Iran
March 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Vice President Biden gave a long speech at the annual AIPAC Policy conference yesterday (complete text here). The speech is worth reading in its entirety. Drawing on his long public career, Biden shows a natural ability to connect with his audience despite the complications of the past four years. Much of the speech is difficult to square with the tenor of the Obama administration’s approach to Israel and the Middle
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March 4, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Reading accounts (such as this one) of John Kerry’s whirlwind trip to the Middle East has got me thinking about the Obama administration’s top foreign policy/national security team of Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and, if confirmed as DCIA (which I hope he isn’t), John Brennan. Don’t they deserve some kind of a nickname? I’m thinking of something along the lines of Axis of Stupid. It probably doesn’t work, because the obtuseness
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February 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Claremont Institute continues its American Mind series with host Charles Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and guest Mark Helprin. Helprin is the acclaimed novelist and observer of the contemporary scene. He has been a ferocious critic of our response to 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq. The institute posts the interview in segments on a weekly basis here. We are pleased to post the interview in its
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February 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Office of the Israeli Prime Minister has posted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency. It is an interesting speech at whose heart lies the question of Iran: I think that the development of nuclear weapons by Iran will be a pivot of history, will change the balance of power irrevocably in the world. When people with unlimited ambitions of aggression get unlimited weapons,
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February 11, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Unnamed sources tell Israel’s Army Radio that the main purpose of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel is to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against attacking Iran. Netanyahu has flagged the spring of 2013 as a significant time in the context of the Iranian nuclear threat. And having recently been re-elected, he can now form a more hawkish security cabinet [note: at least according to the Jerusalem Post]. According to
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January 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Chuck Hagel will testify on Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee in furtherance (he hopes) of his nomination for Secretary of Defense. I will post reports, and perhaps live-blog, the event. Judging from reports of Hagel’s meeting with Chuck Schumer, the nominee intends to disavow or attempt to explain away his past anti-Israel, soft-on-Iran positions and comments, as well as his statements suggesting dislike of Jews. One hopes that
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January 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In “Iran: Nuke notes, &c.,” I took note of the uncorroborated report that something seriously bad happened last week at Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordo. In “Israel shores up its defense, while Iran remains quiet,” Lee Smith reads the tea leaves to suggest that an Israeli operation at Fordo may have succeeded. Smith’s analysis is worth a look. AN UPDATE TO MY UPDATE: “Iran denies explosion at underground uranium
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January 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Reza Kahlili served the CIA Directorate of Operations as a spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He tells the story in A Time to Betray. Kahlili now asserts that an explosion at Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordo has destroyed much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, all “according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime.” The explosion is said to have taken place
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January 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Ahmad Hashemi worked for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an English, Turkish and occasionally Arabic interpreter. He is now a refugee from the regime. The Times of Israel has posted Hashemi’s testimony regarding the aims of the regime under the heading “Don’t be fooled: Iran wants the bomb.” It’s a timely reminder of a development that will likely come to fruition or be dealt with during Obama’s second
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January 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Chuck Schumer will support Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. With Schumer’s support, Hagel is likely to be confirmed. But then, as we have said, Schumer was always likely to support the nomination. Schumer’s announcement follows a meeting with Hagel in which the nominee professed support for a series of pro-Israel positions including ones that are inconsistent with those he has taken in the past: Schumer said that his
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January 13, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Maybe it’s a reflection of my mood, but most of the actors in today’s news stories strike me as scoundrels, to one degree or another. Starting at the top, we have Iran’s mullahs. They are upset about the movie Argo, and are planning a rejoinder: The Iranian government is planning to finance a film that it says will correct the historical inaccuracies of the movie “Argo,” The New York Times
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January 8, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Bill Kristol calls attention to this exchange between that most ardent of Chuck Hagel admirers, Steve Clemons, and Hagel critic Dan Senor: CLEMONS: The most important thing about Hagel—and with all due respect to Dan and some of his colleagues—there seems to be this effort by Israel and its supporters over and over to continue to run resolutions to say, “How much do you love me, America? Do you love
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January 6, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I wrote that the “Arab Spring” is coming to Iraq. Perhaps I should have said that it has already arrived. As Reuters reports: Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of Sunnis have staged demonstrations, and in Anbar province they have blocked a highway to Syria in a show of anger against Maliki, whom they accuse of marginalizing their community and monopolizing power. The discontent is real, but
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January 4, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The word is that President Obama is set to nominate Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Reportedly, the nomination could come as early as Monday. Hagel’s nomination would be a victory for clarity. As has widely been observed, Hagel has no natural constituency, except perhaps for those who want a foreign and defense policy that is tougher on Israel and softer on Iran. Unfortunately, as I have observed, Obama belongs
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December 21, 2012 — Scott Johnson
When Alan Dershowitz is right, in my opinion, there aren’t many other advocates you’d prefer to have in your corner. In the case of the prospective nomination of Chuck Hagel, Dershowitz is right. In the case of Obama, unfortunately, as Paul pointed out in this context, he’s a useful idiot. Our friends at NRO have made space for Professor Dershowitz to declare this morning that Hagel is the wrong man
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December 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Hagel’s theses, weak as they are, must have provoked the antitheses — antitheses drawn more reliably from Hagel’s record, I believe, than the theses are. I understand that the fact sheet below has been circulating on Capitol Hill over the last 90 minutes (i.e., late Wednesday evening). Here it is, with embedded links to sources in place of the Word document’s footnotes: Background Former U.S. Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel,
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December 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
President Obama’s prospective nomination of Chuck Hagel to the position of Secretary of Defense is an appalling expression of Obama’s deep thoughts on American foreign policy. He supports shrinking the military, opposes the use of force against Iran’s nuclear program and undermines the most basic support of Israel and Jewish causes. Jennifer Rubin has posted American Jewish Committee President David Harris’s remarkable recollection: The AJC asked senators to join a
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