Political Correctness and Ebola

 I don't think I have ever been so angry as I was when the Director of the CDC admitted publicly that the real reason for no travel ban was to protect "the fledgling economies" of the ebola-affected, West African states - angry at him, angry at Obama, and especially angry at liberal friends who helped put this incompetent, dangerous fool, racist and liar into the White House.  Mexico can refuse the docking of a cruise ship that MIGHT contain an infected passenger, but citizens of the United States are denied the protection of a travel ban because of liberal commitment to "political correctness".

      

Incompetence Meets Mendacity in Obama Administration’s Ebola Response

Americans are shaken by government’s inability to function.

By Andrew C. McCarthy October 18, 2014 National Review

Ebola is causing such anxiety that even alarm over an outbreak of enterovirus D-68 — far more prevalent and linked to the deaths of at least four children — has been crowded out. Ditto news of the Islamic State’s rampage, a stock-price rollercoaster, and the impending midterm elections. Understandably, two concerns dominate the public discussion.

One is incompetence. Lulled into ever more dependence on government by the metastasis of regulation in what used to be the realm of private action, Americans are shaken by Washington’s inability to function. It is bungling elementary tasks. There is a sense of unraveling, a sense that officials are not merely out of their depth in addressing problems but incapable of spotting the problems in the first place — or, even worse, responsible for creating the very problems that then explode into crises.

Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. People expect politicians to spin and, at times, to out-and-out lie. I’ve been contending for a while now that our politics are no longer rational but tribal. Being right is secondary to being on the “right” side, as that side is perceived by the popular culture. That culture has largely tuned out the news and is swayed more by character assassination than by linear, fact-based argument. Official dishonesty is the natural result. When it is more important that “our side” wins than that the sensible thing be done, it is to be expected that the partisans, especially those in power, will say whatever they need to say to get through the news cycle. After all, fewer people than ever care about the news part of the news cycle; they care about the drama and their sympathies will be with their heroes — the fibs told to escape the latest jam are more admired for craftiness than condemned as breaches of trust.

Still, as we’ve previously observed, there is a breaking point. You can only abide politics as soap opera for so long because politics is actually about real life and real stakes. Reality cannot be scripted. Therefore, politics cannot forever be stage-managed as a “narrative” with “optics,” a daily show focused on how the lead character is affected by the latest crisis.

At a certain point, the reality of the crises hits us, and hits close to home. Am I threatened? Am I going to get sick? If I do get sick, am I going to have health coverage and the doctor I trust? Is the government doing its best to make sure I am not infected? Or shot? Or bombed? Or beheaded?

Where do we get the answers to these questions? From the government we’ve grown to depend on. And now the answers are so purposely, patently, and pervasively false, it suddenly seems as if nothing can be trusted — as if, even as our perils intensify, our government erects another house in its Potemkin village.

Of course you can keep your health coverage, and your doctor. And we’ll cover everyone while your premiums plummet. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda is “decimated” and these Islamic State guys are just the jayvee team. In fact (fact?), they’re not even Islamic — although they may not be quite as “secular” as the Muslim Brotherhood. Just extremists. (Extreme about what? Don’t ask.) Jihad is just a “purification of the self” . . . or, at most, “workplace violence.” Benghazi? A spontaneous “protest” incited by a video. The president was not told it was a terrorist attack . . . except by the secretary of defense right after it started — long before he responded by . . . going to Vegas, where he promptly announced al-Qaeda was “on the path to defeat.” Still, rest assured that the State Department’s top priority is the safety of American personnel . . . although we did reduce security in Benghazi after our facility was bombed. And rest assured that the Justice Department would never ever let guns walk . . . except for the thousands its Fast and Furious program transferred to violent gangs — who’ve used them in who knows how many crimes, including the murder of a Border Patrol agent. Still, at least there’s “not a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, where citizens are harassed, evidence keeps disappearing, and the official at the center of it all takes the Fifth to avoid giving incriminating testimony. No matter. Just take heart that Ebola is not coming to the United States . . . um, well, if it does come there will be no outbreak . . . but, er, if there is an outbreak, we have careful protocols and health-care professionals fully trained to deal with it . . . and even if the protocols don’t work and the professionals don’t have adequate training, we’ll have a rigorous monitoring program for anyone who is exposed . . . or maybe a self-monitoring program for people who will isolate themselves . . . unless, of course, we tell them to go ahead and hop on a plane. Well, look, at least we can promise there won’t be a “serious” outbreak.

If you say so.

The shocking competence gap and the cavernous honesty gap — brought to you by the “most transparent administration in history” — make our heads spin as we careen from debacle to government-induced debacle. In the tumult, we can miss the main point: Why do we have a federal government?

Its purpose is to safeguard the American people and pursue our interests in the world, not to solve the world’s problems on our dime and, occasionally, by using us as laboratory mice. As free people, we can try to save the planet. The federal government, however, was not created to do it for us, much less to coerce us into implausible “humanitarian” schemes that always manage to line some crony’s pocket. National interest is our government’s only reliable compass, yet it has been discarded.

It is a short step to incompetence when you lose sight of what you are expected to be competent at accomplishing. It is an even shorter step to mendacity for a ruling class that is schooled to believe the country is fatally flawed and, thus, that the pursuit of our national interests is evil. It turns out that when real crises rivet their attention, the rubes still expect the government to protect and defend them. At that point, the government must either attend to those basic duties, or lie.
This government has made its choice.

 

Re Rick Perry - Let's Turn the Tables

I was not much impressed by Rick Perry during the 2012 campaign, but when he recently sent the National Guard to the Texas border, he got my vote for 2016. Just as the Democrats have destroyed with personal attacks supported by an hysterical and corrupt media other Republicans they consider powerful adversaries (Palin, Christie, Judge Bork, Tom Delay to name just a few), they are now out to 'get' Perry.

The Partisan Farce to Get Rick Perry

Aug 17, 2014 Bloomberg

By The Editors

Rosemary Lehmberg, the Democratic district attorney in Travis County, Texas, spent three weeks in jail last year for drunken driving, prompting Republican Governor Rick Perry to call on her to resign. She refused -- and now her supporters hope to have the last laugh by sending Perry away for a lot longer. The criminal case against him is a farce and should be dismissed faster than prairie fire with a tail wind.

Lehmberg’s run-in with the law drew public attention not only because she had an open bottle of vodka in her car and a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, but also because a police video exposed her acting belligerently toward the officers. The judge in the case called her behavior “deplorable.” Since Perry misses few opportunities to engage in partisan grandstanding, he vowed to veto funding for the district attorney’s public integrity unit unless she resigned. Perry argued that, as a result of her conduct, Lehmberg was not fit to oversee the unit, which investigates possible ethics violations.

Partisan motivations aside, it was fair to call her judgment into question -- and Perry followed through on his vow with a line-item veto. Round one to the Republicans.

Next, a liberal advocacy group, Texans for Public Justice, persuaded a judge to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Perry’s veto threat constituted an abuse of power. Proving the legal maxim that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, Perry now faces two indictments for abusing the powers of his office. One of them rests on a Texas law that forbids elected officials to misuse “government property, services or personnel" -- which is clearly not what happened here. The second prohibits officials from engaging in coercion, a crime that is akin to bribery. Few legal observers give the prosecution much chance for success in court. But conviction isn't the goal here. Harassment and humiliation are. Soon, Perry will have to turn himself in to police. Round two to the Democrats.

This would be ordinary partisan tit for tat, except that a law enforcement office is involved. Political disputes should be resolved in political venues -- legislative bodies and public debates -- not in criminal courts. If Perry’s veto is an abuse of power, then the state legislature could impeach him, as it did Texas Governor James “Pa” Ferguson nearly 100 years ago. Impeachment, however, is entirely unnecessary: The legislature could simply vote to override Perry’s line-item veto. For failing to do so, should the entire legislature be indicted?

Of course not. Perry is guilty of partisan behavior, not felonious conduct. There's been no evidence to support the claim that he vetoed the funds to prevent the public integrity unit from investigating allegations of impropriety by the state’s Cancer Prevention and Research Center.

Much of the commentary following the indictment has involved speculation about how much it will damage Perry’s presidential aspirations. Some liberal pundits seem gleeful. Don’t be fooled. This is more likely to rally Republicans to Perry’s side -- earning him new supporters and donors -- and to make Texas Democrats look as craven as the Republicans who are seeking to impeach President Barack Obama. And that will mean giving back round two. .

Two Obvious Liars

Lie Number 1

President Obama refused to take responsibility for the lack of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that American soldiers had to pull out due to political pressure from Iraqi leaders.

“This issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision,” Obama retorted when asked if he had any second thoughts, in light of the terrorist force taking over regions of Iraq, about having pulled all American troops out of the country. “The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq,” he said.

Lie Number 2

On Sunday, The Atlantic came out with an interview of Hillary Clinton which was conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg.

The highlights of the interview was Hillary's criticism of the Obama Administration's failure to back the Syrian rebels early on and its failure to prevent the rise of ISIS in Iraq and also gave a staunch defense of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

While Hillary's critique of the Obama Administration is spot on it does lack a certain credibility. It's not as if she is a detached observer. As President Obama's Secretary of State for four years, she was instrumental in the development of very policies she now sees fit to criticize. Let us not forget that it was Hillary who once called Bashar Assad a reformer and ripped Netanyahu every way possible. She also once stated that Israel lacked "empathy" and "generosity" towards the Palestinians.

The New Fascism Rolls On

HGTV, the TV channel that mainly shows you how to fix toilets and flip houses, shows its intolerance, cowardice and willingness to help destroy the traditions and legal concepts that made this country special:

Charles C. W. Cooke May 9, 2014 National Review

 

The New Fascism Rolls On

 

Now it’s twin brothers with a home-decorating show who can’t hold heterodox political views.

Another day, another witch hunt — this time in duplicate. “Twin brothers David and Jason Benham,” CNN reports, “have lost their opportunity to host their own HGTV show.” On Tuesday, the pair was gearing up for their new role; by sundown the next day, the network had announced tersely that it had “decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers’ series.” And that, as they say, was that.

HGTV’s mind was allegedly changed by a post on the blog Right Wing Watch, where the duo was described as being “anti-gay” and “anti-choice.” That post, David Benham told Erin Burnett yesterday, “was too much for them to bear — they had to make a business decision.” How sad. Certainly, the Benhams hold some heterodox views. They are not merely opposed to abortion and gay marriage, but critical of divorce,
adultery, Islam, pornography, “perversion,” the “demonic ideologies” that have crept into the nation’s “universities and . . . public school systems,” and the general culture of “activist” homosexuality, which, David contends, is inextricably tied up with a wider “agenda that is attacking the nation.” But so bloody what? They were tapped to host a home-improvement show, not rewrite the Constitution.

Per Right Wing Watch’s rather hysterical indictment, the brothers’ main crimes against humanity are to have “led a prayer rally,” talked a few times on the radio, written a few articles, and — shock! — been involved in “protests outside of abortion clinics” and “at a 2009 LGBT event.” In other words, to have taken to the public square and to have spoken — an activity free societies have traditionally tended to cherish. Did they bring their views into their work environment, impose them upon their employees and their clients, or physically threaten anybody who disagrees with them? Of course not.

“We’ve been running a successful real estate company for the last eleven years, and we help all people,” Jason Benham told CNN. “There is no discrimination.”
Jason’s brother, David, concurred, explaining that,

we love all people. I love homosexuals. I love Islam, Muslims, and my brother and I would never discriminate. Never have we — never would we.

Fair enough. But, as the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Alec Baldwin, Paula Deen, Dick Metcalf, and Phil Robertson have recently learned, these days one doesn’t need to actually do anything in order to become persona non grata. Before he was defenestrated for the high crime of having donated to California’s Proposition 8, Mozilla’s short-lived CEO, Brendan Eich, made it clear that he considered it his responsibility to ensure that his company remained “a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion.” It counted for nothing.

Predictably, the boycott-and-divest Left is thrilled by the scalp. “You can be plenty offensive and stay on TV as long as your show’s a hit,” Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams lamented this week. Nevertheless, she continued, “thanks to social media, it may be becoming a little harder to be offensive and actually get on TV in the first place.” “I guess,” she concluded, “we’ll call that progress.” That’s one word for it, certainly. Another one might be “McCarthyism.” Americans with unfashionable views do not have a right to have television shows. But, as Twitter’s David Burge likes to point out, “nobody had a right to be a Hollywood screenwriter in 1948” either.

As a rule, the term “McCarthyite” is too lazily and too readily thrown around. Here, though, it is somewhat appropriate. At its root, McCarthy’s contention was that because free nations are vulnerable at their edges, they are on occasion justified in persecuting their radicals. Today’s inquisitors take a similar approach, Erin Ching, a student at Swarthmore College, telling reporters in Februrary that “what really bothered” her was “the whole idea that, at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion.” More specifically, Ching objected to “tolerating conservative views.” Why? “Because that dominant culture embeds these deep inequalities in our society.” And so, it must be repressed.

Future students of language will wonder at the period in our history in which it was said with a straight face that diversity required uniformity, tolerance necessitated intolerance, and liberalism called for dogma. Of late, we have been told that Brandeis University is simply too open-minded to hear from a critic of Islam, that Mozilla believes too vehemently in “freedom of speech” to refrain from punishing a man for his private views, and that a respect for the audience of a show about duck hunting demands that we suspend a man for expressing his religious views in an unrelated interview. “Never,” David Benham confirmed in an interview with CNN, “have I spoken against homosexuals, as individuals, and gone against them. I speak about an agenda.” Later, he added that “that’s really what the point of this is — that there is an agenda that is seeking to silence the voices of men and women of faith.” Say, now where might he have got hold of that idea?

— Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.

 

Life Is Unfair in Politics

Life is unfair. Under President Bush (Bush 43), the average unemployment rate for his entire term was 5.3%. This includes the months of the Clinton recession, which Bush inherited, the major slowdown after 9/11, and the after-effects of the housing crash in 2007 and 2008. Despite the fact that these events had nothing to do with Bush, he was and will be blamed for the housing crash because it happened on his watch.

Not only was President Bush not responsible for any of these terrible disasters, each of them was directly the result of Democrat policies and decisions. Again, life, particularly political life, is, indeed, unfair.

Islamic terrorism and 9/11 can be directly linked to Jimmy Carter’s policies on Iran and to Bill Clinton’s inaction in response to direct attacks on Americans by Islamists. The housing bubble and subsequent crash can also be directly linked to Carter’s support of a program (Community Reinvestment Act) to force banks to grant mortgages to deadbeats, and to Clinton’s strengthening of CRA – as well as the threats made by his Attorney General (Janet Reno) to banks who did not move quickly enough to push loans to people who could not possibly repay them.

It is also documented that President Bush 13 times requested changes and limits be placed on Fannie Mae and on Freddie Mac and was rebuffed by the Democrat Congress and particularly by Barney Frank and by Chris Dodd, who was later shown to have benefited personally from his position in this matter.

The World’s Bravest Woman

I can’t say this any better than the The Daily Beast did:

Why is Brandeis University giving in to the growing hordes who believe they have a right to not be offended?

It is difficult to conceive of a braver woman alive today than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Born in Somalia, she was subjected to genital mutilation—a practice commonly inflicted on young girls in Muslim communities—at the age of 5. Fleeing a forced marriage, Hirsi Ali eventually made her way to the Netherlands, where she became a member of parliament, defender of women’s rights, and an outspoken (and, at times, unduly harsh) critic of the religion in whose name she was violently subjugated. When a Muslim fanatic murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom Hirsi Ali had collaborated on a short film about the oppression of women under Islam, the killer left a note on his victim’s chest warning Hirsi Ali that she would be next.

Hirsi Ali now lives in America, under 24-hour protection. She is a bestselling author, a frequent presence in international media, and a heroic example to women around the world.

But for the mandarins of Brandeis University, Hirsi Ali’s views are unacceptable.

Here's What I Would Have Said at Brandeis

We need to make our universities temples not of dogmatic orthodoxy, but of truly critical thinking.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali April 10, 2014 Wall St Journal

On Tuesday, after protests by students, faculty and outside groups, Brandeis University revoked its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree at its commencement ceremonies in May. The protesters accused Ms. Hirsi Ali, an advocate for the rights of women and girls, of being "Islamophobic." Here is an abridged version of the remarks she planned to deliver.

One year ago, the city and suburbs of Boston were still in mourning. Families who only weeks earlier had children and siblings to hug were left with only photographs and memories. Still others were hovering over bedsides, watching as young men, women, and children endured painful surgeries and permanent disfiguration. All because two brothers, radicalized by jihadist websites, decided to place homemade bombs in backpacks near the finish line of one of the most prominent events in American sports, the Boston Marathon.

All of you in the Class of 2014 will never forget that day and the days that followed. You will never forget when you heard the news, where you were, or what you were doing. And when you return here, 10, 15 or 25 years from now, you will be reminded of it. The bombs exploded just 10 miles from this campus.

I read an article recently that said many adults don't remember much from before the age of 8. That means some of your earliest childhood memories may well be of that September morning simply known as "9/11."

You deserve better memories than 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. And you are not the only ones. In Syria, at least 120,000 people have been killed, not simply in battle, but in wholesale massacres, in a civil war that is increasingly waged across a sectarian divide. Violence is escalating in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Libya, in Egypt. And far more than was the case when you were born, organized violence in the world today is disproportionately concentrated in the Muslim world.

Another striking feature of the countries I have just named, and of the Middle East generally, is that violence against women is also increasing. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a noticeable rise in the practice of female genital mutilation. In Egypt, 99% of women report being sexually harassed and up to 80 sexual assaults occur in a single day.

Especially troubling is the way the status of women as second-class citizens is being cemented in legislation. In Iraq, a law is being proposed that lowers to 9 the legal age at which a girl can be forced into marriage. That same law would give a husband the right to deny his wife permission to leave the house.

Sadly, the list could go on. I hope I speak for many when I say that this is not the world that my generation meant to bequeath yours. When you were born, the West was jubilant, having defeated Soviet communism. An international coalition had forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The next mission for American armed forces would be famine relief in my homeland of Somalia. There was no Department of Homeland Security, and few Americans talked about terrorism.

Two decades ago, not even the bleakest pessimist would have anticipated all that has gone wrong in the part of world where I grew up. After so many victories for feminism in the West, no one would have predicted that women's basic human rights would actually be reduced in so many countries as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.

Editorial Note:  Why do liberals spout off all the time about women's rights, and yet not care about what Muslims do to their women?

 

My Pal, Speaker Boehner

I am reading many stories about conservative criticism of Speaker Boehner.

As an original Tea Party patriot, I am sometimes distressed by the actions of other Tea Partiers, who confuse ‘standing on principle’ with winning elections and the need for occasional compromise in a constitutional republic such as ours.

We have the biggest issue in our favor in my memory, Obamacare, heading into the 2014 and 2016 elections, and we have the repeated experience of being blamed for government shutdowns also in our memory.  Why on earth would we endanger that advantage by resisting another debt increase, having a government shutdown, and then give in again?

Kudos to John Boehner for finessing this issue.  Now we have to prevent local Tea Parties from backing terrible candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle, who did us in and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The GOP’s flash of brilliance

By Kathleen Parker, February 19, 2014 Washington Post (excerpt)

“Republicans have excelled at concealing their brilliance in recent years, and Democrats have exulted in their good fortune.

Whether discussing women’s reproductive systems or offering up candidates who are not electable — “I am not a witch” might have been a tipoff — Republicans couldn’t stop handing gifts to their opponents. As for tactics, a GOP Trojan horse is . . . a horse. And an Orca project is a whale-fishing expedition.Meanwhile, Democrats successfully labeled the GOP as the “party of no,” assisted by Republicans’ consistent opposition to everything and always flogging their own in an endless war between the party’s wacko birds (Sen. John McCain’s term) and establishment players who were referred to as RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) or Republicrats.

The Democrats weren’t wrong.

But then, President Obama apparently lost his magic ring. The sun broke through the pall of Republican despair, the fires of Mordor ceased and the spell of buffoonery and pettifoggery that had plagued the elephant herd was miraculously lifted.

Congress raised the debt limit without drama; Republican leaders shelved divisive issues such as comprehensive immigration and tax reform and shifted the focus to unifying messages about which RINOs and tea partyers can agree and lock pinkies: Obamacare is a failure and Barack Obama is an imperial president.

In essence, Republicans destroyed the Democrats’ sharpest weapon and absconded with their slogan. No more the party of no, the GOP suddenly is the party of “Yes, we can!”

Quite a transformation, that. And all along the message of House Speaker John Boehner, even though his tea party colleagues, gladiators armed with certitude, couldn’t hear him. Rather than listen to reason, they heard only the whispers of their beloved Wormtongue, whose identity I leave to you, dear reader, in hopes you have read J.R.R. Tolkien.” Washington Post

 

NY Times and Benghazi

Monday morning I attended a breakfast with a small group of men who meet every two weeks to discuss national affairs.  I’m proud to say that virtually all of them recognized that the NY Times piece on Benghazi was pure propaganda intended to help elect Hillary Clinton in 2016.  The Times has moved from significant bias to outright lies.  Fortunately lots of people now recognize this.

Betrayal That Whitewash Won’t Cover

By Wesley Pruden  December 30, 2013 The Washington Times (Excerpt)

“Transparency, the current vogue word for truth-telling, is usually a good thing, unless you're trying to fool all the people some of the time, like spending 7,000 words to resurrect a fairy tale in Benghazi, all to give a helping hand to a lady in distress.

The New York Times understands that Hillary Clinton is likely to be the only credible hope the Democrats have for 2016 and that she already needs lots of remedial help. The Times huffed and puffed to deliver an excuse for betrayal in Benghazi, meant to second Mrs. Clinton's famous alibi for her tortured misfeasance as secretary of state — "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

The right response might have made a lot of difference to an American ambassador who lay dead, slain at the hands of Islamic terrorists, and three other Americans who had to give up their lives because nobody at the White House could be bothered to ride to the rescue. President Obama and his frightened and timid acolytes, including Mrs. Clinton, insisted that this was not Islamic terror or the perfidy of al Qaeda, but merely the reaction of innocent Muslims offended by a video posted on YouTube mocking the religion of the Prophet Muhammad.

Even after the White House dispatched Susan Rice, who was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to push the confection about the video as revealed truth, almost nobody believed it. The White House couldn't even find anybody else who would say he believed it.

David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief of The New York Times, grunted, burped and produced a tiny mouse of special pleading, an account with nothing new of much importance, except a few colorful facts of the sort that were once the popcorn of newsmagazine journalism. He describes, for example, the vase in the living room of the mother of one of the suspects in the Benghazi attack. Vases are no doubt important, but mostly to interior decorators. This account, so transparent to anyone who reads it even with casual attention, seems hardly worth the effort of a good reporter who was willing to take certain risks to himself.

It's important to Hillary and her presidential campaign, now in its early planning, to repeat the con that al Qaeda was not in any way involved, because Mr. Obama was supposed to have killed al Qaeda graveyard dead when he dispatched Navy SEALs to terminate Osama bin Laden with extreme prejudice.” Washington Times

 

 

Whither Iran and the Bomb?

They label conservatives who oppose this farce of a treaty with Iran, "Neanderthals".  Read these two articles, and see if you are a "Neanderthal".

Obama Gives Iran the Bomb

The president is oblivious to Iranian lies.

By Jed Babbin November 25, 2013 American Spectator

The agreement reached late Saturday night between Iran and the United States — and the rest of the United Nations’ “P5+1” gang — will enhance Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons whenever it decides to do so. It makes war in the Middle East nearly a certainty, rather than protecting us against it.

For Obama — and while he is president, for us — there is no responsibility so great that it cannot be sacrificed to political expediency, no duty so grave that it cannot be ignored.

America has an obligation to itself, and to allies such as Israel, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms. Four American presidents — George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have recognized this duty by stating firmly an American policy that Iran is not to be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. The first three of those presidents share the distinction of having done nothing to enforce that policy. The fourth has assured his place in history by surrendering the policy to Iran’s ambitions.

The details of the agreement — which we’ll get to in a minute — give Iran major relief from sanctions that were imposed by UN resolution and by American law, including some sanctions that were imposed when Iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. To understand how far the agreement goes, it’s important to know the context in which it was made.

The Middle East is in Obama-produced turmoil. Egypt, which replaced U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak with Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and then replaced them with the military regime of General al-Sisi, is falling apart. Al-Sisi’s military, which operates and controls a majority share of the Egyptian economy, believes — according to several sources — that it can outlast Obama’s regime to better times under a new American president. But Egypt is suffering widespread food shortages and is ripe for the al-Qaida insurgency now brewing inside the nation. Al-Sisi has less time than he thinks before Egypt erupts in uncontrollable violence.

Syria is effectively partitioned into sections: one dominated by the Assad regime (and its Iranian and Russian allies), a Kurdish region (apparently dominated by the quasi-terrorist PKK group), and territory controlled by the Syrian opposition forces, comprised mainly of jihadists funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. That partitioning may be formalized next year though the fighting will not abate.

Inevitably Iraq, after the withdrawal of American troops, has become a client state of Iran, an autocracy of Sunni-Shiite violence. It won’t be long before Afghanistan falls to the Taliban.

Saudi Arabia has given up on the United States, as has Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was time for his country to look beyond the United States as its principal ally.

In short, the false bloom of democracy in the “Arab spring” has given way to an Iranian winter.

The agreement reached Saturday night is the subject of much glowing news coverage both here and abroad, including in the Iranian press. President Obama said on Saturday night that the agreement contains "…substantial limitations which will help prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Simply put, they cut off Iran’s most likely paths to a bomb."

More accurately, Obama could have said, “If Iran likes its path to the bomb, it can keep following its path to the bomb.”

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani was equally effusive, telling reporters that, “World powers have recognized the nuclear rights of Iran. The confirmation from the great powers is of huge value.“

Unfortunately, Rouhani is closer to the truth. Oddly enough, the agreement is published in full almost nowhere. The version I saw is from the most questionable source this side of Pravda, the Iranian news agency IRNA. (The Iranian-reported version is largely confirmed by various Western news reports).

According to that version, Iran has received the biggest concession possible. For years, Iran has claimed a “right” to enrich uranium and insisted that recognition of such an imaginary right be included in any negotiated agreement. And so it is. Twice in the agreement’s preamble, Iran’s “rights” to a nuclear program are proclaimed. The first claims that the agreement ensures that Iran’s nuclear program will be for peaceful purposes, and the second says its “comprehensive solution would enable Iran to fully enjoy its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes…”

Now that it has been enshrined in a document that America agreed to, this phony “right” will be impossible to deny in future negotiations. Thus the principal source of danger, the Iranian capability of enriching uranium for the production of nuclear weapons, is not ended.

The agreement lasts for six months, the length of time the parties give themselves to reach a final agreement. Remember, please, the October report from the Institute for Science and International Security that projected Iran was within a month of having the ability to produce nuclear weapons.

One intended effect of this temporary agreement is to prevent any Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities for at least that long. If Israel attacks Iran during those six months it will become an outlaw nation susceptible to Iranian war and indefensible by the signatories to the agreement.

In those six months, Iran gives up very little. It is permitted to retain 50 percent of its stock of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is a sufficient enrichment level to produce rudimentary nuclear weapons. Iran promises to not enrich more uranium — for six months — to higher levels than 5 percent.

Nothing requires Iran to reduce its capacity for enriching uranium. Iran isn’t required by the agreement to disassemble the more than 19,000 centrifuges it already has. It promises to not advance further its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, or the one at Fordow, or activate its heavy-water plutonium plant at Arak in the next six months. To obtain nuclear weapons, it need not do any of those things.

In diplomatic weasel words, the agreement allows Iran to, for example, “continue its safeguarded [research and development] practices, including its current enrichment R&D practices, which are not designed for accumulation of the enriched uranium.” Whether or not they are designed for that purpose, they have that function. Also weasel worded are the inspection practices imposed which are comprised of “daily IAEA inspector access when inspectors are not present” and such. Huh? Inspections without inspectors doesn’t satisfy the Gipper’s axiom “trust but verify.”

For this, America and the rest of the “P5+1” gang give up most sanctions against Iranian oil shipments, immediately free Iranian financial assets of about $6 to $9 billion, and even allow Iran to import spare parts for aircraft.

We fell for an agreement very much like this in the last years of the Clinton administration when North Korea promised to not build nuclear weapons in return for a relaxation of strangling American sanctions. North Korea used the time the agreement allowed to build its nukes and soon tested them underground.

Iran is of the same ilk but Obama is oblivious to its lies. The report Obama relied on to begin the negotiations — that Khomenei had issued a religious fatwa prohibiting the production of nuclear weapons — was blatantly false.

We should recall the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency report from November 2011 that recounted Iran’s long string of lies about its nuclear weapons development.

That report concluded that, among lies Iran has told the world, are:

• Since the 1980s, Iran has been conducting clandestine uranium enrichment, including the separation of plutonium;

• Iran has been acquiring "nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network;"

• Iran has been working "on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components;" and

• The IAEA — since 2005 — has been aware that "Iran had been engaged in activities involving on a so-called green salt project, high explosives testing and the re-engineering of a missile re-entry vehicle to accommodate a new payload."

We know from other open sources that Iran has been testing triggering devices for nuclear weapons.

Only Obama could believe that a nation with that record of lies can be believed when it negotiates away any aspect of its ability to produce nuclear weapons.

As Winston Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm, the “unwisdom” of the European powers in the 1930s enabled the rise of Hitler and the rearming of Germany, bringing about the most destructive war in human history. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was correct and much too mild in saying that this new agreement was a historic mistake. Obama is guilty of “unwisdom” of the same historical scale Churchill described.

America has been deluding itself for more than 20 years, pretending that a peaceful resolution to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons was possible. It is not. Now, with the Obama agreement, that delusion has given way to the most dangerous reversal of policy in our nation’s history.

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Iran claims White House is lying about wording of nuke deal

Rick Moran November 27, 2013 American Thinker

Those who oppose the agreement on Iran's nuclear program may want to pause and take a breath. Apparently, there's still about 10% of the deal that needs to be worked out, and given Iran's track record, it's still very possible that the whole thing could fall through.

This certainly isn't a good sign:

Iranian officials say that the White House is misleading the public about the details of an interim nuclear agreement reached over the weekend in Geneva.

Iran and Western nations including the United States came to an agreement on the framework for an interim deal late Saturday night in Geneva. The deal has yet to be implemented

The White House released a multi-page fact sheet containing details of the draft agreement shortly after the deal was announced.

However, Iranian foreign ministry official on Tuesday rejected the White House's version of the deal as "invalid" and accused Washington of releasing a factually inaccurate primer that misleads the American public.

"What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true," Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham told the Iranian press on Tuesday.

Afkham and officials said that the White House has "modified" key details of the deal and released their own version of the agreement in the fact sheet.

Iran's right to enrich uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon, is fully recognized under the draft released by Tehran.

"This comprehensive solution would enable Iran to fully enjoy its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the relevant articles of the NPT in conformity with its obligations therein," the agreement reads, according to a copy released to Iranian state-run media.

"This comprehensive solution would involve a mutually defined enrichment programme with practical limits and transparency measures to ensure the peaceful nature of the programme," the Iranian draft reads. "This comprehensive solution would constitute an integrated whole where nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

Iran's objection to the deal as presented in the fact sheet raises new concerns about final stage talks meant to ensure that the deal is implemented in the next few weeks.

Negotiating with Tehran is never easy. Factions in the Iranian government can apparently derail agreements even after they're concluded, which has happened a couple of times over the years.

But the fact that the Iranians interpet the agreement as a confirmation of their right to enrich uranium and the US believes the deal says exactly the opposite means that the whole enterprise is in jeapordy. Such a fundamental disagreement on what amounts to the essence of the negotiations does not bode well for President Obama who would be hugely embarrassed if the Iranians backed out of the deal at this point. Expect Iran to push this point and the Americans to bend in order to keep the agreement on track.