Posted on 11/09/2008 2:12:32 PM PST by Michael Eden
There's a coming crisis looming that may make every situation the world has faced since World War II look like a children's game. President-elect Obama isn't ready for it. Are you?
There is already historical precedent that Israel will attack Iran during the U.S. Presidential transition. Israel attacked a target in Lebanon in December of 1988 - during the Reagan-Bush transition. In a Jerusalem Post article Historian Benny Morris describes that operation, and notes:
The operation took place one month after US President George H. Bush was voted into office, and a month before he was sworn in, replacing the popular Ronald Reagan, a leader widely viewed as a staunch ally of Israel.Joe Biden warned of an "international crisis" to test a young and inexperienced President Obama:Operation Blue and Brown says nothing about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran today. But it does show that IDF operations have been ordered in the interim period between the election of a new American president and his inauguration.
And it is this same period in 2008/09 that provides an "attractive date" for Israel to strike Iran's nuclear program, according to historian Benny Morris.
In June, Morris wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in which he theorized that Israel would likely strike Iran between November 5 and January 19, the day before Obama is sworn in.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post this week, Morris said he continued to believe that time period was a "reasonable" one for Israeli action.
"There is certainly a friendly president in the White House until January 20. There is no certainty over what will happen after that, in which direction the wind will blow.
The second thing is the advancement by the Iranians in creating the bomb," Morris said, speaking from his home in Li'on, southwest of Beit Shemesh. Morris said the Iranian regime was guided by messianic clerics who could not be trusted to act logically in a state of mutually assured destruction (MAD).
"These men are not rational like the men who ruled America and Russia during the Cold War. When [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad talks about destroying Israel and denies the Holocaust, we hear no contrary voices from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei saying that Ahmadinejad is crazy," Morris said.
"So long as Iran makes progress, we are under pressure, if we plan on doing something. Iran is supposed to purchase advanced anti-aircraft guns from Russia at the start of 2009. All of these point to the fact that if the US provides support, an Israeli strike is reasonable," he said.
Acknowledging the lame-duck nature of the Olmert administration, Morris said the difficulties posed by a weak government could be overcome by notifying the leaders of the major political parties in advance of the attack. He even raised the possibility that a date had already been chosen.
“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”And, somewhat disturbingly, Biden said, "we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
Biden went on to say:
I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, ‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you now, I’m asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us.”“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,” Biden continued. “Because if you think the decision is sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”"Gird your loins," Biden warned.
Have you "girded"? I have a feeling you'll be using your girdle for a much-needed diaper when this mess hits the rotary oscillator.
(IsraelNN.com) John Bolton, former American Ambassador to the United Nations, told a London newspaper Tuesday that Israel will attack Iran if Senator Barack Obama is elected President. He predicted the attack would take place between the day after the elections, in early November, and January 20, when the next president succeeds George W. Bush.The interview with Bolton continued:
Bolton told the newspaper that if Senator Obama is elected in November, Israel cannot afford to wait until he takes office on January 20, before taking action. "An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," according to Bolton, who served as ambassador to the U.N. for less than two years until 2006.It's not just John Bolton. The former head of the Israeli Mossad - one of the most esteemed figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment - has also openly advocated an major strike against Iran in the immediate future. And Western intelligence sources are saying, "An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program "will most probably take place before 2009.""My judgment is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election," he added. "The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defenses by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations."
He said that Israel might be able to delay a strike if Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is elected. Bolton said the Republican candidate's position is "much more realistic than the Bush administration's stance."
And Israel's Debka File has stated that US intelligence is warning that Iran may have the bomb as early as February of 2009.
Israel has been practicing for something big. On June 20, more than a hundred Israeli aircraft staged a massive exercise. The Jerusalem Post, in an article titled, "Iran: IAF drill jeopardizes global peace," opened by saying, "Iran criticized on Saturday a recent Israeli military exercise that US officials said was designed to show Jerusalem's ability to attack Teheran's nuclear sites."
Hot dang, would it ever get have-a-massive-coronary-terrifying if a major ally of the United States attacked a major ally of Russia to attack nuclear facilities (as in unleashing massive radioactive debris?). The world would go to hell in a hand basket so fast it you'll have to lie down or else fall over, and all this with that naive young appeaser President Obama not even sworn in yet! I mean, Israel would be bombing stuff in Iran that Russia built for them. Iran is already ranting and raving about Israel, and Israel hasn't even done anything to them yet. How close do you think we'll get to World War III, sports fans?
I hope you're ready to ride that roller coaster, because, judging by the polls, it is more probable that you voted for it than that you voted against it.
You voted for it in spite of watchmen on the wall like me have been shouting, "We warned you! We warned you! WE WARNED YOU!" over and over and over again.
I have been writing about the problem of Iran for months. Given the fact that we will now have a President who fundamentally opposed the reasoning of the Iraq War, how on earth can he justify a war with Iran?
Sanctions haven't worked, and they won't work. The United Nations - which has never done anything useful anyway - will again be no help, with key Iranian allies Russia and China wielding veto status as permanent members of the Security Council. Both nations have already repeatedly blocked US and European sanction efforts against Iran's nuclear program. They will continue to guarantee that no international measure with any teeth passes. And Europe - which relies heavily on Russian and Iranian oil, can hardly be counted upon as a strong ally.
Europe doesn't want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. But that doesn't mean all that much. I didn't want Barack Obama to be elected President. Fat lot of good "not wanting" did me. Only a steel-eyed unyielding commitment to the use of massive military force has any chance of swaying Iran from its goal. And Europe simply isn't willing to go that far.
This would be comical, if the stakes weren't so incredibly deadly, and if this same game hadn't already been played before in Iraq. The United States was ultimately forced to attack Iraq because there was no chance of passing international sanctions that would have been able to force Iraq to demonstrate that it had disarmed.
Barack Obama, by having opposed an attack on Iraq, fundamentally opposes any attack against Iran. The situations are nearly identical politically. Just as with Iraq, the United States can never know for certain that Iran has nuclear weapons, and isn't merely bluffing, as Iraq was alleged to have done. Every major intelligence service in the world believe Iraq had WMD; and even senior Iraqi officials believed Saddam had WMD prior to the invasion. Given the persistent failure to get any meaningful sanctions passed against Iran - just as was the case against Iraq - there is no reason whatsoever to believe that we will be able to do so in the future, whether President Obama is personally charming or not. And - just as was the case against Iraq - we have a coalition of enemies actively aiding and protecting Iran in international diplomacy efforts, just as we have weak European allies that benefit from the product Iran is producing.
If you believe that Barack Obama is going to be able to talk Iran out of developing nuclear weapons, you are the very worst kind of naive fool. Neither Iran or Russia will join hands with the choir Barack Obama will be able to assemble to sing, "We are the world." The "harmony" and "unity" Obama has inspired will be proven to be completely artificial the moment the first real test comes along. And it is coming.
Iran has demonstrated that it is utterly determined to develop its nuclear program to its logical conclusion: weaponizing. US intelligence has said that it can "Assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure." In fact Iran has only blinked once: in 2003, immediately after the United States invaded Iraq over that country's alleged WMD arsenal. Bottom line: Iran didn't want to be next.
By opposing the Iraq War, Barack Obama de facto opposed Iran's halting its nuclear program, and opposed the only meaningful threat that would stop Iran from its determined course in the future.
John McCain - by standing on the principles of the Iraq War, and by standing by his commitment to employ the successful surge strategy to win that war - was the only hope the world had to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons without war. Iran very likely would have believed an assurance from John McCain that he would attack Iran rather than allow it to possess nuclear weapons. It is extremely unlikely that Iran will believe Barack Obama, given his history of opposing a virtually identical war with Iraq. The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama was the assurance of military action versus the rhetoric of a meaningless threat.
And that is why it is highly likely that Israel will attack Iran. The only thing that will prevent them from attacking before Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, 2009 is the fact that their own government is in transition and may not be able to act effectively before then. That is why I have said that a vote for Obama would be a vote for a nuclear Iran. It's why I ultimately believe that a vote for Obama will ultimately result in a vote for Armageddon.
A nuclear-armed Iran will be able to pursue both direct and indirect (via terrorist organization intermediaries) global jihad with complete impunity. Again, that was exactly what President Bush feared would occur if Iraq was able to develop WMD. For to attack them with such weapons at their disposal would be to risk a nuclear holocaust.
Israel is a tiny country. A single nuclear weapon of sufficient megatonnage could destroy the whole nation and produce in just one day a worse Holocaust than Hitler achieved in years. And Iran's leadership has clearly demonstrated that they are insane enough to do anything, given their apocalyptic religious fanaticism. A nuclear Iran is far more terrifying than a nuclear Russia, or even a nuclear North Korea. Both President Ahmadinejab and the Ayatollah Khamenei (who called for the destruction of "cancerous tumor" Israel) have made their position clear. Iranian leaders have consistently voiced their determination to wipe Israel off the map. Israel simply cannot take a chance.
Just as was the case with World War II - when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's aversion to war and determination to pursue dialogue (without preconditions, by the way) invariably resulted in a far greater and far more destructive global conflagration - President Barack Obama's aversion to face a preemptive war with determined evil tyrants may well result in the deaths of untold millions.
I hope we're ready. We voted for it.
Just so you know, the Bible speaks of the war of Gog and Magog in the last days, with Russia and Iran leading an Arab-African coalition against Israel. The Book of Ezekial chapters 38 and 39 spell it out to any who have ears to hear. The Antichrist/beast of Bible prophecy won't come in a time of prosperity and peace; he'll come during a time of crisis. And we are headed for the very crisis that will see the world welcome the son of perdition as a savior.
My personal view: President Barack Obama will be one of the "false messiahs" that Jesus described. He too is seen as a savior, but he will lead the United States to catastrophe. Ezekiel 38:13 describes the rest of the world as merely standing idly by and wondering what is going on as the Russian-Iranian-Arab/African confederation attack a lone Israel. The nations are potrayed as worrying only about what the attack will have on the global economy. And for the first time in the history of the Israeli-American alliance, the United States is virtually at that point right now. Somehow, the United States - the historic ally and protector of Israel - had to be rendered unable or unwilling to come to Israel's aid when it most counts. I see the United States being too weakened to help Israel both in terms of its economy and its loyalty.
The pawns are all in position. The board is nearly set. The most terrifying game in human history is about to be played out across the global stage.
I noticed that too, but she is not running for President!!!
The buzz for an air strike by Israel does not seem to be raising the contract price on Intrade.
Current Events - Iran
US/Israeli Overt Air Strike against Iran (Rule 1.8 Applies)
Contract Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.DEC08
USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 31 Dec 2008 M Trade 4.0 5.8 4.4 9932 -3.9
AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.MAR09
USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 31 Mar 2009 M Trade 10.0 12.0 10.0 2207 0
AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.JUN09
USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 30 Jun 2009 M Trade 14.0 18.9 16.4 427 0
AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.SEP09
USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 30 Sep 2009 M Trade - 24.9 19.9 438 0
AIRSTRIKE.IRAN.DEC09
USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 31 Dec 2009 M Trade 11.0 28.1 24.4 443 0
Spell it right, willya?
"DUH 1"
Oh yeah that’s right........
My Bad
;-(
Hasta la vista, baby !!
Haven’t read them. Thanks for the warning.
If I WERE easily offended, I would be kind of foolish for writing political blogs (mind you, there ARE a lot of fools blogging!).
All I want to do to haters is stick a mirror in front of them.
Gird those loins girl!
These comparisons of Obama with der Fuehrer are inaccurate and IMHO puerile, if one takes the time to compare Obama to another Democrat who swept into office with a majority in Congress and a `mandate’: Lyndon Baines Johnson.
LBJ was a seasoned powerhouse in the Senate as majority leader, and a force of nature to those whom he personally steamrolled.
Obama is a lightweight neophyte. Is he really going to bend Washington to his will, or will he wind up going with the liberal flow like flotsam on a roaring ocean?
Let me suggest that you pay less attention to Obama's experience and more attention to the people he is surrounding himself with, starting with Rahm Emmanuel who is the Democrat version of Tom DeLay. In addition, Obama garnered close to 60% of the popular vote, by most measures, a mandate.
So, yes, I believe that in the near-term, he will bend Washington to his will because he is surrounding himself with a BUNCH of former Clintonistas who know how to twist arms (if necessary) or cause opponents to commit arkancide in Ft. Marcy Park.
Down the road, if his marxist policies become unpopular, reality may settle in but, for now, Washington will do his bidding.
OK, point taken. Washington will in fact do the bidding of Obama’s appointed heavyweights, who are mostly longtime D.C. insiders. So much for that promised fresh start.
But I do think he won but 52% of the popular vote. A majority to be sure, but the resulting mandate resides more in Obama’s mind than in a monolithic desire by the majority for radical social and economic change.
Which means that we could at least agree about the possibility of serious buyer’s remorse within the next two years.
GOOD GOD!! What will be find out next? How this guy EVER got elected is quite beyond me. Truthfully, I fail to see the “draw”. In my mind he didn’t hold a candle to the opposing candidates but who am I? I feel like the entire thing is a FIX of some sort. I don’t feel like this last election was a REAL election. Something Stinks. This is BAD for the United States. CO
Absolutely. In fact, I believe that with the high expectation the he has created among some of his supporters for free gas and housing, "voter's remorse" should start hitting by this time next year.
. . . but the resulting mandate resides more in Obama’s mind than in a monolithic desire by the majority for radical social and economic change.
Regardless of where the mandate resides, it exists nonetheless. Many presidents have accumulated less of the popular vote and still claimed mandate and you can bet your bippy that his "enforcers" will let us know that he has a mandate from the voters. It's only a matter of time.
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