Tag Archives: Obama

16Nov/14

ON THE IDEOLOGUE AND THE IGNORANT!

A day after mid-term election in which American voters appeared to have challenged the President and its leadership, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that President Obama sent a secret letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, Islamic Regime’s supreme leader. This was apparently the fourth letter in a series of secret exchanges Obama has had with Khamenei since taking office.

According to WSJ, President Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader last month describing a “shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.” Although it took another week for Iran to officially acknowledge the letter, Khamenei hinted of the exchange in his Nov. 3 speech on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution: “The new U.S. President made some beautiful comments. He also repeatedly asked us in writing and orally to turn a new page and help him change the present situation. He asked us to cooperate with him to solve global issues.” Continue reading

02Oct/14

Why the Mullah is Smiling

by Nir Boms and Shayan Arya

 Gatestone Institute

Although physically weak from recent routine prostate surgery, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, emerged smiling from his hospital bed — and for a good reason. He has never been stronger. From Syria to Iraq, from Tehran to Gaza and UN headquarters in New York, he feels empowered and this shows nowhere better than in Geneva.

Khamenei has many reasons to smile. The sanctions that were crippling his regime just a year ago appear to be receding. Companies from Europe to Asia are lining up to do business in Iran. His significant efforts to assist Bashar Assad in Syria and to keep Hezbollah afloat have paid off as well. Many in Washington have begun to see Assad as a potential ally against what they believe to be the real threat, namely ISIS. His disciple, President Hassan Rouhani, has just met British Prime Minister David Cameron in New York. Rouhani appears to be making new friends.

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24Mar/14

Ukraine, Iran and the Cold War

 

The Cold War is long gone, says the American  president, and the Ukrainian affair is not a“ Cold War chessboard.” Syria and Ukraine, he adds, are about “expression of hopes” rather than acts of regional powers. After all, the people – 96% of them to be exact – have spoken!  And so goes for Iran:  “If John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union, then surely a strong and confident America can negotiate with less powerful adversaries today.” But the parallel between past and present deserves closer inspection, especially given the president’s reluctance to intervene in any battle, be it Ukraine, Syria or Iran. Apparently, there is a difference between battles of ideas to one of “international law” and perhaps this is what Ukraine might teach us about Iran.
But this parallel between past and present deserves closer inspection, especially given the president’s reluctance to intervene in any battle, be it Ukraine, Syria or Iran. Apparently, there is a difference between a battle of ideas and one of “international law.”

America and its allies in Europe never forgot their united opposition to the Soviet Union, and to its world view, so inherently incompatible with their own. They recognized, correctly, that the Soviets had a clear ideology juxtaposed with global ambitions, in which a free world had no place. They also recognized that, left unchallenged, those ambitions would weaken the free world, and perhaps completely destroy it. Continue reading

30Sep/13

Syria: The Missing Piece

 

Last week was a long, Syria-focused one in the Capitol, and it seems that just about everyone feels that they have come out victorious. Everyone, that is, excepting for a senior delegation of the Syrian opposition. They left frustrated that, amid all the hype about Syria, hardly anyone in Washington would make the time to meet with them.

George Sabra, the visiting President of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the umbrella group of the Syrian opposition, warned that the international community is at risk of falling into another Syrian-Russian trap. Sabra protested that the Syrian people were again being left behind. He’s right, of course, but why let that spoil the party? Sabra seems to be alone in his worries. Continue reading