As Relations With Israel Plummet To New Low, Obama Cuts Video To Iranian People Praising Ayatollah Khamenei…

Weasel Zippers

Anyone think it’s a coincidence Obama chose today to release his Nowruz message (it begins on the first day of spring)?

OPTICS TELLS YOU ANYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

No peace in our time

Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection does not portend more strife in the Middle East.

Charles Krauthammer

"Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel’s prime minister.

"I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

"This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

"The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state." . . . Full article here.

The Faces of Foreign Policy Failure

G. Murphy Donovan "Personality is seldom thought to be relevant to national security analysis. Yet in the end, intelligence, policy, and failures are made by men -- and the occasional woman. We are fond of blaming history, institutions, processes, or systems for social and national security pathologies. Systems are the creations of ordinary men, too ordinary these days, it seems. Alas, there are no earthly institutions or human actions where men or personalities get off the hook. Failure is always personal.

"Carol Hanisch was correct. The personal is political too.

"Failure is about the wrong men in the wrong position at the wrong time. Five examples from the millennia era are Barack Hussein Obama, John Owen Brennan, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Martin E. Dempsey, and James Robert Clapper." . . .   Read more.

Cheney: President Obama 'worst president in my lifetime'

Obama Hasn’t Called Bibi, Called Muslim Victors PDQ

Sweetness and Light

Obama Yet to Congratulate Netanyahu Despite Not Waiting to Call Newly Elected Islamist Leaders

By Dr. Phyllis Chesler | March 18, 2015

At press time, President Obama has not yet congratulated the new Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu…

"But he has found the time to fill out his ‘March Madness’ brackets and release them to the press."

Obama’s self-indulgent behavior does not seem to change. For example, in 2013, it took President Obama one full week before he called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election win.

This is the same vindictive man who blocked off open-air national monuments during the shutdown to "make it hurt".

25 Photos of Iran Before the 1979 Revolution

"Before the Ayatollah became the Supreme Leader of Iran, the country experienced 

a period of secularism under the Shah—but his dictatorship eventually led to 

his downfall. "(With the help of Jimmy Carter)

By Annum Masroor in the National Journal

The courtyard of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in the city of Isfahan, circa 1948

A royal portrait of Princess Fawzia bint Fuad of Egypt, the first wife of the Shah. Known in newspapers worldwide as "one of the world's most beautiful women," she filed for divorce in 1948 and returned to Egypt, leaving her daughter, Shahnaz, in Iran. After her brother, King Farouk, abdicated the throne and fled Egypt, she led a quiet life in Alexandria with her second husband. Upon revisiting the royal palace 24 years after the abdication, she said, “Twice in my life I lost the crown. Once I was the queen of Iran, and once I was the princess here."(Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

The exterior of Tehran's Theatre Saadi, where a group of people study a billboard, circa 1950.

A student at a vocational-training school for seamstresses inspects her work, circa 1952. The school was one of the first for girls and was founded by the government in Tehran.(Three Lions/Getty Images)

Chirine Tahmassab, Iran's first female foreign diplomat, pictured on February 17, 1967.

Then came Jimmy Carter and this man who said “There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”:

More photos here.

Obama prepares to punish Israeli voters for rejecting him UPDATED

Netanyahu's Extraordinary Win Gives Him Bold Mandate  . . . "In his speech early this month to a Joint Session of Congress, Netanyahu played Winston Churchill, warning America and the world of the Nazi-like gathering storm in a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran.

In this case, however, it was an American president, not a British prime minister, playing Neville Chamberlain's role of appeaser." . . 

Hot Air   "Following the upset in Israel that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and its allies win a decisive victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, a few postmortems have observed that Israeli voters did not merely fail to reject Bibi but they also delivered a resounding rebuketo the Obama administration. As any nigh-omnipotent being would, President Barack Obama and his administration have begun to suggest that retribution is imminent for the state of Israel, its profane government, and its idolatrous voters." . . .

UPDATE: U.S. Threatens Sanctions Against Israel, Makes Excuses for Iran  "The U.S. government might impose sanctions on Israel or allow its greatest ally in the Middle East to be tried in the International Criminal Court, according to Politico. Michael Crowley reports:

Obama officials must now decide whether more international pressure on Israel can help bring a conservative Netanyahu-led government back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians — or whether such pressure would simply provoke a defiant reaction, as some fear.

Obama has other diplomatic options. He could expend less political capital to oppose growing momentum within the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel for its settlement activity.

More provocative to Israel would be any softening of Obama’s opposition to Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority will formally join on April 1. Under a law passed by Congress, any Palestinian bid to bring war crimes charges against Israel at the court will automatically sever America’s $400 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some experts suggested Obama could find indirect ways to continue some funding — even if only to prevent a dangerous collapse of the Palestinian governing body.

" Meanwhile, in other news, the U.S. government is making excuses for Iran's testing of its nuclear program. Bloomberg reports:" . . .

When nuclear monitors said Iran had started testing a single advanced centrifuge last year, some U.S. politicians and analysts jumped on the report as proof the Islamic Republic can’t be trusted. 

From Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay

The White House hoped a new Israeli prime minister would resume peace talks with the Palestinians. With Netanyahu holding on, the administration is weighing a turn to the U.N. to help force a deal.

Foreign Policy

"After years of blocking U.N. efforts to pressure Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a lasting two-state solution, the United States is edging closer toward supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for the resumption of political talks to conclude a final peace settlement, according to Western diplomats.

"The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election Tuesday after the incumbent publicly abandoned his commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state — the basis of more than 20 years of U.S. diplomatic efforts — and promised to continue the construction of settlements on occupied territory. The development also reflects deepening pessimism over the prospect of U.S.-brokered negotiations delivering peace between Israelis and Palestinians." . . .