Iran has 'penetrated' the Obama Administration

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Ahmadinejad Calls for Face-to-Face Showdown With Obama at United Nations

Monday , May 25, 2009
TEHRAN, Iran —

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran's president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran's nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue "is closed," he told a news conference.

Obama has urged a "serious process of engagement" after Iran's elections in an effort to end a nearly 30-year diplomatic chill. However last week, the American leader said the U.S. was prepared to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it did not respond positively to the attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama set a year-end deadline for Iran to show it wanted to engage with Washington.

The tough talk on nuclear negotiations following Iran's test last week of a long-range missile appear aimed at burnishing Ahmadinejad's hard-line credentials in the election campaign against another conservative and two pro-reform candidates.

His offer of to debate Obama could also be campaign posturing before the June 12 vote. But it does put Ahmadinejad on record as supporting a potentially groundbreaking encounter following Obama's offer for dialogue.

Ahmadinejad said that, if re-elected, he would be open to "debate global issues as well as world peace and security" during the U.N. General Assembly in September.

There was no immediate reaction from Washington.

Ahmadinejad has often denounced the West for trying to pressure Iran to give up it uranium enrichment program, a process that can produce fuel for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Tehran insists it is only to fuel peaceful reactors, but the West worries could lead to nuclear weapons development.

His latest comments appear to be part of a campaign strategy to portray himself as the only candidate capable to defending Iran's nuclear technology.

Last week, he accused his reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, of bringing "humiliation" on Iran by agreeing to suspend uranium enrichment from 2003-5 as a confidence-building measure with the West.

That also served as a direct shot at Ahmadinejad's main reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is backed by Khatami.

Ahmadinejad also faces another hard-liner, former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei, and a moderate, former parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi, in the four-way race.

The campaign took a bitter turn over the weekend when reformists accused Ahmadinejad's supporters in the Islamic regime of blocking the popular social networking site Facebook, which has become an important tool to mobilize Iran's crucial youth vote.

More than half Iran's population was born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and young voters represent a huge potential bloc for pro-reform candidates.

Ahmadinejad sidestepped questions about whether authorities ordered a Facebook block late last week. But he said he believed "in maximum freedom of expression."

"There are many Web sites active in the world that can be accessed in Iran. Many Web sites are against the government," he said, adding that officials "don't need to shut any sites shut down."

But Iran has cut off access to many blogs and Web sites critical of the Islamic regime and its ruling clerics. Media groups and others have strongly criticized Iran's clampdown on the web.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president and a top adviser to Karoubi's campaign, called the Facebook block "painful news for young and educated Iranians."

"(Ruling authorities) would only like their voice heard," he wrote in an e-mailed protest, claiming his own Facebook site had attracted more than 3,000 followers. "Any other voice (for them) is intolerable."

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Obama says Iran's energy concerns legitimate

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 9:24 AM

LONDON -- President Barack Obama suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.

In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, he also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. But the U.S. and other Western governments accuse Tehran of seeking atomic weapons.

"What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations," Obama said, adding that the international community also "has a very real interest" in preventing a nuclear arms race.

The president has indicated a willingness to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it does not respond positively to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama has said Tehran has until the end of the year to show it wants to engage with Washington.

"Although I don't want to put artificial time tables on that process, we do want to make sure that, by the end of this year, we've actually seen a serious process move forward. And I think that we can measure whether or not the Iranians are serious," Obama said.

Obama's interview offered a preview of a speech he is to deliver in Egypt this week, saying he hoped the address would warm relations between Americans and Muslims abroad.

"What we want to do is open a dialogue," Obama told the BBC. "You know, there are misapprehensions about the West, on the part of the Muslim world. And, obviously, there are some big misapprehensions about the Muslim world when it comes to those of us in the West."

Obama leaves in the evening on a trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia aimed at reaching out to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. He is due to make his speech in Cairo on Thursday.

Obama sounded an optimistic note about making progress toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although he offered no new ideas for how he might try to secure a freeze on new building of Israeli settlements. The United States has called for a freeze, but Israeli leaders have rejected that.

Asked what he would say during his visit about human rights abuses, including the detention of political prisoners in Egypt, Obama indicated no stern lecture would be forthcoming.

He said he hoped to deliver the message that democratic values are principles that "they can embrace and affirm."

Obama added that there is a danger "when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture."

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Obama Invites Iran To Celebrate The Fourth Of July

A New Iran Overture, With Hot Dogs

June 2, 2009
By MARK LANDLER

SAN SALVADOR — Having sent the Iranian people a video greeting on their New Year, President Obama is now inviting them to help celebrate a quintessentially American holiday, the Fourth of July.

Last Friday, the State Department sent a cable to its embassies and consulates around the world notifying them that “they may invite representatives from the government of Iran” to their Independence Day celebrations — annual receptions that typically feature hot dogs, red-white-and-blue bunting and some perfunctory remarks about the founding fathers.

Administration officials characterized the move as another in a series of American overtures to Iran. The United States has not had relations with Iran since the American Embassy in Tehran was seized by protesters in 1979; the country’s diplomats have not been formally invited to American events since then.

“It is another way of saying we are not putting barriers in the way of communicating,” said one administration official. “It is another way of signaling that there is an opportunity that should not be wasted.”

A second official said the ban no longer made sense, at a time when the United States was actively engaging with Iranian officials elsewhere. In March, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, chatted with Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, at a conference in The Hague.

The authorization to issue the invitations was disclosed by a senior State Department official on the eve of a three-day visit to Latin America by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the new policy was not public.

Even as the United States reaches out to Tehran, it is trying to reclaim American influence in Latin America, where Iran has made inroads while the United States has been waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton was in El Salvador to attend the inauguration of Mauricio Funes, whose election as president represents the first time the country has swung to the left since its civil war ended in 1992. She will be in Honduras on Tuesday for a meeting of the Organization of American States. The United States is expected to face intense pressure from Cuba’s neighbors to reinstate the island’s membership in the group.

Mrs. Clinton has said Iran’s rising influence in the region is “quite disturbing.” In May, she told State Department employees that the Bush administration’s policy toward Latin America had created an opening for Iran and China, which are using commercial and other assistance to bolster anti-American leaders like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

“They are building strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders,” she said. “I don’t think that’s in our interest.”

While Iran’s influence in the region is dwarfed by that of China — which is a huge buyer of raw materials from Latin American countries — Tehran’s role has touched a nerve among senior administration officials like Mrs. Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has also spoken publicly about it.

“The specter of Iran raises red flags in a way that China doesn’t, because China tends to respect the American sphere of influence,” said Julia E. Sweig, a Latin American expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran’s motives are murkier, according to administration officials. It has cultivated wide-ranging economic ties with Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. But it has also been linked to the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people.

Iran is not known to have a big presence in El Salvador, officials said, and it was not represented at Mr. Funes’s inauguration. But the change in power after 17 years of a pro-American right-wing government could offer an opening.

Mr. Funes’s victory continues the ascension of the political left across Latin America; some analysts worry he will adopt the anti-American rhetoric of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. His party, the F.M.L.N., has its roots in guerrillas who fought El Salvador’s American-backed army in the 1980s and 1990s. But Mr. Funes is viewed as more centrist than his party. American officials said Mrs. Clinton’s presence was meant to signal that Washington would not take El Salvador for granted.

“Some might say President Obama is left of center,” Mrs. Clinton said after meeting with Mr. Funes.

Speaking earlier to American diplomats, she alluded to the vagaries of American influence in the region.

“Some of the difficulties we’ve had historically in forging strong and lasting ties in our hemisphere,” she said, “are a result of our perhaps not listening, perhaps not paying close enough attention.”

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Obama exposed by limp response to Iran revolt

June 21, 8:35 AM

President Barack Obama's initial response to the revolt taking place in Iran exposed either that he is out of touch with reality or his lack of international experience left him with a business-as-usual approach. Even Congress made a more firm and in-touch statement before he began to add a tiny bit of muscle to his statement.

Senator John McCain put Obama to shame with his strong statement and then it was only after pressure from Republicans and other conservative pushed the President into moving toward increasing the firmness of his messages. Speaking on CNN's American morning, McCain said:

“On this issue, I do not believe that the president is taking a leadership that is incumbent upon an American president, which we have throughout modern history, and that is to advocate for human rights and freedom * and free elections are one of those fundamentals.”

It has been reported that perhaps some Democrats are dismayed by Obama's weak-kneed responses to Iranians dying in the streets during the protests. Rasmussen reported on Sunday, June 21, 2009, that Obama poll numbers have dropped to the lowest point since he became president.

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Obama-Odinga friendship affecting Iran?

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Posted: June 25, 2009
1:00 am Eastern © 2009


Ahmadinejad and Odinga

In his press conference on Tuesday, President Obama condemned the Iranian regime's use of violence to suppress the post-election protests, but he left the door open to a "wait and see" attitude toward whether or not the United States would accept President Ahmadinejad as the legitimate winner of the June 12 election, if that continues to stand as the final verdict of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Notably, during the press conference, President Obama dodged answering directly a question from Fox News regarding an invitation issued by the State Department for Iranian diplomats to visit U.S. embassies during the Independence Day holiday.

If Obama intends to pursue direct negotiations with the Ahmadinejad government should the post-election violence fail to produce a new election, the administration may well be advised to contemplate how as series of photographs of Obama-supporting Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Ahmadinejad together might impact freedom fighters in Iran as well as the American public.

To explore this question, WND has taken a close look at Kenya.

Examining the extent to which Odinga and Obama have been willing to pursue direct negotiations with Ahmadinejad, WND continues to see a commonality in the foreign policies of both leaders, despite the Iranian regime's determination to suppress key freedoms within Iran, including the right to a free election.

Even as post-election protests against the re-election of Ahmadinejad continue in Iran, Kenya's Odinga, a fellow Luo tribe member, who continues to receive the strong support of President Obama, moves closer to Iran.

In a May 28 trip to Tehran, Odinga met with Ahmadinejad to agree to the establishment of Special Working Groups to advance the implementation of signed memoranda of understanding on a wide range of issues, including trade, banking, agriculture, oil and education, according to a joint communiqué issued at the end of the meeting.

This follows a Feb. 25 trip Ahmadinejad made to Kenya in which he held a one-on-one meeting with Odinga at the Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi.

WND previously reported that when then-Sen. Obama visited Kenya in 2006, the administration of President Kibaki objected that Odinga was using Obama's visit to win votes. Obama's repeated public appearances with Odinga and the senator's almost daily criticism of the Kigaki government added to the administration's objections.

WND has also reported that Obama, with a donation of nearly $1 million, and a son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi were among the biggest contributors to Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign, according to an internal document obtained by WND in Kenya.

WND has further reported that Odinga, prior to the 2007 election, concluded a written agreement with Muslim leaders stipulating that if they delivered him the Muslim vote, he would in turn, once elected, change the constitution to declare Islamic law as the ruling authority in Muslim-dominated regions.

Odinga took over the office of prime minister in Kenya after his campaign called for protests of an election he lost by more than 200,000 votes to incumbent President Kibaki. The resulting violence by marauding Luo tribe members against Kibaki's majority Kikuyu tribe left 1,100 people dead, hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes and 800 Christian churches damaged or destroyed. No Islamic mosques were damaged.

The violence appears to have been part of Odinga's campaign strategy. Former members of Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement party, or ODM, claim Obama did not call on Odinga to drop his voter-fraud campaign or withdraw from his pursuit of the presidency even after he lost and the violence erupted.

WND has confirmed that at one point, then-United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice actually pressured Kenyan Vice President Kolonzo to step down from his position to bring the Odinga-connected Luo-mob protest violence to an end by appointing Odinga vice president so he could assume the nation's second-highest political office.

When Kolonzo refused to step down, Annan and Rice proposed the Odinga-inspired plan of appointing him as prime minister, a position not defined in the Kenyan constitution, effectively allowing Odinga to share the head-of-state position with Kibaki.

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Iran media: Obama sent secret letter of support to Khamenei before election

DEBKAfile Special Report
June 24, 2009, 3:59 PM (GMT+02:00)

Barack Obama purportedly sent a secret letter to Khamenei

US and Iranian sources report that before Iran's presidential election, the Obama administration sent a secret letter to its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranian media gave great prominence to the disclosure - for which they cited the Washington Times of Wednesday, June 24 - in order to underline US president's backing for Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in contrast to his latest words of condemnation for the regime and support for the "reformists."

According to the WT, a senior Obama administration official speaking on condition of anonymity refused to confirm or deny that this letter had been sent to the supreme leader or whether there had been a response.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources say the Iranians are using this expose to embarrass president Obama for telling a news conference in Washington Tuesday that Iran's rulers are on the wrong side of history.

The secrecy of the communication can only add to the awkwardness because it points to Obama being convinced that once the protest movement dies down, he can go back to his plan for engaging Iran's leaders in dialogue.

Khamenei himself referred indirectly to the missive when he commented in his sermon last Friday:
"On the one hand, they write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand, they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe."

Following the disclosure of the Obama letter, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced: "Given the events of the past many days, those invitations [for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 events in different world capitals] will no longer be extended."

The events going back and forth in a single day, Wednesday, signaled a conspicuous retreat in the process of US-Iranian rapprochement.

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Obama Caves to Iran

Stephen F. Hayes Stephen F. Hayes
Wed Sep 23, 11:30 am ET
Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 015, Issue 02 - 9/28/2009

Perhaps the most discussed passage in Barack Obama's Inaugural Address was his peace offering to dictators and leaders of rogue states.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent," he said, "know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

The man who had campaigned on direct meetings with rogue leaders "without preconditions" appeared to be toughening his approach just a little. The words were conciliatory and intended to signal a shift from the Bush administration, but he added a condition.

The next day Bill Neely of Britain's ITV News reported the response from the leadership in Iran. "Obama's is the hand of Satan in a new sleeve," explained Hossein Shariatmadari, spokesman for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. "The Great Satan now has a black face." Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wasn't impressed either. "If it's like the past and America is bullying us then there will be no new era between us," he said.

Obama has spent the intervening eight months attempting to convince Ahmadinejad and Iran's clerical leadership that he is not a bully. Despite these efforts--and in some ways because of them--the Iranian leadership remains firmly in power, more radical and more dangerous than ever. The Obama administration's short history of relations with Iran is a picture of weakness.

On March 19, in a videotaped peace greeting, Obama offered best wishes on the celebration of Nowruz--the Iranian New Year--to "the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Obama spoke of a "season of new beginnings" and said

My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

In a speech the following day, Khamenei dismissed Obama's overture. "Change in words is not enough, although we have not seen change in words, either." He accused Obama of following the "crooked ways" of George W. Bush.

The Obama administration's response was to step up its efforts. In an early April meeting with European diplomats in London, Undersecretary of State William Burns formally declared that the United States would participate in face-to-face talks with the Iranians, and the P5+1 negotiating group (made up of the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany) conveyed the invitation to Tehran. There was no response. So in early May, Obama wrote a letter directly to Khamenei to express his desire for an amicable resolution of the disagreements over Iran's nuclear program and an end to the decades of hostility between Iran and the United States.

Still no response, though later that month, Iran tested a solid-fuel rocket capable of hitting Israel and the U.S. bases in the Middle East. Although Iranian leaders have long claimed that their nuclear program is peaceful, Ahmadinejad celebrated the successful test at a campaign rally by declaring:

In the nuclear case, we send them a message: Today the Islamic Republic of Iran is running the show. We say to the superpowers, "Who of you dare to threaten the Iranian nation? Raise your hand!" But they all stand there with their hands behind their backs.

And that is precisely what Obama did when the Iranian regime brutally put down protests that had arisen following the rigged presidential elections on June 12. He initially refused to condemn the crackdown to avoid upsetting the Iranian regime. Only after international broadcasts began running the grisly scenes from the streets of Tehran on a loop, and following strong denunciations from several European leaders, did Obama speak out against the escalating violence. Still, the White House never supported the courageous opposition leaders for fear of "meddling" and never challenged the bogus results of the election. (At one point, in response to a question about whether the U.S. government recognizes Ahmadinejad as the legitimate leader of Iran, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "He's the elected leader." After the outcry, Gibbs amended his statement.)

The Iranian regime did not appreciate the forbearance. In his first public speech after the disputed election, Khamenei falsely claimed that Obama had been supporting the Iranian opposition and wondered how he could reconcile the hostility towards Iran with the conciliatory letter of May.

Throughout the summer, the Iranian regime arrested, persecuted, and in some cases killed the vocal critics of the sham elections. The Obama administration said little and continued to insist that the United States wanted to engage Iran.

Iran finally answered the invitation for talks on September 9--five months after it was first proffered. The response--two days after Ahmadinejad declared that his country "will never negotiate" on nuclear weapons--was almost farcical. The ten-page document offered to talk about a wide variety of issues, including "elevating the weight and position of environmental issues in the international relations" and the "enhancement of ethical and human considerations and their full observance in international mechanisms, ties and practices." Conspicuously absent from the response was any mention of the issue that the proposed negotiations were called to address: Iran's nuclear program.

The fist was still clenched, and the Obama administration clasped it anyway. "We'll be looking to see if they are willing to engage seriously on these issues," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, without obvious irony. The meeting is set for October 1.

Last week, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a top press adviser to Ahmadinejad, was asked about news reports that the United States had offered to sell Iran Boeing planes as a gesture of goodwill. He mocked the reported overture:

The offer for an economic deal such as selling Boeing planes with the aim of establishing bilateral ties is derived from an inhuman and materialistic view towards other nations. We consider no value and nobility for such relations.

He added that Obama "is held captive by extremist Republicans and has been very unsuccessful with keeping George Bush's ideas out of the White House."

Obama's kindheartedness is dangerous. It requires his administration to ignore an uncomfortable fact: Iran is the world's foremost state sponsor of terror and its regime is committed to killing Americans in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

For years Iran has been providing lethal aid to terrorists in Iraq. Brigadier General Kevin Bergner extensively detailed this support in a press briefing in July 2007. The Qods Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in particular, provides weapons and training to a variety of terrorist organizations--or "special groups"--operating in Iraq:

Funding and training of the special groups started in 2004. The Qods Force supplies special groups with EFPs, machine guns, rockets, sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and IEDs. Iraqi special groups are trained in one of three training camps inside Iran and are operated by the Qods Force and supported by Lebanese Hezbollah operatives.

Bergner added: "Our intelligence reveals that senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity."

Former CIA director Michael Hayden was equally blunt in a speech at Kansas State in May 2008. "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq."

And earlier this year, Lieutenant General Austin Lloyd, the second-ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, said that U.S. forces had continued to find caches of Iranian-made weapons. He said the discoveries "lead us to believe that Iranian support activity is still ongoing."

The support for terrorists in Iraq is well known, but Iranian mullahs' support for terrorists in Afghanistan has been less publicized.

In February, Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence, provided answers to a long list of questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee. In July, the Federation of American Scientists released a copy of Blair's answers that it had obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The report has garnered surprisingly little attention considering the explosive claims Blair made. On page 12, he addressed the deadly role Iran is playing in Afghanistan--supporting the Afghan government and the insurgents that seek to bring it down. This support for insurgents--Blair calls it "lethal aid"--means that Iranian weapons are being used against American soldiers and their NATO counterparts.

Among the disturbing findings:

Iran has both long-term strategic and short-term tactical interests in Afghanistan and is not content with merely maintaining the status quo. In the short term, Iran is primarily concerned with preserving its national security and undermining Western influence in Afghanistan, which provides Iran's rationale for providing select Afghan insurgents with lethal aid. .  .  . Iran has not altered its activities in Afghanistan over the past year as various Iranian officials describe the Western presence as an occupation and Iran maintains a hostile relationship with the West. Iran's policy calculation in Afghanistan currently emphasizes lethal support to the Taliban, even though revelation of this activity could threaten its future relationship with the Afghan government and its historic allies within Afghanistan.

Iran is covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government. Shipments typically include small arms, mines, rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), rockets, mortars, and plastic explosives. Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against Coalition forces. [Emphasis added]

On August 29, U.S. forces discovered a large cache of Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan. According to the report by Fox News Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin, the cache included a large amount of C-4 explosives, Iranian-made rockets, and EFPs--the "explosively formed penetrators" that Iran has been supplying to terrorists in Iraq. Sources also told Griffin that an Iranian-made rocket had been fired recently at a U.S. base in Herat.

Iran continues to enrich uranium, it continues to support terrorists, and it continues to suppress political opposition. None of that is surprising. What is hard to understand is the fact that Iran continues to dictate the agenda of international talks. Ahmadinejad is right, the Islamic Republic is running the show.

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Did the Obama Administration give Russia the green light to move forward?

Obama Administration is Said to Assure Israel a Nuclear Iran Isn’t Imminent

IHS Jane's Analysis/GeoEye Satellite
A satellite image taken last September shows construction in a mountain near Qum, Iran, and a major military base.

By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: August 19, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.

Administration officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats.

For years, Israeli and American officials have debated whether Iran is on an inexorable drive toward a nuclear bomb and, if so, how long it would take to produce one. A critical question has been the time it would take Tehran to convert existing stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material, a process commonly known as “breakout.”

Israeli intelligence officials had argued that Iran could complete such a race for the bomb in months, while American intelligence agencies have come to believe in the past year that the timeline is longer.

“We think that they have roughly a year dash time,” said Gary Samore, President Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues, referring to how long it would take the Iranians to convert nuclear material into a working weapon. “A year is a very long period of time.”

American officials said the United States believed international inspectors would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for the United States and Israel to consider military strikes.

The American assessments are based on intelligence collected over the past year, as well as reports from international inspectors. It is unclear whether the problems that Iran has had enriching uranium are the result of poor centrifuge design, difficulty obtaining components or accelerated Western efforts to sabotage the nuclear program.

American officials said new intelligence information was being fed into a long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, American and Israeli officials believe breakout is unlikely anytime soon.

For one thing, Iran, which claims it is interested in enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes, would be forced to build nuclear bombs from a limited supply of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons. Second, such a decision would require kicking out international weapons inspectors, eliminating any ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear plans.

Even if Iran were to choose this path, American officials said it would probably take Iran some time to reconfigure its nuclear facilities to produce weapons-grade uranium and ramp up work on designing a nuclear warhead.

Israeli officials have indicated that if they saw a race for the bomb under way, they would probably take military action and encourage the United States to join the effort. A spokesman for Israel’s embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article. In interviews, Israeli officials said their assessments were coming into line with the American view, but they remain suspicious that Iran has a secret enrichment site yet to be discovered.

American officials said, in contrast to a year ago, that Iran’s nuclear program was not currently the central focus of discussions between top leaders in Washington and Jerusalem. During the last visit to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in early July, the Iranian program was relatively low on the agenda, according to one senior administration official.

To block Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States and the European Union recently imposed harsh economic sanctions aimed at choking off Iran’s energy supplies and prohibiting foreign banks from doing business with financial institutions inside the country.

Several officials said they believed the mounting cost of the economic sanctions, especially those affecting Iran’s ability to import gasoline and develop its oil fields, has created fissures among Iran’s political elite and forced a debate about the costs of developing nuclear weapons.

“The argument is over how far to push the program, how close to a weapon they can get without paying an even higher price,” said the senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because American assessments on these debates are classified. “And we’re beginning to see a lot of divisions inside the leadership on that question.”

Nuclear experts agree that the hardest element of producing a weapon is obtaining weapons-grade material. And for Iran that quest, which stretches back more than 20 years, has not been going well, by most accounts.

For most of this year, Iran has added relatively few centrifuges — the machines that spin uranium at supersonic speed, enriching it — to its main plant at Natanz. Only about half of those installed are operating, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So far, Iran has produced about 5,730 pounds, enough, with considerable additional enrichment, to produce roughly two weapons.

The public explanation by American officials is that the centrifuges are inefficient and subject to regular breakdowns. And while Iranian officials have talked about installing more advanced models that would be more efficient and reliable, only a few have been installed.

“Either they don’t have the machines, or they have real questions about their technical competence,” Mr. Samore said.

Some of Iran’s enrichment problems appear to have external origins.

Sanctions have made it more difficult for Iran to obtain precision parts and specialty metals. Moreover, the United States, Israel and Europe have for years engaged in covert attempts to disrupt the enrichment process by sabotaging the centrifuges. Officials concede there are potential vulnerabilities in their assessments. Chief among them is whether Iran has hidden another enrichment center somewhere in the tunnels it has dug throughout the country, including some near Natanz.

Last September, Iran acknowledged to inspectors that it had spent years building such a hidden facility near the city of Qum, buried in a mountain near a major military base. The admission came just days before Western leaders revealed the existence of the facility. But after detailed surveys, and interviews with defectors, officials say they have no evidence a second such facility is under construction.

The current draft of the intelligence report also describes considerable division in Iran about whether the goal of the nuclear program should be to walk right up to the threshold of building an actual bomb — which would mean having highly enriched uranium on hand, along with a workable weapons design — or simply to keep enough low-enriched uranium on hand to preserve Tehran’s options for building a weapon later.

Even as American and Israeli officials agree that the date that Iran is likely to have a nuclear weapon has been pushed into the future, that does not mean that Israel has abandoned the idea of a possible military strike.

American officials said that Israel was particularly concerned that, over time, Iran’s supreme leader could order that nuclear materials be dispersed to secret locations around the country, making it less likely that an Israeli military strike would significantly cripple the program.

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Russia says: Israel need not fear reactor



Photo by: Associated Press

By GIL HOFFMAN
08/20/2010 00:48

Teheran more pragmatic than you think, embassy officials tell ‘Post.’

Talkbacks (23)


Israelis should not be concerned about the uranium fueling of a Russian-built nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr that is set to take place on Saturday, diplomatic officials at the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv told The Jerusalem Post.

The reactor’s fueling will be marked at a ceremony in Bushehr that will be attended by Sergei Kiriyenko, who heads Russia’s state nuclear agency, which has been building the power plant in Iran since the mid-1990s.

RELATED:
'Israel has days to strike Bushehr'
Iran reactor to be fueled Aug. 21

The fuel that Russia will provide the reactor is expected to start producing electricity by November. Spent fuel rods from the facility are to be returned to Russia under monitoring from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to ensure that they are not diverted for military purposes.

“The Bushehr power plant is intended for energy for electricity,” a diplomatic official at the embassy said on Thursday. “From the beginning, the construction of the Bushehr facility was under strict control of IAEA inspectors, which we consider a guarantee that everything in Bushehr will be done according to international law.”

The diplomat said that had Iran’s nuclear program not been under international control, it could have been a threat not only to Israel but to the world. But because it is under international control, it is not a threat to anyone, he said.

Israelis have expressed fears about Iran using the fuel rods for military purposes after expelling international inspectors, but the diplomat said he was not a technical expert and could not comment about that possibility.

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned this week that the IDF had until Saturday to attack the Bushehr facility, because once Russia loaded fuel into the reactor, Israel would no longer be willing to strike for fear of triggering widespread radiation.

Bolton noted that prime minister Menachem Begin made a point of authorizing the June 1981 attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor before it was loaded with nuclear fuel, to minimize the effects of radiation fallout from the reactor’s destruction on the civilian population.

The Russian diplomatic officials said the attack on the facility at Osirak, 18 km. southeast of Baghdad, was a violation of international law. They said there was no reason or basis for that strike, because there was no proof that Iraq was seeking to operate the reactor for military use.

“Israelis must understand the negative implications of Israel attacking Iran for the region and the world,” one of the diplomats said. “According to international law, it is absolutely prohibited to strike a facility that possesses nuclear fuel. There is no international threat to Israel from Bushehr, so there would be no purposes for Israel to bomb it.”

The diplomats said the Iranians were more pragmatic than Israelis gave them credit for and that they were not interested in a clash with the West. They stressed that Russia was fully cooperating with the fourth round of sanctions placed on Iran by the UN Security Council in June, including refraining from delivering S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that are on the list of weapons banned from being transferred to Iran.

“Russia borders Iran,” one of the diplomats said. “We are much closer to Iran than you are, and we do not have an interest in having a threat on our borders, so we don’t believe [Israelis] have to worry.”

Kiriyenko said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Bushehr would demonstrate that Iran was entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy under international supervision.

“It is a most important anchor which keeps Iran within the regime of non-proliferation,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday.

“It is fully protected from any proliferation risks whatsoever.

This idea is shared by all the leaders of Western countries.”

The United States is arguing that the steps toward getting the Bushehr reactor up and running demonstrates that Teheran has no need to enrich uranium.

Many see the fueling as a dangerous advance in Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

But the US said it does not view the reactor as a proliferation risk, “because it will be under IAEA safeguards,” according to a State Department official.

The official also noted that Russia is not only providing the fuel but retrieving the spent fuel, the material that could be used to produce a nuclear bomb.

“Russia’s support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful,” the official said.

“Our views on the Bushehr project should not be confused with the world’s fundamental concerns with Iran’s overall nuclear intentions, particularly its pursuit of uranium enrichment, and Iran’s willful violation of its international obligations,” the official added.

Hilary Leila Krieger in Washington and AP contributed to this report.

[vector7]

OBAMA ALLOWS IRAN TO GO NUCLEAR

Obama Bows to Iranian Nuclear Ambitions

by J. D. Longstreet

In a few days it is quite possible that Iran will load its nuclear plants with nuclear fuel supplied by Russia. If that happens, as we expect, there’s nothing to worry about – really. Nothing much changes – except – the world.

The Muslim embracing President of the United States deliberately allowed Iran to go nuclear. I wish I was wrong about this, but I hold that I am right.

As I see it, Obama doesn’t give a fig if the nation of Israel is wiped off the face of the earth so long as it is the “Islam Bomb” that smashes the land held holy by Jews and Christians alike.

Obama’s affinity for Islam is not endearing him to the American electorate. His poll numbers are plunging and many commentators who originally thought we would have to gear up to defeat Obama in 2012 have now reconsidered. Honestly, I am beginning to consider the possibility that Obama will not even complete his first term. There is a glimmer of hope that his own party, the Democratic Party, will be so decimated by their political massacre in the Mid-Term Election, in just a few weeks, that they will pressure him to resign, move Biden into the Oval Office, and appoint Hillary Clinton as Vice-President, providing here with the perfect platform from which to launch her bid for the Presidency in 2012.

For those of you who wish to disagree with me, I warn you, I won’t argue my point, because I realize how far-fetched this scenario is.

However, this is the Democratic Party we are speaking of -- and that means “expediency” rules.

Look, when most Americans cannot tell you which faith President Obama subscribes to – that is not good. Obama’s proclivity for all things Islamic has certainly fueled the suspicion of many, including a number of conservative commentators, with whom I am acquainted, to conclude that he, Obama, is a “closest Muslim.”

Prior to his becoming President, Obama had been a member of a church where Black Liberation Theology was taught and preached.

Black Liberation Theology has little in common with Christianity.

Since Obama has been in the Oval Office, he has yet to choose a church to attend as presidents traditionally do. Note also that he has refused to take part in any number of Christian events such as the annual Prayer Breakfast, and most recently the Boy Scouts National Jamboree in the Washington, DC. These are events at which the President of the United States, traditionally, puts in an appearance and makes a few remarks. Not Obama.

On the other hand, Obama appeared to go out of his way to demonstrate his affection for Muslims, Muslim countries, and Islamic events and institutions including Mosques planned for hallowed ground in America, namely -- the Ground Zero Mosque in New York City. Remember, too, His very first television interview, after becoming President, was with an Islamic TV station -- Al Jazeera. You will forgive me, if I feel that I have reason enough, ample reason, more than ample reason, to join others who now believe that Obama is, indeed, a closet Muslim.

And now Iran. Iran’s acquisition of the Atomic Bomb could have been stopped – had Obama wanted it stopped. It is apparent -- he did not.

I am convinced Israel would have already taken out Iran’s nuclear facilities had Obama done nothing more that get out of the way.

Unless Israel acts within an extremely short time, Iran will acquire the atomic bomb. Then, much of that hemisphere will come under the atomic gun of Iran and be subject to nuclear blackmail at Iran’s whim.

The really sad thing is all of this could have been avoided had Obama simply supported Israel, the only reliable friend America has in the Middle East.

[American Patriot]

Something just occurred to me. What IF this nuclear plant IS NOT a threat?

What IF it's not the REAL ONE?

What IF several of the locations aren't REAL LOCATIONS?

A hit on supposed locations killing innocent people would be just the thing Iran (Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba... insert several other countries here) would LOVE to have.

[American Patriot]

No. Michael, I strongly disagree with you on this.

The United States has nukes, and we haven't hit Iran.

England has nukes, they haven't hit Iran.

France has nukes, and they haven't hit Iran.

Whether Israel has them or not isn't relevant to whether they hit Iran. Israel DID hit Sadam's attempt at making "The Bomb" and destroyed that reactor and the associated factories.

timing of the Israeli-Palestinian Authority negotiations and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, along with the Iranian missle launch, cannot be a coincidence.

You are right on this account. And forgive me if I am misunderstanding you, but I think this is exactly why there WILL be an attach.

We are "withdrawing" to get some troops in place if need be.
The talks are simply a way to keep them busy with thinking they are winning.
The Iranian missile tests are certainly something unrelated to an attack by Israel, in the normal vein of things, rather it is a warning that they can and will ''hit back".

[American Patriot]

The Devil you say! Ok. Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[American Patriot]

And I always thought you were in the details ....Really, because while I understand your objections, the results are so much more dire with my hypothesis for the Western world's future.

Sometimes, my friend, I AM in the details.

You tell me-why have the Israelis done NOTHING about this, when the conventional wisdom has them so brutally overmatching anything any other regional player could do to them? They do nothing because they can do nothing. It's one of those situations in which I wish i'm wrong, because if the 'emperor has no clothes', then the map of the Middle East will change soon....

Israel is beat up on a daily basis, threatened, cajoled, verbally attacked and abused. Most of the entire world spits at them because, quite simply, they are "Jews".

Now, the United States has a Leftist Leaning, Islam-loving, pro-illegal-immigrant president dead set on pushing us as far left as he and his cronies can shove us... and thus, little to no support for Israel. There is support, it just can not be voiced by our military.

Our CIA is probably all over this issue and yet they can't come out verbally in support either.

The answer to this question is very simple and clear. It's called "World Opinion".

For some reason, Israel and the US have started to BELIEVE in this "World Opinion" crap, something which I can honestly say I care nothing at all for, or about.

We, and them, as well as other countries have a right to our space and our own protection. Listening to "World Opinion" WILL get a country killed.

However, for whatever reason, Israel is doing the same thing we have started doing - listening to everyone ELSE instead of doing what is in our own best interest.

And, I'm not sure about the level of Iranian penetration of the Obama Administration, which I believe could have the stamp 'made in Saudi Arabia' on it. The Saudis would love to see Iran destroyed but not at Islam's expense as a whole, and I believe that this is the underlying opinion at the top in the Obama Administration. Iran is useful to some.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Every word of it.

[American Patriot]

Well, you don't have to convince me. I'm aware of this already to some extent.

I don't think anyone has really put it all together yet though. Our Intelligence community is stuck on stupid it seems.

They did a dry run on the planes last night. A real attack will NOT come on planes.

[vector7]

Clinton: US has no problem with Iran's Bushehr atomic plant



Photo by: Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has no problem with Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor plant but with other sites where weapons work may be underway, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday.

"Our problem is not with their reactor at Bushehr, our problem is with their facilities at places like Natanz and their secret facility at Qom and other places where we believe they are conducting their weapons program," Clinton said.

Iran began loading fuel into the core of its first nuclear power plant at Bushehr earlier on Tuesday, its atomic energy chief said, the last major step to realizing its stated goal of becoming a peaceful user of nuclear energy.

"I heard some of the news coverage that, you know, oh my goodness the Iranians are starting their reactor. That is not the issue," she told reporters at a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger.

"They are entitled to peaceful civilian nuclear power. They are not entitled to nuclear weapons," Clinton added.

Iranian officials said Bushehr showed Iran's nuclear plans were on track despite U.N., U.S. and European Union sanctions aimed at forcing it to curb uranium enrichment, which many countries fear is aimed at developing atomic bombs.

Spindelegger said that there were signs Iran was ready to come to the negotiating table. Clinton confirmed that Washington also hoped Tehran would resume negotiations with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on an offer of incentives in exchange for Iran halting enrichment.

She said she hoped that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton could soon launch "an in-depth negotiation (with Iran) over their nuclear program" on behalf of the six powers.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Patrick Worsnip; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Copyright © 2010 Reuters

[vector7]

Iranian of the Day



Valerie Jarrett


Obama's closest aide is Shirazi



knowledgeplex.org: Jarrett is a member of African-American and Chicago royalty. But her story and her life begin in the Middle East, not the Midwest.

She was born in 1956 in Shiraz, Iran, about 570 miles south of Tehran. Her parents moved to Shiraz, known for its poets, wine and flowers, as part of a program that sent American doctors and agricultural experts to developing countries to help jump-start their health and farming efforts. Her father was on the staff of the brand new Nemazee Hospital, where Jarrett was born. "Every memory from Iran is a very happy memory," Jarrett told me in an e-mail>>>





Glenn Beck Names Valerie Jarrett As Barack Hussein Obama's 'KGB Handler'

Valerie Jarrett, a Senior Advisor to Barack Hussein Obama, whose father-in-law was a famous Communist (who worked with Obama's Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis), has herself proven to be a committed Communist. So it shouldn't be surprising that Glenn Beck named her Obama's KGB handler.

And yes, Glenn was kidding, but Jarrett's hard line Communist background is a very serious matter that is part of the reason that Obama has been so destructive since he moved into the White House. Here's some more information about Valerie Jarrett's Communist father-in-law:

After graduating from Knoxville College, Vernon Jarrett started at The Chicago Defender in 1946, where he wrote columns extolling Communist poet Langston Hughes and lifelong Stalinists W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson. (Obama would write in Dreams of My Father that “I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm [X], DuBois and Mandela.”) A contemporary writer at Kansas City Star asserts by 1948 Jarrett “had been forced out [of journalism] by the Cold War, the Red scare and racism.” He freelanced at Kansas City’s The Call from 1954-58, then returned to Chicago to become the first nationally syndicated black columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and still later wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Here's some more interesting information about Vernon Jarrett, Valerie Jarrett, and BHO, from the same article:

Vernon Jarrett later wrote of another up-and-coming political figure in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Good news! Good news! Project Vote, a collectivity of 10 church-based community organizations dedicated to black voter registration, is off and running. Project Vote is increasing its rolls at a 7,000-per-week clip. Just last Saturday it registered 2,000 during the Chicago Defender’s annual Bud Billiken Parade. But now, the not-so-good news: If Project Vote is to reach its goal of registering 150,000 out of an estimated 400,000 unregistered blacks statewide, “it must average 10,000 rather than 7,000 every week,” says Barack Obama, the program’s executive director…”There’s a lot of talk about `black power’ among the young but so little action.”

http://www.meetup.com/Informing-for-cons...d=15852302

VALERIE JARRETT

Close friend and adviser of President Barack Obama Valerie Jarrett was born in November 1956 to American parents in Shiraz, Iran, where her father -- a renowned physician -- ran a children’s hospital. When Valerie was five, her family relocated to London for one year before settling in Chicago’s elite Hyde Park neighborhood in 1963. Valerie Jarrett's mother, Barbara Taylor Bowman, co-founded the Erickson Institute in Chicago and still serves on its Board of Trustees. Tom Ayers, the father of Bill Ayers, was a one-time fellow trustee of the Institute. According to WorldNet Daily’s Brad O’Leary, the Erickson board also included Bill Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn. For his part, Bill Ayers called Bowman “a neighbor and friend” in his 1997 book A Kind and Just Parent, noting that his neighbors also included Louis Farrakhan and “writer Barack Obama.” Jarrett earned a B.A. in psychology from Stanford University in 1978, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981. In 1983 she married Dr. William Robert Jarrett, son of the Chicago Sun-Times reporter Vernon Jarrett. Vernon Jarrett was a pioneering black journalist who wrote columns for The Chicago Defender extolling Communist poet Langston Hughes and lifelong Stalinists W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson. He freelanced at Kansas City’s The Call from 1954-58, then returned to Chicago to become the first nationally syndicated black columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and still later wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr. Jarrett once sat on a union publicity committee with Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist poet who occasionally counseled the young Barack Obama. When Vernon Jarrett died in 2004, he was saluted in the pages of People’s Weekly Worker, the house organ of the Communist Party USA. Valerie Jarrett entered Chicago politics in 1987 as Deputy Corporation Counsel for Finance and Development in the administration of Harold Washington, the city's first African-American mayor. Jarrett's father-in-law, whom The Washington Post called “a key influence in [Harold] Washington's decision to run for the Chicago mayoralty,” may have facilitated Valerie's rise through Chicago’s political ranks. After Washington’s death in 1987, Valerie Jarrett worked for his successor, Richard M. Daley, whom she served as Deputy Chief of Staff. In 1991 Jarrett and her colleague Susan Sher recruited to City Hall Michelle Robinson (the future Michelle Obama), who at the time was engaged to Barack Obama. From 1992 through 1995, Jarrett served the Daley administration as Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development; from 1995 to 2005, she chaired the Chicago Transit Board. From 1995 to 2008, she was CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate firm headed by Daniel Levin (cousin of Senator Carl Levin and Representative Sander Levin of Michigan). Marilyn Katz, an activist/public-affairs consultant with close ties to City Hall (and a former Students for a Democratic Society radical) introduced Jarrett to Daniel Levin. From 2000 to 2007, Jarrett was a board member of the Chicago Stock Exchange. She currently serves as Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center's Board of Trustees; Vice Chairman of the University of Chicago's Board of Trustees; a Trustee of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry; and a Board of Directors member of USG Corporation, a Chicago-based building-materials company. In 2008 Jarrett co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition Project. After that, she was appointed to a prominent position in the Obama administration: Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. Jarrett became one of President Obama’s (and Mrs. Obama’s) closest and most trusted advisers. An Obama 2008 campaign official told the New York Times,“If you want [Barack Obama] to do something, there are two people [he's] not going to say no to: Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama.” Also in 2008, the aforementioned Susan Sher, who had helped Jarrett recruit Michelle Obama to the Chicago mayor’s office in 1991, emphasized “how incredibly instrumental [Jarrett will] be in virtually everything” in the White House. Barack Obama confirms Jarrett’s tremendous cache with him, personally and politically. In July 2009, Obama told New York Times reporter Robert Draper, “I trust her completely … She is family.” Obama trusts Jarrett “to speak for me, particularly when we’re dealing with delicate issues.” When asked, the President admitted that he runs every decision by her. “We have kind of a mind meld,” Jarrett said of herself and the President. “And chances are, what he wants to do is what I’d want to do.” Chicago tycoon Martin Nesbitt identified the source of Jarrett’s power in the fact that she establishes both Michelle and Barack Obama's “whole notion of authenticity.” According to Nesbitt, Jarrett channels the Obamas’ inner voice, telling them, for instance: “That’s not you. You wouldn’t say that. Somebody else is saying that. Barack Obama wouldn’t say that.” Jarrett told Vogue magazine, “I kind of know what makes them [the Obamas] who they are.” Jarrett is deeply concerned with racial issues. After the Jeremiah Wright tapes threatened to sink Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, it was Jarrett who encouraged Obama to give his “race speech” at Constitution Hall. African-American administration staffers have said that without Jarrett's patronage, “their opinions and the often-legitimate concerns voiced by black leaders like[Al] Sharpton would have been thoroughly disregarded by the white-dominated senior staff.” (Emphasis added.) When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tried to downplay Obama’s assertion (during the 2008 campaign) that Republicans were emphasizing the fact that Obama “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills,” Jarrett instructed white staffers: “You guys, you’re not getting this issue right.” After Jarrett’s intervention, candidate Obama told his white staffers that they were too “gun-shy on race issues.” A campaign source revealed, “moving forward, the candidate made it very clear to us that we were just a bunch of white people who didn’t get it – which, by the way, was true.” After Obama's inauguration in January 2009, Jarrett successfully pushed to loosen restrictions barring government officials from meeting with lobbyists, a rule enshrined in Obama’s executive memo on the Recovery Act, for fear that other “legitimate” concerns – raised by “civil rights organizations whose directors happen to be registered lobbyists – will not be heard.” Without Jarrett’s patronage, the self-identified communist revolutionary Van Jones would not have gotten his appointment as the Obama administration's Green Jobs Czar in March 2009. A White House official told Politico that Jones “did not go through the traditional vetting process”; instead, Jarrett interviewed Jones, a signal that she pushed for his appointment. Jarrett gushed to the Netroots Nation conference: “We were so delighted to be able to recruit him [Van Jones] into the White House. We were watching him…for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that, and we have all that energy in the White House.” In early 2009 Jarrett lobbied President Obama to create the office of Chief Diversity Officer within the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a position filled soon thereafter by Mark Lloyd, an Alinskyite and a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Jarrett also helped recruit Obama's Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, who supports the Fairness Doctrine, has argued that Americans should “celebrate tax day,” and believes that animals should have legal standing to sue humans. Moreover, Jarrett's office approved the September 2009 invitation of Jameel Jaffer to a White House Ramadan dinner. Jaffer runs the ACLU's "national security project." According to The American Spectator: "Jaffer is a cause célèbre to the far left for his career of litigating against the United States in support of terrorists and radical Islamists, and has proudly touted his awards from groups like CAIR. "'We had other names on the list for invitations, but Jarrett's office wanted Jaffer in the room. We were told it was important,' says a White House source. 'It was made clear that his presence was something senior folks here wanted to happen.' "Jaffer has filed lawsuits challenging the FBI's 'national security letter' authority [and] the constitutionality of warrantless wiretaps. [He] has been a leader in pushing for the shut down of Guantánamo Bay, and providing legal rights to terrorists held by the United States overseas in such countries as Iraq and Afghanistan. His efforts enabled the leaking of 'torture photos' out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and some sources inside the Central Intelligence Agency believe he was one of the lawyers who provided legal advice to the Department of Justice to pursue an investigation into enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA." In September 2011, Jarrett said the following about what she viewed as the proper role of government: “We have to give people a livelihood so they can provide for their families.... His [President Obama's] is a moral vision. It's a vision based very deeply in values and taking care of 'the least of these.' And making sure that we are creating a country that's a country for everybody, not just for the very, very wealthy. We are working hard to lift people out of poverty and give them a better life, a footing, and that’s what government is supposed to do.”

[American Patriot]

“We have kind of a mind meld,” Jarrett said of herself and the President. “And chances are, what he wants to do is what I’d want to do.”

And here she is, "melding".....

[American Patriot]

“We have kind of a mind meld,” Jarrett said of herself and the President. “And chances are, what he wants to do is what I’d want to do.”

And here she is, "melding".....

[American Patriot]

[American Patriot]

President Bush, laughing at Obama's screw ups...