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FEBRUARY 15,  2011

PERSONNEL NEWS – AT 9:04 P.M. ET:  When star-studded names move around, political minds come alive.  The subject at hand is General David Petraeus.  From The New York Post:

Gen. David Petraeus, the most celebrated American soldier of his generation, is to leave his post as commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, The (London) Times reported Tuesday.

The Times reported that the Pentagon aims to replace Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, by the end of the year.

Sources have confirmed that the search for a new commander in Kabul is under way. It forms part of a sweeping reorganization of top American officials in Afghanistan, which the Obama administration hopes to present as proof that its strategy does not depend on the towering reputation of one man.

Unless that man is Barack Obama.

The news that the general himself would be leaving Kabul stunned close observers of US strategy, but the Pentagon insisted Tuesday it was a natural development, given the demands of running the war and Washington's need for fresh blood in a crucial role.

Fresh blood?  He never seemed tired to me.

Lionized as the hero of Iraq and now of Afghanistan, the general will be a natural contender to become Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- both posts fall vacant this year.

General Petraeus has consistently ruled out running for President, but as one of the most admired US generals since Dwight D. Eisenhower he has been urged to consider an attempt for the White House since leading the successful Iraq surge in 2007.

His return to Washington this year would make possible a bid for the Republican nomination, although a former adviser told The Times: "He may find the idea flattering and even attractive, but I don't think that sort of work really speaks to him."

COMMENT:  You can be sure that this story will get Republican tongues wagging, but Petraeus, undoubtedly an outstanding officer, is not Eisenhower.  Eisenhower won a clean victory in a world war, and, in 1952, was running against Adlai Stevenson, the little-known governor of Illinois.  Petraeus's successes are murkier, and he would have to run against his current commander-in-chief, which Americans may see as an act of disloyalty.  ("If you thought he was making mistakes, you should have resigned.")

I'd imagine Petraeus will be given Mike Mullen's post.  Or, he could be made chief of staff of the Army.  It's hard to see him in politics.

UPDATE AT 11:15 P.M. ET:  The Pentagon is now denying this story, but it seems well-sourced and authoritative.  Maybe the Obamans are worried about appearing to push Petraeus out.  We'll follow it.

February 15, 2011       Permalink

WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 7:23 P.M. ET:  Very rarely do we see polls aligned like this.  Three major, recent polls show President Obama's approval at 48%.

Where the polls differ is on disapproval.  CBS has disapproval at 41%, Gallup at 44% and Rasmussen, the only poll of the three showing higher disapproval than approval, has the negative number at 51%.

This shows some improvement for the president over recent months.  While he's still under 50%, he's not way under.  His numbers are far from disastrous.  If they hold, it demonstrates what a tough time the GOP will have in beating him.  It is going to take a first-class candidate running a first-class campaign, and I don't think Ronald Reagan is available. 

The presumed frontrunner at the moment is Mitt Romney, whose name does not excite the country.  There is little "wanting" of Romney, who could very well be a fine president.  Trouble is, you've got to get elected first, and it's a bothersome step.

The Republican Party moves slowly.  It took Reagan three tries to get the nomination, and three almost turned out not to be the charm.  There was plenty of opposition to him in 1980 from the staid Republican establishment.  A slow-moving party will not win in 2012.

We may need a dark horse, and not Donald Trump, whose hairpiece is a better candidate than he is.

February 15, 2011      Permalink 

HUH?  WHY NOT SEND BOZO THE CLOWN? – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:   John Kerry is traveling.  From ABC News:

Sen. John Kerry has left for a trip to Pakistan today, according to his spokesperson on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to calm frayed diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Wait a second.  This dude is a senator.  Don't we have ambassadors and special envoys to handle these affairs?  Who sent him?

Spokesman Frederick Jones said the trip comes at a time when the relationship is strained by the detention of a U.S. government official, Raymond Davis, suspected of killing two Pakistani men in self-defense during an alleged robbery attempt late last month in Lahore. Another Pakistani man was then accidentally killed by a rescue vehicle rushing Davis' aid.

The U.S. was scheduled to host a trilateral meeting in Washington with Afghanistan and Pakistan at the end of February, but the meeting was canceled after Pakistan resisted U.S. demands to release Davis immediately. Pakistan is charging Davis with murder, but U.S. officials argue that Davis was in Pakistan under a diplomatic visa and has diplomatic immunity from prosecution in a host country. The senator is traveling on behalf of the Obama administration.

“Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry left tonight for Pakistan where he will meet with senior Pakistan government officials to reaffirm support for the strategic relationship between the two countries,” Jones said.

COMMENT:  What makes this intriguing is some informed speculation that Kerry is being prepped to become secretary of state should Hillary Clinton leave...or be pushed.  Stories are being floated that Obama is suddenly displeased with Clinton.  This is pure speculation, but the active political mind might reason that it would be better for Obama to throw Hillary under that bus parked outside the White House, than have her resign and then run against him in 2012 primaries, claiming that she was "disappointed" in him.  If she's essentially fired, any campaign on her part would look like revenge or sour grapes.  But I stress, that is speculation.  It's juicy though, isn't it?

February 15, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 10:13 A.M. ET: 

From the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog:   Just a quick statistical confirmation that Republicans are more romantically involved than either those love dud Democrats or those indecisive independents.  The Clarus Poll finds that Republicans are far more excited about their love lives (44%) than members of the other party (32%) and members of no party (31%). With Republicans even being 8% more excited than the national excitement average.  And the new survey found that Southerners are expecially happy with their love lives, more so than, predictably, those fuddy-duddy northeastern Democrats.

I've always believed that the party that succeeds is the one that has more fun.  Given the statistics above, we're heading for a landslide.

February 15, 2011      Permalink

WILL WE GET IT? – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  The trendies are already out in force, assuring us that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is just a moderate organization of men in business suits.  Why, all those rotten ideas they had about democracy, women's rights, and other religions?  Oh, just relics of the past.  Ancient history, as Jimmah Carter said, when trying to explain away Hamas's horrible charter. 

That's like saying, in 1940, that Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was ancient history.  Guess he didn't mean it.

Bret Stephens, of The Wall Street Journal, writes a superb piece setting the record straight.  Stephens is the former editor of The Jerusalem Post.  His opening paragraph is a gem:

It's what the good people on West 40th Street like to call a "Times Classic." On Feb. 16, 1979, the New York Times ran a lengthy op-ed by Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, under the headline "Trusting Khomeini."

"The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false," wrote Mr. Falk. "What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals."

After carrying on in this vein for a few paragraphs, the professor concluded: "Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third-world country."

Whoops.

Richard Falk is a hard-left apparatchik who has spent his career fronting for some of the worst causes in the world.  His latest venture is as a hired gun for the UN Human Rights Council, one of the most corrupt bodies in the UN.  Falk was hired to "investigate" Israel.  I don't have to tell you the result.

It's easy to be taken in by the Brotherhood: Eight decades as a disciplined, underground organization, outwardly involved in charitable social work, have made them experts at tailoring messages to separate audiences.

And...

Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), the Brotherhood's founder, was an admirer of the fascist movements of his day, and he had similar ambitions for his own movement.

"Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, south Italy and the Roman sea islands were all Islamic lands that have to be restored to the homeland of Islam," he wrote in a message dedicated to Muslim youth. "As Signor Mussolini believed that it was within his right to revive the Roman Empire . . . similarly it is our right to restore to the Islamic empire its glory."

Ancient history, ancient history, didn't mean it, misunderstood.

Today the Brotherhood has adopted a political strategy in keeping with Banna's dictum that the movement must not over-reach on its way toward "[subjugating] every unjust ruler to its command": "Each of these stages," he cautioned his followers, "involves certain steps, branches and means." Thus the Brotherhood has gone out of its way in recent weeks to appear in the most benign light, making an ally of former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and forswearing any immediate political ambitions.

Or, as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back.  It's amazing how totalitarians arrive at the same strategy.

Nor should there be any doubt about what the Brotherhood is aiming against. "Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny," Muhammad Badie, the Brotherhood's supreme guide, sermonized in October. "The improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained . . . by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

Oh so moderate.  But who are we to question another's culture?

In 2005, candidates for the Brotherhood took 20% of the parliamentary vote. Gamal al-Banna, Hassan's youngest brother, once told me they command as much as 40% support. Neither figure is a majority. But unless Egypt's secular forces can coalesce into serious political parties, the people for whom Islam is the solution won't find the fetters of democracy to be much of a problem.

And now, from another source, we have this:

CAIRO (AP) - Egypt's long banned Muslim Brotherhood said Tuesday it intends to form a political party once democracy is established, as the country's new military rulers launched a panel of experts to amend the country's constitution enough to allow democratic elections later this year...

...The Brotherhood's charter calls for creation of an Islamic state in Egypt, and Mubarak's regime depicted the Brotherhood as aiming to take over the country, launching fierce crackdowns on the group. Some Egyptians remain deeply suspicious of the secretive organization, fearing it will exploit the current turmoil to vault to power.

Not to worry, brothers.  The Richard Falks of the world, and the useful idiots of the American media, will be glad to help out.

February 15, 2011      Permalink

IRAN – NO SECOND DAY – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  The question, of course, is whether the demonstrations that rocked Iran yesterday would continue into today.  Sadly, they apparently have not, at least not yet. 

The difference between Iran and Egypt is that the Egyptian army would not fire on demonstrators.  In the mullahs' Iran, the guns and clubs came out immediately:

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian lawmakers denounced Monday's protests in Tehran and called for the execution of two opposition leaders for inciting the demonstrations, Iran's state-run Press TV reported Tuesday.

Members of the Iranian parliament issued fiery chants against opposition leaders and former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi

Press TV aired video Tuesday of lawmakers chanting "Moussavi, Karroubi ... execute them."

Lawmakers also named former President Mohammad Khatami in some of the death chants.

Iranian leaders have praised Egypt's revolution, but Monday when protesters in Iran took to the streets the government cracked down hard. 

And...

Patrolling security forces battled protesters with batons and tear gas for much of the day.

The large crowd was largely cleared from the city's streets by nightfall and the main squares near Tehran University remained free of police, security forces or protesters

Dozens of demonstrators were detained during Monday's protests while internet videos showed others had been chased and beaten.

One person was shot and killed during the protests, according to Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency. Several others were injured and listed in serious condition as a result of the shooting, which the Iranian government blamed on "agitators and seditionists."

COMMENT:  It's not uncommon for revolutionary movements to be beaten back one day, only to emerge again later, possibly months later.  But whether this will happen in the face of a regime that doesn't hesitate to murder its own citizens is problematical.  So far, we have seen no evidence that the Iranian military, led by the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian version of the Nazi SS, is turning on the government or even leaning toward neutrality.

A good friend of mine likes to quote Douglas MacArthur, who commonted on those who smugly tell us that the pen is mightier than the sword.  MacArthur replied, "Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons."

We also have the trendies who romanticize Gandhi's nonviolent resistance in India.  It worked because Gandhi was facing the British, representatives of a modern, civilized society.  If he'd faced the Nazis or the Soviets, we never would have heard of Gandhi because he would have lasted an hour. 

We wish the Iranian people well.  We wish Barack Obama had supported them in 2009, when they had a chance to win.  But I cannot claim great optimism in light of what they are facing.

And I wonder how the apologists for the regime, some of whom are active in the United States, will act now.

February 15, 2011      Permalink

ARE WE BEING CARTERIZED?  – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  A number of commentators have noted the similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmah Carter – the weakness, the cynicism, the contempt for the American people.

One of the most troubling things to mark the Carter administration was stagflation, a rapid inflation of the economy combined with a lack of growth.  It was one of the things that led Carter out of office in the 1980 election. 

Are we about to repeat?  There are troubling signs.  CNBC reports that clothing prices are about to rise ten percent or more:

The era of falling clothing prices is ending. Clothing prices have dropped for a decade as tame inflation and cheap overseas labor helped hold down costs...

...Clothing prices are expected to rise about 10 percent in coming months, with the biggest increases coming in the second half of the year, said Burt Flickinger III president of Strategic Resource Group...

..."All of our brands, every single brand, will take some price increases," said Eric Wiseman, chairman and CEO of VF Corp., whose brands include The North Face, Nautica, Wrangler and Lee.

The key question:  Will consumers, used to lower prices, pay the higher ones?

Retailers are trying to figure out whether consumer demand that gave them strong holiday sales will last. The fear is higher prices will nip that budding demand.

Stores that cater to low- and middle-income shoppers will have the hardest time passing along price increases.

"We have been so used to deflation for years and years," said David Bassuk, managing director in the retail practice of AlixPartners. "Customers are going to be surprised."

Janice Mignanelli of Washington Township, N.J., doesn't want any surprises.

"I'm not going to spend any more than $50 for a pair of jeans," said Mignanelli, a stay-at-home mom shopping at The Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J., last week.

"I'll just have to cut back on the extras."

And...

Mary Hutchens, owner of Full of Beans, a 25-year-old children's clothing store in Chevy Chase, Md., worries that price increases could be a death blow.

She said she has to discount heavily to stay in business and isn't sure she'll be able to pass along the costs.

"Everybody has changed their habits since the recession," she said. "I'm just trying to hold on."

COMMENT:  I suspect that habits learned during the recession will last, and that, sadly, some brands will go out of business.  People just aren't ready to pay high prices again.  Stores will have to run more sales, making the same farce of "list" prices that  already exists in electronics. 

We're in for a turbulent ride.  This economy is not out of the woods yet.

Who will survive best?  I suggest that consumers and retailers in states that are well run will have it best.  If you're in Illinois, and your taxes have just been raised 50%, that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere often is the clothing budget.  One less dress, one less pair of jeans, one less business shirt.  I think we may see retail chains opening more shops in places like Indiana, where sane government has kept the state healthy.

February 15, 2011     Permalink

FEBRUARY 14,  2011

MAKING WAVES – AT 9:28 P.M. ET:  British Prime Minister David Cameron's recent speech slamming multiculturalism continues to make waves.  It followed a similar speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  In turn, Cameron's speech was followed by comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who echoed the notion that multiculturalism has failed.

Daniel Hannan is a British conservative member of the European Parliament, and examines this phenomenon in, of all places, the very liberal Newsweek magazine, or what's left of it:

The shocking thing is that anyone should have been shocked. The British prime minister’s repudiation of multiculturalism was so uncontroversial as to be almost platitudinous. In a recent speech, David Cameron emphasized the distinction between Islamic devotion and jihadi extremism, and argued that the government ought not to fund organizations that reject democracy, women’s rights, and equality before the law. He set out certain basic values that a liberal society ought to expect from its citizens: secularism, representative government, personal freedom, and the rule of law.

Common sense, we think. 

To most British people, including most British Muslims, this was a statement of the Pretty Bloody Obvious. Cameron’s remarks follow similar speeches by his French and German counterparts. Across Europe, there is a recognition that multiculturalism has failed in its own terms, creating ghettos and cutting off some immigrant women, in particular, from full participation in a free society.

But there are vested interests:

The trouble is that it takes a long time for such sentiments to percolate through the government machine. State bureaucracies, especially in local government, remain wedded to their diversity advisers, their interpreters, their racism-awareness counselors. As Upton Sinclair once remarked, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends upon not understanding it.”

Wonderfully stated, and so true.

Idiotically, some Labour politicians have attacked Cameron’s speech as likely to give succor to racists. Their complaints are the authentic voice of self-interest, for it is those who work in the multi-culti apparatus who have the most to lose.

Multiculturalism has become a racket, deeply imbedded in the academic world, government agencies and the media of many nations.  But sane people are fighting back, tired of the racketeering.

One speech won’t solve the problem; but it’s a good start.

COMMENT:  The Europeans are now ahead of us in recognizing the danger.  Here, people who opposed the mosque at Ground Zero out of sensitivity to victims' families, were called racists, and Christiane Amanpour suggested that America is awash in Islamophobia.

President Obama is no leader in this area.  He's a multi through and through.  He would have been happy in the late sixties.  We hope for an American awakening. 

February 14, 2011     Permalink

IRAN UPDATE – AT 5:07 P.M. ET:  It is difficult to get accurate information out of Iran.  We do know that there were major street protests in several Iranian cities today, including, of course, Tehran.  From The New York Times:

Hundreds of riot police officers deployed in key locations in central Tehran and other major Iranian cities on Monday, beating protesters and firing tear gas to thwart opposition marches that marked the most significant street protests since the end of 2009, news reports and witnesses’ accounts from Iran said.

The size of the protests was unclear, although witnesses and opposition groups estimated that there were perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 demonstrators across the country. While the protests were ostensibly in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Iranian domestic repression quickly became the focus. But Iran, unlike Egypt, used force to quell them.

And...

In the central city of Isfahan many demonstrators were arrested after security forces clashed with them, reports said, and sporadic messages from inside Iran indicated that there had also been protests in Shiraz, Mashhad and Rasht. Numbers were hard to assess, given government threats against journalists who tried to cover the protests.

What we don't know, and can't know, is whether the demonstrations will continue or even grow, or whether this was a one-shot deal.  As the story points out, force has been used to crush the protesters. 

This time, the U.S. has tried to keep up with the story.  Hillary Clinton, who seemed to disappear at the end of last week, and who was rumored to be pictured on milk cartons, spoke up:

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday expressed support for the tens of thousands of protesters in Iran's capital, saying they "deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright."

Speaking to reporters after meeting House Speaker John Boehner, Clinton said she and others in [US President] Barack Obama's administration "very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets" of Tehran.

She and "others"?  Hmm.  I wonder if that includes the president.  That's an odd construction.

There are widespread reports of friction between the president and Clinton over the handling of Egypt, with Mr. Obama apparently angry that the secretary didn't immediately embrace the street demonstrators, and called for a gradual transition.  Of course, Obama didn't immediately do anything, but when you spend your time raising your finger to see which way the wind is blowing, action becomes difficult.

A wise commentator wrote that the first rule of street protests is, "Never go home."  The Egyptian protesters refused to leave.  Will that be the case in Iran, or will the goon squads win, as they did in 2009?  We'll see what tomorrow brings to the streets.

February 14, 2011      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:19 A.M. ET:

From Townhall.com:  On Feb. 15, on the recommendation of its Peace & Justice Commission, the Berkeley (Calif.) City Council is set to vote on a resolution to invite "one or two cleared" Guantanamo Bay detainees to resettle in Berkeley.  Peace & Justice Commissioner Rita Maran told me that the idea was to invite to Berkeley "the kind of people you'd like to have living next door to you or dating your cousin."

What a a great Valentine's Day gift.  Everyone in Berkeley will be calling Cousin Arlene saying, "Have I got a guy for you!  Strong, outdoorsy, religious, international traveler..."  Yikes.

February 14, 2011       Permalink

GUESS WHO'S NOT COMING TO DINNER – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  Some exciting space research going on.  From AP:

MOSCOW – After 257 days in a locked steel capsule, an international crew of six researchers on a mock trip to Mars is preparing to simulate landing on the Red Planet.

The crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese entered a cascade of modules at a Moscow research center last June to imitate the 520-day flight. Three of the crew are to don space suits to perform the mock landing Monday.

As part of the simulation they are to plant the national flags of Russia, China and the European Space Agency, take rock samples and test scientific equipment.

COMMENT:  Notice which nation is missing.  President Obama has cut the guts out of the American space program, shattering the dreams of a generation of space scientists and astronauts. Within a few years, the U.S. won't even have a manned vehicle capable of going into space.  We will depend on others, the dream of the multiculturalists and left-wing activists who came to town with this administration. 

Apparently, the money cut from space can be better spent on social "programs" that too often go nowhere and achieve nothing.

Obama's cuts have come over the objections of Neil Armstrong and other pioneers of America's winning space program.

As a nation, we are falling behind in critical technological areas.  Just as important, the symbols of American achievement – and symbols are important to a nation's standing – are being eroded.  What will young Americans dream about in the future?  A new stimulus package?  The cash-for-clunkers program?

When man plants a flag on Mars, I want it to be American, and I have no apologies for saying that.

February 14, 2011      Permalink

WATCH YOUR WALLET – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  The budget battle in Washington begins today, and remember who's paying for all those lovely programs.  From The Politico:

Like fresh troops — or cannon-fodder — Barack Obama’s 2012 budget lands on Capitol Hill on Monday, and more than any of the president’s prior efforts, this one makes choices that help define the man himself.

He bets big on education spending — an 11 percent increase next year — while altering the Pell Grant program to try to save the aid levels now allowed for college students from the poorest families, The National Institutes of Health will grow by about $1 billion, even as old antipoverty programs and heating assistance are cut. And $62 billion in Medicare savings will be plowed back into paying physicians who care for the elderly.

Foreign wars, most especially the one of Afghanistan, drain Obama of $118 billion, but for the first time in many years, total expenditures for the Pentagon and military will begin to fall. And much as Republicans ridicule his five-year cap on domestic spending, it has bred new restraint in him.

COMMENT:  The annual ritual now starts.  No doubt Mitch McConnell will declare the budget Dead on Arrival.  The opposition always does.

Regarding the president's bet on education:  It is misplaced.  I yield to no one in my belief that every American child deserves a first-class education, through the highest level that he or she is capable of attaining.  But we don't underfund education in America, we overfund it.  We spend enormous amounts and get too little in return.  And we never ask too many questions about what is actually being taught.

Just throwing more money at education will solve nothing, although it will make the haughty education establishment very happy.  I think it's time for the Republicans to take a cold look at federal aid to education, especially to some of our plush universities.  We should start to question every aspect of education, including the four-year bachelor's degree.  (It can easily be done in three.)  We can question, as the educator Robert Hutchins did in the last century, whether we really need a 12th year of pre-college education.  We could do it in 11 or even 10 without breaking much of a sweat.

We can question the intolerable length of summer vacations, which were originally established so that kids from agricultural families could work the family farm.  Not too many young people in that category these days.

Education has been a sacred cow, and a cash cow for the education establishment, including teachers' unions and wasteful universities.

Will questions be asked?  Don't hold your breath.  What would help would be a parents' revolt. 

February 14, 2011       Permalink

THIS IS WHAT WE'RE CONCERNED ABOUT – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  The Israel-Egyptian peace treaty is the cornerstone of American policy in the Mideast.  It has prevented an all-out Arab-Israeli war for a generation.  The Egyptian military has assured us that the treaty will still be honored, but a major opposition politician now sounds an ominous warning, emphasizing once again that we really don't know what the "revolutionaries" stand for.  From the Jerusalem Post:

An influential Egyptian opposition figure and likely presidential candidate called Sunday for Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel to be reassessed, the first sign since former president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster Friday that the 32-year-old agreement may be in jeopardy.

Ayman Nour, a former lawmaker and chairman of the Ghad (Tomorrow) party, told an Egyptian radio station that the 1978 Camp David Accords were no longer relevant, and said the country’s leadership should at least rethink the terms of the framework agreements that led to a peace deal between the erstwhile enemies the following year.

On Saturday, the Egyptian military confirmed it would abide by all of the country’s prior international agreements, an announcement welcomed in Jerusalem by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The conflicting signal heard Sunday from a potential presidential candidate – heading not an Islamist party, but one describing itself as secular, liberal and human-rights oriented – is likely to give Israeli decision-makers pause.

“The Camp David Accords are finished,” Nour said. “Egypt has to at least conduct negotiations over conditions of the agreement.”

COMMENT:  Great, huh?  And this guy isn't even an Islamist.   Washington has to monitor this kind of talk carefully, and do some fast, vigorous behind-the-scenes diplomacy, making it clear that we will not tolerate any breach of the peace treay.  The European Union must do the same.

Let's see if Obama does the job, or starts to do the left-wing hustle, preaching "understanding" of other cultures.  The lives of American soldiers are involved here.

February 14, 2011       Permalink

IRAN CLAMPS DOWN IN ADVANCE – AT 7:55 A.M. ET:  There's one thing the Iranian regime does very well, and that's crush dissent.  They have a bunch of apologists and explainers in Washington, and I'd love to hear their spin on this.  From The New York Times:

TEHRAN — Hundreds of black-clad riot police officers, some in bullet-proof vests, deployed in key locations in central Tehran on Monday to thwart an opposition march in solidarity with the uprising in Egypt — an event Iranian leaders cheered as the popular overthrow of an Arab strongman.

The police gathered in small groups at some intersections but they numbered around 200 in the major squares that carry symbolic importance for Iranians and are named revolution and freedom. Some of the security forces were on motor-cycles and carried paintball guns to fire at opponents. But with minutes to go before the planned start of the protest, there was little sign of organized dissent.

The authorities have made no secret of their resolve to stop the march and deny the protesters a permit to demonstrate.

“These elements are fully aware of the illegal nature of the request,” Mehdi Alikhani Sadr, an Interior Ministry official, said in comments published Sunday by the semiofficial Fars news agency. “They know they will not be granted permission for riots.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was blunt.

“The conspirators are nothing but corpses,” Hossein Hamadani, a top commander of the corps, said Wednesday in comments published by the official IRNA news agency. “Any incitement will be dealt with severely.”

COMMENT:  We'll be following this to see if any brave Iranian souls come out to challenge the thugs.  We have every right, in this situation, to expect the most vigorous denunciation from the president of the United States.  You will recall that, when Iranians rose up in 2009, it took four days for Barack Hussein Obama Jr. to make it to a microphone to put in a few indifferent words about democracy. 

February 14, 2011     Permalink