Obama Opposes US Sanctions on Iran
Tammuz 1, 5770, 13 June 10 12:27, by Hana Levi Julian
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Obama administration is working to balance its support of United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran by opposing similar sanctions in the process of being formulated by the U.S. Congress.
The American version of such sanctions would punish firms that sell refined petroleum products to the Islamic Republic or help the country's oil industry in other ways. The sanctions would apply only to U.S. agencies and companies and would not be binding on other countries.
Other nations are also considering similar measures, now that the U.N. sanctions have been approved.
The White House is concerned that the Congress may go too far in imposing sanctions on those that work with firms based in countries that have cooperated with Iran, such as China, Russia and several European nations, according to the Los Angeles Times. Such a move could damage America's relationship with those countries, all of whom cooperated with the United States when it came time to vote on the United Nations sanctions against Iran.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton recently reminded U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a letter that the U.S. had promised in 1998 not to punish European countries for doing business with Iran.
In order to avoid diplomatic difficulties, the Obama administration is seeking a waiver for countries that have cooperated with the United States on Iran – but the White House may face a tough fight. The senior Republican member on House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), called the U.N. sanctions a “goose egg.” Ros-Lehtinen is calling for Congress to beef up the international fight against the Islamic Republic's nuclear development program by imposing “crippling sanctions against Iran” on its own.
www.IsraelNationalNews.com
Iranian Marines Set to Escort Flotilla 'To Teach Israel Lessons'
Tammuz 1, 5770, 13 June 10 12:19, by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) Two Iranian ships intended to head for Hamas-controlled Gaza are waiting for their government's approval to challenge Israel on the high seas, escorted by “volunteer marines” that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to send “to teach Israelis a lesson.”
An Iranian Red Crescent official said the two ships are waiting for the Iranian foreign ministry to give the green light for launching, according to the French news service AFP, quoting the Iranian Mehr news service. The Red Crescent said a third ship probably would join the fleet.
Red Crescent official Mojtaba Majd also claimed that more than 100,000 Iranians have signed up to board the ships, but only those with ”expertise” would be accepted. Majd did not define the area of expertise required.
Ali Shirazi, the Revolutionary Guard’s spokesman for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it was “Iran’s duty to defend the innocent people of Gaza.”
A Red Crescent ship to Gaza was stopped by the Israeli Navy a year and a half ago, but the charged anti-Israeli atmosphere following the latest flotilla clash has encouraged Arab and left-wing colleagues to try to break Israel’s blockade over free passage to the Gaza coast.
An Iranian maritime convoy to Israel could provoke a military clash on the high seas, but it also would highlight Israel’s claim that lifting the blockade would allow Iran to directly send advanced arms, ammunition and terrorists for the de facto Hamas government in Gaza.
The Iranian Red Crescent ships were prepared with cooperation from the Turkish government, according to the London Express. Ahmadinejad reportedly told Turkish leaders in Istanbul last week that the vessels would be prepared for a direct clash with the Israeli Defense Forces.
Turkey was one of two countries that voted against new sanctions imposed on Iran last week by the United Nations Security Council. Once considered a friend of Israel and distant from Iran, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has totally reversed government policy over the past two years and has joined the Syrian-Iranian-Hizbullah axis while stating that it still wants goods relations with Israel.
www.IsraelNationalNews.com
Awaiting Armageddon: Iran versus the World
By Alan Caruba Saturday, June 12, 2010
I do not know what it is about Islam and liberalism that causes both to turn logic and truth on its head, but we have been witnessing it in different ways in recent days.
First there was the “humanitarian” flotilla running the Israeli blockade of Gaza and then there was the appalling anti-Semitism of Helen Thomas, formerly of the front row in the White House press room.
Suffice it to say that the so-called Palestinians are not living in a state of “occupation.” They have repeatedly been offered a state of their own, but have refused it for some six decades. They exist as wards of the United Nations.
Israel is a sovereign nation and has been since May 16, 1948. Its ancient sovereignty dates back to the days of David and Solomon. I say “so-called” because Palestine was the name applied to Israel by a Roman emperor in an effort to make the world forget that Jews had been living in their own land for over a thousand years before being driven into exile.
Arabs who live in Israel are called Israelis because they are citizens there. They number more than a million and, while most are Muslim, about nine percent are Christian. So, while the enemies of Israel talk exclusively in terms of its Jewish population, they are ignoring a sizeable number who are Muslims. It need also be said they enjoy freedoms that their counterparts in other Middle Eastern nations do not.
What I have always found astonishing is the way the Arab nations surrounding Israel and who have attacked it repeatedly nonetheless regard Israel as the aggressor.
This is the same strange logic that says al Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon, but is blameless because they did so in response to U.S. policies in the Middle East. It is the same sick logic and contempt for everything that is not Islamic that pursues the creation of a mosque within walking distance of ground zero.
Not surprisingly, after 9/11 the U.S. responded with military action against the Afghanistan base of Al Qaeda operations, followed thereafter with an invasion of Iraq, the second such military action after having initially driven the Iraqis out of Kuwait. The result was the end of the three-decade regime of Saddam Hussein. The Saudis and oil-rich Gulf states were the major beneficiaries.
There is not a single justification for the “humanitarian” flotilla, one ship of which was filled with men who violently resisted the boarding by Israelis under long established international law regarding blockades.
Tons of humanitarian aid is routinely delivered daily to Gaza after inspection. The inspection is necessary because, since having withdrawn from Gaza as a gesture of peace in 2005, the area has been used to launch thousands of rockets. Even the Egyptians who share a border with Gaza maintain a comparable blockade to ensure weapons are not smuggled into the Hamas hotbed of hatred for Israel.
So far in its short history, Israel has fought a 1948 War of Independence against several Arab armies. The famed Six-Day War followed in 1967. In 1973, the Israelis were attacked on one of the holiest days of their calendar, Yom Kippur, by a coalition of Arab nations. They also endured Yassir Arafat’s PLO Intifada of terror bombings
In 1982 the first Lebanon War was a response to constant terror attacks on northern Israel. It was followed in 2006 by a second Lebanon War in response to the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, a proxy Islamic organization funded and armed by Iran. The most recent Israeli 2009 military engagement against Gaza was a response to constant rocketing and attacks. The blockade is part of the way Israel must cope with a self-defined enemy.
In every case, the Israelis were accused of being the aggressors. Arab nations insisted they were “occupiers” in a land in which Jews had lived for 3,500 years and called their home despite an exile that had existed for 2,000 years prior to the reestablishment of Israel. It followed the Nazi Holocaust that killed six million European Jews during World War Two.
Throughout the Middle East and most particularly in the United Nations, Israel has always been called the aggressor. The same irrational hatred for Jews that has existed everywhere for centuries explains why Israelis are armed to the teeth and why Jews worldwide are experiencing a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
What worries Israelis these days and should worry Americans as well is the policy of the Obama administration that has clearly turned against Israel, emboldening its enemies. It shames the history of friendship that has existed since Israel was reestablished over sixty years ago.
It is an invitation for war in the Middle East, one that has been joined by Turkey, a nation that has abandoned its history of secular governance in favor of the Islamism that threatens Western nations in particular and the world in general.
Allowing Iran to acquire nuclear arms will tip the world into a global conflict whose casualties are incalculable.
America needs to assert its support for Israel, if only in its own interest. America is being infiltrated by Islamic terrorists and it has a growing number of home-grown ones. Having elected a president whose stated preference is for Islam, the prospects are not good. In the words of Islamists, Israel is the “Little Satan” and America is the “Big Satan.”
Commentator, J.D. Longstreet summed up the threat. “I am not optimistic that hatred of the Jews will end, or even Islam and liberalism, irrational hatred for Jews lessen any time soon. In fact, I expect it to get much, much, worse and eventually lead the nations of the world to a place known as the Megiddo Valley and the final battle known as the Battle of Armageddon.”
Will the armed might of the U.S., already present in the Middle East in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in the Persian Gulf, be used to thwart this? That question waits upon the decision of Barack Hussein Obama.
© Alan Caruba, 2010
The Russian Defense Ministry sent on Sunday an additional 150 paratroopers to enhance security at Russia's airbase in Kyrgyzstan following deadly ethnic clashes in the country's south, the ministry's official spokesman said.
The Russian Defense Ministry sent on Sunday an additional 150 paratroopers to enhance security at Russia's airbase in Kyrgyzstan following deadly ethnic clashes in the country's south, the ministry's official spokesman said.
The paratroopers are to provide security to Russian soldiers serving at the Kant base, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside the capital, Bishkek, and their families, Alexei Kuznetsov said.
He said the troops are also ordered to reinforce security at other Russian Defense Ministry's facilities in Kyrgyzstan.
About 100 people were killed in Kyrgyzstan as ethnic riots swept through the country's second-largest city of Osh and another southern city of Jalalabad on Friday and Saturday.
Hundreds of people were reported injured.
Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek groups set ablaze cars, crushed the stores and markets as well as the residential houses. The looters have been rampaging through the streets during the days of rioting.
The Kyrgyz interim authorities asked Russia for military help to stop the rioters, but Moscow refused on Saturday.
Earlier on Sunday, a state of emergency was introduced in the entire territory of the Jalalabad region.
A round-the-clock curfew has been introduced in the city of Osh and the neighboring Kara-Suu and Aravan districts.
The interim government has allowed police and the troops to shoot to kill in order to quench the riots and stop marauders.
MOSCOW, June 13 (RIA Novosti)
Iran: Moscow must abide by S-300 deal
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP, 13/06/2010
Teheran warns it is capable of producing similar defense systems.
Amid reports that S-300 missiles were banned by the Security Council sanctions imposed on Teheran last week, Iranian national security official Esmail Kowsari said Saturday that Russia must "abide by agreements" and deliver the missiles.
On Friday, the Kremlin announced the latest round of sanctions prevented Moscow from delivering the powerful air-defense missile system to Iran - a deal which has been on hiatus for three years.
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The Mehr news agency quoted Kowsari as saying that Russia was "bound by an agreement to provide Iran with the advanced defense system."
He reportedly warned that if Moscow failed to deliver, Teheran would be "well capable of producing missile defense systems that are very much similar to Russia's S-300 apparatus."
Following the Kremlin's announcement, White House spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington that the US appreciates "Russia's restraint in the transfer of the S-300 missile system."
The UN resolution does not specifically prohibit Russia from supplying the S-300, Crowley said. "However, for the first time, the resolution calls for states to exercise vigilance and restraint in the sale or transfer of all other arms and related material."
On Sunday, Iran announced its parliament was working on a "top priority bill" which would limit the country's ties with the IAEA. According to IRNA, the move came as a response to the new sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic.
Iran: Following in the footsteps of Saddam’s Iraq
Sunday, 13 June 2010 Al Arabiya
Just as some people argue that it is an oversimplification to say that the recent sanctions imposed on Iran will have an immediate impact on the regime, it is also wrong to say that the sanctions will be ineffective and do not pose a threat to Tehran.
The sanctions set a platform for harsher sanctions whether they are imposed by Washington or Europe and they might also set a platform for a war resolution. We should remember here the resolutions and sanctions that were imposed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and he always viewed them carelessly until the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place in the US and a US administration longing to overthrow the former Iraqi regime came along and the rest is history. In Iran’s case, the aim is not to overthrow the current regime, as the regime is rejected internally on top of the international community’s opinion of it; rather Iran might find itself in an international military confrontation that will set it back decades and will affect the Faqih regime itself.
The danger of the fourth set of sanctions on Iran is that it caused the Mullah regime to lose its internal and external value. On the international level, the sanctions consolidate the rejection of Iran and everybody will abandon it soon, as at the end of the day [national] interests dominate and Iran will have nothing left but bandits i.e. rejected armed groups and suitcase traders. Moreover, because of the sanctions, Iran’s reputation is at risk as its ships, for example, will be subjected to inspection whether in the high seas or the Red Sea or even in the Mediterranean and this is extremely humiliating for the regime. Above all, the Iranian economic situation will suffer even more than it was suffering before, not to mention the regressive energy sector and the danger that will affect Iran’s ability to arm itself.
Internally, the current regime does not enjoy popularity; in fact it is accused of hijacking the presidential elections and the evidence of its lack of popularity is that the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the protests in the eight months following the elections were more dangerous to the Islamic Republic than the eight years of war with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. This means that the regime in Iran itself is losing its value and prestige. It is true that the regime will tighten its control internally but we must remember that the Shah’s regime did not collapse overnight but rather through continuous activity in a similar way to what is happening inside Iran today. The difference between Iran and other rejected states is that there is a real internal popular movement [against the regime] and it has a strong history and because of it there is real pressure on the Mullah regime just like that which caused the Shah to fall when he was at the peak of arrogance.
Therefore, no matter what the Iranian president says about the fate of the sanctions and that they should be thrown in the rubbish bin, the truth of the matter is that the regime will suffer a great deal because of the sanctions. It is true that some people are saying that Washington pursued India and Pakistan to prevent them from possessing nuclear weapons and still failed but we should also remember how the Soviet Union collapsed from within without any foreign bullets [being fired]. We must also remember that there is an important party to the equation of the battle with Iran that we must observe with caution and that party is Israel. Therefore, the sanctions are a threat to Iran in spite of what has been said and is being said.
*Published in the London-based ASHARQ ALAWSAT on June 12, 2010.
Egypt-Gaza Crossing Closed Despite Announcement
Tammuz 1, 5770, 13 June 10 08:42, by Maayana Miskin
(Israelnationalnews.com) Egypt kept its border with Gaza closed to Algerian activists Saturday, despite announcing last week that its Gaza crossing would be left open indefinitely. Gaza-based organizations said Egyptians turned away an aid convoy and allowed only three of its members to enter.
Hundreds of people protested at the border following the decision, according to AFP. Most convoy members began traveling back to Cairo by Saturday afternoon, an Egyptian official reported.
Egypt also turned back trucks carrying aid, saying the border is open only to human traffic, and not to goods.
Egypt announced that it would open the Rafiah crossing following an incident in which Israeli commandos clashed with passengers on a Gaza-bound ship who refused to abide by Israel's naval blockade on Hamas. Passengers attacked the soldiers, who opened fire in response; nine passengers were killed and several passengers and soldiers were wounded.
The incident increased pressure on Egypt to open its own border with Gaza, which has been nearly completely closed since Hamas seized control of the region in 2007. Israel allowed large convoys of consumer goods into Gaza weekly and allowed Gazans in need of medical care to cross the other way, but received the brunt of world criticism until the flotilla incident put Egypt into the limelight..
Some Israeli commentators have suggested sealing the Gaza-Israel crossings for good and having only the Egyptian ones operative. An entire network of smuggling tunnels lead from Gaza to Egypt, bringing in arms and goods, but an open crossing would allow cement for building bunkers to get into Gaza, prevented so far by Israel..
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