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Obama addresses the Iranians — 29 Comments

  1. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

  2. c6loq:

    No, he does not.

    I’ve thought of that quote quite a lot lately. I wish someone would ask it of him.

  3. The Iranian government has a website dedicated to its nuclear program, and there it explicitly says there’s a fatwa:

    Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor as Iran’s Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also pronounced a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction, and specifically nuclear arms. He first issued the fatwa in October 2003 but has reiterated it several times ever since in an effort to underline the high significance of the issue.

    On November 5th 2004, in a Friday prayers sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei is quoted as having said: “No sir, we are not seeking to have nuclear weapons,” and added that to “manufacture, possess or use them, that all poses a problem. I have expressed my religious convictions about this, and everyone knows it.”

    An article published by Xinhua News Service on November 6th 2004 quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as having said that “[w]e have often said, and even announced our jurisdiction decree on this issue, we are not manufacturing, stockpiling or taking partial advantage of any type of nuclear weapon.”

    The site admits the fatwa isn’t written down anywhere, but it also says that’s not necessary:

    According to Ayatollah Khamenei’s website, a worshipper can learn about a mojtahed’s (Islamic jurist) fatwa from any of four sources:
    –The mojtahed himself
    –Two just worshippers (who have not been seen committing major sins)
    –A person known to be reliable
    –A mojtahed’s book of legal opinions

    So, the ayatollah could tell just one person and it’s a done deal! Pretty convenient. Clever devils, all bases covered.

    But I’m sure we can trust them. /sarc

  4. We are in a very dangerous time. This narcissistic punk is willfully assisting the fanatics in Tehran and simultaneously ostracizing our only true ally in a very unstable region. If American Jews continue to support the dems while continuing to pretend they support Israel they should have their mouths washed out with gasoline.

  5. Andrew McCarthy (lead prosecutor of Khalid Sheik Mo) says this at the link.

    “The “fatwa” in question does not exist.

    “The invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done extensive research into compilations of Khamenei’s published fatwas. (See here and here, and citations therein.) No such fatwa has ever been published.

    “In a sharia state, particularly the one in Iran that is actually run by the country’s top sharia jurists, fatwas are important statements of governing law, like statutes are in the U.S. Yet despite repeated requests, Iran has never produced the purported anti-nuclear weapons fatwa from Khamenei.

    “Indeed, as MEMRI elaborates, Khamenei was directly asked about the purported fatwa in a 2012 Facebook exchange:

    ‘[I]s it also forbidden to obtain nuclear weapons, as per your ruling that their use is prohibited?

    ‘He refused to answer the question:

    ‘Your question has no jurisprudential aspect. When it has a jurisprudent [sic] position, then it will be possible to answer it.’

    “The notion that Khamenei actually believes nuclear weapons violate Islamic law and would issue a credible fatwa to that effect should be seen as absurd on its face.

    Read more: http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2015/03/16/there-is-no-fatwa-condemning-nuclear-weapons-by-irans-ayatollah-khamenei/#ixzz3UxUmJIiQ

    So the Mullah was, get this, LYING.

  6. I saw part of this on the news (no stomach to see the rest) and it struck me as just bizarre. Our president appealing to the enemy’s citizens to support a deal between America and one of her sworn enemies while knowing full well most of his own citizens (Congress and the general public), Israel, and the rest of America’s (former?) allies don’t support this.

    Kinda felt like I was witnessing Obama surrendering America to Iran.

  7. Too bad Obama didn’t care so much about the Iranian citizens when the Green Revolution was taking place.

  8. Obama’s latest is just part of the dog and pony show, all part of the theatrics. It is a cast iron certainty that the ‘agreement’ was reached before the ‘negotiations’ were even announced. Obama isn’t going to sell us out, he’s already sold America and Israel out.

    This dog and pony show’s audience is the LIVs.

    How many of the LIVs know that just a few weeks ago, during ‘negotiations, Iran held naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, practicing taking out an American aircraft carrier with modern, high speed versions of Kennedy’s PT109? Using missiles instead of torpedoes. The only object of which is to practice taking out a US aircraft carrier, after the Iranians get nukes and have closed off the Strait of Hormuz through which 1/3 of the world’s oil passes…

    How many LIVs know that the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea from ships. The only object of which can be practice for an EMP attack? The answer of course is that none of them know, kept in ignorance by the MSM.

    So, to use another old expression, Obama is ‘sitting in the catbird’s seat’. When the Iranians announce that they have nukes, his response will be ‘why those dirty dogs… I didn’t know, until I read about it in the papers’.

    He’s not a fool or an appeaser, he’s a traitor. This is planned and intentional.

  9. ziv,

    Typical leftist twaddle. The linked article makes clear that the closeness happened when Iran was ruled by the Shah, not the Mullahs. After Iran’s theological coup, the Israel-Iran relationship quickly ended.

  10. Geoffrey Britain:

    I don’t think it was all planned out in the sense that the exact terms are not yet decided; Iran is still trying to get every last bit it can from Obama.

    But I agree that it was planned in general. I believe Obama planned this long before he became president; this has been a long-term goal.

    I also believe he’s a traitor, but I suppose that goes without saying. I’ve always argued he is not a fool or bumbler.

    I see him as an Alger Hiss type who got to a much higher level of government than Hiss did. The top!

  11. The word fatwa has been ascribed weightiness far beyond what the rantings of Islam’s witch doctors deserves.

    Is Iran building a bomb or not? If Obama is OK with that, he has no grounds to object if Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey or Eritrea decide they want the bomb too. And if Obama enables Iran to get the bomb when the US is capable of preventing it, then he will be responsible in part for the results be they increased belligerence or smoking craters.

  12. neo,

    Yes, I don’t think that the exact details were all planned out ahead of time either. The broad outlines of a plan were agreed to through back channels with the details to follow once ‘negotiations’ had begun.

    Not only is Iran still trying to get every last bit it can from Obama but there’s a distinct possibility that they’ve already abrogated some of the broad outlines to fundamentally get a better deal. After all what is he going to do, pick up his marbles and go home?

    The Iranians know that he’ll agree to almost anything to get this ‘agreement’. The centrifuges are a key element and Obama has already gone from insisting on a centrifuge limit of 1000 to then 4000 to now 6000 and the Iranians aren’t done yet… it’s capitulation with the veneer of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’.

    Nor is Obama going to present this to Congress but to the UN for passage as a resolution.

  13. Matthew M,

    Whatever gave you the idea that Obama would object to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, etc. getting nukes? And when has Obama ever accepted responsibility for anything? He’s into getting credit where it isn’t due and rejecting out of hand any responsibility for anything that goes wrong. His specialty is throwing people and nations under the bus, not standing accountable for his actions.

    Frankly, I wonder whether he’ll ever be held accountable, no matter how many die as a result of his actions.

  14. ziv,

    Israel’s ‘collusion’ with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war is not an example of “best enemies” but an example of ‘divide and conquer (weaken)’. Israel was and is quite relieved to see Shai’s and Sunni’s at each other’s throats, rather than cooperating in attacking Israel.

  15. This comment at: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/03/20/de-horror-de-horror/#more-42448
    Walter Sobchak Esq
    I think that Belmont Club members need to understand something about Obama’s middle east policy. It is a bi-partisan invention. It was laid out in a report issued in 2006 by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan congressional commission that was co-chaired by Bush 41’s former secretary of state James Baker (“F*** the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyway”) and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton. The report is discussed at length in an excellent article, which you should read in full:

    “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy: The president has long been criticized for his lack of strategic vision. But what if a strategy, centered on Iran, has been in place from the start and consistently followed to this day?” an Essay by Michael Doran on Feb. 2 2015
    http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/

    The article lays out the 2006 Report’s four main policy recommendations:

    “withdraw American troops from Iraq; surge American troops in Afghanistan; reinvigorate the Arab-Israeli peace process; and, last but far from least, launch a diplomatic engagement of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its junior partner, the Assad regime in Syria. Baker and Hamilton believed that Bush stood in thrall to Israel and was therefore insufficiently alive to the benefits of cooperating with Iran and Syria. Those two regimes, supposedly, shared with Washington the twin goals of stabilizing Iraq and defeating al-Qaeda and other Sunni jihadi groups. In turn, this shared interest would provide a foundation for building a concert system of statesa club of stable powers that could work together to contain the worst pathologies of the Middle East and lead the way to a sunnier future.”

    Spengler tells us (Obamas Secret Iran Strategy Began in 2006 with Robert Gates) that the ISG 2006 report “was a carbon copy of the Council on Foreign Relations report of 2004, written under the supervision of [Robert] Gates [Secretary of Defense 2006 — 2011 for Bush 43 and Hussein] and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carters national security adviser”.

    The policy has a lot of high level institutional support in the Bush 43 and Obama administrations. Not only did Gates carry over, but Hamilton’s staff included Denis McDonough, Hussein’s chief of staff, and Benjamin Rhodes, another Hussein toad.

    Of course, as Spengler says: “the Bush administration … never would have conceded so much to Iran, despite its 2006 embrace of the Gates strategy. At some point, no doubt, the Republicans would have given the mullahs an ultimatum, while Obama (as Doran documents) conceded everything at every step of the way. Obama justifies his policy towards Iran on the basis of the same realist approach that Robert Gates brought to the last two years of the Bush administration, but there is a difference. McBama and the Weird SistersIran-born Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, and Samantha Powerharbor a deep emotional antipathy to the United States, and a deep sympathy for anti-imperialist movements. They believe that the United States is a main instigator of the worlds evil.”

    Calling a pro-Iranian policy realist is a true abuse of the English Language. Anyone who claims that the Mullahs of Iran are rational actors in foreign policy is not a realist, he is an opium smoker.

    One additional note: As far as I am concerned Jeb Bush has completely disqualified himself to be the Republican candidate for president (as if Jeb’s positions on immigration and common core were not enough) by using the immensely evil reanimated demon zombie, James Baker, as a foreign policy adviser. ABB.

  16. And Mr. President, sir, the New Year starts on January 1st and not in March.

    January is football. March is basketball.

    Seriously. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

  17. Obama beclowns himself by bending over backwards to try to use the what he considers the properly exotic pronunciation of words like Tehran, Pakistan, etc. Per Mike Doran: “Soon he’ll be saying ‘Moskva’ & ‘Meh-hee-Ko.'” This from the C-in-C who didn’t know, or care, how to pronounce corpsman or Khe San. The man has no love, or care, for his job as C-in-C. But we knew that. 660 days and counting.

  18. JJ: “Obama beclowns himself by bending over backwards to try to use the what he considers the properly exotic pronunciation of . . “

    Yes! that was the first thing I noticed and that kind of nonsense drives me up the wall. And, quite often folks who put on such pretentious airs get the pronunciation wrong. I have found this kind of superficial behavior to be quite common in academic circles.

    Obama cannot retire to an academic life soon enough for me.

  19. If you excuse me to take mullah’s fatwa inside Oran or out side Iran what those fatwa outcomes is mor troubles for US and western word also for the region

    Now in regards to Iraq Gen. David H. Petraeus saying:

    ” I think Iraq and the coalition forces are making considerable progress against the Islamic State. In fact, I would argue that the foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite militias, many backed by – and some guided by – Iran.”
    “These militia returned to the streets of Iraq in response to a fatwa by Shia leader Grand Ayatollah Sistani at a moment of extreme danger.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/20/petraeus-the-islamic-state-isnt-our-biggest-problem-in-iraq/

  20. Fast approaching the undiscovered country (age-wise) it is for me less urgent what folks like BO do, however despicable.

    But I do regret there is (apparently) no Douglas Adams (or some such) to write the all time historically hilarious satire on the Evil Chauncey Gardener who is actually President Of The United States.

    That article posted by neo recently by John Updike made me think. (Side comment: written in the usual beautiful beautiful Updike, beautiful enough to provoke an envy if one did not see it was a gift implemented by hard work). Folks on the non-Left have amongst them the gifted ones, just not the gifted ones who want to do what is done by the gifted ones on the Left …. BECAUSE. And the BECAUSE truly is the difference.

    Look at this comparison: neo v Ace v vanderleun (American Digest). I omit Steyn because he has a gift within a gift, the remarkable ability to produce from moment to moment accurate witticisms (!) in the context of accurate moment to moment news commentary (about the future decades).

    neo is similar to Robert Spencer in style and approach. The fairness, the meticulousness, the reasonableness, the scrupulosity, the maddeningly true “been there, thought of that, am completely conversant and politely ahead of you and, in case you have not noticed, am on the most even keel in the history of keels” tenor, stands as the non-disputable non-Left statement of things.

    Ace (and his cobs, who are wonderful but not Ace) is a drinker and masturbator (unlike any one else) who is a Village Voice-like / R. Crumb-like non-Leftist observer, always a desired read for two reasons. First, the originality of his insights, and second, his Accept No Bullshit (while admitting to the Bullshit necessary to human existence proving the innate corruption of life).

    Vanderleun (American Digest) is (in my view) exactly the type of NPR / New York Times / New Yorker / Columbia University – cultural perspective missing and needed by the non-Left.

    The underlying perspective is open minded curiosity with critical facility with aesthetic depth (with no offense intended toward drinking and masturbation).

    I think Tom Wolfe’s The Printed Word might be the absolute best expression of non-Left writing in the last hundred years (and everything else he wrote amazing) but his satire was not what was needed to achieve the satori (which is surely there) of seeing the hilarious reality of BO.

    Deference to Iran? When has that ever happened ?

  21. Tonawanda:

    Thanks!

    That description of my writing did make me smile, though. I do try to be restrained and logical—in person I’m a bit less circumspect.

    But just a bit.

  22. Heh. The muslim greetings and phrases flow smoothly from Obama’s lips and y’all think he is a pseudo-academic pretender?

  23. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

    neo-neocon Says:
    March 20th, 2015 at 3:10 pm
    g6loq:

    No, he does not.

    I’ve thought of that quote quite a lot lately. I wish someone would ask it of him.

    Stock quote. Then you look into it and realize it was all rhetorics.
    Joe was right.
    Welsh knew it.
    It was Hollyweird that was doing the blacklisting.
    Thus Welsh was accusing Joe of that they’d been doing.
    They’re good at aggressively re-writing history and have no sense of decency.

    Against such people subtlety and nuanced arguments do no good.

    It cannot end well … Think of the proceedings of the Battle for Spain or, think Mongols …

    Prepare.

  24. g6loq:

    Yes, I know the history of the quote, and that it was a rhetorical ploy.

    But a very effective and memorable one. Very very few people are aware of what was actually happening there.

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