School Bus Attacked With Missile In Gaza: Muslims CONTINUE To Target Israel’s Children

Please see my previous post here to see that this is no abberation, but a continuance of an incredibly longstanding strategy by Muslims to murder innocent Israeli children:

Missile from Gaza hits Israeli school bus; 2 hurt
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Aron Heller, Associated Press – 1 hr 53 mins ago

JERUSALEM – An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday, wounding two people, one of them critically, and prompting fierce Israeli retaliation that killed five Palestinians.

Israel unleashed airstrikes and tank fire against Hamas targets across the border. It was the heaviest assault on the coastal territory since a broad military offensive two years ago. Besides the dead, more than 30 Palestinians were wounded, said Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmiya.

He said one of the dead was a 50-year-old civilian who was sitting outside his home when he was struck by tank fire. Three others were militants killed near the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The fifth man was a Hamas policeman.

The sudden outbreak of violence illustrated the fragile situation along the Israel-Gaza border, where small bouts of fighting can quickly escalate into heavy-scale warfare.

After two years of relative calm, tensions have been rising between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza over the past few weeks. For Israel, Thursday’s attack was the most serious of this period.

But it also laid the groundwork for a major strategic breakthrough. The Israeli military activated a new cutting-edge missile-defense system for the first time, saying that the Iron Dome scored a direct hit on an incoming Palestinian rocket.

The escalation has also spilled beyond Israel’s borders.

In the past month, Israel has intercepted a cargo ship that it said was carrying arms bound for Gaza, jailed an alleged Hamas rocket mastermind believed to have been captured in Ukraine and been accused of carrying out a mysterious airstrike that killed two people in Sudan. Israel has not commented on this week’s airstrike, but officials have said they believe Sudan is a transit point for arms bound for Gaza.

Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the army to respond quickly to the attack on the school bus and said he held the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza, responsible for the violence.

“We will respond until it will become clear that the Hamas fully understand that we cannot accept and we will not accept such events,” he said at a military base in southern Israel.

Hamas issued a rare claim of responsibility for the bus attack, saying it was in response to the killing of three of its leaders earlier in the week. Usually, smaller militant factions claim responsibility.

Palestinian officials said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was making calls to leaders in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar appealing for their intervention.

Israeli defense officials said the incident marked a significant moment that would warrant a severe response. But there were no immediate indications that the violence would devolve into all-out war.

Israeli medical services said the bus was nearly empty after dropping off school children and was carrying only the driver and a lone passenger at the time of the attack. A 16-year-old boy with a serious head wound was evacuated from the scene and undergoing surgery at a hospital. The driver was moderately wounded.

TV footage showed a yellow bus with its windows blown out and its rear charred.

Israeli President Shimon Peres condemned the attack from New York, where he was holding meetings at the United Nations.

“This is another example of Gaza becoming a terror state,” he said in a statement. “Hundreds of thousands of mothers and children in southern Israel cannot sleep quietly at night as a result of the rocket fire from Gaza.”

The American and British governments condemned the attack.

Israel usually responds with tough reprisals to Palestinian attacks. It launched an airstrike on a Hamas training facility in northern Gaza.

Later Thursday, Israeli aircraft and tanks attacked Hamas facilities in northern and central Gaza Strip. A tank shell also struck a fuel depot in northern Gaza, sending a plume of smoke above the area.

“Israel will not frighten us and will not terrorize us,” said Hamas spokesman  Ismail Radwan. “We call on the Arab masses and the Arab revolution to stand by the Palestinian people in Gaza and to urge their regimes and their governments to stop this escalation, which aims to create a new pool of blood in Gaza Strip and Israel should be held responsible for the consequences of this.”

The missile attack came hours after Israel carried out airstrikes against tunnels it says are used by militants to smuggle weapons under the Egyptian border and carry out attacks.

Hamas and other Gaza militants have fired thousands of projectiles toward southern Israel in previous years. Israel launched a massive offensive in late 2008 to counter the near-daily barrage.

Israel recently deployed its first system to defend its tanks from anti-tank missiles. As a result, Gaza militants may be turning the weapons on new targets, since the attack on the bus appears to be the first time such a missile has been fired at a civilian Israeli target.

The military said that after the missile attack, about 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza toward Israel, including one that struck a home, causing damage but no injuries.

In a separate incident, Israel said it had arrested five Hamas militants in east Jerusalem and charged them in a pipe bomb attack that wounded a sanitation worker last month.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops rounded up dozens of Palestinian women overnight in a massive sweep as part of a search for the killer of five Israelis in a nearby settlement last month.

Residents in Awarta said that between 100 and 200 women were taken into custody and that Israeli troops took their fingerprints and DNA samples from them. By midafternoon, all the women were believed to have been released. 

Israel has been carrying out arrests in Awarta since a young Israeli couple and three of their children were stabbed to death as they slept in their home in the neighboring Jewish settlement of Itamar.

___

Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, and Ariel David in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

Tens of thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel by Muslims who would only rejoice if they were to strike a Jewish child.  For the record, 10,237 rockets were fired by Muslims at Israel in just a one month period in 2008.

The LORD (Jehovah), the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Living God, the Lord God Almighty who was, and is and is to come, is protecting Israel.

Islam is a religion of hatred.  That “Islam” means “peace” is a lie of the devil; “Islam” means “submission”; as in submission by force.

Today, we see that the United Nations is immorally siding with the terrorist Muslims against democratic Israel.  One day, the Bible teaches, the entire world will gather their forces in a valley called Armageddon (Rev 16:12-16).  And they will say, “Come and let us wipe them out as a nation. Let the name of Israel be remembered no more” (Psalms 83:4).

And it will be Messiah Jesus, coming again as He promised as King of kings and as Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11-16).

The story that will begin with undying hate will end in unending beauty and glory:

“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

God is protecting Israel.  The Jews are His covenant people, the apple of His eye (Zechariah 2:8).  And one day soon Messiah Jesus will come to His own and this time finally be welcomed.

You touch Jewish children at the peril of your immortal souls, Muslims.  One day soon you will be called upon to account for your evil.

And you stand against Israel at the peril of your souls, you ”united” nations that likewise gather against her. 

As for me and my house, we pray every single day for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).  We love and support Israel and we eagerly await the Jews’ embrace of the same Messiah that we also embrace as Savior and as Lord.

Obama’s Treasonous Lies Help Russia Punk America

Barry Hussein just teamed up with the guy who used to be a KGB goon to screw America.

And the Traitor-in-Chief just punked America again:

AMERICA GETS PUNKED… Russians Say START Treaty Covers Antimissile Defense Systems
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, January 4, 2011, 9:47 AM

They Told Us the START Treaty Could Not Wait – It Had to Be Signed Before Christmas–

The Obama Administration insisted that passing the START Treaty would not impact the US antimissile defense systems.

They were wrong.

The Russian Parliament announced this week that the START Treaty includes limitations on the US antimissile defense systems.
The Voice of Russia reported, via HotAir:

The State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) plans to confirm the link between the reduction of the strategic offensive arms and the restriction of antimissile defense systems’ deployment in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed between the US and Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs says.

“During the ratification of START in the US Congress the American lawmakers noted that the link between strategic offensive armed forces and antimissile defense systems is not juridically binding for the parties. They referred to the fact that this link was fixed only in the preamble of the document. Such an approach can be regarded as the US’ attempt to find an option to build up its strategic potential and the Russian lawmakers cannot agree with this,” Kosachev says.

We will deal with these interpretations. The first thing is that our American colleagues do not recognize the legal force of the treaty’s preamble. The preamble sets a link between strategic offensive arms and defensive arms. The second thing is an attempt to interpret certain provisions of the treaty unilaterally.

The Russian lawmakers insist that all the chapters of the treaty including the preamble are legally binding, which is a common norm of international law. It is not lawful to take certain provisions and to give them unilateral interpretations like the American senators do, Alexei Arbatov, a member of the Carnegie Scientific Council, says.

Once again, we were fooled by Obama – And, once again, America will pay the price.

Obama told us that his policies would make the world love us and restore peace where fear had existed.  Now we’ve got Iran on the verge of nuclear weapons and North Korea on the verge of war, just for starters.  Obama told us that his stimulus would prevent unemployment from going over 8%.  It’s been near double digits for most of his two pathetic years’ of misrule.  Obama told us that he would reduce the deficit.  But in less than two years he spent more than Bush did in eight, and exploded the deficit as no leader has done in human history.  Obama told us all kinds of lies about ObamaCare: he told us that if you liked your doctor you could keep him/her; he told us that the individual mandates were NOT a tax; he told us his health care would bend the cost curve down.  Lies, lies, lies.

Obama has sold us trillions of dollars’ worth of pork-laden bills to benefit his political base with a bunch of whopping lies.

Now he’s betrayed us to a foreign power with another whopper.

Just how many times can this liar lie to the American people without being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors?

Hillary Clinton Tacitly Acknowledges Obama Administration Has Failed With Iran

Remember a shameless Bill Clinton telling us “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” as he tried to wriggle out of his lies?

He won politically, as he was able to remain Liar-in-Chief.  But he lost factually, as he was deemed unfit to practice law, and had to surrender his law license.

There’s a joke that goes, “What do you call a million attorneys at the bottom of the ocean?  A good start.”  Well, Bill Clinton proved himself to be such a weasel that he wasn’t even fit to pursue the weasel’s favorite profession.

Well, the meaning is considerably more clear with Bill’s wife’s repeated usage of participles.  As in, “Iran is becoming a military dictatorship”; as in “Iran is sliding into a military dictatorship”; as in “an ever-dimming outlook for persuading Iran”; as in “Iran is increasingly dominated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps”; as in this increasing decision-making (by the Revolutionary Guard)”; as in “in effect supplanting the government of Iran.”

As in, words and their tenses are actually important.  All this “becoming” and “sliding” and “ever-dimming” and “supplanting” is in the tense of the present active participle.  Which is to say that it didn’t occur in the past while George Bush was president; it is something that is happening right now, under the failed presidency and the failed foreign policy of Barack Obama.

Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship
By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer   – 1 hr 21 mins ago

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday Iran is sliding into a military dictatorship, a new assessment suggesting a rockier road ahead for U.S.-led efforts to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

As the first high-level Obama administration official to make such an accusation, Clinton was reflecting an ever-dimming outlook for persuading Iran to negotiate limits on its nuclear program, which it has insisted is intended only for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and others — including the two Gulf countries Clinton visited Sunday and Monday — believe Iran is headed for a nuclear bomb capability. [...]

Earlier in the day, in Doha, Qatar, Clinton spoke bluntly about Iranian behavior and what she called the Obama administration’s view of Iran as increasingly dominated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. [...]

The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran’s regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area, including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure — giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran’s internal politics.

“The evidence we’ve seen of this increasing decision-making (by the Revolutionary Guard) cuts across all areas of Iranian security policy, and certainly nuclear policy is at the core of it,” Clinton told reporters flying with her from Doha to Saudi Arabia.

Asked if the U.S. was planning a military attack on Iran, Clinton said “no.”

The United States is focused on gaining international support for sanctions “that will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran,” she said. [...]

Private U.S. experts on the Iranian regime said they agreed with Clinton’s assessment of Iran’s drift toward military dominance.

“When you rely on the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to remain in power it is only a matter of time before the regime becomes a paramilitary dictatorship — and it is about time we realize this,” Iranian-born Fariborz Ghadar, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an e-mail to The AP. He said the current regime is “beholden to the Revolutionary Guard for its survival.”

Ray Takeyh, a former administration adviser on Iran who now follows Iranian developments from the private Council on Foreign Relations, said by e-mail, “The Revolutionary Guards are increasingly represented in all aspects of governance.”

Clinton told reporters it appears the Revolutionary Guard is in charge of Iran’s controversial nuclear program and the country changing course “depends on whether the clerical and political leadership begin to reassert themselves.”

She added: “I’m not predicting what will happen but I think the trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside.”

Clinton said the Iran that could emerge is “a far cry from the Islamic Republic that had elections and different points of view within the leadership circle. That is part of the reason that we are so concerned with what we are seeing going on there.”

In her Doha appearance, Clinton also said she foresees a possible breakthrough soon in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

“I’m hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding,” she said, adding that “everyone is anticipating” progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties. [...]

And we have a clue as to how “hopey changey” relates to Obama foreign policy:

From Secretary Clinton: “I’m hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding,” she said, adding that “everyone is anticipating” progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties.

And a Haaretz article provides us with more “hope n’ change”:

We have Vice President Biden: “Referring to U.S.-led effort to force new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Biden told Meet the Press on Sunday that he hoped to recruit China’s support to the campaign.”

We have JCS Chairman Admiral Mullen: “He added that he still hoped a solution could be found through diplomacy and sanctions, and that there would not be a regional war.”

I am personally very hopeful that magic unicorns will fly over Iran and melt the mullahs’ heart with their rainbow sprinkles.  And my hope for change is no less ridiculous than the three above.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy is so desperately failed that they are now incredibly trying to claim credit for the Bush victory in Iraq which they did everything they could to prevent.

Thirteen months and counting, Barry Hussein has still not lived up to his promise of personally sitting down with the Ayatollah without preconditions and discussing why the latter wants to exterminate the state of Israel as a precursor to destroying the “Great Satan” America.

Barry Hussein’s foreign policy was so shockingly bad and so woefully pathetic that even then-candidate for president Hillary Clinton said he was “irresponsible and frankly naive.”

But now “naive and irresponsible” is the law of the land.  And Obama’s Good Ship Lollipop is steaming toward a nuclear-armed Iranian rogue regime.

As Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “Iran is now a nuclear state.” Which shortly follows their demonstration that they are well on their way to being an intercontinental ballistic missile state to deliver their nukes, too.

French President Sarkozy said that we haven’t gained anything whatsoever from Obama’s “irresponsible and frankly naive” policy of dialogue with Iran “but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

He has also said, ““We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

But not in Hopey Changey Land.

There wasn’t a single carbon-based conservative on the planet who didn’t say that Obama’s irresponsible and naive policy would utterly fail.  And surprise, surprise, it’s utterly failed.

You mark my words.  Due to Barack Obama’s irresponsible, naive, and failed leadership, Iran WILL obtain nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.  And as a result of Iran’s successful defiance of Obama, the Sunni Arab world WILL develop their own nuclear weapons and ignite a terrifying new nuclear arms race in the most insane region in the history of the planet.

In addition to that terrifying outcome, Iran will have the capability to do any of the following:

1) Start a global nuclear holocaust in order to force the appearance of the Twelfth Imam.  Mutually Assured Destruction may very well play no part in the Iranian leaderships’ apocalyptic worldview.

2) Invade Israel with their nuclear weapons as a protective shield against Israel’s “Samson option.”  Iran would have numerous Islamic allies to attack with them.

3) Shut down the Strait of Hormuz and send oil prices (and therefore the cost of just about everything else that requires energy to produce) into the stratosphere.

4) Massively increase global terrorism with impunity.  If Iranian-trained or based jihadists manage another massive 9/11, what will we do if going to war will mean the destruction of several U.S. cities and millions of dead Americans?

Allow me to restate something I wrote back in April of 2008 (and cited again in December of last year):

A President John McCain can assure the Iranians, “We attacked Iraq when we believed they represented a threat to us, and we will do the same to you. You seriously might want to rethink your plans.” A President John McCain can say to Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, “We have stood by Iraq even when it was difficult, and we will do the same for you. You don’t need those weapons; the United States will be there for you.”

Barack Obama can’t do any of that.  He won’t go to war with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program (did you notice Hillary Clinton’s “NO” to the question whether the US was planning any sort of attack?).  He can’t assure Arab allies that they can completely count on him to protect them.  And he is therefore completely powerless and completely useless.

Liberals will naturally (being deceitful, dishonest, and demagogic) want to blame George Bush for not dealing with Iran.  But an article from the Los Angeles Times from December of 2007 underscores why Bush was not able to mobilize America against the building Iranian threat.  In a word, it was DEMOCRATS:

“DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.

While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of them sought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.”

George Bush believed Iran was a threat that needed to be confronted.  Democrats like Barack Obama shrilly screamed him down.  This is therefore genuinely Barry Hussein’s mess, and it has become increasingly obvious that doesn’t have the stones to handle it.

America’s failure to wisely choose its 44th president leaves us in the greatest crisis we have ever known, both domestically and internationally.

And when the fecal matter hits the rotary oscillator, there won’t be anybody to bail us out.

Barack Obama’s Dithering Foreign Policy About To Give Iran Nukes

For the official record, it was not Dick Cheney who first accused Barack Obama of dithering over Afghanistan while our troops languished and died.  It was the Pentagon.  From September 22, 2009:

In interviews with McClatchy last week, military officials and other advocates of escalation expressed their frustration at what they consider “dithering” from the White House.

From September 18, 2009:

Those officials said that taking time could be costly because the U.S. risked losing the Afghans’ support. “Dithering is just as destructive as 10 car bombs,” the senior official in Kabul said. “They have seen us leave before. They are really good at picking the right side to ally with.”

Obama has turned “dithering” into a weapon of mass destruction against American foreign policy.  Our allies are being forced to make increasingly tough decisions as to whether we really are the horse they should bet their lives on.  And our enemies are resurgent, believing that the president who has demonstrated a lack of resolve will withdraw if they can pile up a high enough body count.

On November 7 there will be another election in Afghanistan.  And there will not be anywhere near enough troops to provide adequate security.

There would have been, had Obama accepted his own handpicked general’s assessment.  But there won’t be.  It seems increasingly likely that the resurgent Taliban will be able to thwart the elections, creating an ongoing political instability which will cascade into a major failures against stability in Afghanistan.

But Obama is not just dithering in Afghanistan.  Rather, his entire foreign policy is based on dithering.

A nuclear-armed Iran capable of destroying Israel, capable of blockading the Strait of Hormuz and causing oil prices to quintuple, capable of launching a wave of global jihad such as the world has never seen, looms.

October 24, 2009
Barack Obama’s policy on brink of collapse as Tehran does last-minute nuclear stall

President Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran is close to collapse as Tehran backtracks on a crucial deal aimed at cutting its stockpiles of nuclear fuel.

Iran agreed a deal “in principle” at talks in Geneva to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium overseas for reprocessing into nuclear fuel that could be used for a medical research reactor.

A deal outlining this was finalised in Vienna this week and a deadline of midnight tonight was set for the agreement to be sealed with Tehran.

The framework deal, along with an offer to allow international inspectors into its newly-revealed enrichment plant at Qom, was hailed as evidence that Iran was responding positively to the diplomatic track.

Today, however, with just hours until the deadline, Iran has turned the table on its foreign interlocutors with a rival proposal, demanding that it be allowed to buy higher enriched uranium directly from abroad. [...]

The counter-proposal was outlined on Iranian state television today as the clock ticked down to the midnight deadline. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is waiting for a constructive and confidence-building response to the clear proposal of buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor,” state television quoted an unnamed source close to Iran’s negotiating team as saying. [...]

Russia and China’s reluctance to consider new sanctions is forcing Washington to seek a coalition of willing allies to impose their own economic blockade on Iran if efforts to get UN sanctions fail.

Tehran’s latest move comes straight from a well-thumbed Iranian playbook and looks like yet another stalling tactic to test the West’s resolve and buy time to avert new sanctions. But Western patience is growing thinner by the day, with diplomats warning that the apparent breakthrough in Geneva on October 1 may be less positive than it first seemed.

Anxiety is now growing about what will happen on Sunday when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrive in Iran to inspect the long-hidden nuclear plant at Qom.

“It’s like Groundhog Day,” a senior Western diplomat involved in the Iran negotiations said. “Except in Groundhog Day you wake up every day and everything’s the same. With this, you wake up every day and everything’s just a little bit worse.” [...]

Britain, France and Israel believe that Iran has all the know-how it needs to build a bomb and that weaponisation studies have continued despite Tehran’s insistence that it halted them years ago.

The IAEA has called Western intelligence on weaponisation “compelling” and chided Iran for refusing to answer questions on the subject.  Iran remains in breach of five UN resolutions calling on it to halt enrichment until outstanding questions about a military dimension to the programme are resolved.

And Obama is displaying his steely resolve…

Western diplomats had initially said the international powers would not accept any attempt to drag out the negotiations beyond Friday.

However, the United States said that it was now prepared to wait for Iran’s reply.

… by showing even less resolve than France.  In answer to the question, “Why Is a World Leader Distancing Himself From President Obama?”:

One major sticking point has been President Obama’s softer stance on Iran, while President Sarkozy prefers a more hawkish approach. Sarkozy said last month: “I support America’s outstretched hand. But what has the international community gained from these offers of dialogue? Nothing but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

This on top of other remarks Sarkozy has made about Obama’s naivete and weakness:

Sarkozy: “We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

Even pantywaist Europe is calling Obama a pantywaist.  And that is the definition of “pathetic.”

Our enemies have been smelling a weakling in the White House since Obama won the election.  Obama talked tough when he had to to win the election, but that tough talk was always a lie.

We are looking at exactly the same scenario regarding Iran as George Bush faced regarding Iraq; namely, veto-wielding permanent member UN nations that will thwart any meaningful or legitimate sanction that could truly stop the rogue nation’s quest for weapons of mass destruction.  This has been the case for years.  We cannot rely on international consensus as the basis for our security; it will let us down every single time.

Nor can we rely upon dialogue with evil tyrants to achieve our foreign policy objectives.  What I said a year ago last August in that regard is even more true now.  You simply cannot negotiate with an untrustworthy partner who does not want peace.

As far back as April of 2008 I pointed out that the election of a Democrat to the White House would guarantee a nuclear-armed Iran, concluding:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

A Republican president can say to the Iranians, “We went in to Iran when we thought they might attack us, Iran. And I promise that will do the same to you if you continue your weapons program.” And no one can question that. A Republican president can say to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, “We stayed with Iraq and defended them even when it was difficult, and we’ll do the same for you.” and no one can question that.

And it’s actually even worse than I thought.  In Barack Obama, we have a president who has repeatedly demonstrated he is toothless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend.  Subsequent to that piece, Obama reneged on a major missile defense deal with key Eastern European allies in order to appease a hostile Russia – who gave us nothing in exchange for our betrayal.  And if that wasn’t bad enough – we sold out Poland to Russia on the 70th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

Barack Obama will not go to war with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.  And Iran knows that.  Iran also knows that their Russian and Chinese allies will prevent any sanction that could truly hurt them from passing the useless United Nations.

As a result of Obama’s dithering, the world’s worst terrorist state will soon have the bomb, and the ballistic missile capability to deliver that bomb.  And when they get it, the world will change in very scary ways.

Obama Helps Russia Reassemble Iron Curtain

One of the things Obama has most wanted to prove was that he isn’t Bush — as though no matter how stupid his policies might be, as long as they aren’t Bush’s they must be good.

Well, Obama aint Reagan, either.

Obama appears to intend to not only roll back every Bush policy, but the fundamental victory of the Reagan presidency over the U.S.S.R.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Mark Steyn: Obama helping Putin restitch Iron Curtain
Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia’s new czar.

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America’s plucky allies: “The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles,” he declared. “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”

On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The “courageous” Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the “threat from Iran” go away? Not so’s you’d notice. The dawn of the nuclear Ayatollahs is perhaps only months away, and, just in case the Zionists or (please, no tittering) the formerly Great Satan is minded to take ‘em out, Tehran will shortly be taking delivery of a bunch of S-300 anti-aircraft batteries from (ta-da!) Russia. Fancy that.

Joe Klein, the geostrategic thinker of Time magazine, concluded his analysis thus:

“This is just speculation on my part. But I do hope that this anti-missile move has a Russian concession attached to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the U.S. agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama administration’s diplomatic strategy is, I believe, wise and comprehensive – but it needs to show more than public concessions over time. A few diplomatic victories wouldn’t hurt.”

Golly. We know, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein and many others, that we critics of President Obama’s health care policy are, by definition, racist. Has criticism of Obama’s foreign policy also been deemed racist? Because one can certainly detect the first faint seeds of doubt germinating in dear old Joe’s soon-to-be-racist breast: The Obama administration “needs to show more than public concessions over time” – because otherwise the entire planet may get the vague impression that that’s all there is.

Especially if your pre-emptive capitulations are as felicitously timed as the missile-defense announcement, stiffing the Poles on the 70th anniversary of their invasion by the Red Army. As for the Czechs, well, dust off your Neville Chamberlain’s Greatest Hits LP: Like he said, they’re a faraway country of which we know little. So who cares? Everything old is new again.

It is interesting to contrast the administration’s “wise” diplomacy abroad with its willingness to go nuclear at home. If you go to a “town hall” meeting and express misgivings about the effectiveness of the stimulus, you’re a “racist” “angry” “Nazi” “evilmonger” “right-wing domestic terrorist.” It’s perhaps no surprise that that doesn’t leave a lot left over in the rhetorical arsenal for Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans “negotiate” with Iran over its nukes for years, and, in the end, Iran gets the nukes, and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. “This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat or, rather, the lack of one,” said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma’s international affairs committee. “Finally the Americans have agreed with us.”

There’ll be a lot more of that in the years ahead.

There is no discreetly arranged “Russian concession.” Moscow has concluded that a nuclear Iran is in its national interest – especially if the remorseless nuclearization process itself is seen as a testament to Western weakness. Even if the Israelis are driven to bomb the thing to smithereens circa next spring, that, too, would only emphasize, by implicit comparison, American and European pusillanimity. Any private relief felt in the chancelleries of London and Paris would inevitably license a huge amount of public tut-tutting by this or that foreign minister about the Zionist Entity’s regrettable “disproportion.” The U.S. defense secretary is already on record as opposing an Israeli strike. If it happens, every thug state around the globe will understand the subtext – that, aside from a tiny strip of land on the east bank of the Jordan, every other advanced society on earth is content to depend for its security on the kindness of strangers.

Some of them very strange. Kim Jong-il wouldn’t really let fly at South Korea or Japan, would he? Even if some quasi-Talibanny types wound up sitting on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, they wouldn’t really do anything with them, would they? OK, Putin can be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with Eastern Europe, and his definition of “Eastern” seems to stretch ever further west, but he’s not going to be sending the tanks back into Prague and Budapest, is he? I mean, c’mon …

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto czar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire – not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too – in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is, in effect, under the security umbrella of the new czar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.

I am still just as stunned by the Obama betrayal of a fundamental American commitment as the Poles and Czechs.  I mean, stop and think about it:

Obama announces his betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia on the anniversary of the inevitable result of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s selling of Eastern Europe down the river to Hitler and Stalin.  The rationale?  That Iran is farther behind on its ballistic missile technology than had been previously believed.

And, yet, on that very same day, we learn that a confidential report from the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran – contrary to previous intelligence assessments – can now make a nuclear bomb whenever they damn well want to.  And we become even more aware that the IAEA has been more intent on covering up Iranian (and before that Iraqi) development of weapons of mass destruction.

And my gosh, wasn’t it Democrats who kicked Bush for relying too much on intelligence assessments that can well be faulty?  Even when not only U.S. intelligence, but every single major intelligence service in the world, supported the primary conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMD?  Why on earth does the same Barack Obama who as a candidate demonized Bush over trusting faulty intelligence on Iraq now so implicitly trust intelligence that Iran is not working on long-range missiles?

And then the very next day following that terrible 70th anniversary of September 17, 1939, Iran – which by the way can make nuclear bombs – shows just how insane they are by releasing a statement that denies the Holocaust occurred and vows that Israel’s days are numbered.

On September 17, 2009, President Barack Obama unilaterally abrogated a security agreement with two of its key Eastern European allies – who have been so loyal to America that they have kept troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – in order to appease an unfriendly Russia.  And the only thing worse than this capitulation to Russia is the despicable timing of said capitulation.

As Mark Steyn states in his title, this will result in a seismic shifting of Eastern European nations away from the untrustworthy United States and toward Russia.  All of Eastern Europe is in play: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Lithuania – and especially already-attacked Georgia – are now aware that they are basically on their own with a hungry Russian bear looming over them.

September 17, 2009 was a shameful day for Barack Obama and a shameful day for the nation that he represents.

Neville Chamberlain Deux: Obama Betrays Allies To Appease Enemies

For the official record, I have compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain sixteen times in separate articles (seventeen counting this one).  British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was ruthless in advancing his domestic policy agenda, but became one of history’s most infamous appeasing weaklings in bowing down to Hitler’s threats and demands.  In seeking to avoid war at any cost, he guaranteed the worst war in human history – at least until now.

Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Munich expressing his desire to discuss a peaceful settlement with Germany under terms that included reneging on the British pledge to defend Czechoslovakia.  Jan Masaryk, the Czech Minister in London, called on British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax on the eve of the Munich Conference and said, “If you are sacrificing my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, God help your souls!”

Britain had betrayed Czechoslovakia for an empty promise that Neville Chamberlain naively believed would bring “peace in our time.”  Edouard Daladier took a more realistic view: “The fools,” he said bitterly, acknowledging the cheers of the crowds who believed Chamberlain’s statement.  “If only they knew what they are cheering.”

In one of those twists of historic irony that seem so commonplace in accompanying the greatest tragedies in human history, Barack Obama announced his betrayal of the previous American administration’s commitment to Poland and Czechoslovakia on the 70th anniversary of the bitter fruit of the Munich Conference.  It was on September 17, 1939 that Stalin’s forces streamed into Poland as a direct result of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasing betrayal and demonstration of weakness.

A Reuters article underscores the highly ironic timing of the Obama betrayal:

For Poland, the timing of the announcement is particularly sensitive. Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland following a pact between Moscow and Nazi Germany, an event seen by Poles as “a stab in the back.”

Is Obama even aware of the historic irony?  Probably not.  As Jules Crittenden points out, “The Obama administration doesn’t study history. It reimagines it.”

As usual, Obama has altered the facts on the intent of the missile shield.  It was – contrary to Obama’s assertion – not merely intended to protect the United States from a ballistic missile attack, but to serve as a bulwark against Russian aggression of eastern European countries (remember the recent Russian invasion of Georgia?).

Mr. Bush had developed a special relationship with Eastern Europe as relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated. The proposal to deploy parts of the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic were justified on the grounds that they would protect Europe and the eastern coast of the United States against any possible missile attacks from Iran.

But the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as a protection against Russia.

Poland and Czechoslovakia took a big risk trusting the United States instead of coming to terms under the sphere of hostile Russia.  And now they are revealed to have been fools for trusting the Americans:

“We have been hearing such things for a while now via different papers, from some conferences and so on,” said Waszczykowski, deputy head of Poland’s National Security Bureau which advises President Lech Kaczynski.

“This would be very bad. Without the shield we would de facto be losing a strategic alliance with Washington,” he said.

Michael Wisniewski, the Poland director of the Europa 21 foundation, expressed how Obama hamstrung the pro-USA movement throughout the entire eastern European region:

After 9/11 Poles expressed solidarity with USA without any hesitation. Despite the fact that we were risking alienation from some of our European partners. And after we joined US-led coalition against terrorism, we were verbally attacked by Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Shroeder – leaders of two major European powers. But our position was clear and firm – we would stay with USA and fight against common enemies – enemies who attacked our ally and the whole free world. No other country had so special status in Poland – almost 80% Poles sympathized with US. Poland is not great military power – but have some influence on the eastern Europe and was a real stronghold of American interests in this region. Whatever Germans, French or other UE countries would do – Poland always stood arm to arm with US.

Now it belongs to the past. It’s not only about this incident, but it was something that created great outrage here. It’s impossible to remain so positive towards US now – people are reacting emotionally. Even most pro-US media and journalists comment, that our close relations with USA was mistake. That we were wrong and we should focus on our closer neighbours – like France or Germany.

The Obama administration announced its betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia – and the abandonment of the shared values that had framed their relationship with the United States – with a telephone call.  At least it wasn’t done via Twitter.

The Poles and the Czechs have the virtue of not being so stupid and naive as to fall for Obama’s beautiful lies.  They are not dancing in the streets over the announcement of their betrayal:

Poles, Czechs: US missile defense shift a betrayal

WARSAW, Poland — Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.

“Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,” the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama’s new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous “gray zone” between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.

Recent events have rattled nerves throughout central and eastern Europe, a region controlled by Moscow during the Cold War, including the war last summer between Russia and Georgia and ongoing efforts by Russia to regain influence in Ukraine. A Russian cutoff of gas to Ukraine last winter left many Europeans without heat.

The Bush administration’s missile defense plan would have been “a major step in preventing various disturbing trends in our region of the world,” Kaczynski said in a guest editorial in Fakt that also was carried on his presidential Web site.

Neighboring Lithuania, a small Baltic nation that broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a NATO member, also expressed regret over Obama’s decision.

Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene said that the shield would have increased security for Lithuania and she hoped missile defense would not be excluded from future talks on NATO security.

“This NATO region cannot be an exception and its defense is not less important compared with others,” she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he still sees a chance for Poles and Czechs to participate in the redesigned missile defense system. But that did not appear to calm nerves in Warsaw or Prague. [...]

An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: “an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid.”

The move has raised fears in the two nations they are being marginalized by Washington even as a resurgent Russia leaves them longing for added American protection.

The Bush administration always said that the planned system — with a radar near Prague and interceptors in northern Poland — was meant as defense against Iran. But Poles and Czechs saw it as protection against Russia, and Moscow too considered a military installation in its backyard to be a threat.

“No Radar. Russia won,” the largest Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes, declared in a front-page headline.

Any nation that has made any kind of a deal with the United States should seriously rethink the trustworthiness of their partner.  Because the American promise doesn’t mean a whole lot under this administration.

It appears highly likely that Obama is abandoning a U.S. commitment and betraying Poland and Czechoslovakia in order to get some kind of commitment from Russia to use its leverage to stop Iran’s nuclear program.  The only problem is that Russia is even less trustworthy than the new United States has become under Obama.

We’re not going to get squat from Russia that is anything other than a superficial and meaningless exercise.

Jennifer Rubin concludes her piece on Obama’s betryal of Poland and Czechoslovakia with this:

The administration that promised to restore our standing in the world is on quite a roll. Open hostility toward Israel. Bullying Honduras [link]. Reneging on promises to Eastern Europe. A strange policy indeed that dumps on our friends in the vain effort to incur the goodwill of our enemies. And if one is a “realist,” not a fabulist, it should be apparent that this is a losing proposition. We will lose our friends and gain nothing. Weakness and the betrayal of our allies do not ameliorate tensions with our adversaries. We had a Cold War topped off by the Carter administration to prove that. But Obama’s never been very good at history.

In April of last year I wrote this about Democrats and Iran near the end of the piece:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

And here we are: Iran can now make a bomb.

And neither Russia nor Obama are going to do a damn thing to stop it.