Assad regime in Syria, a Russian expanded presence in the Middle East/Iran, and an Iran hell-bent on destroying Israel and anyone else they are pissed off at.

Sleep well, my friend. It is only going to get worse.

By the way, to all Freepers, a Happy New Year from us oldie Jews, celebrating the year 5777 on our calendar.

Printing Jewish calendars is one of the world’s oldest professions, next to politics and prostitution.

[nathanbedford]

It’s not just Iran, if that isn’t a big enough threat. It’s Iran + Russia, the ChiComs, North Korea, and several marxist regimes in Latin America, all of which are tight with Iran and Russia, particularly Venezuela.

Finally!

The threat from Iran coupled as it is with Russia and others is by far more dangerous. Armed with the bomb, it upsets the balance of power in the oil-rich Middle East where it ignites an arms race to get the bomb, it upsets the balance of power in the whole world, it threatens the disintegration of NATO, it threatens to flank America from the South, it threatens to turn nations in the South China Sea such as the Philippines, and ultimately to encourage defeatism and surrender in America.

Those who reflexively support Vladimir Putin because it is the flavor of the week are utterly misguided.

[Olog-hai]

The same Putin who said recently that the Moral Code for the Builder of Communism is just like the Holy Bible, even going so far as to claim it’s excerpted from the Bible?

I’m hearing some troubling stories out of Russia these days too, with respect to the possible persecution of Protestants. Also rhetoric about the Orthodox Church being the “one true church” and any other Christians being heretical.

[ETL]

Putin: Defender of Christian Faith and Morality?

September 2014

(excerpt from a long, detailed article)

First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.

It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.

But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.

In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.

Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.

Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:

According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.

Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.

Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."

much more at link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/19162-putin-defender-of-christian-faith-and-morality

***********************************************************

"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."

"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[ETL]

From Sept 2016!!

Russia 'to revive the KGB' after Putin wins biggest majority

Telegraph (UK) ^ | 19 September 2016 • 3:39PM | Marc Bennetts

Russia plans effectively to revive the KGB under a massive shake-up of its security forces, a respected business daily has reported.

A State Security Ministry, or MGB, would be created from the current Federal Security Service (FSB) , and would incorporate the foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the state guard service (FSO), under the plans. It would be handed all-encompassing powers once possessed by the KGB, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing security service sources.

Like the much-feared KGB, it would also oversee the prosecutions of Kremlin critics, a task currently undertaken by the Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a former university classmate of President Putin. The Kremlin has not commented. …

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...

[ETL]

The threat from Iran coupled as it is with Russia and others is by far more dangerous. Armed with the bomb, it upsets the balance of power in the oil-rich Middle East where it ignites an arms race to get the bomb, it upsets the balance of power in the whole world, it threatens the disintegration of NATO, it threatens to flank America from the South

How Russia arms America's southern neighbors

Ioan Grillo
May 9, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Russia's push into Ukraine has put many on edge. But less known is that Russia is also strengthening its military links south of the Rio Grande and re-establishing itself as a power in the region.

Vladimir Putin has been strengthening military links here, and Russia is now the largest arms dealer to governments in Latin America, surpassing the United States.

Russia has even floated the possibility of building new military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and putting its warships permanently in the Caribbean.

In the midst of the Ukraine crisis, Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov recently visited Cuba, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, where he announced that Russia would also pour money into the new Central American canal project. ..."

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/140508/russian-arms-military-trade-latin-america
___________________________________________________

Russia Boosts Arms, Training for Leftist Latin Militaries

Moscow defense minister inks deals with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua for joint exercises

BY: Bill Gertz
February 20, 2015

Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said.

Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb. 11 to 14. It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit.

Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu recently promised would include flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-boosts-arms-training-for-leftist-latin-militaries/

[ETL]

Thanks, FRiend. You’ve done quite a bit yourself. :)