Wednesday AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
Is War With Iran Now Inevitable?
by Pat Buchanan
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Fusion GPS Defies Intel Committee Subpoena –
Will Sessions Finally Do Something?
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{rickwells.us} ~ The cover up continues, accentuated by a blatant middle finger to our weak, feckless Attorney General who increasingly appears to be compromised and serving interests... other than the President and the American people. Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm responsible for the creation of the infamous Russia Trump dossier, has once again refused to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony issued earlier this month by the House Intelligence Committee. They had sought testimony from GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson, Tom Catan and Peter Fritsch. In a Monday letter to committee chairman Devin Nunes, Fusion attorneys stated that the subpoena seeking testimony from three of the company’s partners violates the corporation’s First Amendment privileges and would force it to break attorney-client privilege as well as other contractual obligations...Its time to act Session. https://rickwells.us/fusion-gps-defies-subpoena-sessions/
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Comey drafted letter on liar-Clinton
email investigation before completing interviews
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{foxnews.com} ~ The FBI released documents Monday proving former FBI Director James Comey began drafting a letter regarding liar-Hillary Clinton's email investigation months before conducting several key interviews, including speaking to liar-Clinton herself... The document release was titled “Drafts of Director Comeys July 5, 2016 Statement Regarding Email Server Investigation Part 01 of 01.” The contents of the email were largely unclear as nearly all of it was redacted. The now-public records show the email titled “Midyear Exam --- UNCLASSIFIED” was sent by Comey on May 2, 2016, to Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, general counsel James Baker and chief of staff and senior counselor James Rybicki...  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/16/comey-drafted-letter-on-clinton-email-investigation-before-completing-interviews-fbi-confirms.html
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A slow death for the Iran deal
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by John R. Bolton
{aei.org} ~ As Abba Eban observed, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” So it goes with America and the Iran deal... President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. would stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, even while he refused to certify under U.S. law that the deal is in the national interest. “Decertification,” a bright, shiny object for many, obscures the real issue—whether the agreement should survive. Mr. Trump has “scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.” While Congress considers how to respond—or, more likely, not respond—we should focus on the grave threats inherent in the deal. Peripheral issues have often dominated the debate; forests have been felled arguing over whether Iran has complied with the deal’s terms. Proposed “fixes” now abound, such as a suggestion to eliminate the sunset provisions on the deal’s core provisions. The core provisions are the central danger. There are no real “fixes” to this intrinsically misconceived agreement. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a party, has never included sunset clauses, but the mullahs have been violating it for decades...  http://www.aei.org/publication/a-slow-death-for-the-iran-deal/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpZMlpqUmtOVFJoT1RJeiIsInQiOiJiajRXdkVoV0ZuZ1hjZEpcL1NKOHNpVHc0K3Y1MjR6ZFwvQ0QyM3ZERkhzTVwvU25jazBEOWRwdFlSUnFaeGlFOGFXUTdYNWt6ZTdhdFhGZ3o3WE5ISEhKMWE2aWNGWm0rSU5WSStMMm1tXC84T1hDMEVmR1dpT2JSQkFiWXJ6XC9zbVdlIn0%3D
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New GOP-backed gun control bill may 
have DIRE consequences for gun owners
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by Allen West
{allenwest.com} ~ A new gun-control proposal in Congress that is being pitched as a bipartisan bump stock ban would actually ban all semi-automatic rifles in the United States, according to an analysis of the proposed bill... The legislation, which was drafted by Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican, never bans bump stocks by name. Instead, the proposal bans any person from possessing or making any part that could be used to increase the rate of fire in any semi-automatic rifle. The lead co-sponsor on the gun control bill is Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and U.S. Marines veteran who completed four tours of duty in Iraq. “It shall be unlawful for any person … to manufacture, possess, or transfer any part or combination of parts that is designed to increase the rate of fire of a semi-automatic rifle,” the bill states. At no point does the proposed legislation specify a base rate of fire against which any illegal increases would be judged, a potentially fatal flaw in the bill’s drafting. As a result, the proposal arguably institutes a federal ban on any and all parts that would allow the gun to fire at all, since the mere ability to fire a semi-automatic weapon by definition increases its rate of fire from zero. I want to make myself absolutely clear: I don’t support the Curbelo-Moulton legislation...  https://www.allenwest.com/2017/10/16/gop-gun-control-bill-fatal-flaw-may-ban-rifles/
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Saving NATO from Turkey
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by Daniel Pipes
{danielpipes.org} ~ The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, known as NATO, faces an existential problem. No, it's not about getting member states to fulfill agreed-upon spending levels on defense... Or finding a role after the Soviet collapse. Or standing up to Russia's Vladimir Putin. Rather, it's about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Islamist, dictatorial ruler of Turkey whose policies threaten to undermine this unique alliance of 29 states that has lasted nearly 70 years. Created in 1949, NATO's founding principles ambitiously set out the alliance goal "to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of member states' peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law." In other words, the alliance exists to defend Western civilization...  http://www.danielpipes.org/17971/saving-nato-from-turkey?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=93875a5c85-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-93875a5c85-33703665
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Is War With Iran Now Inevitable?
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by Pat Buchanan
{townhall.com} ~ With his declaration Friday that the Iran nuclear deal is not in the national interest, President Donald Trump may have put us on the road to war with Iran.

Indeed, it is easier to see the collisions that are coming than to see how we get off this road before the shooting starts.
 
After "de-certifying" the nuclear agreement, signed by all five permanent members of the Security Council, Trump gave Congress 60 days to reimpose the sanctions that it lifted when Teheran signed.

If Congress does not reimpose those sanctions and kill the deal, Trump threatens to kill it himself.

Why? Did Iran violate the terms of the agreement? Almost no one argues that -- not the UN nuclear inspectors, not our NATO allies, not even Trump's national security team.

Iran shipped all its 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country, shut down most of its centrifuges, and allowed intrusive inspections of all nuclear facilities. Even before the deal, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies said they could find no evidence of an Iranian nuclear bomb program.

Indeed, if Iran wanted a bomb, Iran would have had a bomb.

She remains a non-nuclear-weapons state for a simple reason: Iran's vital national interests dictate that she remain so.

As the largest Shiite nation with 80 million people, among the most advanced in the Mideast, Iran is predestined to become the preeminent power in the Persian Gulf. But on one condition: She avoid the great war with the United States that Saddam Hussein failed to avoid.
 
Iran shut down any bomb program it had because it does not want to share Iraq's fate of being smashed and broken apart into Persians, Azeris, Arabs, Kurds and Baluch, as Iraq was broken apart by the Americans into Sunni, Shiite, Turkmen, Yazidis and Kurds.

Tehran does not want war with us. It is the War Party in Washington and its Middle East allies -- Bibi Netanyahu and the Saudi royals -- who hunger to have the United States come over and smash Iran.

Thus, the Congressional battle to kill, or not to kill, the Iran nuclear deal shapes up as decisive in the Trump presidency.

Yet, even earlier collisions with Iran may be at hand.

In Syria's east, U.S.-backed and Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces are about to take Raqqa. But as we are annihilating ISIS in its capital, the Syrian army is driving to capture Deir Ezzor, capital of the province that sits astride the road from Baghdad to Damascus.

Its capture by Bashar Assad's army would ensure that the road from Baghdad to Damascus to Hezbollah in Lebanon remains open.

If the U.S. intends to use the SDF to seize the border area, we could find ourselves in a battle with the Syrian army, Shiite militia, the Iranians, and perhaps even the Russians.

Are we up for that?

In Iraq, the national army is moving on oil-rich Kirkuk province and its capital city. The Kurds captured Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled from the ISIS invasion. Why is a U.S.-trained Iraqi army moving against a U.S.-trained Kurdish army?
 
The Kurdistan Regional Government voted last month to secede. This raised alarms in Turkey and Iran, as well as Baghdad. An independent Kurdistan could serve as a magnet to Kurds in both those countries.

Baghdad's army is moving on Kirkuk to prevent its amputation from Iraq in any civil war of secession by the Kurds.

Where does Iran stand in all of this?

In the war against ISIS, they were de facto allies. For ISIS, like al-Qaida, is Sunni and hates Shiites as much as it hates Christians. But if the U.S. intends to use the SDF to capture the Iraqi-Syrian border, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia could all be aligned against us.

Are we ready for such a clash?

We Americans are coming face to face with some new realities.

The people who are going to decide the future of the Middle East are the people who live there. And among these people, the future will be determined by those most willing to fight, bleed and die for years and in considerable numbers to realize that future.

We Americans, however, are not going to send another army to occupy another country, as we did Kuwait in 1991, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003.

Bashar Assad, his army and air force backed by Vladimir Putin's air power, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, and Hezbollah won the Syrian civil war because they were more willing to fight and die to win it. And, truth be told, all had far larger stakes there than did we.

We do not live there. Few Americans are aware of what is going on there. Even fewer care.

Our erstwhile allies in the Middle East naturally want us to fight their 21st-century wars, as the Brits got us to help fight their 20th-century wars.

But Donald Trump was not elected to do that. Or so at least some of us thought.
(Buchanan failed to mention, Iran is not welling to let inspections be conducted at their nuclear sites.)
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