Valin Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 The Weekly Standard: REUEL MARC GERECHT Dec 9, 2013 O believers, when you encounter the unbelievers marching to battle, turn not your backs to them. Whoso turns his back that day to them, unless withdrawing to fight again or removing to join another host, he is laden with the burden of Gods anger, and his refuge is Hellan evil homecoming! Koran, Surah VIII, Anfal (The Spoils of War), quoted by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in his speech to the Basij and Revolutionary Guards at the Grand Mosque of Ruhollah Khomeini, November 20, 2013 Its impossible to find a Western parallel to the rahbar, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or to that regimes particular fusion of church and state. The caesaropapism of a Byzantine emperor, even one as religiously determined as Justinian, or a pope as imperial as Gregory VII, who humbled an emperor at Canossa, just doesnt capture the revolutionary, quintessentially modern nature of the rahbar. Following in the footsteps of Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei tries to steal the charisma attached to Shiisms magical imams and fuse it to the raw, coercive power of a twentieth-century totalitarian dictator. Like his predecessor as supreme leader, Khamenei sees Islam as under siege from the West, and especially the United States. In the military, political, and economic wars, in every arena where there is a test of strength, you, the believer, must stand firm against the enemy [the United States], your will must overcome the determination of the enemy, he told his militant audience at the Grand Mosque the day the Geneva nuclear negotiations began. And in this arduous and awesome struggle, the believer can use heroic flexibility, he said, which doesnt mean abandoning the ideals and aims of the Islamic regime, but rather clever, artful maneuvering that allows for the believer to achieve his goals. Step by step the believer advances, as did the followers of the Prophet Muhammad at the battle of Badr, who were outmanned and underarmed, but proved triumphant and divided the spoils of their routed foe. Here is perhaps the biggest contradiction of the nuclear talks: The Obama administration wants to believe that the supreme leader just might forsake his historic missionthe quest for nuclear weapons begun under Khomeini and carried forth at great cost by Khamenei and every single Iranian presidentbecause the United States, the epicenter of evil, has rallied the West against the Islamic Republic. The reasons administration officials give for why this extraordinary tergiversation will take place vary, but most spin around the idea that the supreme leader and his Revolutionary Guardswho oversee the nuclear program, terrorist operations, and domestic riot-controlreally arent sufficiently committed to developing a nuclear weapon that the forces of moderation cant seduce them from this dangerous course. The alleged forces of moderation are, in order of importance, newly elected president Hassan Rouhani, foreign minister Mohammad Zarif, and the Iranian people, at least those who voted for Rouhani. (Snip) Much of Washingtons foreign-policy establishment, especially that residing in influential left-of-center think tanks, long ago conceded the bomb to Iran. Pollacks new book, Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy, advances an argument for containment, a position he has held for years. For those who want to default to containment, any diplomatic path will take them there. It doesnt really matter whether Geneva is a good deal or bad one; the only thing that matters is that we not bomb Irans nuclear sites. And for most on the leftwho unlike Pollack dont envision any need for a militarily strong and aggressive United States pushing back against Iranian adventurismcontainment has become a synonym for patient, peaceful engagement and American withdrawal. (The crippling weakness of Pollacks grand strategy is that it presupposes tough Democrats and Republicans guiding American foreign policy; but the toughness necessary for containment is no less than that required for preemption.) (Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted November 29, 2013 Author Share Posted November 29, 2013 Chairman of Irans Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Policy: We Have Emerged Victorious Heroes over the West (Video) Jim Hoft November 28, 2013 Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, November 28, 2013, 7:01 PM Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, bragged to Al-Anon TV this week: We have emerged victorious over the West. MEMRI has the transcript: Alaeddin Boroujerdi: [The nuclear deal] is very important, because by now, the Islamic Republic controls all aspects of nuclear science, from A-Z, from the very beginning all the way to uranium enrichment. This is why the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution talked about heroic flexibility. After ten years, we have emerged victorious over the West. They wanted to prevent us from acquiring nuclear technology, but we have reached that point, having sacrificed martyrs, and having persevered on that path, enduring an economic siege. Now we have emerged victorious heroes. It was in our best interest to sign this agreement. The Americans reached the conclusion that it would be futile to continue with their policy of confronting the Islamic Republic a policy that was leading them nowhere. They wanted to prevent Iran from enriching uranium, but we have attained this technology and we are currently using it. Therefore, the Americans changed their policy from confronting Islamic Iran to dealing with it. (Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted November 29, 2013 Author Share Posted November 29, 2013 Final Iran deal needs to balance out the concessions THE FACT sheet distributed by the Obama administration about the nuclear agreement with Iran is notable for its omissions. The 2,000-word document, like President Obamas televised statement Saturday night about the deal, stresses Irans pledge to cap its enrichment of uranium, delay the completion of a plutonium-producing reactor and accept additional inspections measures that will guard against an attempt to produce a bomb while negotiations continue. What the White House didnt report is that the text of the accord makes several major concessions to Tehran on the terms of a planned second-stage agreement. Though White House officials and Secretary of State John F. Kerry repeatedly said that Irans assertion of a right to enrich uranium would not be recognized in an interim deal, the text says the comprehensive solution will involve a mutually defined enrichment program with mutually agreed parameters. In other words, the United States and its partners have already agreed that Iranian enrichment activity will continue indefinitely. In contrast, a long-standing U.S. demand that an underground enrichment facility be closed is not mentioned. (Snip) The most troubling part of the document provides for what amounts to a sunset clause in the comprehensive agreement. It says the final deal will have a specified long-term duration to be agreed upon, and that once that time period is complete, the Iranian nuclear program will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran thus could look forward to a time when there would be no sanctions and no special restrictions on its nuclear capacity; it could install an unlimited number of centrifuges and produce plutonium without violating any international accord. (Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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