Obama's Plan for Relationship with the Islamic World

While Mr. Obama's speeches and trip to the Middle East were warmly received and his "reach" to the Islamic world was positive it does not eliminate any threats to the United States.

Shortly after 9/11, Mr. George Bush sent representatives to all Muslim countries with the message"terrorism is not just America's problem--it is your problem" Moreover, Bush's emissaries bluntly told Arab leaders that "they should do something about it". The message got through. Libya banned certain groups and even opened a dialog with the USA. Libya even shipped scores of containers to the USA regarding Libya's nuclear research and relationships with Pakistan, China and North Korea. CIA analysts are still reviewing these materials in Oak Ridge , Tennessee. Egypt, Saudi Arabia (where 17 of the 9/11 hijackers came from), Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen and others all got the message. They started cracking down on radical and terrorists in their country. The Bush Administration started to squeeze Sudan and Somalia and other African nations harboring terrorists. We have not been attacked since 9/1 and the CIA and military as well as the FBI and NSA have intercepted several planned attacks and stopped these attacks!

Bush was tough on terrorists and that's what needs to be done.

What Mr. Obama may not realize is that there are many new no-named terrorist groups working very hard to obtain nuclear weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons.These groups operate out of Latin America-Venezuela is the major base as well as the triangle near Paraguay.

The Bush Administration caused many of the terrorists to go on the run and drove them out of many countries. CIA is managing and training many Arab foreign intelligence services and monitoring terrorist groups in a number of countries.

Its ludicrous for Obama and his leftist administration to talk about Guantanamo, Abu Grave and interrogations when terrorist are activiley seeking weapons of mass destruction and trying to deploy them in an American city.

The journalist Seymour Hersh has also accused the Bush Administration of orchestrating assassinations of terrorists in Africa.Hersh claims CIA officers and militray arrangeded accidents of terrorists and aslo used the host countries military to assassinate terrorists. Many suspected terrorists have had a variety of "accidents" including drownings, auto accidents, electrocutions and "suicides". What Hersh does not mention is that CIA has lost more men and women killed since 2001 to today compared to the years 1948 to 2001.

Some of Obams' plans to reach out and understand the Islamic world are positive but he should never forget that Mr Bin Laden has inspired thousands of Muslims to jihad and hate America and Israel.Moreover, the root cause of terrorism is not America it is the culture of Islam that treats women as livestock,brutalizes young children in the madras schools and denies the younf Muslims opportunities for education. Millions of young Muslim boys read the Koran from mroning to night with littl;e exposure to mathematics, history, romansce, vacations, education, and freedom.Lets see some movement on the part of Islamic countries Mr. Obama before you bend over backwards for the Islamic world.

North Korea's Brinkmanship

North Korea...How to Deal with a Difficult Adversary!

North Korea's recent detonation of a nuclear device has again threatened peace in Asia.Even Mrs . Hillary Clinton and her "soft power" approach recently stated " no one can possibly figure out how to deal with North Korea." North Korea believes if it threatens, bullies and scares the West and Korea and Japan, that the United States will be forced back to the negotiating table and re-start diplomatic talks.
But one only has to look at the North Koreans since the end of World War II.
The North Koreans backed by Russia declared a communist state shortly after World War II. They started a police state with a one family dictatorship. The Soviets,as documents now demonstrate, pushed North Korea into a covert action that led to the Korean War. The United States responded and several years later and almost 56,000 d US military deaths defeated the North Koreans and forced a stalemate. Since then both Korea and Japan have prospered while North Korea has spent billions on arms, nuclear technology and a multi-million person military. All while their people starve and have no freedom. Since the end of the Korean War every President has tried to engage the North Koreans. More recently, during the Clinton Administration the USA have supplied the North Koreans millions in dollars, food and oil. When George Bush became President he cancelled all of Clinton's largess as the North Koreans never gave in on anything-they funded terrorism, massive drug trafficking and exported nuclear technology to Iran, Pakistan, Libya and Syria. After 6 years of diplomatic negotiations, President Bush thought we had reached a deal with the North Koreans. The North Koreans agreed to eliminate their nuclear program. The US honored its agreement and removed North Korea from the terrorist list of nations; the USA also started shipping food and oil to North Korea' starving millions. Then out of nowhere North Korea reneged on all agreements demanded more oil fuel, money and food and started belligerent rhetoric against South Korea. It test-fired a new missile and detonated a nuclear weapon underground.
What is the ultimate goal of North Korea? Their goal is to continue to extort the United States Korea and Japan. The North Koreans want a continuing flow of oil, food and money-without really downsizing their nuclear weapons programs. North Korea believes it will win as the USA Japan and Korea do not want either a strong nuclear North Korea or a war.
It seems Mr. Obama, even with his soft power approachto clench- fisted communists will neither give in to North Korea or put up with the North Korean brinkmanship. America's new policy will probably be to ignore North Korea and continue to isolate them in the West. Both Russia and China are no help. They are afraid to criticize North Korea or to impose harsh sanctions. They are diplomatically useless.They are not friends of the United States or peace.
Whats the likely future scenario? Either the North Koreans will eventually"give in" and have a regime change from within or the North Koreans will attack South Korea.
For sure they will continue to develop nuclear weapons and new long range missiles that threaten both Japan and the United States.

The only course for Mr. Obama to take as this stage is to :

1. Ignore the North Koreans threats and continue economic sanctions.
2. Build up additional naval forces in the area and
3. Pressure Russia and China to control the raging mad dog they created in North Korea.

The North Koreans out of desperation could attack South Korea. The North Koreans have an aging and very ill leader,the population continues to starve and the fuel crisis is at an all time high. In North Korea we are dealing with a unreasonable, non-compromising communist leadership ,ignorant of the West and feeling abandoned by Russia and China except Russia and China's weak support against sanctions.
The danger for the West is that North Korea's missile development is improving and its obvious they have nuclear warheads or are close to having the ability to create in a short period of time a number of nuclear weapons.
A war now could further damage the world's economy,destroy China's prosperity and manufacturing exports to the West, damage the US economy as well as completly undermine the economy and national security of America's allies South Korea and Japan.

The CIA Flap and Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House has accused the CIA of misleading her-in fact, lying to Congress and the intelligence oversight process. Then Ms. Pelosi flip-flopped and said the CIA has only mislead the Congress during the Bush years. If you review her actual statements, she said " the CIA misleads us all the time."
The Republicans are using this to embarrass her and the administration.In actual fact, most Democrats don't like the CIA. Just ask Senators Leahy, Kennedy, Dodd, Kerry, and a host of others that loathe the CIA.
The CIA was always regarded as "the bad boys" of government, a term coined backed in the 1950's . During the Church hearings in the 1970's certain abuses were leveled at the CIA regarding assassinations, dirty tricks and not informing Congress of its activities. Since Frank Church and Otis Pike held hearings tremendous oversight has been put on the CIA. I wrote about it in my history of the CIA. Today theremany committees, the President's Oversight Board, PFIAB, internal controls and Senate and House staffers that monitor almost all CIA activities including covert action.Both the House and Senate have committees that must approve each clandestine activity. So do the host of lawyers inside the CIA. In addition private watchdog groups have been set up and they constantly litigate againt the CIA as well as deluge the government with Freedom of Information requests. Thats why in fact most of the CIA has been defanged and is often ineffective.Today the CIA has to fight two battles-one against terrorism and one against our own governmnet leaders. To be sure Ms Pelosi is nothing but a leftist spawn, but worse she's stupid!. She damages the effectiveness of intelligence as well as embarrasses the nation by calling the CIA liars. The CIA staffers document every meeting and also probably tapes the meetings. It is Ms. Pelosi that is the liar.

More national security gaffes by the Obama Administration

NATO

Ivo Daalder has been appointed Ambassador to NATO Headquarters at Brussels, Belgium. Daalder, a Professor who was born in Holland and a national security advisor during the Clinton years has plans to REMOVE all US nuclear weapons from Europe. How dumb can we get!. This policy is supported by Mr. Obama and Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton. This policy will undermine and destroy NATO and give the Russians the major nuclear weapons advantage.Other countries like France support the US giving up our nuclear weapons. Its another way to undermine NATO and the US influence in Europe.Both Russia and France want the US out of Europe.

China

After a long awaited decision on Obama's policy towards China, the Obama Administration announced that it does not really see China as a threat!. However the new Chairman of the Joints Chief strongly disagrees.China has plans to build a blue water navy and wants to push the US out of the Pacific. It seems the Obama Administration along with its ridiculous "soft diplomatic policy" on Iran and Cuba has also projected its soft policy to China.Obama will most likely back off of supporting Taiwan and will not protect China's expansion into the shipping lanes or building a Blue Water Navy to rival the USA.

Iran and Cuba

Both have slapped the USA hand that was offered by Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama must be a glutton for punishment as he plans to push ahead to give in to both Iran and Cuba on a number of fronts. Israel-Obama recently told the Israeli leadership that they must make peace with the Palestinians before we can settle issues with Iran. I always thought it was the other way around---get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions and this could lead the way to peace between the Palestinians and Israelis.I think Mr Obama must have attended the Karl Marx School for Diplomacy!

Soft Power to the Obama Administration means appeasement to our adversaries and abandonment of our values and friends.

Here with a brief summary of the Obama's Administration's diplomatic strategies, methods and goals

Iran: Lift the economic sanctions against Iran (which by the way are working against Iran; Iran's economy is in a mess and they pump less oil than any other oil producing nation; sanction do work.)

Unfreeze Iran's assets- billions in US and European Banks. This may give Iran more money to aid Hamas and Hezbollah and fund Syria's moves against the Lebanese government.

Supply Iran with much needed oil technology-Iran is desperate for geological equipment, measuring devices, exploration, equipment etc.

This is Obama's strategy: Iran will unlikely ever give up what they call "peaceful nuclear energy". The Obama Administration will claim they have verifiable intelligence to monitor Iran's nuclear plans; rather unrealistic with Obamas' plans to undermine the clandestine service of the CIA.Obama believes or his advisors believes that this will pave the way to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. To squeeze the Israelis Obama has refused to turn over aircraft codes and recent bunker buster bombs.As part of a new Mideast peace deal,the Palestinians will be given an open checkbook to build their country i.e., new buildings, government facilities etc.The world will then have to accept a nuclear Iran-with "peaceful energy facilities that could be turned into producing nuclear warheads."How we monitor that Ill never know. Moreover, the USA's future mandate would probably also be to reduce our counterintelligence against Hezbollah, Iran's proxy.

Such an agreement will "make" Iran the regional power in the whole area-something Russia would like, Israel would not like and the USA would unfortunately accept. Over a period of years, Iran would spread its Shia arc from Iraq to Central Asia and the rest of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Egypt might gravitate toward Iran with an overthrow of the fragile Egyptian government. The dominoes would start to fall and radical fundamentalist Islam would replace many secular Arab governments.

The Obama’s Administrations Attempt to Destroy Plausible Deniability

Plausible deniability refers to the denial of blame in the chain of command where higher authorities blame the lower operatives. In the case that illegal or unpopular activities become public, high ranking officials can deny any knowledge of the activities. This concept usually applies to intelligence officers or those involved in the national security community. In espionage and intelligence activities deniability usually refers to when a senior government official avoids a blow back by secretly arranging for a third party to operate against an enemy target, or in the collection of sensitive information or carrying out a covert action.

It also applies to acts that leave little evidence such as water boarding or in recent cases torture. Plausible deniability is a cornerstone of intelligence operations. It also applies to most activities of the Central Intelligence Agency-it gives the US government secret authority and protection of the family jewels so to speak. This way the US government can advance foreign policy goals, conduct espionage and protect our agents and assets overseas. To a certain extent it applies to the FBI and US State Department. It is key to a successful intelligence organization in a democracy.

President Obama and his Cabinet members seem intent on destroying this concept. Over the last two weeks Obama has flip flopped on whether to prosecute senior Bush officials=2 0or lower CIA operatives accused of torture or approving torture.

The problem is that Donald Rumsfeld when Secretary of Defense never was involved in this. He came out against water-boarding. Condoleezza Rice obtained permission from the Justice Department after months of studying the situation with scores of lawyers in both the State Department and the Justice Department working on the issue. Members of Congress, including Democrats sitting on the Intelligence community committees approved the idea of water-boarding and other interrogation techniques. Former V-P, Dick Cheney was correct when he said it prevented attacks against the USA. I know of five major attacks that were foiled due to both soft interrogation tactics as well as hard tactics.

Obama’s new Attorney General, Eric Holder stated” we will prosecute anyone that broke the law”. A few days before he said he would not! This is all part of a plan to marginalize the intelligence community. Some should advise Mr. Obama that the Justice Department approved all these methods as well as State Department lawyers and members of Congress. Obama has allies in his quest to destroy the CIA. Senators Kennedy, Dodd, Kerry, Reid, Leahy, Boxer and Feinstein have long hated the CIA. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton in eight years in their white house days never even visited CIA headquarters. They loathed the CIA as well as federal law enforcement and the military. They can be partly excused-the Clinton's were anti-war demonstrators and hippies from the 1970’s. Obama and his cabal are socialists who will try and use national security findings and approvals from the Bush years to undermine basic concepts such as covert action, espionage, counterintelligence and plausible deniability.

Obama’s whole team is not sinister, just inexperienced or stupid.
The Director of Homeland Security has called for awareness of right wing extremists-probably because her polices and Obama’s are creating more and more Americans to fear Obama’s socialist tendencies and incompetent approaches to national security.

Napolitano on April 22, 2009 also stated that most terrorists come from Canada. Thus offending a great ally and neighbor. None of the 9/11 terrorists came in from Canada nor the other 6 terrorists that we have recently prosecuted.

Obama’s other gaffes make our adversaries energized so that they can take advantage of what they see as weakness i.e. Fidel Castro this week slapped Obama’s hand away on Obama’s friendly gestures to Cuba. Iran is laughing at us as Obama gave away all his negotiating strategies on Iran. Iran has recently announced “ they are the regional power in the area”. The blow back here is that it looks like Obama has given in completely to Iran and also abandoned Israel. Iran issued a statement they plan to issue their own proposals to the West. These will be the following: They don’t care what Obama says ---they will develop peaceful nuclear energy and thus split Europe from the United States on the issue. In addition Iran will secretly develop nuclear warheads whether the US likes it or not. This will make the US lose face and increase Iran’s position in the entire region. It will strengthen Syria and Hezbollah and force Obama to go ahead and give in on things he said he would agree to: dropping the economic sanctions against Iran, unfreezing Iranian assets and even supplying the Iranians with US oil technology. Meanwhile Obama will abandon Israel and strengthen terrorism. Anti-Semites are already coming forward to denigrate Israel and hope that this little democratic country is destroyed.
One of the worst gaffes this week came from Mrs. Clinton who exaggerated the threat of the Taliban in Pakistan . She said the Taliban could take over Pakistan and is threatening the world and the USA. Someone should tell her that our ally, India, would never accept a fundamentalist Islamic Pakistan. Someone should also tell Mrs. Clinton that the CIA controls the 45 nuclear weapons in the Pakistani arsenal. Strange as Mrs. Clinton called for Mr. Mushariff’s resignation--after he did more to help the US against Pakistani and Afghan fundamentalists. Mushariff permitted CIA to control Pakistan’s nukes and also to operate with American military in Pakistan.

Our adversaries like Russia and China as well as Venezuela are waiting to take advantage of the Obama Administration. Russia is offering us bases in Russia for Obama’s=2 0expanded war in Afghanistan. “Come in”, the spider said to the fly“. Russia recently bribed the officials in Uzbekistan ans Kyrgyzstan to kick the US out of bases in their two countries so Russia would control US bases and supplies--actually hoping Afghanistan turns into another Vietnam for America. It’s payback by Russia against the USA for America‘s help to defeat The Soviets in Afghanistan. The Russians also received from Mr. Obama that the USA will not deploy a missile defense program in Eastern Europe-we certainly don’t want to offend the Russians! Mr. Obama doesn’t get it!

Mr. Obama should have politely rejected a book by Mr. Hugo Chavez at the recent summit in Trinidad. The book denigrates and libels America’s relationship in Latin America.
If this is “soft power” I’m ashamed of our new national security community.
Obama, Eric Holder, Mrs. Clinton and Janet Napolitano don’t have a clue.
They are not sinister--- just inexperienced and completely incompetent on national security issues.

Finally, rumors are that Mr. Obama will be a one term President and turn over the reigns to Hillary Clinton. This way “the cult of Obama” can continue with Barrack and Michelle traveling the world and being the darlings of the United Nations, people of color and the Arab League.

National Security

Obama has made recent statements to the affect that Venezuela is no threat-he is wrong. I'm afraid we elected a very bad person-I don't like saying this but he's a guy that slipped through the system and he has his own Rasputin-David Axelrod--- whose mother was a communist and father a leftist labor leader. They wrote for the communist party newspaper, The Daily Worker.Obama will appease Iran Cuba and Venezuela. He's a devoted leftist. He has a socialist agenda-I believe he and his wife hate America.Hes going to take us down. Many people are starting to see the real Obama-a leftist anti-American.He wants gun control.He wants to downsize the military.He wants to let Iran have nuclear weapons.He wants to appease the United Nations.He wants to put us into debt even more.He will marginalize the Republican Party(they also are to blame)He has reduced the effectiveness of the Patriot Act.He will draw us into a Vietnam style war in Afghanistan.He will abandon Israel who we have moral, democratic and security goals with.He wants to give up sovereignty issues with Mexico.He will tolerate nothing from conservatives and accuse the conservatives of being right wing extremists-this will give our security services mandates to investigate and prosecute through the US Atty's office.He has groveled to the Mexicans on the drug war, he has already made a deal with Iran(they are laughing at us) Iran has already announced they are the regional power.Obama is also pushing "Change" which means a Socialist agenda for America and will push us into isolationism.David Axelrod is behind all this and is informing our internal policy makers we will back off of security arrangements with other countries because of the economy.There is a great protest starting among our military and intelligence leaders. They are shocked at Obams's relationships in the national security community-leftists, socialists and anti-Americans.This in itself is not good for our democracy.It has also become obvious Obama is inexperienced and letting the philosophy of appeasement take over our policy making establishment.

Obama's National Security Policies

Following up on my last article on Mr. Obama's national security policies and my recent radio show on Radio Liberty I would like to summarize our current threat and assess what our adversaries are doing:

Our Soft underbelly:

Venezuela:

Hugo Chavez is funding many leftist organizations and candidates. He's won recently in El Salvador where a communist has been elected President. Chavez has also expanded his funding of FARC and has assisted in supplying bases for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups training in Venezuela.The worst thing that is going on is he is now shifting to massive funding of leftist candidates in Mexico and Peru and using subversion in Panama., Panama . is the new Casablanca and the intelligence war is expanding with the US intelligence community, Chinese, FARC operatives, and a variety of other foreign services i.e. Taiwan, France and Brazil as well as Colombia and England operate in Panama.The biggest danger is that of Chavez funding leftists in Mexico. If a leftist candidate is elected in Mexico it would completely change the national security posture of the United States.Chavez would not only now have anti-American Presidents in Cuba, Bolivia,Ecuador, Nicaragua,and El Salvador but in Mexico. In addition he continues to fund leftists and communists in Peru and in Argentina.Chavez is even pouring money into Colombia as the next year's election may actually see FARC candidates elected.Only Chile and Colombia are standing up to Chavez's subversion.Chavez is advocating war against the USA and is steadily building his arsenal and reducing the US position in Latin America. Both Russia and China support Chavez as does Iran and fundamentalist Muslims.

Russia:

Russia has now formally embarked on a major arms build-up regardless of tough economic times.Russia plans to build 6 to 20 new submarines equipped with cruise missiles.Russia is embarking on new ICBM's and more sophisticated nuclear warheads.Russia has also developed one of the most sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons systems and supplying to Iran, Venezuela etc.Russia is also developing new tanks, naval warfare ships,and a new fleet of long range bombers. While not on the scale of the cold war-the new Russian military is leaner, meaner and more technologically advanced than the USA in certain areas.

China:

While China is playing the wait and see game they have indicated no more funding for US loans. They are waiting to see how bad the US and the West's economies are and if they deteriorate they will expand their goals of a blue water navy and greater development of ICBM's. They will also position themselves to take or co-op Taiwan and eventually push the US out of Pacific bases.

Iran:

Iran believes Mr. Obama will give them everything they want-dropping the economic sanctions,releasing the billions the US and West have frozen and obtaining US oil technology which they need desperately.

North Korea:

This crazy country may in fact want to have a war with South Korea and or believe it can extort more from the USA by continued threats of missile development.The USA has done everything it can and it still is not good enough for the North Koreans. We have shipped food, fuel, dropped sanctions and taken North Korea off the list of terrorist countries and the North Koreans have reneged on the agreements to stop developing nuclear weapons.The North Koreans continue to ship nuclear technology to the Mideast and continue to verbally threaten South Korea and the USA. A new missile launch could be for the eventual development of detonating over the USA to destroy our communications ability.

Venezuela

Hugo Chavez has scored again. By supplying cash to voters and campaign monies to candidates in El Salvador he has helped bring in another anti-American regime. El Salvador now has a Communist as President.Chavez has scored victories in Bolivia, Ecuador,and El Salvador. He has also strengthened ties with Nicaragua and of course Cuba . His intelligence service was caught in Miami supplying money in the Argentina election 16 months ago. Chavez is using his money to develop anti-American left-wing regimes. Rumours now indicate he is expanding his intelligence operations and funneling monies to left-wing groups in Panama and even Cost Rica. Mexico last year broke up several rings funded by Chavez. Only Brazil, Colombia and Mexico seem unaffected by his subversion. Chavez is also helping fund left-wing groups in America. He also supports Americans who are against the School of America's,including the new CIA Director, Leon Panetta's daughter. Chavez has also signed agreements with Russia to establish bomber bases in Venezuela, assist on a new naval base for Russian ships and he has purchased several Russian submarines as well as 4 billion in Russian equipment i.e,new Mig air planes, naval ships,attack combat helicopters and weapons(275,000 AK47 machine guns).Iranians work at his IVIC nuclear facility. Hezbollah trains in Venezuela's desert. Hamas works in Venezuela's intelligence headquarters the heliocide. China has built a satellite launch station and base. Hezbollah, FARC, Hamas and others coordinate intelligence in Venezuela with Muslim groups. Chavez kicked out the DEA and has asked Ecuador and other countries to kick out the DEA, as well as American diplomats. Yesterday referred to Obama as "ignorant" and along with Iran continues to denigrate America and its leadership. When will Obama's policy makers start to pay attention to this very serious threat?

Mr Barack Hussein Obama's "National Security Plan"

Mr. Obama wants to open up???!!!???

• Cuba -US relations and drop the sanctions. Very good idea as Cuban-Americans are losing their clout anyway and its a great way to outmaneuver Hugo Chavez and his aid to Cuba and better to stop Russia from rebuilding the Lourdes,20 Cuba spy-listening station and building a naval base. Problem: Raul Castro won't open up to the US-he's already signed long term agreements with Russia and Venezuela. Its all part of an Iran-Venezuela, Cuba-Russian conspiracy against the USA. Nice try Mr. Obama--you will actually weaken our position .

• Russia-after spending a good career against the Soviets and Russians the USA should learn we cant negotiate with communists...or worse a Putin mafia and Putin's thugs. Russians are trained to use negotiation to get what they want. Obama wants to drop the missile shield for "Russian"cooperation on Iran----this may prove to be the biggest foreign policy blunder in recent American history. Russia gets us to drop the shield. What does the USA get? Peace in our times-that's what Obama will try and sell to the American public. We should not pander to the Russians at all. We don't need the Russians-they are expanding their intelligence services against us, trying to sabotage NATO and continue to extort the Europeans on energy.

• China-actual cooperation between China and USA is building. Many signs the Chinese are cooperating more with the USA but still would like to push the USA out of the Pacific and build their blue water navy(20years away-maybe more). Bush should be given credit for this-Obama might blow it! Odd man out-the Crazy North Koreans. China has shown a number of examples of cooperation as well as their own foreign policy to expand into the world's shipping lanes, Latin America and Africa.

• Iran- is the biggest problem we have now. Obama wants to drop economic sanctions against Iran, unfreeze their billions in EU and USA assets we have frozen and give Iran oil technology. Obama believes this will lead to better relations with Syria, out maneuver Hezbollah and Hamas and lay the groundwork for Middle east peace. George Mitchell has been instructed to get the Israelis and Palestinians talking but hold off until Iran and USA have an agreement. This will be the greatest foreign policy mistake in our history. Iran will then have money to give more to terrorists and Hezbollah, embolden Syria against Israel and make Iran the regional power in the area. It will block the USA from getting oil access to Central Asia, make us lose face with Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan and Egypt and worse---abandon our best ally in the area-Israel-a democracy!! Unlike sanctions against Cuba which don't work-sanctions against Iran do work? They are working. And what do we get from Iran? That they stop nuclear development? That we must accept a nuclear Iran? That we must agree to a peaceful nuclear Iran? Who knows. Obama does not care. He wants a swift agreement with Iran. Odd man out: Israel. This type of agreement with Iran and the USA will basically abandon Israel. I doubt if the USA today would even offer any support to Israel if they on their own strike at Iran's nuclear plants/facilities.

• Afghanistan-Obama will change his position several times in the next few months. To build up more troops or reduce troops and deal with the Taliban. No one seems to understand Mr. Obama's plans here.

• Venezuela: The worst national security nightmare brewing: Chavez has 5 billion in Russian arms, has funded election victories in Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua and has pumped billions to Cuba. He now is trying to overthrow or influence governments in Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica. His anti-American radio station apparently is winning over the poor all through Latin America while propping up comments about the Chinese, Iran and Russia and Cuba. Iran runs the IVIC nuclear facility in Caracas, Chinese are all over and just built a satellite launch station and are building a billion dollar listening station. Hezbollah trains in several areas as does Al-Queda and Hamas. Russia is planning a naval base and air base with Russian bombers in Venezuela!

Watch Obama to ignore Venezuela altogether! Watch Obama to abandon or downsize support for Israel. Watch for Obama to use the crisis in our economy to reduce, block or minimize the Pentagon and new Intelligence community proposals. Obama's "soft power" approach will be very well greeted by Islamic fundamentalists, leftists and anti-Americans. The "cult" of Obama is rising and he can do no wrong-Europeans are embracing his ideas as will the Islamic world and the leftists world! Obama will give in, appease and get very little in return from Russia,Venezuela, Iran. Eventually America will find sane leadership as when Ronald Reagan came forward. Hopefully it will be in the next presidential election.

Iran's Defensive Strategy

The world has been focused on the recent diplomatic failures with Iran and the defiance it continues to exhibit over its nuclear ambitions. Recent events have demonstrated that the Europeans are tired of Iranian tactics and brinkmanship. The effort to go to the UN Security Council and impose sanctions has brought Europe and especially France closer to the American point of view. Even Jacques Chirac threatened Iran several weeks ago, stating publicly that France has the nuclear option of protecting itself from a rogue state with nuclear weapons.
While this unity is designed with the intent of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Western allies often ignore the broader implications of Iran seeking to achieve its foreign policy and national security goals.

Iran continues to threaten Israel, fund terrorism, and to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. In addition to its holocaust denial scenario and defiance of its major European trading partners, Iran has not only specific goals for its foreign policy but military plans to defend itself

In December, 2005 the Atlantic Monthly laid out a scenario of how Israel might attack Iran. The magazine even contained an interactive full color DVD complete with illustrations and Israeli jets striking targets in Iran. Later the Pentagon revealed its own potential attack plan suggesting a major military strike by American warships. This scenario has hundreds of new cruise and tomahawk missiles being launched by our carriers, submarines and Arleigh Burke destroyers based in the Persian Gulf. Rumors abounded the U.S. also had two secret Special Forces bases near Iran ready to drop commandos against selected Iranian sites.

The Israelis recently acquired newly-developed U.S. bunker busters that can penetrate deep into the Iranian nuclear research and development facilities. The U.S. says there are about 477 targets that can be destroyed by air attacks and missile attacks. The Israelis claim they only need to take out about 50 key nuclear sites to set the Iranian program back 5 to 7 years or longer. Both the American and Israeli scenarios are designed to take out nuclear facilities, not to invade Iran or destroy major cities. Although some of the various scenarios may be designed as disinformation on the part of both the Americans and Israelis, the Iranians are taking these potential attack scenarios seriously.

What are the likely Iranian responses?

The first thing to recognize is the difference between Iran and Iraq. Prior to the last Iraq War, rumors circulated that the Iraqis had plans of WMD attacks, terrorists in the U.S. (or channeling terrorist to the U.S. from France and the UK) and also had a strong Revolutionary Guard that would inflict heavy casualties on the Americans and our allies.

Twenty-one days after the start of hostilities, Iraq was defeated and there were no WMD attacks and not a single terrorist attack outside Iraqi borders.

The Iranians have designed a much different defensive strategy. They know the U.S. is neither capable nor interested in a ground war invasion. They know that both Israel and America seeks to destroy only its nuclear facilities not invade or destroy its cities. Some radical mullahs, as apart of a doomsday type cult in Iran, however, truly believe the U.S. is intent on destroying the centuries old Persian culture.

Iran’s leadership also knows that U.S. foreign policy, urged on by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Israel, want to see a non-fundamentalist regime in Iran be the dominant leader in the region.
Thus the Iranians have interpreted all of these potential actions as signs of disrespect (in every negotiating session with the European Union the Iranians have commented that the U.S. shows them no respect).

Over the last five years the Iranians have also created the following defensive attack strategy:

1) Accelerate the development of several, maybe up to 5 nuclear bombs, coupled with a deployment strategy of missile technology gained from Pakistan, China and North Korea. These missiles are now capable of being equipped with nuclear weapons could hit Israel, London and most of the 7th Fleet targets (American ships and bases in the Persian Gulf).

2) Iran has fully-trained and equipped terrorists established in the USA, Venezuela, Mexico and probably Canada. These operatives may have weapons of mass destruction and also have plans to bomb American shopping centers and/or symbolic targets to create fear and mass panic that will hopefully damage the American economy.

These terrorist are zealots who may and probably will engage in suicide bombings. These particular spy/terrorists are compartmentalized from and not part of Hezbollah who have their bases in Venezuela, Canada and covert operatives in the USA.

3) Strike at targets within Europe. The French government under Chirac in 2003 made the mistake of issuing over 5,000 visas for Iranian “students” to come to France. France was trying to placate its own Islamic community and ingratiate itself with oil rich Iran. Many of these Iranian students obtained French passports and then migrated to Canada, Venezuela and some to the USA.

The Iranians have every intention of retaliating against an attack on their soil. They believe that negotiations with Europe, the UN and the U.S. are over and they could care less about economic sanctions.

Iran is also not interested in using “oil” as a weapon. They know the U.S. has many new sources of oil, huge reserves, and that the U.S. believes a one week attack against Iranian nuclear targets would not significantly impact the world economy. American diplomats have assured the European Union, China, Japan and its other closest allies any attack on Iran would be over in a week or less. The Iranians also know this and know oil can’t be used as a weapon.
Some of the moderate mullahs in Iran believe an attack, while devastating to their nuclear ambitions, would not destroy their religion, culture or their fundamentalist Islamic government. The more radical leadership is seeking to destroy Israel once and for all and aiming also to seriously damage the United States through terrorist attacks.

The missing link here is the failure of diplomacy and a fait accompli that war is looming. While the Bush Administration is suggesting radio broadcasts to encourage dissidents in Iran, its real strategy is to have the EU and Russia do more to pressure Iran and to even have Republican and Democrats forge a unified front to demand Bush to take military action. The Bush Administration is still smarting over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and it wants our European allies and Congress to call for military action against Iran. While it is likely there will be much rhetoric on all sides between now and the November Congressional elections, it is highly likely any military action will take place after November 2006 and toward the remaining months of the Bush presidency.