Discussion On The Middle East From Our May 21 Broadcast

Since 1948 successive Democrat and Republican administrations have steadily indulged themselves in a delusion about peace in the middle east, how to be friends with the Arab and larger Muslim world and why our energy security was safe in the hands of people who literally hate us. Through the pan-Arabic fantasies of Gamal Nasser to the current pan Islamic "caliphate" dreams of Arabs. Iranians, Turks and others, we have steadily moved toward a world view that puts three false premises at the heart of our foreign policy.

              The first delusion is that some resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will magically solve all problems of peace and stability in both the Arab and larger Muslim world. under this delusion we have invested billions of dollars on a Palestinian authority that under Arafat took the money and ran and now under a regime which "claims" to run the west bank...doesn't run Gaza and in all probability would be consumed by Hamas if current efforts to unilaterally establish a Palestinian state came to pass as the us and the un try to force a dual state solution with indefensible Israeli borders down the throat of Netanayu. history instead has shown us that any reliance on the Palestinians to keep their word only means more blood and that they has never been a reliable partner for peace. it should also be stated publicly that the poverty of the Palestinian people is due solely and exclusively to the outright theft of billions and billions of aid dollars by Yassir Arafat.

The second delusion is that the road to this phony peace, in the words of former Secy. of State Baker "runs through Damascus"! just a few weeks ago the world waited with bated breath for an announcement from Bashir al- Assad that he was going to end the state of emergency in place since  1962,  in response to demonstrations in Daara and other cities… instead we got the same ol...same ol with the use of more force to crack down on the small but gallant democracy movement trying to bring change in this Baathist thugocracy…. with the Assad family the apple never falls far from the tree. back in 1982 the father Hafez al-Assad brought a new meaning to bloodthirsty when the Syrian army, under his orders, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime as many as 80,000 civilians were intentionally killed. the attack has been described as among "the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern middle east.” The only road that runs through Damascus leads to the Hezbollah in Lebanon and into Gaza city to Hamas, courtesy of Iran who bestowed Islamic credentials on the small Alawite sect that the Assads belong to by decreeing they were Shia Muslims. We have been played like Nero's fiddle by the Assads for over 50 years and like the famous definition of insanity ...we keep doing the same thing and think we will get another result!

The third delusion is that the anger in the Muslim world is over land and material things when it is in reality over something far more intangible. with the rise of political Islam, a theocracy in Iran and the Salafist aims of the Muslim brotherhood, al Quaeda and a Wahabist money machine funding mosques and madrassahs all over the globe to promote jihad...we have to come to grips with the reality that this is a conflict about the nature of god...and their god doesn't tolerate anyone who believes in another version or in no god at all. Israel could disappear tomorrow and this cosmic struggle would continue more ferociously than ever, because now the war would turn toward the  us and the west.

Iran in particular is run by fanatics who believe that the 12th or "hidden" imam of legend has already returned to earth to unleash a cleansing holocaust where all non Muslims will either die or "revert" to Islam so that the new world order will be a new universal world caliphate. However, the apocalypse must occur if this is to be fulfilled!

We often talk about knowing what we don't know as the true beginning of wisdom ...what we don't know about this issue, these people and this religion and what we have deluded ourselves into believing is beyond belief itself!

Even as we congratulate the president for his decision to eliminate Usama Bin Laden, there are disturbing questions that must be asked about the aftermath of the courageous raid, and about Obama's strategy towards the Islamic world and the threat of terrorism.

Almost immediately following the end of the navy seal's mission, the white house began a series of stunning blunders. First, identification of the specific special forces team that carried out the mission jeopardized both the seals themselves and their families. Second, the administration's admission that valuable intelligence had been captured may have limited the use of that information, perhaps allowing other key figures to escape.

Ironically, the mission would not have been possible without the information gained by the CIA personnel who interrogated captured terrorists. However, even as the president basks in praise for the mission, his administration continues to prosecute those same CIA personnel for their interrogation techniques.

The contradictions within the white house extend to the entire realm of relations with the middle east and the issue of terrorism. The president’s Middle East policy is justly accused of lacking any logic, and being counterproductive to American interests. The white house seemed almost eager to accelerate the downfall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. While Cairo’s former leader was corrupt and no paragon of democracy, he was relatively friendly towards the United States and Israel, and far less repressive than most middle eastern leaders. On the other hand, Obama has demonstrated no enthusiasm until Thursday (and then only slightly, in response to criticism) whatsoever to encourage courageous freedom demonstrators within Syria and none for Iran, two nations that are among the most anti-American and antisemitic on earth, that have aggressively pursued nuclear weapons, and have shown no qualms about murdering their own citizens on a mass scale.

America has a great deal at stake in the potential of regime change in these two outlaw nations. Iran and Syria, along with their subsidiaries Hezbollah and Hamas, are the backbone of troublemaking in the region. Indeed, in 2006, Syrian president al-Assad taunted the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for being overly friendly towards the USA. iran gives weapons to the Taliban, and Syria assists al Qaeda. Syria, with the support of Iran, subsidizes and encourages Hezbollah’s vicious assaults in Lebanon, including the assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri.

SYRIA

              Over the past month we have watched, via smuggled cell phone videos, the Syrian people rise up in the streets of a dozen cities to demand the ouster of the 40 year old al-Assad family’s Baathist dictatorship. Syrian army units have waged savage total war upon the unarmed civilians of daraa where the protests began, to Damascus, the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the northeastern town of Qamishli near the Turkish border. at least 1000 people have been killed including children, and Syrian security forces have conducted house to house searches arresting adult men and boys as young as 12 as well as prominent opposition figures. By some estimates the number of civilians in captivity are now as large as 10,000 and are predicted to rise even further and 5000 Syrians have left the country. The world including the us has done virtually nothing out side of recently announced targeted sanctions toward Bashir al-Assad and five of his hencemen….with polls showing that 62% of the American people do not want us to intervene in Syria. Yet unlike Libya, where one can have an intellectually honest disagreement as to whether or not american interests are affected in any critical way, Syria is critical if only because it has become the principal Arab vassal state of the Iranians. as we have stated repeatedly the road to peace is not through Damascus… instead the road to Hezbollah, a ruined Lebanon , and the a northern front in the Bekaa Valley is through Damascus…further if we can be certain of anything in the labyrinth of the Levant it is that the “Arab Spring” in Syria is not being controlled behind the scenes by Amadinijad or Khameini. why would the united states not want to use every ounce of political, military, economic and diplomatic muscle to bring down a regime which in 1982 killed between 20,000 and 80,000 of it’s own people in the city of Hama? why would we not want to cripple the Persian doctrine of proxy war by eliminating the biggest and most strategic element of that doctrine that makes it so successful? if the house of al-Assad fell and the Salafists were kept in check you could for the first time since 1948 begin to see the opportunity for a real peace that would allow Lebanon to be truly free, Syria to become a secular democracy and Egypt to rethink its nascent efforts to reignite the old U.A.R but under the potential banner of the Ikhwan or a Salafist caliphate. The US has skin in this game…neutralizing Syria as a transit point for arms and terrorists would force Iran to shift its energies to Hamas in Gaza. the slowly forming “new” Egypt would then have to think twice about recognizing Iran and entering into a quiet period of accommodation with them with regard to a Hamas… which sooner or later even the Egyptians and the brotherhood will I predict… realize they can’t control. For Egypt to go forward in this regard… would mean in reality an Egyptian alliance with Iran where they will inevitably become the junior partner, to the consternation of almost all other members of the Arab league and the members of the gulf cooperation council. Syria must become free and frankly that is where NATO the US and the EU should be putting its resources and energies. Again the perception of American weakness and indecision makes the al-Assads, the Iranians, the Egyptians and most importantly our allies and true democratic elements in the region dubious of our political and military will when it comes to our own self interest.

EGYPT

Meanwhile, in Egypt, Islamist elements of the “democracy movement” filled Tahrir square last weekend to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of what they call al-Nakbah or the “catastrophe” which to the rest of civilized humanity is the birth of the state of Israel. anti-Israeli and anti- American scapegoating was remarkably low key or even absent during the egyptian phrase of the “arab spring” but now we are starting to see evidence of the not so hidden hand of the “ikhwan” or Muslim brotherhood and their Salafist allies as they weave and bob through the uncertain and uncharted waters of post mubarak politics to try and turn Egypt into a fully Islamic state under Shariah law.  in point of fact, the Muslim brotherhood just recently announced that they now intend to contest over 50% of the seats in parliament which if victorious, would give them control of Egypt in the fall. In addition, several weeks ago, violence once again broke out against the nation’s 10 million Coptic Christians , murdering twelve, injuring over a hundred, and destroying churches. Copts, numbering about 10 million, constitute the largest christian group and the largest religious minority in the middle east. Coptic Christians in the Imbaba district of Cairo report that on Saturday night may 7 they were assaulted by muslims who looted and burned st. mina’s church and the church of the Virgin Mary and attempted to burn St. Mary and St. Abanob church. According to press reports, twelve people were killed. and more than a hundred people were injured, as Copts fought back with sticks and stones.

All of this comes on the heels of Egypt exercising their diplomatic powers as the most preeminent Arab state to broker a peace between Hamas and the Palestinian authority. The agreement between Fatah and Hamas marks the end of a long period of cooperation and negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, and of Egypts’ formerly helpful role in the attempt to normalize relations between Israel and the Arab world.

In choosing to enter a coalition with Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas is abandoning all the advances made to date and abandoning his own former approach. Cooperation with Israel to improve life in the west bank and security cooperation against terrorism have now been jettisoned in favor of the appearance of unity. All of Abbas’s past statements about Hamas as his enemy, Fatah’s enemy, and the PA’s enemy have been put aside in an embrace of Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader. Under the agreement, elections will be held for the pa presidency and parliament, and for the PLO bodies, in one year, and security forces are to be put under one umbrella. Needless to say Hamas continues to refuse to agree to the preconditions established by the “quartet,” i.e.,  to denounce violence against Israel … to recognize Israel’s right to exist. in addition it continues to insist that the bizarre un doctrine of “the right to return” which only applies to Israel and the Palestinians and which requires that all Palestinians and all of their descendents who were displaced by the 1948 war or who left voluntarily or at the behest of the grand mufti or who sold their property to Jewish settlers must be allowed to return and reclaim their property. this of course would mean the literal end of Israel as a Jewish state and the progress that has taken place by the pa since Salam Fayyad became prime minister in 2007 as well as its replacement by a Palestinian state that never before existed in history
Israel’s pm Netanyahu has rightfully said that Fatah and Mamoud Abbas must choose between Hamas and Israel. but Israel now has to contend with the very real re-election political “appetites” in some quarters of the administration to produce “a peace at any cost” plan that throws Israel under the bus.  While Secy. Clinton did say prior to Obama‘s announcement on israel on thursday‘we’ve made it very clear that we cannot support any government that consists of Hamas unless and until Hamas adopts the “quartet principles”.  Why does she or anyone think that any government with Hamas will ever tell the truth? As we have stated before on this program a “two state solution” is under current reality a mirage and a symptom of a long standing foreign policy that is built on fantasy, ideology, oil and sand.  Lastly all of the above is happening in part because the united states appears weak and indecisive and has abandoned its historic role as the honest broker  notwithstanding the killing of Usama Bin Laden.

              according to Mchael Reagan, “Israel Today” reported on Thursday that a former top official in the U.S. intelligence community, speaking on condition of anonymity, is convinced “that the Obama administration is about to break America’s long ties of friendship with Israel, and maybe even take steps toward the dissolution of the Jewish state.”

The administration is preparing to “provide more support to Arab countries [with] financial and military aid, undercutting Israel’s defense efforts all while pushing Israel to succumb to the pressure of unreasonable demands designed to end with their political annihilation as a nation,” the source remarked; Obama’s effort is likely to be subtle, and implemented over several years. this report came out before the president tore up the 2004 letter of agreement that George Bush had given to Israel that the united states, as a condition for the unilateral turnover of Gaza to the pa, would never demand that they accept pre-1967 boundaries as a price for a two state peace agreement.  Somehow in the naivete of this president’s mind. The “individual sanctions” on Bashir al-Assad and his five top deputies and demands that Hamas reform equates with asking Israel to commit suicide without asking for anything in return.  Let’s be brutally frank about what this president, who has shown his disdain for Israel since he was sworn into office, means. It means that he announced this virtually as pm netanyahu was boarding a flight to come here for peace talks and a speech before congress thus continuing the same boorish behavior he exhibited the last time Netanyahu was here. it gives east Jerusalem to the PA/Hamas coalition which also  means that the most sacred and holy sites in Judaism and Christendom…the western wall, the temple mount, the church of the Holy Sephuchler, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gesthesame would be under the control of anti- semites and anti-Christians. It means the forced resettlement of 300,000 Jewish settlers on the West Bank.

It means the return of the Golan Heights so that Syria can destroy Northern Israel and the Gallilee with impunity. It means the 8 to 12 mile “waist” that separates the West Bank from the sea is indefensible along with the nations main airport.it reportedly endorses the “right of return.”it means the end of Israel .

This proposal represents  an existential threat to our only true ally in the region and the only democracy.  Barack  Obama has tried to deliver a coup de grace to Israel in exchange for what he believes is a new middle east that will love him for having removed the last remaining obstacle to Islamic resurgence.  Once more the Jews play the unwilling victims to history facing the real possibility of a new holocaust aided by a callow president who in the final analysis cannot or will not rid himself of his biases, who really believes anymore that this nation under this president will rush to protect Israel if they either agree or don’t agree to the arrogant demand to emasculate itself.  he has thrown almost every ally we have under the bus and gotten away with it because liberals in elected office and in the media have given him cover.

  In the days ahead, as you listen to politicians from both parties defend this travesty as “reality politics” or geopolitical “tit for tat” (with the exception of Rep. Eliot Engel and a few others who  courageously stood up to his party in defense of Israel and Ed Koch) they will conjure up every phony reason to justify this atrocity that George Soros ( who is simply saul alinsky with a hedge fund) can finance.  Just remember that liberalism is their religion and in the religion of liberalism, ideology trumps everything including self preservation and the defense of democracy.  This act of treachery is shameful and disgusting and for this act alone Barack Obama should be defeated in 2012.  If Israel’s enemies combine to attack and try and destroy Israel, as all of them have continuously promised to do, based on what they perceive as weakness or even tacit permission from the President of the United States then he should be impeached.

Barack Obama has engaged in community organizing at an international level.  His speech should be likened to the fitting of splendid and stylish new suit except when you try it on…it is open in the back because it is a suit for a corpse.  Never again means never again!

OUR WARPED ENERGY POLICY

MANDATES OUR INTEREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The primary reasons our attention is so captivated by middle eastern affairs is our dependence on the region's oil, a dependence that is wholly the result of bad decisions on the part of our own nation.

For political and financial reasons, the most influential circles of our government and our culture continue to cripple almost every source of home-grown energy production. Some politicians, like Al Gore, have become rich building an entire industry around a pseudo-science based opposition to every attempt by Americans to become independent of Arab oil powers. The laundry list of their misguided policies is extensive.

The use of ethanol is a text-book case of political expediency over the needs of the nation. Its use doesn’t conserve energy, because it takes as much power to produce it as it offsets from oil use. The fact that its main ingredient is corn contributes to the hike in food prices worldwide. but Iowa is a major corn producer, and it is a vital first step in the presidential race. Therefore, most candidates dutifully voice support for its use.

America has extensive oil reserves of its own, in Alaska’s ANWR region, and off our coasts. The use of both areas has been hampered by federal environmental regulations, most of which are not based on any reasonable grounds. Ironically, the exploitation of undersea oil in the Caribbean, limited by Washington, is proving a boon to Chinese/Cuban oil interests, who, unbound by American political debates, are moving in to claim these riches. Currently, the Obama administration while talking about opening up ANWR and off-shore, is simultaneously considering halting oil production in parts of Texas in response to a concern about an endangered lizard species.

America has vast deposits of coal which, using new technologies, could be used cleanly. Resistance to the use of this asset remains high, however. Here in New York, and in many other domestic sites, energy trapped in shale is just waiting to be tapped. Once again, however, objections based more on fear-mongering than on any proven concerns stands in the way of using this vast reserve of power, which would not only go a long way to making the us energy independent, but could finally revitalize New York’s moribund upstate economy.

The overblown objections to nuclear power have long been known. In the wake of Japan’s earthquake/tsunami disaster, it is doubtful whether the numerous bureaucratic hurdles against this limitless supply of power could be overcome.

And so we come to those two favorites of the alternative-energy crowd, wind and solar. It seems that the romance with these two sources ends at the point when construction of related power plants begins.

We are told that large wind mills will harm migrating birds, or despoil coastal vistas, such as that off Hyannis port in Massachusetts, prompting the formerly pro-wind power Kennedys to change their minds. Recently, environmentalists have also objected to the placement of vast solar arrays in undeveloped areas, stressing that it could impact local wildlife.

The rejection of our abundant domestic assets means that the wealth of America continues to flow to those sheiks and mullahs who long for our destruction. It’s time we ended this suicidal policy.