The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
Pining for Fig Leaves
by Caroline Glick
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U.S. Military Aid Fueling
Hezbollah’s Next War Against Israel
by Adam Kredo
{freebeacon.com} ~ U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned that American military aid to the Lebanese army is arming the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah... which has been amassing a large cache of advanced arms on Israel's border, according to multiple current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. Following the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who fled the country and disclosed that Hezbollah controls the entirety of Lebanon, the U.S. government has continued its support for the Lebanese military, which multiple sources say has long been under the thumb of Hezbollah militants. The ongoing policy is said to be fueling diplomatic tensions between the United States and Israel, which has found itself allied with Saudi Arabia as the American government advances a host of policies that have contributed to Iran's regional dominance, including in Iraq and Syria... http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-military-aid-fueling-hezbollahs-next-war-israel/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=62acc700e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_11_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-62acc700e6-45611665.
Resistance Royalty: Pulosi, Soros
Headline Left’s Biggest Dark Money Conference
by Brent Scher and Joe Schoffstall
{freebeacon.com} ~ A secretive three-day conference where big money liberal donors are plotting the next steps of the "resistance" will be headlined by Friday speeches by billionaire George Soros and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi... according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Democracy Alliance, a donor club of deep-pocketed liberal donors that each pledge to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to approved left-wing groups, descended on California's posh La Costa Resort on Wednesday morning for its fall donor summit. The group continued its tradition of secrecy, promising all members and guests of the summit their participation would "remain confidential."... http://freebeacon.com/politics/resistance-royalty-pelosi-soros-headline-lefts-biggest-dark-money-conference/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=62acc700e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_11_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-62acc700e6-45611665.
China’s Advanced Weaponry Threatens U.S. Military
by Bill Gertz
{freebeacon.com} ~ China is developing an array of advanced, high technology weapons designed to defeat the United States in a future conflict... according to a congressional commission report. "China is pursuing a range of advanced weapons with disruptive military potential," says the annual report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The report outlines six types of advanced arms programs that Beijing has made a priority development in seeking "dominance" in the high-tech weapons area. They include maneuverable missile warheads, hypersonic weapons, laser and beam weapons, electromagnetic railguns, counterspace weapons, and artificial intelligence-directed robots... http://freebeacon.com/national-security/report-chinas-advanced-weaponry-threatens-u-s-military/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=62acc700e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_11_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-62acc700e6-45611665.
Famed explorer rescued from jungle
after becoming disoriented by malarial fever
by foxnews.com
{foxnews.com} ~ Famed explorer Benedict Allen has been rescued from Papau New Guinea where he was working on a documentary... about a lost tribe of indigenous headhunters when he went missing for days. Allen, 57, had become feverish and disoriented with what was suspected to be malaria, the BBC reports. He was looked after by Christian missionaries during his trek, the report said. Allen had been working on the doc for the network when he failed to show up for a planned rendezvous, sparking fears for his safety... http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/11/17/famed-explorer-rescued-from-jungle-after-becoming-disoriented-by-malarial-fever-report-says.html.
Busted – Gloria Allred Clearly
Knows Roy Moore Signature Is A Forgery
by rickwells.us
{rickwells.us} ~ MSNBC’s Katy Tur questions ambulance chasing attorney Gloria Allred about her client’s contention that the signature on her yearbook is that of US Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore... She begins by asking, “How did you in fact authenticate that it was Roy Moore’s signature?” Allred replies, “Well, we’re not going to comment on that except to say that we have offered to have an independent examine the yearbook and that signature and the remainder of his writing in addition to his signature in the event that the Senate Select Committee on ethics or the Senate Judiciary Committee agrees to have the hearing that we requested.” She wants oaths to be administered and effectively Judge Moore put on trial in one of these dog and pony shows that do nothing but produce sound bites and create political theater. There is no requirement that the Senate approve a candidate in advance of his being seated, what Allred is proposing as a condition of presenting her shaky evidence for validation is unconstitutional... https://rickwells.us/gloria-allred-signature-forgery/.
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Pining for Fig Leaves
by Caroline Glick
{truthrevolt.org} ~ Friday, long-time US diplomats and Middle East experts Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky published an article in Foreign Policy expressing “buyers’ remorse” over Saudi Arabia’s newfound willingness to take the lead in regional affairs.Titled, “Donald Trump has unleashed the Saudi Arabia we always wanted – and feared,” Miller and Sokolsky note that for generations, US policymakers wanted the Saudis to take a lead in determining the future of the region.
In their words, “During decades of service at the State Department, we longed for the day when riskaverse Saudi leaders would take greater ownership in solving their domestic and regional security problems and reduce their dependence on the United States.”
But now, they argue, under the leadership of King Salman and his son, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudis are going too far.
Domestically, Miller and Sokolsky accuse Salman and Mohammed of upsetting the traditional power sharing arrangements among the various princes in order to concentrate unprecedented power in Mohammed’s hands. This, they insist, harms the status of human rights in the kingdom, although they acknowledge that Mohammed has taken steps to liberalize the practice of Islam in the kingdom to the benefit of women and others.
While upset at the purge of princes, ministers and businessmen, Miller and Sokolsky are much more concerned about the foreign policy initiatives Mohammed and Salman have undertaken with everything related to countering Iran’s rise as a regional hegemon.
In their words, “Abroad, the Saudis are engaged in a cold war with an opportunistic Iran that’s exploiting their missteps in Yemen and Qatar.”
Miller and Sokolsky note that Mohammed’s campaign to defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi regime in Yemen has been bogged down. His effort – backed by US President Donald Trump – to force Qatar to abandon its policy of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran has similarly come up short.
They continue, “The latest Saudi gambit – pressuring the Sunni Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign in an effort to expose an Iranian- and Hezbollah- dominated Lebanon – is perhaps too clever by half. What are the Saudis going to do, given their Shiite adversaries’ advantages in Syria and Lebanon, when the Lebanese find themselves plunged into domestic crisis or a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah?” The veteran diplomats conclude their missive by urging Trump to implement his predecessor Barack liar-nObama’s Saudi policy. In their words, Trump needs to place heavy pressure “on the king and his son to de-escalate this conflict and restore equilibrium to America’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
“Because make no mistake,” they warn, “Saudi independence is illusory. Riyadh desperately wants us to back them – and bail them out when they get in over their heads with Iran. If Washington is not careful, the Saudis will sandbag America into standing up to Tehran while the Saudis hide behind its skirt.”
As if synchronized, Robert Malley, liar-nObama’s former Middle East adviser, makes a similar argument in an article in The Atlantic. Malley took a lead role in expanding the US’s ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah during the liar-nObama years.
There are several problems with these policymakers’ claims. The first is that in criticizing the Saudis they deliberately ignore the liar-nObama administration’s central role in engendering the current situation in which the Saudi regime feels compelled to take the actions it is taking.
To be clear, noting the role of the previous administration in causing the rapidly escalating instability of the Middle East is not an exercise in deflecting criticism away from the current administration. The simple fact is that it is impossible for the US to chart a rational course for dealing with the present dangers and opportunities without understanding how they arose in the first place.
For eight years, the liar-nObama administration deliberately alienated and willingly endangered Saudi Arabia and Israel by implementing a policy of appeasing Iran. Despite repeated warnings, the US refused to recognize that as far as Iran is concerned, it cannot have its cake and eat it too.
Iran is at war with Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies and with Israel.
Consequently, Miller and Sokolsky’s claim that there can be an “equilibrium to America’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran” which doesn’t involve the US siding with one side against the other is an illusion. On the ground in the Middle East, as events in Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Gaza and Egypt have made clear, liar-nObama’s strategy of appeasing Iran weakened America’s traditional regional allies and strengthened Iran and its proxies.
The change in the balance of forces that the liar-nObama administration’s policy caused forced the US’s spurned allies to reassess their strategic dependence on the US. Contrary to Miller and Sokolsky’s claims, the Saudis didn’t abandon their past passivity because Mohammed is brash, young and inexperienced.
Mohammed was appointed because Salman needed a successor willing and able to fight for the survival of the kingdom after liar-nObama placed it in jeopardy through his appeasement of Iran. Mohammed is the flipside of the nuclear deal.
Malley noted blandly that like the Saudis, Israel has also been sounding alarms at an ever escalating rate.
It isn’t hard to understand why. In 2009, Israel’s borders and territory were far more secure than they are today. Sunday night three former senior missile developers at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems – Israel’s premier missile and missile defense developer – went on television to warn that Haifa’s oil refineries and plans to use surrounding areas as a fuel depot will force the evacuation not only of the population of Haifa, but of all the surrounding satellite cities when war breaks out next with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, they warned, now has the precision missile capability to destroy these vital national infrastructures and render the Gulf of Haifa uninhabitable.
Then there is Syria.
Israel has repeatedly insisted that Iran and its proxies must not be permitted to develop a permanent presence in Syria. Russia and the US ignored Israel’s warnings not only during the liar-nObama years, but, in a sign of the continued power of liar-nObama partisans in the US foreign policy community, during the past year of the Trump administration as well. Over the summer the US and Russia concluded a cease-fire deal for Syria that permitted Iran and its proxies to operate in Syria.
Last week, the BBC reported that Iran is now building a military base 50 kilometers from the border with Israel. On Saturday, the IDF shot down a Russian- made intelligence drone launched against it by forces controlled by Iran’s chief Syrian proxy, Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Sunday, following threats from Iranian-controlled Islamic Jihad terrorist forces in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will not accept assaults against it across any of its borders.
Netanyahu said that he holds the Iranian-supported Hamas regime in Gaza responsible for any attacks against Israel emanating from its territory.
Netanyahu’s statement was notable since just last week Hamas and Fatah began implementing their power sharing arrangement in Gaza. Fatah forces, controlled by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, supposedly took responsibility for border crossings between Gaza and Israel.
By insisting that Hamas is responsible rather than Fatah, despite the agreement, Netanyahu signaled that as far as Israel is concerned, through its power- sharing deal with Fatah Hamas has succeeded in becoming the Palestinian version of Hezbollah. Just as Hezbollah pretends to be a faction in Lebanese politics, when in fact it controls all aspects of the Lebanese state, so Hamas remains in charge of all aspects of governance in Gaza while using the PA as a fig leaf.
This brings us back to Miller, Sokolsky and Malley and their pining for a reset button.
It is hard to view their positions as the basis for forging constructive US policies for the region, transformed by eight years of US appeasement of Iran at the expense of its allies and interests.
Insisting that Mohammed abandon the steps he has taken to expand the prospects of Saudi survival in favor of a policy of pretending that a stable equilibrium can be struck between Iran and Saudi Arabia and Israel is not a policy for restoring equilibrium.
Putting Hariri back in office in Beirut so he can continue to serve as a fig leaf for Hezbollah and Iran is not a policy for restoring equilibrium. They are both means for pretending reality away while enabling Iran to wage a continuous war against America’s allies with ever greater power and capacity.
It makes sense that liar-nObama partisans are unhappy with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed. It makes sense that they are unhappy with Netanyahu and with Trump. All four of these leaders are impudently insisting on basing their policies on recognizing the reality liar-nObama spent his two terms ignoring: Iran is not appeasable.
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