John Bolton: We cannot verify and must not trust Iran's promises on nuclear weapons

Tuesday's opening of yet another round of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear-weapons program creates enormous risks for America's anti-proliferation efforts. Tehran's extensive propaganda campaign, stressing the "moderation" of its new president, Hassan Rouhani, seems to be working, softening up the gullible in the United States and Europe.

As in previous iterations of the charade now reopening in Geneva, Iran's bargaining position benefits from our own repeated mistakes. The ayatollahs need only take advantage of these unforced errors, and success may well fall into their undeserving hands. Consider the most blatant errors that Iran is eager to exploit.

First, both Presidents Bush and Obama conceded that Iran was entitled to a "peaceful" nuclear program, for energy and scientific purposes. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), however, that view is flatly wrong. By pursuing nuclear weapons for over two decades, Iran has violated key NPT provisions – notably, the obligation it freely undertook to be a non-nuclear weapons state. Tehran is not, therefore, entitled to claim benefits under NPT sections permitting peaceful uses of nuclear power.

More at THE GUARDIAN  

Foreign policy debate shows a smug, glib Obama is willing to weaken America

The notable moment when Republican Presidential nominee's charge of  Barack Obama weakening the US Navy by allowing the number of vessels to diminish to its lowest levels since the First World War was answered by the president, "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets..we have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them, we have these things that go under water, nuclear submarines.."

What may have escaped President Obama's military planning genius is that America's adversaries also have those technologies. Obama's unsurpassed arrogance doesn't seem to have allowed for the notion that his desire to reduce the massive trillion dollar debt he racked up by diminishing America's security capabilities is short sighted, both financially and by risking American lives.

As former US Ambassador to the United Nations put it last week, "it's American weakness, not strength, that America's enemies find provocative."

Obama is making the United States weaker than it has been at any time since Jimmy Carter was president. Carter's weak, inept handling of Iran in 1979 didn't save any American lives, it only deferred death which came back to haunt the United States with interest. Carter's weakness emboldened Iran, through its ally  Hezbollah, to murder 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, to support the insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban in  Afghanistan. Together, these Iranian-sponsored acts have cost the lives of thousands of American military personnel and which would not have happened if Carter had effectively managed Iran.

There is a reason the Iranian mullahs want Obama to defeat Mitt Romney in the election next month. They see weakness in Obama.

Obama desperately wants America to be likes, but more damaging, he does not see the United States as a force for good in the world, which is why is keeps impairing its global power and influence. His promise conveyed to Vladimir Putin to be more flexible after his presumed reelection was a concession to Russian demands that America not have an effective missile defense.

Among the many foreign policy concerns Obama evidently doesn't understand is the difference between a geo-political adversary, which Romney correctly identifies and a terrorist threat, which Obama apparently thinks is the same thing.

When Obama said to Romney last night, "the 1980's are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back" he should have taken his own advice. American missile defense is not aimed at Russia but at smaller rogue states. Russia, like Obama still thinks in terms of 1980's era mutually assured destruction scenarios.  But warfare and strategy have moved past the dilettante who currently occupies the Oval Office.

At his Toronto talk last week, Ambassador Bolton joked that whenever they want to cheer themselves up at the Kremlin, they play the Obama "flexible" tape over and over to remind themselves what a weak adversary they have in the White House. It's no wonder that Vladimir Putin has endorsed Obama's reelection hoping to meet opposite a spineless American leadership for the next four years.

But with Iran rapidly moving towards nuclear weapons capability, the Muslim Middle East in turmoil, Russia looking to reassert itself by giving diplomatic cover to North Korea, Syria and Iran at the expense of American influence and China building up its military, a second Obama term is something both America and the free world can ill afford

Former UN Ambassador Bolton warns of American decline under a 2nd Obama term

On a mini tour of Canadian cities Calgary and Toronto last Wednesday and Thursday, John Bolton, America's former Ambassador to the UN spoke of dire consequences for America's position in the world if Barack Obama is elected to a second term.

"It's not American strength but American weakness that our enemies find provocative," warned Bolton, a current adviser to Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Barack Obama is the first US president in history to effectively renounce American exceptionalism, a term first described by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. The desire to be liked seems foremost in Obama's foreign policy goals, but Bolton observed it's easy to get one's adversaries to like you if you make concessions to them. Obama is a president who is happy to make concessions to Russia and China who have both stymied American interests repeatedly under his presidency. They have blocked sanctions against Iran and Syria and have provided diplomatic cover for North Korea.

Regarding the Iranian push to acquire a nuclear weapon, were Obama to be reelected, that would be a near certainty. Sanctions may be hurting Iran`s economy, but they are having no affect on its nuclear program and military action or regime change there is the only way of preventing their getting a nuclear bomb.

Iran`s largest embassy in the world is in Venezuela, not because of long-standing cultural ties, as Bolton noted, but because the authoritarian regime of Iranian ally Hugo Chavez is helping Iran launder oil money to circumvent international banking sanctions.

American military strength is at its weakest since Jimmy Carter, whose policies Obama has been increasingly replicating. If Bolton is correct, an unhindered Obama, who was disclosed to have promised Russian President Medvedev that he would have ` more flexibility` to make further concessions and weaken American missile defenses in a second term, would lead the United States down a disastrous path given the opportunity.

John Bolton on the Obama/Clinton rift over the murders of US Embassy staff in Libya

Remember, you can still get tickets to see Bolton in conversation with SUN TV's Brian Lilley this week in Calgary and Toronto by clicking the ad below

plus...

Former UN Ambassador Bolton accuses Obama White House of leaking Israel's plans to attack Iran

The Case for Vegetarianism: If you eat meat, your next meal might have been smarter than Avi Lewis

He's smug, he's anti-capitalist, he's anti-America and he seems to think he's smart. Unfortunately for Mr. Naomi Klein, he isn't bright enough to realize that he's being made a fool of by his interviewees.

These interviews are about 3 years old now but worth revisiting.



This interview Lewis did with Ayaan Hirsi Ali earned Lewis such contempt and ridicule, it may have single-handedly have been responsible for Lewis' move out of mainstream media over to his new career at his natural spiritual home at Al Jazeera. It is the most glaring example of ignorance, hubris and stupidity from a member of the news media I have ever witnessed.



Blazing Cat Fur did this media round-up of reaction to this interview. All of it unfavourable to Lewis and laudatory of Hirsi Ali.


I couldn't help but hope that Mr. and Mrs. Klein get a chance to watch this video - it'll send their blood pressure skyrocketing:

Mideast Peace: Time to get serious about a 3 State Solution

There is little optimism at the United States' latest attempt to kick-start negotiations aimed at achieving an Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement.

President Obama has threatened to downgrade relations with the Palestinian Authority unless they enter direct negotiations with Israel by mid-August.

PA President Abbas has so far refused to speak directly to the Israelis unless they commit to a total freeze on settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to direct talks with the Palestinians as long as there are no preconditions.

The pressure on the Palestinians from the US and the Arab League's acquiescence to direct negotiations are expected to give Abbas the latitude to reverse his position and join negotiations in September.

But what sort of peace will they be negotiating?

Abbas' Fatah in the West Bank and  Hamas-ruled Gaza do not speak with one voice. Neither recognizes the other's legitimacy. Gaza is a disastrous, terrorist-infested mess, ruled by a fanatical theocratic party whose founding charter reads as if it were written by psychopaths suffering from paranoid delusions. It includes references to talking trees wanting to kill Jews and an international conspiracy of Zionists, Freemasons and the Rotary and Lions Clubs.

Israel will not agree to a right of passage between the two Palestinian territories while one of them is controlled by a group committed to the Jewish state's destruction. Hamas' policies have completely sidelined them from participating in the expected upcoming round of negotiations.

For the past few years, the roadmap for peace has talked about a "two-state" solution, but what is becoming increasingly apparent is that the only hope for an agreement would be the more recently proposed 3 State Solution.

With the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of achieving peace with Gaza, which has developed its own political culture, there will be a need for 2 Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza.

This idea was proposed, in a form, in early 2009 by John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations.

In Bolton's scenario, Jordan would assume control of the West Bank and Egypt would assume responsibility for Gaza. While that aspect of the solution is unfeasible, since both those Arab countries have rejected that idea and the administrative quagmire that would accompany it, the idea of Israel forming a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and shelving Gaza for the time being seems the only feasible option.

A single agreement with the West Bank will be difficult enough, given Israel's disastrously inefficient system of proportional representation that allows fringe parties to have disproportionate power in government. It will be a nightmare for Israel to have to remove the fanatically orthodox settlers from the West Bank, who have a messianic commitment to their theologically-inspired vision of  a Greater Israel. But sensible forces in Israel, including former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, understood there was no other way. That was part of his motivation for building the Security Barrier between Israel and the West Bank. It has served its primary purpose of virtually eliminating suicide attacks from the west bank, but it is also no great secret that the barrier is the most likely future border between Israel and the Palestinians.

While East Jerusalem would remain a point of contention, it appears that the Palestinian side has also recognized this new reality.

While the Gaza situation would remain an open wound where its intractable government, which acts as an Iranian proxy, cannot be dealt with, there is also movement in that area. There is growing support for an international solution to Gaza, which would see Israel cede authority to an international force that would provide security for Israel while assuming responsibility for that territory.

Once a democratic peaceful Palestinian state emerges on the West Bank, it would place enormous pressure on Gaza to find a means of achieving peace. It would alleviate some pressure on Israel and the US in the region, and further isolate hostile dictatorships and their operatives like Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.