New York Times Editorial, "Republican Hypocrisy on Iran": The Slimiest Editorial in the History of the Times

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Have a read through the New York Times editorial "Republican Hypocrisy on Iran." Is there even a single mention of the two secret side deals between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran that govern inspection of Iranian military sites suspected of being used for atomic weapons development? Heck no! And in this regard, also have a look at a Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Iran’s Closed Covenants," which correctly observes:

"If the U.S. isn’t privy to Iran’s dealings with the IAEA, it’s because Secretary of State John Kerry and other negotiators conceded the point to Iran at the 11th hour. He might have done so figuring that punting to the IAEA gave him the chance to seal the deal without having to know exactly what’s in it. To adapt Nancy Pelosi’s phrase, if you pass the deal you still won’t know what’s in it. So much for President Obama’s assurances that the deal isn’t based on trust but on 'unprecedented verification.'

All of this is vital because Iran hasn’t answered the IAEA’s questions regarding the so-called Possible Military Dimensions of its nuclear program. The IAEA has also been seeking access to Iran’s military site at Parchin, which inspectors haven’t visited for a decade and where Iran is suspected of carrying out experiments and tests on weaponizing a nuclear device.

. . . .

U.S. diplomats are often involved in secret diplomacy, but we can think of no instance in U.S. history where the results of so consequential an agreement were closed to public inspection. No U.S. secrets are at stake, yet the Administration insists on briefing Congress on the Iran-IAEA deal only in closed session."

In addition, there are the persistent "rumors" that pursuant to these side deals, Iran itself will be responsible for supplying the IAEA with soil samples from Parchin. Incredibly, John Kerry and Ernest Muniz claim not to have read the side agreements. Have you read the side agreements, President Obama?

The Times editorial would have us know:

"Negotiating with enemies is an essential component of statecraft and can be a crucial alternative to war. Even when America was at the height of its powers, its leaders — including Republicans — knew that any successful deal would involve some compromise with the other side, not complete capitulation. Yet that is exactly what the Republicans are demanding of Iran today as they lay plans to repudiate Mr. Obama’s hard-won accord in pursuit of some mythical 'better' deal."

Again, we have the nonsensical notion that the only alternative to Obama's deal with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei is war and that no better deal is possible. However, as reported by Josh Rogin in a Bloomberg article entitled "Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal":

"Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

'He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,' Sanchez told me in an interview. 'He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.'"

But why should the Times even consider the opinion of the man who "led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group"?

Needless to say, the Times castigates Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Obama administration's bugaboo, for his opposition to the deal:

"What should be a thoughtful debate has been turned into a vicious battle against Mr. Obama, involving not just the Republicans but Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu."

You see, Netanyahu shouldn't be worried by a deal that provides Iran, which regularly calls for the eradication of Israel, with the right to build a nuclear arsenal within a maximum of 15 years if it doesn't cheat, which of course it will (it has been cheating all along). And then there is also the "small" matter that Israelis from the left, right and center, including the head of the opposition party, Isaac Herzog, oppose the deal by an enormous margin. As reported by The Jerusalem Post, 78 percent of Israelis believe the nuclear deal will "endanger Israel;" 71 percent think the deal will "bring Iran closer to a military nuclear capability;" and 47 percent "support an Israeli military strike on Iran if it would be necessary to prevent the Islamic state from getting nuclear weapons."

Backing for the deal? The Times editorial informs us:

"[A] preponderance of responsible opinion — the five major powers, the United Nations Security Council, most American nuclear experts and scores of leading American diplomats — have endorsed the pact as the best way to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon."

Got it: Israelis are irresponsible when it comes to their opinion of a deal with existential consequences for them. There is also the fact that a majority of Americans want Congress to reject Obama's deal, but what do they possibly know? The fact that they twice elected Obama as president is now entirely irrelevant.

What about America's "responsible" partners from the P5+1? No mention by the Times editorial that China will now be selling 150 J-10 fighter jets to Iran or that Russia will now be selling 100 refueling aircraft to Iran, allowing the mullahs to attack any other country in the Middle East, including, of course, Israel. And I suppose that a 60-member German trade delegation, which visited Iran earlier this month, also had the security of Israel in mind.

Yup, this is the slimiest, most partisan editorial ever published by The New York Times.

Roger Cohen, "One Congressman’s Iran": Shame on Sander Levin!

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Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who decided to support Obama's nuclear deal with Khamenei, should be concerned when he receives the blessing of Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "One Congressman’s Iran," Cohen begins:

"Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the longest-serving Jewish member of the House, said something important this week: 'In my view, the only anchors in public life are to dig deeply into the facts and consult broadly and then to say what you believe.'"

Levin dug deeply into the nuclear deal with Iran? Heck no! He couldn't even bother waiting to learn what appears in the secret side agreements between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, never seen by John Kerry or Ernest Moniz, which lay out the terms for IAEA inspections of Iranian military sites, such as Parchin, where nuclear detonator tests were conducted. And those terms are not pretty: Iran itself will be relied upon to supply requested soil samples to the IAEA.

Cohen continues:

"Levin’s reflection led him to the sober, accurate conclusion that the agreement is 'the best way to achieve' the goal of preventing Iran from advancing toward a nuclear weapon, an outcome that will make Israel, the Middle East and the world 'far more secure.' Not the ideal way, the perfect way, or a foolproof way, but, in the real world of ineradicable Iranian nuclear know-how, the best way attainable. That is also the view of other parties to the deal — the not insignificant or unserious powers of Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany."

Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all wish to "make Israel, the Middle East and the world 'far more secure'"? I suppose that is why China will now be selling 150 J-10 fighter jets to Iran and Russia will now be selling 100 refueling aircraft to Iran, allowing the mullahs to attack any other country in the Middle East, including, of course, Israel.

I suppose that a 60-member German trade delegation, which visited Iran earlier this month, was also concerned with the security of Israel.

France? As reported by Josh Rogin in a Bloomberg article entitled "Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal":

"Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

'He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,' Sanchez told me in an interview. 'He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.'"

Shame on you, Sander Levin! You might be a friend of Obama, and true blue to the Democratic Party, but you are no friend of Israel at a time when the Jewish State is again being threatened with extinction by a country being handed a nuclear arsenal within 15 years at most!

Samantha Power: Syria Still Has Chemical Weapons

As reported by Reuters in an article entitled "U.N. cites concerns over possible gaps in Syria's declared chemical arms," there is considerable concern that Bashar al-Assad did not hand over all of Syria's chemical weapons for destruction. Moreover, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power is quoted in this article as saying:

"Certainly if there are chemical weapons left in Syria, there will be a risk that those weapons fall into [the Islamic State's] hands. And we can only imagine what a group like that would do if in possession of such a weapon."

If there are still chemical weapons left in Syria? Yeah, right.

Remarkably, Power is not expressing worry over the sale of advanced Javelin anti-tank missiles by the US to Qatar pursuant to an $11 billion arms agreement signed in July. As noted  in a recent Daily Beast article by Josh Rogin entitled "America's Allies Are Funding ISIS" (my emphasis in red):

"The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror."

I can promise that the Javelin anti-tank missiles being sold by the US to Qatar will soon find their way into the hands of the Islamic State, the al-Nusra Front and Hamas, yet Obama and friends just don't give a damn.

David Ignatius, "The ‘slows’ of Obama’s Islamic State strategy": A Contradiction in Terms

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The ‘slows’ of Obama’s Islamic State strategy," Obama cheerleader David Ignatius writes:

"The administration is moving cautiously to fulfill President Obama’s promise to 'degrade and destroy' the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Yes, Obama does seem to have a strategy, and it gets pretty good marks from allies abroad. But many components aren’t ready yet, and some aren’t fully conceptualized."

Query: How can the administration be "moving cautiously to fulfill President Obama’s promise to 'degrade and destroy' the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," if "many components aren’t ready yet, and some aren’t fully conceptualized"? This is pure rubbish.

Moreover, Obama is simultaneously saying that he wants to make the Islamic State a "manageable problem." How do you make sense of these two contradictory declarations, i.e. "destroying" the Islamic State and making it into a "manageable problem"?

Ignatius also remarkably would have us know:

"Phase two of the administration’s strategy is gathering allies in the region to encourage Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State. The three key partners so far have been Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates."

However, as observed by  as observed in a recent Daily Beast article by Josh Rogin entitled "America's Allies Are Funding ISIS" (my emphasis in red):

"But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime."

Saudi Arabia is going to help the United States fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL? What is Ignatius smoking?

John Kerry, "To Defeat Terror, We Need the World’s Help": Indeed, "We Don't Have a Strategy Yet"

As reported earlier this week in a Time article entitled "Obama Says ‘We Don’t Have a Strategy Yet’ for Fighting ISIS" by Zeke Miller:

"President Barack Obama seemed to commit the worst of Washington gaffes Thursday when he updated the American people about the ongoing threat from Islamist militants wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria.

'I don’t want to put the cart before the horse: we don’t have a strategy yet,' Obama said of the effort to combat the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in its safe haven in Syria. 'I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.'"

Or is Obama, already desperate to finish his second term and go back to writing books about himself, reluctant to put the cart before the "hearse" and not the "horse"?  It's not every day that the president of the world's sole superpower acknowledges that he is clueless as to how to handle the world's premier terrorist organization.

Well, not exactly clueless. How about just plain stupid? In July, the Obama administration inked an agreement to sell $11 billion of arms (including 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles) to Qatar, and as observed in a recent Daily Beast article by Josh Rogin entitled "America's Allies Are Funding ISIS" (my emphasis in red):

"But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime."

It would take a fool to believe that the anti-tank missiles being sold by the US to Qatar will not ultimately find their way into the hands of ISIS, the al-Nusra Front and Hamas.

My suggestion: Following his "we don't have a strategy yet" remark, maybe it would be best for Obama to disappear on another Martha's Vineyard golfing holiday.

But wait! None other than US Secretary of State John (Assad is "my dear friend") Kerry has resurfaced, after his failed Gaza mission, to save the president's butt! In a guest New York Times op-ed entitled "To Defeat Terror, We Need the World’s Help," Kerry refers to the Islamic State "threat" or "threatened" five times (my emphasis again in red):

• "In a polarized region and a complicated world, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria presents a unifying threat to a broad array of countries, including the United States."
• "ISIS (which the United States government calls ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) poses a threat well beyond the region."
• "Its leaders have repeatedly threatened the United States."
• "Following the [Nato Summit meeting in Wales], Mr. Hagel and I plan to travel to the Middle East to develop more support for the coalition among the countries that are most directly threatened."
• "During the General Assembly session, President Obama will lead a summit meeting of the Security Council to put forward a plan to deal with this collective threat."

Okay, I think we understand: ISIS poses a threat. But what is the United States planning to do about it? Simple! Kerry explains at the end of his opinion piece:

"ISIS’ abhorrent tactics are uniting and rallying neighbors with traditionally conflicting interests to support Iraq’s new government. And over time, this coalition can begin to address the underlying factors that fuel ISIS and other terrorist organizations with like-minded agendas.

Coalition building is hard work, but it is the best way to tackle a common enemy. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the first President George Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III did not act alone or in haste. They methodically assembled a coalition of countries whose concerted action brought a quick victory.

Extremists are defeated only when responsible nations and their peoples unite to oppose them."

Great, let's wait until the US is able to put a coalition together, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have been funding, either directly or indirectly, ISIS on the sly.

Kerry's support for this new "strategy"? President George Bush's victory over Saddam Hussein. Of course, Kerry avoids any mention whatsoever of what happened in Libya three years ago. In 2011, Obama organized a five-nation coalition to cripple Qaddafi's defenses using airstrikes, and we all know what resulted from that intervention: chaos. As President Obama recently acknowledged to Thomas Friedman:

"I think we [and] our European partners underestimated the need to come in full force if you're going to do this."

The first invertebrate ever to occupy the Oval Office is now going to "come in full force" against ISIS? Get real! In fact, notwithstanding Kerry's attempt to paper over Obama's faux pas, there is still no US strategy vis-à-vis ISIS.

Go back to sleep, John.