Obama v. Bibi -- Fight to the Finish (Barf?)

In his desperation to sink the Iran nuclear deal, Bibi Netanyahu is taking a hellish gamble.

Israel depends upon the United States for $3 billion a year in military aid and diplomatic cover in forums where she is often treated like a pariah state. Israel has also been the beneficiary of almost all the U.S. vetoes in the Security Council.

Yet, without telling the White House, Bibi had his U.S. ambassador arrange for him to address a joint session of Congress in March -- to rip up the president's Iran nuclear deal before it was even completed.

The day the deal was signed, using what The Washington Post calls "stark apocalyptic language," Bibi accused John Kerry of giving the mullahs a "sure path to a nuclear weapon" and a "cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars ... to pursue its aggression and terror."

Bibi has since inspired and led the campaign to get Congress to kill the deal, the altarpiece of the Obama presidency.

Israel Ambassador Ron Dermer, a former Republican operative now cast in the role of "Citizen Genet," has intensively lobbied the Hill to get Congress to pass a resolution of rejection.

Then Israel, the Israeli lobby AIPAC, and all its allies and auxiliaries in the think tanks and on op-ed pages will conduct a full-court press to have Congress override the Obama veto and kill his nuclear deal.

Has Bibi, have the Israelis, considered what would happen should they succeed? Certainly, there would be rejoicing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and Bibi would be crowned King of Capitol Hill.

But they will have humiliated an American president by crushing him by two-to-one in his own legislature. Such a defeat could break the Obama presidency and force the resignation of John Kerry, who would have become a laughing stock in international forums.

The message would go out to the world. In any clash between the United States and Israel over U.S. policy in the Middle East, bet on Bibi. Bet on Israel. America is Israel's poodle now.

With the Gulf nations having joined Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia in backing the deal, Israel is isolated in its opposition. And, two weeks ago, Kerry warned that if Congress rejects the deal, "Israel could end up being more isolated and more blamed."

Yet, Israel's ex-ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren fairly dripped condescension and contempt in his retort: "The threat of the secretary of state who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of being an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal."

But this is not Israel's deal. It is our deal, and our decision. And Israel is massively interfering in our internal affairs to scuttle a deal the president believes is in the vital interests of the United States.

When the U.S. and Israel disagree over U.S. policy in the Mideast, who decides for America? Them or us?

One can only imagine what President Eisenhower would have done had he seen Bibi at the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives, ripping apart his Middle East policy. Or had Ike learned that an Israeli ambassador was working the halls of Congress to kill an arms deal he and John Foster Dulles had just negotiated.

Lest we forget, Ike told his wartime colleague, Prime Minister Anthony Eden, to get his army out of Suez or he would sink the British pound. Ike then told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai or face U.S. economic reprisals.

When Harry Truman felt that Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been insubordinate in resisting presidential restrictions on his actions in Korea, Truman fired the general and astounded the nation.

Yet this president and John Kerry have been wimpishly seeking for weeks to placate Netanyahu. And Bibi is no Douglas MacArthur.

The president should declare Dermer persona non grata and send him packing, then tell the Israeli government we will discuss a new arms package when you have a prime minister who understands that no nation interferes in the internal affairs of the United States. None.

That could bring Bibi's government, with its single-vote majority, crashing down. And why not? After all, Bibi was a virtual surrogate for Mitt Romney when Mitt was trying to bring down Obama.

Obama and Kerry are never running again. Deep down, they would surely relish taking Bibi down. And they could do it.

Are we clear in our thinking? Are we stating plainly exactly what the choice we are facing amounts to?

There is a reason why Obama keeps demanding that opponents of this sellout (for that is what it is) state their alternative to endorsing the treaty. The reason is that the downside of rejecting the agreement is in many respects worse than the downside of accepting the agreement. The downside of rejecting the agreement is that America will be left with only one ally in the world on this issue, Israel, the sanctions will be gone, and therefore there will be no option other than to bomb Iran.

I have never shrunk from advocating the bombing of Iran to stop them getting the bomb. But virtually every politician who opposes the agreement pretends that there is some other way-there is not. But we ought not to deceive ourselves on one side or on the other. We should not deceive ourselves that there are other options and we should not deceive ourselves that bombing will be easy, sure, or free of very dangerous unintended consequences.

The choice is stark, it comes down to whether one believes that Iran in possession of the bomb will use it. If the answer to that question is no then it does not much matter whether we passively accept the deal that Obama and the Republican establishment have maneuvered us into. Perhaps it would be better to accept the deal and keep the pretense of negotiating in good faith and keep the pretense of a real alliance with our allies.

If the answer is yes, Iran will use the bomb, then there is no choice but to bomb the hell out of Iran until the threat is destroyed. If we are convinced that Iran will use the bomb we are assuming the ultimate irresponsibility on the part of Iran. If they are irresponsible enough to use the bomb, we must concede that they are certainly irresponsible enough to build the bomb and they will certainly do so. In the process they will not be amenable to sanctions (which will not exist anyway) to blandishments, or to threats. If they are ideologically committed to bomb, they are certainly ideologically committed to build the bomb.

Obama is a demagogue and a charlatan who has negotiated America into a corner with the connivance of the pusillanimous Republican establishment including especially Sen. Corker and Majority Leader McConnell. But that understanding does not tell us what to do now. We have to make the hard decision, will Iran use the bomb? Are we willing to make war to stop them? As repugnant a lying demagogue as Obama is, he is right and asking us whether we are willing to make war? The fact that he put us in this place does not help us solve our problem.

I have believed for years that Iran will use the bomb and must be stopped at virtually any cost. But I do not think I deceive myself into believing there is some middle ground after the rejection of this agreement. If we reject the agreement we must understand the bitter and dangerous reality that implies.

HERE IS THE COLUMN PAT BUCHANAN SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN

Agents of Influence? -- Huma Abedin and Valerie Jarrett

By Daniel John Sobieski August 7, 2015>br> http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/8_4_2015_13_24.html#ixzz3i8wwnK4n

Somehow the conclusion by State Department investigators that Huma Abedin, close associate and friend of former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was overpaid by some $10,000 as she worked at a State Department job specifically created just for her, does not surprise.

Abedin, who is expected to assume the same Rasputin-like role in a Hillary Clinton administration as Valerie Jarrett does for President Obama, has done very well for herself. As the Washington Post reports:

The finding -- which Abedin has formally contested -- emerged publicly Friday after Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters to Secretary of State John F. Kerry and others seeking more information about an investigation into possible “criminal” conduct by Abedin concerning her pay….

The letters also sought the status of an inquiry into whether Abedin had violated conflict-of-interest laws related to her special employment situation, which allowed her to work simultaneously for the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a private firm with close ties to the Clintons.

Nice work if you can get it. The Clinton Foundation is neck-deep in allegations of influence peddling and Huma Abedin’s history has raised questions of what influence she herself has been peddling and its influence on America’s disastrous foreign policy of late, particularly in the Middle East. As Investors Business Daily has editorialized: Abedin made $135,000 a year as Clinton's deputy, a period in which she is reported to have raked in as much as $355,000 from consulting contracts. Having a pipeline into the Clinton inner circle is invaluable to some. This reminds us of Johnny Chung's famous comparison of the Clinton White House to a subway turn style -- you had to put money in to gain entry.

Abedin also has some interesting family connections. Her father is said to be close with the Saudi government's Muslim World League, and her mother is said to be a member of the Muslim Sisterhood. World Trade Center bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review: "The ties of Ms. Abedin's father, mother and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated."

The Muslim Brotherhood took power in Egypt with the Obama administration's approval after it had all but abandoned the government of Hosni Mubarak, a long-time ally and friend. It was while Abedin was advising Hillary that State dropped its long-standing policy of having no dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood.

As Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review, Huma Abedin’s family and work history suggests a devotion to Islamic supremacist ideology that may go a long way to explaining our imploding Middle East policy from Baghdad to Egypt:

Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA) for at least seven years. Throughout that time (1996–2003), Ms. Abdein worked for Hillary Clinton in various capacities.

The consulting firm Abedin worked for was Tenco Strategies, founded by longtime Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band, with the former President initially serving on its board. Abedin allegedly sent some 7,000 emails on her government account that involved Band.

Sen. Grassley has a particular interest in Abedin’s 2013 designation as an SGE, or “special government employee,” which is a government designation for those who fill “an unmet government need for rare or unique expertise, while allowing individuals to retain their private-sector positions. As we have seen Abedin’s expertise is indeed unique and her simultaneous employment by three employers allowed her a unique position to influence and to peddle influence.

As the Washington Examiner reported:

"The Committee has learned of allegations that, during your simultaneous employment by the Department of State, Teneo, and the Clinton Foundation, you were solicited for and delivered favors for preferred individuals," Grassley wrote to Abedin.

Abedin was reportedly among several key aides to Hillary Clinton that hosted email accounts on a private server in the presidential candidate's New York home in violation of federal records laws.

If Hillary Clinton wins in 2016, she will presumably assume the same role as Valerie Jarrett does in the Obama administration. Valerie Jarrett undoubtedly had significant input into President Obama’s Munich-like deal with Iran, which kicks the nuclear can down the road to assured detonation over Israel, which Iran continues to threaten to wipe off the map when it is not wishing “death to America”.

Her influence over President Obama is legendary: The Iranian-born Jarrett (her parents were American-born expatriates) is the only staff member who regularly follows the president home from the West Wing to the residence and one of the few people allowed to call the president by his first name.

Her influence is shown by an account in Richard Miniter's book "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him."

It relates that at the urging of Jarrett, Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden three times before approving the Navy SEAL mission in Pakistan on May 2, 2011. Seems she was concerned about political harm to Obama if the mission failed.

Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Valerie Jarrett’s hold over President Obama is as mysterious as it has proven dangerous.

We do nor need another Jarrett in the person of Huma Abedin, whose corruption and influence peddling may be surpassed only by the future president who would put her in a position of power.

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