Obama's Sham Nuke Summit

The much-hyped nuclear summit crafted by the Obama administration and hailed as the most significant event since Christ walked on water or Moses descended with the Ten Commandments ended up being exactly what everything in the regime has been--farce wrapped in propaganda wrapped in the shiny veneer of "smart diplomacy.

In other words, it was nothing but a chance to get a few photo ops that will be used to their full effect when it comes to claiming Obama has serious foreign affairs street cred.

Mark Steyn dissects the summit, which amounted to nothing more than a circle jerk that produced nothing of substance and left the most-pressing problem with regard to nukes off the table:

In years to come – assuming, for the purposes of argument, there are any years to come – scholars will look back at President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit and marvel. For once, the cheap comparisons with 1930s appeasement barely suffice: To be sure, in 1933, the great powers were meeting in Geneva and holding utopian arms-control talks even as Hitler was taking office in Berlin. But it's difficult to imagine Neville Chamberlain in 1938 hosting a conference on the dangers of rearmament, and inviting America, France, Brazil, Liberia and Thailand ...but not even mentioning Germany.

Yet that's what Obama just did: He held a nuclear gabfest in 2010, the biggest meeting of world leaders on American soil since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago – and Iran wasn't on the agenda.

Look at Obama greeting these international leaders, he's so smart and looks great. Look at The One bow to his banker and enabler the Chinese. Look at him stick his finger in the face of the Prime Minister of our long-time rival and show that right-winger what's what (but be careful not to offend those who wish us the worse). It was a ridiculous event that amounted to nothing. No approach to North Korea and it's elfish despot, no words spoken about the mad mullahs and their butt boy Ahmadinejad who seek to de-stabilize a region crucial to US and international commerce. We accomplished exactly nothing of consequence but don't fret, the Obama-protecting media dutifully wrote essay after essay espousing the brilliance of The One (even though Obama used them like $5 whores and then dumped them on the curb when he was done).

Here we sit, mired in a recession deepened by Obamanomics. The electorate is incensed and Obama decided to try to dominate the news cycle with an international fashion show that was long on style but woefully short on substance.

Friday Iran Update

The events keep on unfolding in Persia while Obama continues to say nothing concrete about those risking their lives to expand freedom. Below are links to the latest news:

--According to several sources inside Iran, today may be the day the crackdowns begin. generally Friday prayers get the faithful pretty worked up and a large group of men believing they are doing God's work can be an effective force for the regime.

--An Iranian diplomat has a minor slip of the tongue concerning his nation and nukes.

--Who's who in Iran.

--Gateway Pundit also has an update. He's doing great work on this.

--Republican Whip Rep. Eric Cantor steps up and shows some political courage. I mean real political courage, not the manufactured BHO type.

Note: Pic at right is a real billboard in Iran.

Kim Jung-il Sentences US reporters to 12-Years Hard Labor

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton said that Barack Obama has answered that 3:00 AM call and has been successful. Too bad that call was his wife phoning from Paris saying she'd remain in Europe for another day to shop. It looks like the real troubling call was made later and Obama is tanking on the response:

For two families praying for the release of U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the news that they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp comes as a bombshell as the U.S. government works feverishly for their freedom.

The two women, who were arrested in March while reporting for Al Gore's Current TV along the Chinese-North Korean border, were found guilty today of "hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry."

"She's really scared," "Nightline" contributor Lisa Ling said of her sister in a recent ABC News interview. "I mean, she's terrified. My sister is a wife, with a medical condition. And Euna Lee is the mother of a 4-year-old girl, who has been without her mother for almost three months."

Perhaps if President Obama had had the guts to shoot down the first North Korean missile launched a few months ago or if he had come out more forcefully two weeks ago when Kim detonated a nuke then shot missiles off out of spite we'd be in a better bargaining position. Instead, he wrung his hands and effectively said nothing of consequence.

Instead, he has been traipsing around Europe seeking adulation while the thugs and bad guys of the world chuckle and continue on with their vile plans. We've no leg to stand on and no way to apply pressure short of parking the USS Reagan and USS Carl Vinson off the coast and readying of troops at the 38th parallel for battle.

Funny Kim never tried this while Bush was in office and waited for The One to show his disdain for America.

The Worlds Bad Guys Give Obama the Finger

Yeah, the whole "we'll talk with them without preconditions" thing is working out awesome, isn't it?

Kim Jung-il told Obama in no uncertain terms what he thinks about him and his foreign policy initiatives by detonating a nuclear weapon on Memorial Day and then to make sure the point was taken launched some missiles. That is the diplomatic equivalent of punching him in the face, feeling up his his wife and flattening his tires.

Next we have Ahmadinejad making his intentions known by telling Obama thanks but no thanks on that whole nuclear weapon talk:

"The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us," Mr. Ahmadinejad told reporters Monday in Tehran. But he made an offer that Mr. Obama will find difficult to refuse, proposing to debate the president and his teleprompter at the U.N. "regarding the roots of world problems." But no talks about the Iranian bomb. "Our talks [with the major powers] will be only in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues, and nothing else.

All in all a pretty successful holiday weekend for The One. If we have many more of these we'll be about as respected a world power as Mali or Sri Lanka.

But hey, Obama is "gravely concerned" so that should get old Kim back in line.

Hope and change [TM] indeed.

Update: Maybe Obama should install John Bolton at the UN again. He's the only one who seems to foresee the error of his policies.

Obama Treats Israel Like Wayward Child

Imagine you live in a neighborhood that was once okay but has steadily gone downhill. You're stuck there and can't move. You have a neighbor who has been harassing you, your wife and your kids with threats of violence and death. They live four houses away and you have a fence and a dog but it doesn't stop their threats. You call the police and they blame you because of your heritage.

Your closer neighbors have already invaded your home but you fought them off thanks to that trusty nine mil your uncle gave you. Since you popped one in their ass, they still are menacing but less threatening. Yet, that other neighbor is arming himself with bigger, better weapons that will make it easy for him to harm you from the privacy of his own back yard. He now presents a direct and deadly threat to your family.

What to do? The police don't care and the other neighbors hate you as well so what recourse do you have? You prepare yourself to take the offensive and take out the neighbors newer, better weapons before he uses them and are pondering your actions. But at that moment, your uncle admonishes you to wait and not take action without his say so. Yeah, he lives in that nice Mcmansion in the nice part of town and rarely, if ever comes to your neighborhood. He's not currently threatened and when he was he took action to ensure his safety.

Do you take the offensive action and risk that your rich uncle will cut you off or sit and wait for the hostile neighbor to take aim at your house?

Oh, by the way, your name is Israel:

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu's envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy.

Why does Obama treat Israel like a petulant child but treat Ahmadinejad with kid gloves? The entire Arab world could be massing at the borders and Obama would do that most liberal of things: scold Israel.

Netanyahu should have attacked while Bush was still president but Israel seems to have gotten caught up in hope and change (TM) as well and now it will cost them dearly.

Is It Time to Invade Pakistan?

It's a question that needs to be asked.

It would be an extreme action by every measure except the one that counts: national security. Should we invade Pakistan or at the very least encourage the Pakistani government to allow us to send troops as "peace keepers" to stem the rapid offensive of the Taliban on the capital? Perhaps utilizing our aircraft to selectively bomb the Talibani militants and gain the Pakistani forces time and distance would be a play we have available.

Allah points to two stories about the Taliban insurrection and the potential for them to take Islamabad. One from the Daily Mail but more importantly one from Roggio:

The Taliban takeover of Haripur would put the Taliban on the doorstep of Islamabad and would also put two major nuclear facilities at risk.

Haripur borders the Margala Hills, a region in the Islamabad Capital Territory. Haripur also borders the Punjab districts of Attock and Rawalpindi.

Attock hosts two major nuclear facilities in Pakistan: the Wah Cantonment Ordnance Complex and the Kamra (Minhas) Airbase. The Wah Cantonment Ordnance Complex host three sites where nuclear weapons and components are stored and assembled and aircraft and missiles are modified for use in nuclear attacks. The nearby Kamra Airbase is thought to host attack aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Rawalpindi is the "garrison" city for Pakistan's military. The city hosts the headquarters of the Army and Air Force, and several nuclear weapons research facilities are also located there.

During 2007, The Taliban and al Qaeda conducted several suicide attacks at Pakistani facilities that are thought to house nuclear weapons and research facilities. It is unclear if the suicide attacks were a demonstration of the groups' capacity to penetrate security at sensitive locations or merely attacks on targets of opportunity.

There is no way we can allow the Taliban in concert with al-Qaeda to take over the nuke facilities in Pakistan. One would hope that the Pakistanis would have moved the weapons after the previous attacks and it is imperative that the Obama administration find out if they were indeed secreted out to another location. If not, we must press strongly for providing assistance and if they decline we must insist in the strongest possible terms. If that doesn't work, an invasion may need to be considered. A nuclear al-Qaeda is the worst of all possible scenarios. A tight blockade of the entire Pakistani coastline would be a requisite action and stopping and boarding all ships would be the only way we could ensure that a nuke was not smuggled out the country. An action along the northern frontier to prevent transport out through one of the "stans" or west through Iran would require a major effort.

I'm not even adding in that Islamabad is dangerously close to Jammu and Kashmir--the disputed territories--and India is already on edge after the attacks in Mumbai that have ISI fingerprints all over the place.

Add to that the heightened state of tension between India and Pakistan and you're looking at a scenario that could see all-out war in the region with Iran and other Muslim states jumping in to assist Pakistan while we would have no option but to support the Indians.

This is the nightmare scenario playing out in full color and we have to act decisively and with resolve. If the Pakistanis cannot stop this onslaught, we may well have to consider what our options are and what can best ensure our national security. I fear Obama is ill-equipped in both advisers and foreign policy experience to deal with this situation.

Update: To be clear, I'm not advocating that we invade. I'm terrified of an Indian response, which, as Allah points out would lead to civil war with the Taliban leading one side. I'm saying bluntly that this is critical and we may have to make a quick decision on what our options are. Our men and women in uniform have done excellent work in Iraq and Afghanistan but this is a new phase that is crucial and may well decide the WOT.

Hey Obama, Welcome to the World of a Nuclear Iran

Obama had no problems criticizing the Bush administration during his campaign. He'll get to see exactly how difficult being President is:

Iran poses the greatest foreign policy challenge to the new president with Tehran on course to produce a nuclear bomb in the first year of an Obama administration, an unprecedented coalition of top think tanks warned yesterday.

Barack Obama must follow through on his promises of direct talks with Tehran and engage the Middle East region as a whole if he is to halt a looming crisis that could be revisited on the United States, the experts warned.

“Diplomacy is not guaranteed to work: it is not,” Richard Hass, one of the authors said. “But the other options – military action or living with an Iranian weapon are sufficiently unattractive for it to warrant serious commitment.”

Great.

Obama's promise to hold unconditional talks with the Iranian regime looks like a great idea right about now. He'll be loathe to use military force or even the threat of it but that's exactly what's needed, the old carrot and stick. Negotiations should be just peachy.

Iran will feel they have the upper hand in negotiations because, well, they essentially do. They know Obama will never invade even though he has talked tough in the past and the hard-left who supported him would go ape shit if he even considered it. Plus, we'll have Hillary Clinton meeting with Ahmedinejad who will show one face in public but do the Ayatollahs bidding in private. In other words, we're screwed. Unless, of course, Israel hits at the Iranian nuke site as they did in Iraq in the eighties and precluded Saddam from finishing what Jacques Chirac started at Osirak.

This is no longer a speech in Scranton BHO, this is the real deal. Iranian hegemony will know no limits should they get a nuke and the Saudis will get one soon after if they haven't already procured one thanks to the largess of AQ Khan.

Welcome to the real world where the media won't be so complicit and the players will not be so forthright and honest. I'm sure George W. Bush will have a chuckle over the next four years.

Shocker! Bombed Syrian Site Was Nuke Facility

Leave it to the Israeli's to give the world the finger and handle issues of concern to their national security on their own:

Samples taken from a Syrian site reportedly bombed by Israel on suspicion that it was a covert nuclear reactor contained traces of uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation, diplomats said Monday.

The diplomats - who demanded anonymity because their information was confidential - said the uranium was processed and not in raw form, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.

Emphasis mine.

The IAEA tried their best to play down the significance of this but they had no choice but to release this info. This is the clearest indication that Syria was nearer to a nuke weapon than anyone would admit and shows once again just how feckless the UN offshoot IAEA really is.

Just as they did in 1981 when PM Menachem Begin--fearing the next government would be slow to act--attacked the Osiraq nuclear facility in Iraq, Israel had to act on intel showing Syria was nearing the makings of a nuclear warhead. They attacked (allegedly with US assistance or at least a nod from Bush) and took out what Boy Assad had in the planning stages.

Next on the agenda for the IAF is Iran. It will be a much harder nut to crack as the Iranians have been smarter in hiding their weapons and their overall program. Look for the attack to occur prior to Obama taking office.

Iranian Ship Suspected of Carrying WMD

This is disturbing but not unexpected:

A tense standoff is underway in northeastern Somalia between pirates, Somali authorities, and Iran over a suspicious merchant vessel and its mysterious cargo. Hijacked late last month in the Gulf of Aden, the MV Iran Deyanat remains moored offshore in Somali waters and inaccessible for inspection. Its declared cargo consists of minerals and industrial products, however, Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents.

...The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. Osman also confirmed to The Long War Journal that during the six days he negotiated with the pirates members of the syndicate had become sick and died. "That ship is unusual," he said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."

This will not be covered by the MSM but it's clear that the Iranians have been caught shipping either biological, radiological or chemical weapons to Eritrea and that those weapons were to be used in Somalia. Iranian influence is ever-expanding in the region and this ups the ante considerably as the introduction of chemical weapons in that region of Africa, whether it be in the Sudan or Somalia could trigger a wider conflict involving Ethiopia and others. Perhaps that is the Iranian aim here.

While the feckless IAEA led by Mohammed el-Barradei continues to investigate Iran in a Clouseau-like manner, Ahmadinejad continues to spread his virulent strain of jihad to any nation he can. The time for military engagement with Iran by either the US or Israel is coming sooner rather than later (click the link for John Bolton's estimation of the timeframe), to continue to ignore the 800-pound elephant will be to the detriment of us and our allies.

The Long War Journal is a must-read for those following developments in the Mideast and eastern Africa as well as the overall War on Terror. They cover the nuts and bolts of what is really occurring in the region on a daily basis. Please consider dropping a little something in their tip jar.

Via LGF.

The Nuclear Terror Legacy of A. Q. Khan Lives On

Pakistani metallurgist A.Q. Khan helped his home country develop their small nuclear arsenal throughout the 1990's. He is also believed to have shared the knowledge with other rogue nations including Libya (who has since said they abandoned nukes because Qaddaffi didn't want to sufer the same fate as Saddam), North Korea and Iran.

His lasting legacy may be the obliteration of Tel Aviv and a nuclear war in the Mideast. Swiss authorities have discovered 1,000 gigs of plans on a computer that detail how to make a nuke warhead that would fit existing missiles of the aforementioned rogue nations. This is not making me feel all warm and fuzzy:

The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network.

"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in a draft report about the blueprint's discovery. A copy of the report, expected to be published later this week, was provided to The Washington Post.

I have no fear because the IAEA is on the case. Note heavy sarcasm.

One has to imagine that the Saudi's have a copy and potentially Syria who had a nuke site obliterated by the IAF last year. In other words, proliferation is going to happen and quickly. You may want to think about that if you plan on pulling the lever for Obama.