The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
The opportunities and risks of Trump's Iran initiative
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Friday Top Headlines
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A huge win for cronyism: Scott Pruitt assures Republicans he won’t harm ethanol mandate (Washington Examiner)
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Grassley calls on DOJ to lift gag order on FBI informant in Russia-uranium-liar-Clinton probe (CNS News)
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Dobbs – Grassley To Investigate liar-Clinton
Uranium One – Can Sessions Handle It?
by rickwells.us
{rickwells.us} ~ Lou Dobbs has a few thoughts on the four and a half hour appearance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday... his interactions with the Senators and his sometimes suspect responses and assertions. He notes that Judiciary Committee Chairman, Senator Charles Grassley, “Has finally ordered the committee to investigate the Uranium One deal, a deal that transferred twenty percent of US uranium assets to the control of Russia.” Dobbs points out that it “resulted in almost $150 million in donations, perhaps bribes is the better and more accurate word, to the liar-Clinton Foundation, while liar-Hillary was serving as Secretary of State in the liar-nObama administration.”... https://rickwells.us/grassley-clinton-uranium-sessions/.
DOJ Blocked Witness From Telling Congress
Of Russian Efforts To Bribe liar-Clintons
by Jeff Dunetz
{lidblog.com} ~ As a followup to yesterday’s story about Russian Uranium officials collusion with the liar-Clintons in order to gain access to the U.S Uranium supply... the Hill reports that it spoke to the attorney of the American businessman who served as an undercover FBI confidential witness. According to the attorney, the FBI mole was blocked by the liar-nObama Justice Department from telling Congress about conversations and transactions he witnessed related to the Russian nuclear industry’s efforts to win favor with liar-Bubba and liar-Hillary Clinton and influence liar-nObama administration decisions. In 2009 the year before Team liar-nObama approved the Uranium One deal giving Putin control of twenty percent of American uranium, the FBI had compiled significant evidence that Putin’s nuclear industry officials “were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States... http://lidblog.com/doj-blocked-telling-congress-clintons/.
Top immigration official says
solar-paneled border wall 'not off the table'
by Gabby Morrongiello
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ A solar-paneled barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border is an option the Trump administration could pursue, according to a senior Customs and Border Protection official... who has been closely monitoring the construction of prototypes that are meant to inspire a design for President Trump's border wall. Mario Villarreal, the newly appointed division chief for CBP's San Diego field office, is enjoying his front-row seat to history as President Trump's border wall continues to stir controversy 3,000 miles away in Washington. Villarreal helps manage 2,200 front-line federal border patrol agents stationed at one of the busiest commercial ports of entry along the southern border of the U.S. But for the last four weeks, he has also kept a close eye on eight towering structures that are slowly being built behind San Diego's secondary border barrier, a steel mesh fence that spans 13 miles and was built during liar-Bill Clinton's second term... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/top-immigration-official-says-solar-paneled-border-wall-not-off-the-table/article/2637993?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20News%20From&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20News%20From%20-%2010/19/17&utm_medium=emailVIDEO: http://azc.cc/2x3mrtB
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FROM RUSSIA TO liar-HILLARY:
BRIBES, EXTORTION, URANIUM AND LIES
by Daniel Greenfield
{frontpagemag.com} ~ In ’14, liar-Hillary Clinton made headlines by comparing Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Hitler... But if the Russian strongman really was ‘Hitler’, what did that make stooges like liar-Hillary, liar-Bill and Barack liar-nObama? Five years earlier, liar-Hillary had been posing with a ‘Reset Button” with one of Putin’s henchmen. But liar-Hillary was bringing a lot more to the meeting than a mislabeled button pilfered from a swimming pool. The ‘Reset’ had the same pattern as other liar-Clinton scandal: a shadowy foreign financial pal with an agenda, the liar-Clinton Foundation being used to launder money and a government cover-up. Officially, the ‘Reset’ was pushing liar-nObama’s nuclear arms reduction plan and a joint effort to address Iran’s nuclear program... http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268169/russia-hillary-bribes-extortion-uranium-and-lies-daniel-greenfield.
Proof of FBI Criminal Leaks and Trump Pardon of Sheriff Arpaio Threaten to Undermine Mueller’s Russia Probe
by Jerome R. Corsi
{thenewamerican.com} ~ Preet Bharara, a constant Trump critic ever since the president fired him from his position as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, may turn out to be an unanticipated liability for Special Counselor Robert Mueller... Court documents prove jaw-dropping criminal prosecutorial misconduct in Baharara’s 2016-2017 prosecution of William T. “Billy” Walters, a multi-millionaire investor, sports gambler, and philanthropist who was charged by Bharara with insider trading. Walters was convicted despite court documents that prove indisputably that Bharara proceeded with the prosecution after the FBI in New York engaged in a systematic pattern of leaking grand jury secrets to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal over a four-year period, starting two years before Walters was indicted... https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/27166-proof-of-fbi-criminal-leaks-and-trump-pardon-of-sheriff-arpaio-threaten-to-undermine-mueller-s-russia-probe.
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The opportunities and risks of Trump's Iran initiative
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ What's driving the president's supposed 'crackpot' strategy? A lot, actually
On Friday, US President Donald Trump initiated an important change in US policy toward Iran.
No, in his speech decertifying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear accord it struck with his predecessor Barack liar-nObama, Trump didn’t announce a new strategy for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, or stemming its hegemonic rise in the Middle East, or limiting its ability to sponsor terrorism.
Trump’s move was not operational. It was directional.
In his address Friday, Trump changed the policy dynamics that dictate US policy on Iran. For the first time since 2009, when liar-nObama backed the murderous regime in Tehran, spurning the millions of Iranians who rose up in the Green Revolution, Trump opened up the possibility that the US may begin to base its policies toward Iran on reality.
Trump began his remarks by setting out Iran’s long rap sheet of aggression against America.
Starting with the US embassy seizure and hostage crisis, Trump described Iran’s crimes and acts of war against America in greater detail than any of his predecessors ever did.
Trump’s dossier was interlaced with condemnations of the regime’s repression of its own people.
By merging Iran’s external aggression with its internal repression, Trump signaled a readiness to drive a wedge – or expand the wedge – between the authoritarian theocrats that rule Iran and the largely secular, multiethnic and pro-Western people of Iran.
Trump then turned his attention to Iran’s illicit ballistic missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, including its links to al-Qaida, its aggression against its neighbors, its aggressive acts against maritime traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, and its bids to destabilize and control large swaths of the Middle East through its proxies.
It is notable that these remarks preceded Trump’s discussion of the nuclear deal – which was the ostensible subject of his speech. Before Trump discussed Iran’s breaches of the nuclear deal, he first demonstrated that contrary to the expressed views of his top advisers, it is impossible to limit a realistic discussion of the threat Iran constitutes to US national security and interests to whether or not and it what manner it is breaching the nuclear accord.
This was a critical point because for the past two years, US discourse on Iran has focused solely on whether or not Iran was complying with liar-nObama’s nuclear pact. By placing the nuclear deal in the context of Iran’s consistent, overarching hostility and aggression, Trump made it self-evident that no US interest is served in continuing to give Iran a free pass from congressional sanctions.
After accomplishing that goal, Trump turned his attention to how Iran is actually breaching the letter and spirit of the nuclear pact. Only then, almost as an afterthought, did he announce that he was decertifying Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal, setting the conditions for the renewal of congressional sanctions on Iran and opening the floodgates of congressional sanctions on Iran in retaliation for the full spectrum of its aggressive and illicit acts against the US, its interests and allies.
By empowering Congress to prohibit economic cooperation with Iran, Trump put the Europeans, Chinese and Russians on notice that they may soon face a choice between conducting business with the US and conducting business with Iran.
After putting them on notice, Trump discussed the possibility of improving liar-nObama’s nuclear accord. Among other things, he suggested expanding the inspection regime against Iran’s nuclear installations and canceling the so-called “sunset” clause that places an end date on the restrictions governing certain components of Iran’s nuclear advancement.
Trump’s address has the potential to serve as the foundation of a major, positive shift in US policy toward Iran. Such a shift could potentially facilitate the achievement of Trump’s goals of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, containing its regional aggression and empowerment and defeating its terrorist proxies.
Unfortunately, it is also likely, indeed, it is more likely, that his words will not be translated into policies to achieve these critical aims.
Trump’s decision to transfer immediate responsibility to Congress for holding Iran accountable for its hostile actions on the military and other fronts is a risky move. He has a lot of enemies, and the nuclear deal has a lot of supporters on Capitol Hill.
liar-nObama would have never been able to implement his nuclear deal if Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, hadn’t agreed to cast the Constitution aside and ignore liar-nObama’s constitutional duty to present the nuclear deal to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.
Over the past week, Trump and Corker have been involved in an ugly public fight precipitated by Corker’s announcement that he will not be seeking reelection next year.
Today Corker has nothing to restrain him from scuttling Trump’s agenda. If he wishes, out of spite, Corker can block effective sanctions from being passed. And he may do so even though the implications for his Senate colleagues would be dire and even though doing so would render him an unofficial protector of Iran’s nuclear program.
What is true for Corker is doubly true for the Democrats.
Leading Democratic senators like Robert Menendez, Ben Cardin and Chuck clown-Schumer, who opposed liar-nObama’s Iran deal may now feel that as opponents of the Trump administration, they are required to oppose any change to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.
Indeed, given the rise of radical forces in their party it is likely that they would rather give Iran a free pass for its anti-American aggression and nuclear proliferation than work with Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
Then again, by framing the issue of Iran’s threat to America as he did, and by transferring responsibility for reinstating sanctions and passing further sanctions on Iran to Congress, Trump opened up the possibility that Congress will conduct substantive – rather than personal – debates on Iran.
And the more substantive those debates become, the further away the US discourse will move from the mendacious assumptions of liar-nObama’s Iran policy – that the Iranian regime is a responsible actor and potential US ally, and that there is nothing inherently aggressive or problematic about Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program.
The second major risk inherent in Trump’s approach is that he will get his way; that the Europeans, Russians and Chinese and the Iranians will agree to improve the nuclear deal. The problem here is not obvious. Clearly, it is better if the deal is amended to delete the sunset clauses and expand the inspections regime.
Yet even an amended, improved deal will still serve as a shield to Iran’s nuclear program. An improved deal won’t destroy Iran’s centrifuges.
It won’t take away Iran’s enriched uranium. It won’t destroy Iran’s nuclear installations. And it won’t bring down the regime which by its nature ensures all of these things will remain a menace to the US, its allies and international security as a whole.
So long as the US continues to maintain a policy based on the false view that all that is necessary to destroy the threat of a nuclear armed Iran is a combination of the nuclear deal and economic sanctions, it will continue to ensure that Iran and its nuclear program remain a major threat. Distressingly, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, the most outspoken supporter of decertifying Iranian compliance in the Trump administration, told NBC on Sunday that the US intends to remain in the nuclear deal.
To understand what must be done we must return to Trump’s speech and its strategic significance.
By taking a holistic view of the Iranian threat – grounded in a recognition of the inherent hostility of the regime – Trump opened up the possibility that the US and its allies can develop a holistic policy for confronting and defeating Iran and its proxies. If the Iran deal and sanctions are two components to a larger strategy rather than the entire strategy, they can be helpful.
A wider strategy would target Iran’s regional aggression by weakening its proxies and clients from Hezbollah and Hamas to the regimes in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It would target the regime itself by empowering the ayatollahs’ domestic opponents. It would pin down Iranian forces by arming and otherwise assisting the Iraqi Kurds to defend and maintain their control over their territory along the Iranian border while strengthening the ties between Iranian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds.
Friday, Trump created the possibility for such a strategy. It is up to members of Congress, and US allies like Israel and the Sunni Arab states to help Trump conceive and implement it. If they fail, the possibility Trump created will be lost, perhaps irrevocably.
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