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Column One: From Yemen to Turtle Bay - Caroline Glick

Reblogged from jpost.com
Iran’s game is clear enough. It wishes to replace the US as the regional hegemon, at the US’s expense.

Sana’a, Yemen. (photo credit:Wikimedia Commons) 

Off the coast of Yemen and at the UN Security Council we are seeing the strategic endgame of Barack Obama’s administration. And it isn’t pretty.

Since Sunday, Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen have attacked US naval craft three times in the Bab al-Mandab, the narrow straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. The Bab al-Mandab controls maritime traffic in the Red Sea, and ultimately controls the Suez Canal.

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Whether the Iranians directed these assaults or simply green-lighted them is really beside the point. The point is that these are Iranian strikes on the US. The Houthis would never have exposed themselves to US military retaliation if they hadn’t been ordered to do so by their Iranian overlords.

The question is why has Iran chosen to open up an assault on the US? The simple answer is that Iran has challenged US power at the mouth of the Red Sea because it believes that doing so advances its strategic aims in the region.

Iran’s game is clear enough. It wishes to replace the US as the regional hegemon, at the US’s expense.

Since Obama entered office nearly eight years ago, Iran’s record in advancing its aims has been one of uninterrupted success.

Iran used the US withdrawal from Iraq as a means to exert its full control over the Iraqi government. It has used Obama’s strategic vertigo in Syria as a means to exert full control over the Assad regime and undertake the demographic transformation of Syria from a Sunni majority state to a Shi’ite plurality state.

In both cases, rather than oppose Iran’s power grabs, the Obama administration has welcomed them. As far as Obama is concerned, Iran is a partner, not an adversary.

Since like the US, Iran opposes al-Qaida and ISIS, Obama argues that the US has nothing to fear from the fact that Iranian-controlled Shiite militias are running the US-trained Iraqi military.

So, too, he has made clear that the US is content to stand by as the mullahs become the face of Syria.

In Yemen, the US position has been more ambivalent. In late 2014, Houthi rebel forces took over the capital city of Sanaa. In March 2015, the Saudis led a Sunni campaign to overthrow the Houthi government. In a bid to secure Saudi support for the nuclear agreement it was negotiating with the Iranians, the Obama administration agreed to support the Saudi campaign. To this end, the US military has provided intelligence, command and control guidance, and armaments to the Saudis.

Iran’s decision to openly assault US targets then amounts to a gamble on Tehran’s part that in the twilight of the Obama administration, the time is ripe to move in for the kill in Yemen. The Iranians are betting that at this point, with just three months to go in the White House, Obama will abandon the Saudis, and so transfer control over Arab oil to Iran.

For with the Strait of Hormuz on the one hand, and the Bab al-Mandab on the other, Iran will exercise effective control over all maritime oil flows from the Arab world.

It’s not a bad bet for the Iranians, given Obama’s consistent strategy in the Middle East.

Obama has never discussed that strategy.

Indeed, he has deliberately concealed it. But to understand the game he has been playing all along, the only thing you need to do listen to his foreign policy soul mate.

According to a New York Times profile published in May, Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes is the president’s alter ego. The two men’s minds have “melded.”

Rhodes’s first foreign policy position came in the course of his work for former congressman Lee Hamilton.

In 2006, then-president George W. Bush appointed former secretary of state James Baker and Hamilton to lead the Iraq Study Group. Bush tasked the group with offering a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq. The group released its report in late 2006.

The Iraq Study Group’s report contained two basic recommendations. First, it called for the administration to abandon Iraq to the Iranians.

The group argued that due to Iran’s opposition to al-Qaida, the Iranians would fight al-Qaida for the US.

The report’s second recommendation related to Israel. Baker, Hamilton and their colleagues argued that after turning Iraq over to Iran, the US would have to appease its Sunni allies.

The US, the Iraq Study Group report argued, should simultaneously placate the Sunnis and convince the Iranians of its sincerity by sticking it to Israel. To this end, the US should pressure Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria and give Judea and Samaria to the PLO.

Bush rejected the Iraq Study Group report. Instead he opted to win the war in Iraq by adopting the surge counterinsurgency strategy.

But once Bush was gone, and Rhodes’s intellectual twin replaced him, the Iraq Study Group recommendations became the unstated US strategy in the Middle East.

After taking office, Obama insisted that the US’s only enemy was al-Qaida. In 2014, Obama grudgingly expanded the list to include ISIS.

Obama has consistently justified empowering Iran in Iraq and Syria on the basis of this narrow definition of US enemies. Since Iran is also opposed to ISIS and al-Qaida, the US can leave the job of defeating them both to the Iranians, he has argued.

Obviously, Iran won’t do the US’s dirty work for free. So Obama has paid the mullahs off by giving them an open road to nuclear weapons through his nuclear deal, by abandoning sanctions against them, and by turning his back on their ballistic missile development.

Obama has also said nothing about the atrocities that Iranian-controlled militia have carried out against Sunnis in Iraq and has stopped operations against Hezbollah.

As for Israel, since his first days in office, Obama has been advancing the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations. His consistent, and ever escalating condemnations of Israel, his repeated moves to pick fights with Jerusalem are all of a piece with the group’s recommended course of action. And there is every reason to believe that Obama intends to make good on his threats to cause an open rupture in the US alliance with Israel in his final days in office.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s phone call with Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday night made this clear enough. In the course of their conversation, Netanyahu reportedly asked Kerry if Obama intended to enable an anti-Israel resolution to pass in the UN Security Council after the presidential election next month. By refusing to rule out the possibility, Kerry all but admitted that this is in fact Obama’s intention.

And this brings us back to Iran’s assaults on US ships along the coast of Yemen.

Early on Sunday morning, the US responded to the Houthi/Iranian missile assaults by attacking three radar stations in Houthi-controlled territory. The nature of the US moves gives credence to the fear that the US will surrender Yemen to Iran.

This is so for three reasons. First, the administration did not allow the USS Mason destroyer to respond to the sources of the missile attack against it immediately. Instead, the response was delayed until Obama himself could determine how best to “send a message.”

That is, he denied US forces the right to defend themselves.

Second, it is far from clear that destroying the radar stations will inhibit the Houthis/Iranians.

It is not apparent that radar stations are necessary for them to continue to assault US naval craft operating in the area.

Finally, the State Department responded to the attack by reaching out to the Houthis. In other words, the administration is continuing to view the Iranian proxy is a legitimate actor rather than an enemy despite its unprovoked missile assaults on the US Navy.

Then there is the New York Times’ position on Yemen.

The Times has repeatedly allowed the administration to use it as an advocate of policies the administration itself wishes to adopt. Last week for instance, the Times called for the US to turn on Israel at the Security Council.

On Tuesday, the Times published an editorial calling for the administration to end its military support for the Saudi campaign against the Houthis/Iran in Yemen.

Whereas the Iranian strategy makes sense, Obama’s strategy is nothing less than disastrous.

Although the Iraq Study Group, like Obama, is right that Iran also opposes ISIS, and to a degree, al-Qaida, they both ignored the hard reality that Iran also views the US as its enemy. Indeed, the regime’s entire identity is tied up in its hatred for the US and its strategic aim of destroying America.

Obama is not the only US president who has sought to convince the Iranians to abandon their hatred for America. Every president since 1979 has tried to convince the mullahs to abandon their hostility. And just like all of his predecessors, Obama has failed to convince them.

What distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is that he has based US policy on a deliberate denial of the basic reality of Iranian hostility. Not surprisingly, the Iranians have returned his favor by escalating their aggression against America.

The worst part about Obama’s strategy is that it is far from clear that his successor will be able to improve the situation.

If Hillary Clinton succeeds him, his successor is unlikely to even try. Not only has Clinton embraced Obama’s policies toward Iran.

Her senior advisers are almost all Obama administration alumni. Wendy Sherman, the leading candidate to serve as her secretary of state, was Obama’s chief negotiator with the Iranians.

If Donald Trump triumphs next month, assuming he wishes to reassert US power in the region, he won’t have an easy time undoing the damage that Obama has caused.

Time has not stood still as the US has engaged in strategic dementia. Not only has Iran been massively empowered, Russia has entered the Middle East as a strategic spoiler.

Moreover, since 2001, the US has spent more than a trillion dollars on its failed wars in the Middle East. That investment came in lieu of spending on weapons development. Today Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in Syria reportedly neutralize the US’s air force.

US naval craft in the Bab al-Mandab have little means to defend themselves against missile strikes.

The US’s trillion-dollar investment in the F-35 fighter jet has tethered its air wings to a plane that has yet to prove its capabilities, and may never live up to expectations.

Israel is justifiably worried about the implications of Obama’s intention to harm it at the UN.

But the harm Israel will absorb at the UN is nothing in comparison to the long-term damage that Obama’s embrace of the Iraq Study Group’s disastrous strategic framework has and will continue to cause Israel, the US and the entire Middle East.

www.CarolineGlick.com

As We See the Day Approaching

Reblogged from omegaletter.com
via servehiminthewaiting.com
Prophecy - Signs
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Wendy Wippel 

The Prophet Ezekiel arrived in Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar’s last wave of captives, about 597 B.C, along with Israel’s deposed King, Jehoachin (also known as Jeconiah). Not coincidence. The nation of Israel, for the moment, was official history. And Ezekiel was there to make sure God’s people had “the rest of the story”.

Ezekiel is visited by God as he and the rest of the captives are on the banks of the River Chebar, and Ezekiel sees, in a whirlwind, a vision of the Lord’s glory.
He also gets this message:

“Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day. For they are impudent and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’  Ezekiel 2:3-4

Not a real enticing job description. If they didn’t listen to God, are they going to listen to Ezekiel? 
And then it gets worse: 

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; …When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, … his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. Ezekiel 3:17-20

If it was me, I think I would have followed in Jonah’s footsteps and got out of town.
But Ezekiel bowed to God’s will.  And what follows is revelation after revelation (in both words and in odious allegories that Ezekiel was required to act out) of the judgment that will befall God’s impudent and stubborn children before they finally repent. 

With God saying, finally and ominously, that this rebellious and stubborn people will come to know that He is the Lord only when He “sets His face against them.” (Ezekiel 15:8)
And that’s what Ezekiel was initially given to convey to God’s people prophesied. Judgment. Nothing but judgment for a full seven years ( and 24 chapters), during which time, ostensibly, God’s people had a chance to repent. Through Ezekiel, they had been warned. 
In 587-, however, the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s armies began. And with that, Ezekiel’s messages to the nation of Israel changed. Chapters 25-32 of Ezekiel (following the prediction in chapter 24 that the Temple would be destroyed), consist of Judgments on the surrounding nations.
A reminder, through Ezekiel, that Yahweh, despite his discipline, was still their God and their Avenger.
An Avenger that also promised to restore them:

The hand of the Lord … set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. … and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” … Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! … “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 37:1-6

Also He said to me, ‘ prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Ezekiel 37:9-10

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’” Ezekiel 37:11-14

God tells Ezekiel that at this point in time, with nation ruled by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, their people enslaved, and their king blinded and also in bondage the people of Israel feel that hope is lost.  And Ezekiel is tasked to restore their hope:

“Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, … and I will make them one nation in the land, . . . and one king shall be king over them all;  I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God…. and  David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” Ezekiel 36:21-28

Curiously what follows those verses are these:

Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia,^[b] and Libya^[c] are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you. Ezekiel 38:1-6

Doesn’t that seem weird?  Why the heck are we talking about Gog and Magog all of a sudden?
Let’s Review.  Israel’s people had been captured and taken to Babylon, and their king Jeconiah, had been deposed. Ezekiel’s job from that point on was to remind Israel of God’s faithfulness.  So Ezekiel relayed God’s assurance that the nation would be restored.
And Gog and Magog, apparently, is the methodology.
God tells Gog and Magog that,

“In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.” Ezekiel 37:8-9

Note that  God describes the God and Magog coalition coming against Israel in the latter years, after the people had largely returned and are dwelling in safety. Which has to mean sometime between 1972 and now.  (And with the recent deal with Iran, they are safer now than they were a month ago.
At least that’s what Kerry and O would like us to believe. 

“On that day it shall come to pass that … you will make an evil plan: ou will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; … to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land. Ezekiel 38:10-12

Airplanes made walls around cities superfluous in 1903. 

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it? … You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, “And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” says the Lord God, “that My fury will show in My face…. I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains,” … And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezkiel 38:14-19, 23

Note that Gog and Magog’s attack on Israel comes a long time after the prophecy was made, specifically after Israel’s people had returned and were living in (relative) safety, with the three wars of securing modern Israel behind them. It is at that point that Gog and Magog attack, and God miraculously saves them. And apparently, even their enemies recognize the divine nature of their rescue.
So said enemies embrace Israel as chosen of God, right? 

We all know better.  Their enemies hate Israel’s God as much as they hate Israel, an attitude that the Psalms record:

Do not hold Your peace,And do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult;And those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” Psalm 83:1-4

That’s been the world’s mantra since God made the covenant with Abraham.
So what happens next? Remember, God, through Ezekiel, links Israel’s final redemption with Gog and Magog.  Think about it.  All the nations hate Israel, and are no doubt  incensed that Israel and their God escaped destruction at the hands of God and Magog. Their next step, logically, would be to join forces (at this point, diplomatically, as implicated in the first seal)  in order to together subjugate Israel to international rule.

That way they could divide Israel’s land and usurp their considerable resources,  possibly, in the process, forcing Israel to sign a treaty with a certain demonically inspired individual in exchange for permission to rebuild the temple.  If you are paying any attention at all it would appear that the stage is being set for these exact events to transpire. 
And being set quickly.

Iran and Russia, pretty much enemies for all of earth history, got all friendly when the Shah abdicated in 1979, and have signed numerous pacts of mutual support since.  In the recent deal with Iran, Russia and Iran acted as one voice. 
Putin’s right-hand man, Zhironovsky, has written a book describing Russia’s intention to rule Israel.

Iran’s leaders have said numerous times that their goal in life is to see Israel destroyed. As have many of Israel’s other neighbors.  And the two neighbors missing in the biblical description of the coalition that comes against Israel—Egypt and Iraq—currently kind of make sense. 
Egypt is virtually the only Muslim country that has signed a peace treaty with Israel: Iraq has enough problems of its own.
And Iran is almost certainly way closer to have atomic weapons than we even think.
But it’s OK.  God’s got Israel’s back. And as for us, anyone else hear trumpets?
About Wendy Wippel

Putin will address G8 summit as head of winning Syrian war camp

DEBKAfile Special Report June 17, 2013, 11:04 AM (IDT)

Vladimir Putin at G8 summit 

The lovely lakeside venue for the two-day gathering of US, Russian, Canadian, French, German, Italian, British and Japanese leaders was worlds away from the Syrian killing fields, where 93,000 people have died, according to conservative estimates. But the Russian president will make sure that the voices of his allies, Bashar Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, are heard loud and clear in the conference hall, until they are acknowledged the victors of the vicious Syrian war. If world leaders hold back, the Syrian and Hizballah armies will continue their march on Aleppo, Syria’s biggest town, for their next bloodbath.

The light arms President Obama proposes to release for the Syrian rebels don’t give them the smallest fighting chance against the fighter-bomber jets, heavy tanks, and unlimited ordnance supplied Bashar Assad’s army by Russia and the missiles and troops coming in from Hizballah and Iran.

This unbeatable preponderance makes the fall of Aleppo and Assad’s victory a foregone conclusion. 
Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, speaking in Washington over the weekend, argued that the Syrian army’s successes did not add up to a strategic victory. The Russian leader will present the opposite case to which his fellows in the Group of Eight have no answer. They will therefore hammer at the only point on which they agree, the quest for a political solution of the Syrian crisis by means of an international conference, i.e., getting Geneva-2 off the ground. 
 
Putin and Obama will therefore need to put their heads together on accepted ground rules for this event.
Although on the face of it, nothing could be more reasonable, debkafile’s Russian and Middle East sources report it is a tall order indeed, given the list of at least four pre-conditions Putin plans to put before the US President on the strength of his partners’ war successes:

1. Geneva-2 will not be convened by the US or Russia, as first agreed, but by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This would force Washington to stay within the bounds of UN resolutions and not act as did the US and NATO in Libya to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi outside their Security Council mandate.

2.  Bashar Assad must remain in power as the legitimate ruler of Syria. Russia’s sale of arms to the Syrian government in Damascus was therefore legal.

3.  Iran must be given a seat at Geneva-2.
The Russian president is determined to thwart any attempt by Obama to take advantage of Hassan Rouani’s election as president of Iran to supersede the battlefield successes of Russia, Iran and Hizballah in Syria. Ayatollah Khamenei will go along with him on this.
Sunday night, Washington was evidently exploring new diplomatic ground with Tehran when Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff commented that Hassan Rouhani’s election as president of Iran was a potentially hopeful sign. “If he is interested in, as he has said in his campaign events, mending his relations… with the rest of the world – there’s the opportunity to do that.”

But then, he said: “But doing so would require Iran to come clean on its illicit nuclear program.”

This was the Obama administration’s answer to Putin’s comment Tuesday, June 11 when he said: “I have no doubt that Iran is adhering to international commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, but regional and international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program should not be ignored,” said the Russian leader.

4.  Putin has gone back on his earlier consent to a single, united delegation representing the Syrian opposition at the projected international conference. He now maintains that the rebel front is hopelessly divided and the delegation should truly represent the real situation.

This too will be a Russian attempt to frustrate Western plans for a united opposition camp to speak with one voice opposite the Assad regime, by accentuating the rifts dividing the rival Syrian opposition factions and militias.

As matters look now, Assad’s drive to recapture all of Aleppo will continue after the G8 leaders have gone home. Putin, Khamenei, Assad and Nasrallah will continue their hideous victory march and the US, West and Israel will continue to hold back from intervention that could reverse the tide.