while conservative, is difficult to refute

Civil nuclear power has not been the cause of or route to nuclear weapons in any country that has nuclear weapons, and no uranium traded for electricity production has ever been diverted for military use. All nuclear weapons programs have either preceded or risen independently of civil nuclear power*, as shown most recently by North Korea. No country is without plenty of uranium in the small quantities needed for a few weapons.

Doctor Fate wrote:First, it was NOT "an election address." (you've got a lot of nerve whining about "hyperbole")

Members of Obama's campaign team flew over to Israel and worked to defeat Netanyahu.

...

No, just wrong.

Just days after the Obama White House accused House Speaker John Boehner of “breaking protocol” by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, a team of up to five Obama campaign operatives has reportedly arrived in Israel to lead a campaign to defeat the Israeli Prime Minister in upcoming national elections scheduled for March 17.

The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being led by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird.

In his speech, Obama spoke as though the Iranian people have a say in what their government does. They don't.

Didn't think so. So, please try not to avoid the question and tell me how Iran gets anything like one of the five things above that Israel gets.

Or I will be forced to assume that you are indeed just indulging in partisan hyperbole, and can't even bring yourself to admit it how transparent it is.

Let's see:

1. Obama employed British PM Cameron to lobby Congress not to pass sanctions against Iran.

2. Lessening of sanctions:

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization that has worked closely with Congress and the administration on devising the current Iranian sanctions, said the slow pace of designations was only one kind of sanctions relief Obama has been offering Iran.

“For five months, since Rouhani’s election, the United States has offered Iran two major forms of sanctions relief,” Dubowitz said. “First there’s been a significant slowdown in the pace of designations while the Iranians are proliferating the number of front companies and cutouts to bust sanctions.”

The second kind of relief Dubowitz said the White House had offered Iran was through its opposition to new Iran sanctions legislation supported by both parties in Congress.

By Dubowitz’s estimates, Iran is now selling between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day on the black market, meaning that Iran has profited from the illicit sale of over 35 million barrels of oil since Rouhani took office, with little additional measures taken by the United States to counter it.

“Sounds like Obama decided to enter the Persian nuclear bazaar to haggle with the masters of negotiation and has had his head handed to him,” Dubowitz said.

3. Protection from Congress, which has expressed bipartisan support for more sanctions against Iran.

President Barack Obama confirmed that he would veto any sanctions bill against Iran, saying that passing such a measure would “all but guarantee that diplomacy fails.”

4. Removal from reports listing it as a State which sponsors terrorism.

The 2015 “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” excludes Iran and its network of jihadi groups who are motivated by Islam’s Shia sect, from the report’s terror section.

Instead, the assessment focuses entirely jihadis motivated by the Sunni sect of Islam, including those in al-Qaida and ISIS, sometimes known as the Islamic State.

“Sunni violent extremists are gaining momentum and the number of Sunni violent extremist groups, members, and safe havens is greater than at any other point in history,” the report admits.

That’s a big shift from 2014, when Iran’s network of jihadis — chiefly, the Hezbollah army in Lebanon — got their own subsection.

Read more: http://therightscoop.com/dude-obama-has ... z3VKtA5Fxk

The United States has long-standing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and human rights record. The United States and the international community have imposed comprehensive sanctions against Iran to compel Iran to engage seriously in discussions with the international community and address concerns over its nuclear program and human rights abuses. The United States along with the EU and its P5+1 partners (China, France, Germany, Russia, and the UK) are currently engaged in talks with Iran to address the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program. The current Iranian government still has not recognized Israel’s right to exist, has hindered the Middle East peace process by arming militants, including Hamas, Hizballah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and continues to play a disruptive role in sustaining violence in the region, particularly Syria.

5. The freedom to continue toppling US-friendly governments, like Yemen, via proxy forces.

What "threats"? Are they going to reduce the $3bn in military aid? Introduce sanctions? Or just maintain the US' current position on I/P and stick to waiting for both sides to stop messing about and come to the table.

Actually, there are (at least) implied threats. For example, listen here to the President's spokesman (aka "paid liar").

The US has little leverage with the Palestinians (and zero with Hamas), and never really has done.

I would also like to see your evidence. I've seen enough of the rhetoric.

If I had video of Obama smoking dope with the ayatollahs, it wouldn't convince you.

It would be entertaining, but it wouldn't move the needle for you. You want to see mushroom clouds in the Middle East or you will not believe this "dream team" of diplomats can fail.. With Obama at the helm, you might get the proof you want.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:First, it was NOT "an election address." (you've got a lot of nerve whining about "hyperbole")

Of course it wasn't. Bibi was hoping that not one single voter in Israel saw anything about his speech, in case it be seen as such, right? Sheesh.

Breitbart? with "reportedly" being used twice to qualify the assertions? That ain't evidence, it's rumour, and doesn't show a direct link even then.

By Jennifer Rubin March 19

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress at the Capitol this month. (Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

The evidence of President Obama’s antagonism toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over seven years has been amply documented. The results of Tuesday election’s were barely official before the administration embarked on its next round of anti-Israel tantrums.

First was Obama’s petulant refusal to extend his own personal congratulations. Then came the accusation of racism. On election night Netanyahu told his followers (and this was borne out entirely by the unprecedented success of the Arab Joint List, which gained 14 seats) that left-leaning activists were working to hike Arab turnout. (“Arab voters are coming in droves to the ballot boxes. Left-wing NGOs bring them in buses.”) It is not clear whether the “buses” part was metaphorical, but his accusation that left-wing groups sought his downfall by hiking the Joint List is beyond dispute.

The president’s former political operative Jeremy Bird, who assisted the nonprofit One Voice by going to Israel (who knew he had such a keen interest in Israeli politics?) to help unseat the Israeli prime minister. “We are doing an amazing job at getting out the vote with over 15,000 volunteers and more than 40 tents set up throughout Israel,” a spokesman for the left-wing V15 political action group, allied with One Voice, bragged, although he denied specifically busing voters to the polls.

Netanyahu was not marginalizing the Arab vote; to the contrary, he was recognizing what anti-Netanyahu activists, including Bird, already knew: The greater the Joint List turnout, the more members of parliament there would be who were overtly in favor of dissolution of the Jewish state and the greater chance Netanyahu would fall from power.

Former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams (“Obama Buries the Hatchet — in Netanyahu’s Head” certainly is the most eye-catching headline in mounds of election coverage) points out that the administration initiated its “racism” campaign when White House spokesman Josh Earnest, without provocation, plunged into the topic: “[N]o reporter asked Earnest about this subject. So at the end of the questioning he simply went out of his way to criticize a statement Netanyahu had made about getting out Likud voters, to counteract what he said were massive left-wing efforts to get out the left-wing Jewish and Arab vote. The issue isn’t whether that Netanyahu statement was awful or admirable, but the conduct of the White House. The leader of a close ally wins a democratic election. President Obama takes the occasion to hit him again.” Earnest’s accusation hid behind the skirts of news reports, hissing that “there has been a lot of coverage in the media about some of the rhetoric that emerged yesterday that was propagated by the Likud Party to encourage turnout of their supporters that sought to, frankly, marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens” This is false. Turnout was known to be historically high, for unlike in most every Arab state surrounding it, Arabs in Israel are free to vote, do so in large numbers and can seat members of parliament who are free to defame the state. “The United States and this administration is deeply concerned by divisive rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens,” Earnest sneered. Unfortunately, no reporter had the nerve to ask whether the president approved the campaign to use Arab voters against the prime minister.

Take a step back, however. Imagine a foreign leader’s press spokesman proclaiming that he did not like way Obama played the “war on women” card in the 2014 race. We’d be gobsmacked that any foreign leader would have the nerve to criticize our political campaign rhetoric, which can be boisterous and even outlandish.

Obama was not content to smear Netanyahu with racism — the worst charge a liberal can make. In the course of the campaign, Netanyahu said what many Israelis now understand — the peace process is dead so long as Islamic jihadists such as Hamas wage war on Israel and so long as the Palestinian Authority refuses to cease promoting terror (by, for example, paying terrorists in Israeli jails and celebrating terrorist “martyrs”). He said in an interview, “I think that whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical Islamic terrorist attacks against Israel, this is the genuine reality that was created here in the past few years. Those who do not understand that bury their heads in the sand. The left-wing parties do it, bury their heads in the sand, time and again.” You can disagree with the statement or his agreement that there would be no two-state solution during his next term (does any objective observer think differently?), but he most certainly did not renounce the idea of a two-state solution. He could and would have said as much in those words. But, of course, the administration and media immediately decided that he had done just that, and a host of headlines and reports surfaced that he had repudiated the two-state solution.

On Wednesday night the threat went out, care of yet another helpful reporter (who allowed the administration source to go on background, did not challenge the gross display of strong-arming that would mark an unprecedented reversal of decades of U.S. policy, went to the notoriously anti-Israel J Street for approving comment and did not bother to include comment from any legitimately pro-Israel group, former official or neutral party): “The positions taken by the prime minister in the last days of the campaign have raised very significant substantive questions that go far beyond just optics,” a “senior” official was quoted as saying. The report continued:

While saying it was “premature” to discuss Washington’s policy response, the official wouldn’t rule out a modified American posture at the United Nations, where the U.S. has long fended off resolutions critical of Israeli settlement activity and demanding its withdrawal from Palestinian territories.

“We are signaling that if the Israeli government’s position is no longer to pursue a Palestinian state, we’re going to have to broaden the spectrum of options we pursue going forward,” the official said.

Caroline Glick picked up on one article the Israeli left-wing paper Ha’aretz didn’t bother translating into English that details Obama’s involvement in the upcoming Israeli elections. A summary of the article is provided by IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis):

Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today [January 26] that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections.

One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign’s national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.

V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party – rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws.

Glick commented via Facebook:

Obama won’t meet Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו in Washington when he addresses the Joint Houses of Congress in March because of Netanyahu’s visit’s proximity to the Israeli elections. And Obama, of course believes in protocol and propriety which is why he won’t get involved. No, he’s not getting involved at all. He’s just sending his 2012 field campaign manager to Israel to run a campaign to defeat Netanyahu. That’s all. No interference whatsoever.

The Israeli Left adores touting Netanyahu’s “interference” in American elections, specifically his expression of support for Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign. When it comes to Israeli left-wing politics, there are simply things you just don’t do when you represent the center-right. It should come as no surprise then that Haaretz, known on this side of the globe for its freakish ability to generate anonymous White House sources that love talking about how much Obama hates Bibi (a shared talent among the Left), would conveniently forget to translate this little news item for their English-reading audience.

In his speech, Obama spoke as though the Iranian people have a say in what their government does. They don't.

They don't have zero say.

Who is actually helping our Iraqi allies fight ISIS?

Doctor Fate wrote:As for the rest of your post, it's just opinion. Even the bit about still regarding Iran as a sponsor of terrorism is debatable. Under Obama, we've all but allied with them. Who is actually helping our Iraqi allies fight ISIS? Oh, the Iranians?

Is Obama lifting a finger regarding Yemen? Nope.

Why won't he do anything against Assad? Oh, because it would tick off his friends, the Iranians?

You see the world one way . . . and you're wrong. That's why it's pointless to engage you.

Six years ago, I said Obama was going to be a disaster. Look at your map. Where has he made the world better?

rickyp wrote:fate

Who is actually helping our Iraqi allies fight ISIS?

Iraqis allies?
This is rich. A complete delusion.
Sistani's government has never been allied with the US. . Many of his party lived in Iran for years and some actually fought in an Iraqis battalion fr Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Only physical occupation by US troops kept them from totally open collaboration with Iran.

President Barack Obama said key NATO allies stood ready to join the United States in military action to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq as he vowed to 'take out' the leaders of a movement he said was a major threat to the West.

Obama said the Washington would hunt down and dismantle the organization, which has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, in the same way it had tackled al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and was doing to al-Shabaab in Somalia.

"Key NATO allies stand ready to confront this terrorist threat through military, intelligence and law enforcement as well as diplomatic efforts," Obama said after ministers of 10 nations met on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales to form what Washington called a "core coalition".

Ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Denmark and non-NATO Australia attended the talks with the U.S. secretaries of state and defense, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel.

"Already allies have joined us in Iraq where we have stopped ISIL's advances, we have equipped our Iraqi partners and helped them go on offence," Obama told a news conference.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:As for the rest of your post, it's just opinion. Even the bit about still regarding Iran as a sponsor of terrorism is debatable. Under Obama, we've all but allied with them. Who is actually helping our Iraqi allies fight ISIS? Oh, the Iranians?

"Just opinion"? I linked to the State Dept's list of terror sponsor states. How is that "debateable"? Whereas you are just passing off opinion as fact.

I have presented five facts about how much the US, under Obama, does stuff for Israel that it does not do for Iran. Even your very impressive responses don't dent that. Yeah, he is linked to an organisation that helped the israeli opposition. But he didn't do that himself.

quote]Is Obama lifting a finger regarding Yemen? Nope.

And yet you not only do it, over and over, but you do so in such a way as to parody your own accusations against me.

Six years ago, I said Obama was going to be a disaster. Look at your map. Where has he made the world better?

You know what "false dichotomy" means?

If my assertion is a delusion, it is one I share with your Man, Barack Obama

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:As for the rest of your post, it's just opinion. Even the bit about still regarding Iran as a sponsor of terrorism is debatable. Under Obama, we've all but allied with them. Who is actually helping our Iraqi allies fight ISIS? Oh, the Iranians?

"Just opinion"? I linked to the State Dept's list of terror sponsor states. How is that "debateable"? Whereas you are just passing off opinion as fact.

It's not an opinion that Obama is giving Iran everything it could ask for: backing off of Hezbollah, not going after Assad, turning a blind eye to the fall of the Yemen government, and shrugging off the fact that Iranian advisers are helping the Iraqi army. Obama has, in effect, anointed Iran the regional hegemon.

quote]Is Obama lifting a finger regarding Yemen? Nope.

And yes, Iran is helping the Iraqi army. Against IS. IS are beheading Americans right now, and want to start a path to Armageddon.

JimHackerMP wrote:

And yes, Iran is helping the Iraqi army. Against IS. IS are beheading Americans right now, and want to start a path to Armageddon.

yes and I am quite sure that the moment ISIS is defeated, the Iranian Army will magically retreat back to Tehran. Because they're so damned helpful and sympathetic to the plight of Iraqi civilians and Americans being beheaded.

Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV reported that the kingdom was contributing 100 warplanes to operation "Storm of Resolve" and more than 85 were provided by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan.

rickyp wrote:The nations now involved in attacking the Shia militias in Yemen are :

Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV reported that the kingdom was contributing 100 warplanes to operation "Storm of Resolve" and more than 85 were provided by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan.

ISIS has really complicated things for these nations. They've been "outflanked" on the religious conservative front and need to defend their secular hold on their nations against an even more severe form of their religious doctrines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

The historical similarities with the European religious wars are all too evident.

danivon wrote:Freedom of Speech, dude.

rickyp wrote:fate

If my assertion is a delusion, it is one I share with your Man, Barack Obama

:

Yes you do. And its nice you share something with him.
Iraq is a client state of Iran.
That it is an ally and friend of the US is a delusion that has been forced upon the US since the invasion of Iraq and the election of Shiite majority government . You've got to believe that or the war was utterly worthless. Which it was. Since Iraq is a client state of Iran.

The US may be allied with Iraq in its fight against ISIS. But until the religious wars in the Middle East finally abate the schisms and real alliances in the region are defined by religion. As outsiders and a dominant military force, the US are useful to Iraq... but they will also be outsiders who can't control political events. Which history has proven.

How'd that occupation go anyway? It was American prisons in Iraq that housed the disaffected Sunnis who became ISIS....