Tag Archives: Turkey

EADS/Airbus Government Ownership, Protection, Intervention & Subsidies: The Effect on American Free Enterprise and National Security

President Obama’s new National Security Strategy begins with a pledge of American leadership and the assertion that “the center of [its] efforts is a commitment to renew our economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power.” If this commitment is to be taken at face value, the recently released World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on large Commercial Aircraft (LCA) should be cause for action. The WTO has ruled that for over forty years the European government owners of Airbus and its later formed parent the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) have been have been undermining that wellspring and harming the U.S. aviation industry.  The WTO ruling on June 30, 2010 flatly stated that Airbus’ success wouldn’t have been possible without over $15 billion in illegal launch-aid loans and $5 billion in other illegal support from European governments. The impact on American workers and businesses for the last decade has been lost production, lost profits and lost jobs.

The full extent of EAD/Airbus activities undercutting free enterprise goes well beyond the WTO ruling and the topic of government subsidies it covers. EADS was created, and remains tightly controlled, by the French, German and Spanish governments. These governments, along with that of the U.K. in the original EADS partnership, have a direct financial interest in EADS. As a result, these nations regularly protect EADS-and its subsidiary Airbus- from competition, interfere in the market on its behalf and provide it launch aid and research grants that are prohibited under World Trade Organization agreements. In addition, EADS/Airbus’ owners regularly employ prohibited political pressure and inducements such as airport landing rights in their sales tactics.

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) officials have stated that government contracts are not jobs programs. However, EADS/Airbus is in fact explicitly intended as a European jobs program created at the expense of U.S. companies and their workers; U.S. companies are routinely excluded from European defense contracts. In spite of this completely overt protectionism, DoD has refused to take into account these anti-free enterprise activities that allowed EADS/Airbus to develop its products in the first place. By overlooking, and in fact rewarding, such actions the Pentagon neglects to uphold the President’s pledge to support the economy. The National Security Strategy calls for an integration of our economic and military power, but DoD has shown it is more interested in taking advantage of cost savings provided by foreign government subsidies. Our prosperity “pays for our military, underwrites our diplomacy and development efforts, and serves as a leading source of influence in the world.”7 This paper concludes that allowing EADS/Airbus to compete for U.S. government contracts without conditions comes at great cost to our prosperity and our overall national strength.

The economic and free market concerns raised in this paper are in addition to those based on EADS/Airbus’ history of questionable business practices and behavior that runs counter to U.S. foreign and defense policy. A previous Center for Security Policy paper, EADS: Welcome to Compete for U.S. Defense Contracts – But First It Must Clean Up Its Act (online at securefreedom.org), covers these areas.

The appendix included with this paper is a review of previous EADS tanker selections. An analysis of these selections clearly shows that rather than an endorsement of the EADS/Airbus tanker’s ability to win contracts in a competitive market, there is instead a pattern of EADS/Airbus taking advantage of non-competitive markets.  These non-competitive market bidding conditions ranged from advantages conferred on EADS/Airbus by European governments’ subsidy largesse, or advantages conferred by contract award conditions that were highly preferential from the very beginning of the bidding process. The Government Accountability Office ruling on the 2008 U.S. Air Force KC-X tanker competition is also highlighted as part of this review.

FORWARD: DEFENDING FREEDOM WITH FREE ENTERPRISE

Prior to 1941 the U.S. military relied on its government-owned arsenals and shipyards for much of its procurement needs. Since then, the Department of Defense has transitioned to a predominant reliance on private commercial arms-makers for its needs during both war and peace.1 This Post WWII belief in private enterprise was so strong that, during the height of this transformation in 1960, the Air Force procurement Chief testified, “All things being equal, the man without the Government facility will get the award.”2 The privatization of U.S. military procurement since World War II was not simply an exercise in the principles of free enterprise; it was a recognition that private companies are, by nature, better suited to adjust to customers’ needs and, through fair competition, to provide a better product.

The possibility that government-owned companies might provide a lower cost to the government was specifically rejected as a justification for their continued support. Continuation of these government owned “businesses” was viewed as an “injury to the vitality of the whole private enterprise system.”3 As a 1956 Budget Bureau memorandum to President Eisenhower stated, “Above all, the decision whether to continue or discontinue a Government activity solely on an apparent cost basis runs counter to our concept that the Government has ordinarily no right to compete in a private enterprise economy.”4

That belief in free enterprise, free market competitors and fair competition is under assault today. The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS)—an enterprise owned, controlled,and protected by foreign governments—has been welcomed to the U.S. defense market with open arms by the Pentagon and may be selected for U.S. Government contracts as a result of European government subsidies and activities that enable it to underbid truly private companies.

To allow EADS to compete for U.S. Government contracts, without additional conditions, requires that U.S. officials overlook past years of documented corrupt practices, as well as current anti-free market activities that have allowed EADS and its subsidiaries to develop their products in the first place. If American policy makers allow this to happen, they do so in direct contradiction of past and current national security strategy. ■

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

President Obama’s new National Security Strategy begins with a pledge of American leadership and the assertion that “the center of [its] efforts is a commitment to renew our economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power.”5 If this commitment is to be taken at face value, the recently released World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on large Commercial Aircraft (LCA) should be cause for action. The WTO has ruled that for over forty years the European government owners of Airbus and its later formed parent the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) have been have been undermining that wellspring and harming the U.S. aviation industry.  The WTO ruling on June 30, 2010 flatly stated that Airbus’ success wouldn’t have been possible without over $15 billion in illegal launch-aid loans and $5 billion in other illegal support from European governments. The impact on American workers and businesses for the last decade has been lost production, lost profits and lost jobs.6

The full extent of EAD/Airbus activities undercutting free enterprise goes well beyond the WTO ruling and the topic of government subsidies it covers. EADS was created, and remains tightly controlled, by the French, German and Spanish governments. These governments, along with that of the U.K. in the original EADS partnership, have a direct financial interest in EADS. As a result, these nations regularly protect EADS— and its subsidiary Airbus— from competition, interfere in the market on its behalf and provide it launch aid and research grants that are prohibited under World Trade organization agreements. In addition, EADS/Airbus’ owners regularly employ prohibited political pressure and inducements such as airport landing rights in their sales tactics.

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The Wars of 2011

On Sunday thousands of Israel haters gathered in Istanbul to welcome the Turkish-Hamas terror ship Mavi Marmara to the harbor. Festooned with Palestinian flags, the crowd chanted "Death to Israel," "Down with Israel" and "Allah akbar" with Hizbullah-like enthusiasm.

The Turkish protesters promised to stand on the side of Hamas when it next goes to war with Israel. They may not have to wait long to keep their promise. Over the past two weeks Hamas has steeply escalated its missile war, launching over 30 missiles at Israel. Last week, a missile that narrowly missed a nursery school wounded a young girl.

Since Operation Cast Lead two years ago, Iran has helped Hamas massively increase its missile and other military capabilities. Today the terror group that rules Gaza has missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv. It has advanced antitank missiles. As Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said Saturday, "We are now stronger than before and during the war, and our silence over the past two years was only for evaluating the situation."

That evaluation has not tempered Hamas’s aim of annihilating the Jews of Israel. As Obeida’s colleague Ahmed Jaabari said Saturday, Israel’s Jews have two choices, "death or departing Palestinian lands."

IDF commanders are taking Hamas’s new brinksmanship seriously. In recent days several have said that Israel’s deterrence has eroded. Another Cast Lead is just a matter of time, they warn.

In the meantime, Fatah – Hamas’s sometime rival and sometime brother – is preparing its next round of political warfare with its many friends around the world. Despite some recent tactical repositioning, its goal is clearly to proceed with its plan to declare statehood with maximum international support within the next nine to 12 months.

To this end, Fatah and its allies are operating on multiple fronts. On November 24 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution to hold a Durban III conference on September 21. The first conference, held in Durban, South Africa in September 2001, is mainly remembered as a diplomatic pogrom against Israel and Jews which complemented the shooting war in Israel.

As Jews were being butchered in pizzerias in Jerusalem, Jew-haters gathered to deny that Jews have human rights. They used the UN’s anti-racism banner to assert that it is not racist to kill and incite the murder of Jews. Jews were singled out and condemned as the only nation in the world whose national liberation movement – Zionism – is racist.

BUT EVEN more important than its service in glorifying suicide bombers and their political commissars just three days before the September 11 jihadist assault on the US, the Durban conference was the place where the blueprint for the political war against Israel was authored. At the NGO conference which took place as an adjunct to the governmental conference, self-proclaimed "human rights" groups from around the world agreed that their job was to criminalize the Jewish state to isolate it politically, diplomatically and economically. 

As key organizers put it, the "activists’" job was to conduct a nonviolent jihad to complement the work of the "resistance fighters" massacring children and parents in Israel.

The Durban II conference last year in Geneva was supposed to reinvigorate the political war that was launched in 2001. But it was a bust. The only head of state to address the proceedings was Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He used the occasion to again call for the eradication of the Jewish state.

To prevent another flop, last month the Palestinians and their supporters agreed that the 10th anniversary conference will be held in New York during the opening of UN General Assembly. Their goal is to piggyback on that conference to get heads of state that are in New York already to join in their anti-Israel political war.

And they have every reason for optimism. Although Canada and Israel have announced their plans to boycott the conference, the Obama administration has been noticeably unwilling to distance itself from it.

Given the swank locale of Durban III, the Palestinians and their friends trust they will enjoy a reprise of the virulently anti-Jewish NGO conference of a decade ago. The resolution clearly advocates such an outcome in its call for "civil society, including NGOs to organize and support" the conference "with high visibility."

For Fatah leaders like the Palestinian Authority’s unelected president Mahmoud Abbas and its unelected prime minister Salam Fayyad, the Durban III conference will be the culmination of their current campaign to delegitimize Israel.

Last week the PA announced it will ask the UN Security Council to pass an anti- Semitic resolution defining Jewish building in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as illegal. This move dovetails nicely with Abbas’s statement over the weekend that "Palestine" will be Jew-free. As he put it, "If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it. When a Palestinian state is established, it would have no Israeli presence."

To date neither of these racist bids to deny Jews basic rights to their homes and land just because they are Jews has been opposed by any government or human rights group. And if the Obama administration allows the PA’s anti-Semitic resolution to go forward in the Security Council, the move would be a massive victory for the political war against Israel.

That war has already won some other significant victories of late. The decision by five South American governments to recognize "Palestine" along the 1949 armistice lines, like the decision by a number of European states – following the US – to upgrade the PLO’s diplomatic status are tactical gains.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled this month that the Obama administration is wholly on board Fatah’s political warfare bandwagon. In her speech at the Brookings Institute on December 10, she said the Obama administration supports Fatah’s plan to build facts on the ground that will make it more difficult for Israel to maintain its control over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

After calling Jewish presence in the areas "illegitimate," Clinton pledged the US "will deepen our support of the Palestinians’ state-building efforts."

Among other things, she pledged to continue training and deploying a Palestinian army in Judea and Samaria and pressuring Israel to withdraw the IDF from the areas.

As she put it, "As the Palestinian security forces continue to become more professional and capable, we look to Israel to facilitate their efforts. And we hope to see a significant curtailment of incursions by Israeli troops into Palestinian areas."

These then are the contours of the Palestinians’ war plans for 2011. Hamas will launch an illegal missile war to provoke an IDF campaign in Gaza. Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Turkey, the UN and a vast array of NGOs and leftist governments from Norway to Brazil will support its illegal war.

Fatah will escalate its political war. Its campaign will be supported by the US, the EU, the UN and a vast array of NGOs and leftist governments.

The purpose of these two campaigns – which complement one another and which will likely culminate at the UN in September – is to weaken Israel militarily and politically with the shared purpose of destroying it in the fullness of time.

SO WHAT must Israel do? In the first instance, it must decide that its goal is not merely to weather this storm, but to win both of these wars.

In recent days we have been witness to a mildly entertaining fight between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former prime minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert accused Barak of purposely failing to defeat Hamas during Operation Cast Lead. Barak, Olmert alleged, "did everything he could to defend Hamas and to prevent its downfall in the Gaza Strip."

Barak responded to Olmert’s broadside by accusing the leader who failed to defeat Hizbullah in the 2006 war of "phony Churcillianism."

Ironically, of course, both are right. Both of them led Israel in war with extreme incompetence. Both refused to put together strategies for victory.

Now as the country contemplates a reprise of Cast Lead, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu must ensure that when the IDF acts, it acts decisively and emerges victorious. If this means firing Barak, then he must be fired.

The same is true in the political realm. The Palestinian offensive must be met by a counteroffensive that is informed by a strategy for victory. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman demonstrated the starting point on Sunday when he told Israel’s ambassadors that peace with the Palestinians is impossible. But this is not enough.

Any strategy for victory in political warfare must begin with a clear recognition of reality. Peace is impossible because like Hamas, Fatah is the enemy. Its leaders and rank and file reject our right to exist. They are building a state that will be at war with us. They are avidly working to delegitimize us with the intention of destroying us together with their brothers in Hamas – whom they finance with US and other foreign aid.

A political war against Fatah would involve actively discrediting its members and leaders. Today Fatah is running a campaign libeling IDF soldiers and commanders as war criminals. Israel must file valid war crimes complaints against Fatah terrorists and political leaders in the international and foreign judicial bodies.

Fatah uses the UN to delegitimize us. Our delegations at all UN bodies must daily submit resolutions calling for the condemnation of the Palestinians for their efforts to criminalize us and carry out war crimes against us.

Israel must also rally its allies to its side. We must ask our friends in the US Congress to defund the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA. The PA is a terroristic and criminal syndicate that uses US taxpayer dollars to finance terrorism and pad the pockets of terror masters and apparachiks. UNRWA, which is supposed to be a welfare organization, openly acknowledges that it employs terrorists, allows its schools and camps to be used as jihad indoctrination centers, training camps and missile launching pads. The Congressional Research Service has stated that it is impossible to claim that US funds to UNRWA do not at least indirectly finance terror groups.

At home the government must stop all tax transfers to the PA. It must prohibit the deployment of the US-trained Palestinian army in Judea and Samaria. It must rebuff US pressure to curtail IDF counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria.

The government must outlaw all organizations assisting the Palestinians in their military and political warfare operations. It should support class action lawsuits against the PA by terror victims in local courts. It should withhold diplomatic visas to representatives of countries like Britain where Israeli politicians and military personnel are barred from travelling due to Palestinian lawfare operations.

The government should implement Netanyahu’s open airwaves plan and encourage the launch of a private all news network along the Fox News model.

The Palestinians clearly see the coming year as a decisive year in their war to destroy Israel. The Netanyahu government needs to muster its forces to battle. These are battles we can win. But to do so, we must commit ourselves to victory.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

 

A closer look at Brazil’s foreign policy

Latin America is increasingly turning into a geo-political and international challenge. On the one hand, Venezuela, under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, continues to support the Colombian narco-guerilla group known as the FARC. The FARC protects the activities of drug cartels, and cooperates with terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. On the other hand, a number of Southern Cone countries led by Brazil (and supported by Argentina and Uruguay) did not  go as far as Venezuela but have conducted a foreign policy which is detrimental not only to the United States but to the free world, in general.

Brazil under the government of Jose Inazio Lula Da Silva took advantage of the country’s economic growth (which was the cumulative result of years of economic and developmental polices that began before Da Silva took office) to flex its muscles in the regional and international arena.

President Lula Da Silva surprised the world, when despite having a left-wing background plus having been a co-founder along with Fidel Castro of the anti-American Foro de Sao Paulo, appointed conservative figures to his cabinet. That move was aimed at maintaining the continuity of Brazil’s economic development which was pretty much based on the strong role and cooperation of the business community. The fact that Lula did not go left on domestic and economic polices led many people in the region and in Washington to believe that Brazil’s stand in the international arena would be similar.

Thus, Washington policy makers sought out Brazil as an ally to counteract the growing malicious influence of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. However, they were very disappointed and astonished by the fact that Lula not only failed to play such an expected role but also became an enabler of Chavez’s revolutionary and expansionistic agenda.

In Lula’s own words, "Chavez has been the best Venezuelan president in 100 years". Likewise, Lula pointed out that the anti-democratic practices employed by the Venezuelan government belong to the realm of Venezuelan sovereignty and not to the domain of universal human rights. Just  last week Brazil and its allies in the Southern Cone supported the inclusion of Venezuela in Mercosur, the South American common market, despite Chavez’s anti-democratic practices which contradicts the group’s clause that conditions membership on the existence of fully democratic institutions.

In addition, Lula helped smuggle the deposed pro-Chavez former president of Honduras back into Tegucigalpa and shelter him there in the Brazilian Embassy. Lula has so far refused to recognize the elected government of Honduran president, Porfirio Lobo. The Brazilian president has also warmed up to the long and discredited die hard autocratic Cuban leader, Fidel Castro and called a Cuban political prisoner who died from a hunger strike a "criminal."

Beyond the region, Brazil joined forces with Turkey a number of months ago to cut a deal with Iran that would not only have not prevented Iran from developing a nuclear bomb but also encouraged it to develop more. Likewise, Brazil voted against sanctions on Iran imposed by the UN National Security Council. Thus, we have discovered that Brazil has had and continues to have its own distinctive foreign policy which requires further scrutiny and analysis.

First Brazil seeks to become an independent country with a personality of its own. It has sought to become influential in the region by supporting the principle of integrating Latin American countries into an autonomous group, independent of the United States or any world power. There is, in principle, nothing wrong with this type of policy.  On the surface, there is no reason to think that this policy represents a threat to the United States.   If the U.S can live with a strong European Union and European common market, there is no reason why a similar Latin American and Caribbean body should be a problem. Brazil also aspires to secure a permanent place on the United Nations Security Council along with long-established world powers. In principle, there is nothing wrong with such a desire. Brazil is a strong and large country. It is also democratic and historically tied to the West.

Along with China, India and Russia, Brazil seeks a multi-polar world where the United States is not the only superpower. According to their thinking, world power is best shared among a number of countries. This scenario is not necessarily a bad one if maximum cooperation is achieved between these different political poles.  One might question why the United States, alone, should be involved in every single case of counties that wish to develop nuclear weapons. Why should the U.S. be the only country to care about events in the world while the rest of the world waits for America to deliver a ready-made product? Why should the U.S. be the only country to raise concerns when democracy or human rights are violated while the rest of the nations seek only to satisfy their national interests?  Indeed, there is nothing wrong with multi-lateral cooperation.

However, Brazil’s international behavior under Lula has been guided by a strong and obsolete dose of anti-Americanism brought directly from Lula’s radical left political upbringing. Brazil does not really seek a multi-polar world of cooperation.  Lula’s notion of multi-polarity is based on his opposition to the power and policies of the U.S.  Thus, Brazil has cooperated with Iran‘s agenda of developing nuclear weapons and gave Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, a hero’s welcome when the latter visited Brazil. Brazil also recognized the fraudulent elections that gave a victory to Ahmadinejad in June, 2009 with no regard for the violence with which anti-government demonstrations were repressed.  This insensitivity is reflected in repeated statements made by Lula according to which Iran "has a right" to a nuclear program.

In this context, it is easy to understand why the Brazilian president was the first to unilaterally recognize the creation of a Palestinian state (with pre-1967 borders) while the U.S was making serious efforts to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together. According to Lula, who was successful in getting the Argentinean and the Uruguayan presidents to go along with this recognition, "it is a step to move forward a stagnant peace process". In fact, Lula was not only giving a free pass to the Palestinians in exchange for nothing but also trying to symbolically show its independence from and opposition to the United States and its ally, Israel.

Lula’s foreign policy logic is embedded not just on the fact that Brazil is now a great country and therefore it demands a place in the world. Such policy is also guided by a strong desire to diminish U.S influence; not only in the region but in the world. Lula’s policy is amoral and is deprived of any global responsibility. Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican Foreign Minister, has observed that Brazil is part of a group of countries that oppose "more or less explicitly and more or less actively" notions such as human rights, democracy and non-proliferation. Castaneda pointed out Brazil’s foreign policy under Lula is closer to that of authoritarian China (with which Lula has astronomically increased commercial and political relations) than it is to the West. 

Lula’s logic is of a political not economic nature. Like his fellows on the radical left, he dreams of a world with little American influence and claims a leadership role without offering any ideas that contribute to world peace: such as stability, human rights, opposition to international terrorism and nuclear proliferation ,or,  any moral problems that have traditionally been the West’s preoccupation. Lula’s Brazil represents another version of Third World obsessed and outdated anti-colonialism. Under, a veil of sophistication (made possible due to comparisons with the ruthless and thuggish Hugo Chavez) Lula’s Brazil has become a negative force in the region (attracting Argentina and Uruguay, countries now run by two leaders who share Lula’s triumphalist attitude).  Brazil is largely seen by Western countries as an emerging economic power but not necessarily a reliable political player. Under the new Brazilian president, Dilma Rouseff, no change should be expected except for the worse since Ms. Rouseff is a former guerilla and as such is likely to strengthen the policies of her predecessor.

Meanwhile, the U.S and the Western powers should continue to block Brazil’s attempts at playing greater roles in international affairs (including its demands to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council) and treat that country with the suspicion it has earned.

Why Latin America turned

Israelis can be excused for wondering why Brazil and Argentina unexpectedly announced they recognize an independent Palestinian state with its capital city in Israel’s capital city. Israelis can be forgiven for being taken by surprise by their move and by the prospect that Uruguay, and perhaps Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and El Salvador, will be following in their footsteps because the Israeli media have failed to report on developing trends in Latin America.

And this is not surprising. The media fail to report on almost all the developing trends impacting the world. For instance, when the Turkish government sent Hamas supporters to challenge the IDF’s maritime blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coastline, the media were surprised that Israel’s ally Turkey had suddenly become Hamas’s ally and Israel’s enemy.

Their failure to report on Turkey’s gradual transformation into an Islamic supremacist state caused the media to treat what was a culmination of a trend as a shocking new development.

The same is now happening with Latin America.

Whereas in Turkey, the media failed only to report on the significance of the singular trend of Islamization of Turkish society, the media have consistently ignored the importance for Israel of three trends that made Latin America’s embrace of the Palestinians against Israel eminently predictable.

Those trends are the rise of Hugo Chavez, the regional influence of the Venezuela-Iran alliance, and the cravenness of US foreign policy towards Latin America and the Middle East. When viewed as a whole they explain why Latin American states are lining up to support the Palestinians. More importantly, they tell us something about how Israel should be acting.

OVER THE past decade Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has inherited Fidel Castro’s mantel as the head of the Latin American anti-American club. He has used Venezuela’s oil wealth, drug money and other illicit fortunes to draw neighboring states into his orbit and away from the US. Chavez’s circle of influence now includes Cuba and Nicaragua, Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador as well as Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Peru. Democracies like Colombia and Chile are also taking steps in Chavez’s anti-American direction.

Chavez’s choice of Iran is no fluke although it seemed like one to some when the alliance first arose around 2004. Iran’s footprint in Latin America has grown gradually. Beginning in the 1980s, Iran started using Latin America as a forward base of operations against the US and the West. It deployed Hizbullah and Revolutionary Guards operatives and other intelligence and terror assets along the largely ungoverned tri-border area between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. That staging ground in turn enabled Iran to bomb Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Iran’s presence on the continent allowed it to take advantage of Chavez’s consolidation of power. Since taking office in 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has developed strategic alliances with Venezuela and Nicaragua.

With Chavez’s assistance, Teheran is expanding its web of alliances throughout Latin America at the expense of the US and Israel.

On the face of it, Chavez and Ahmadinejad seem like an odd couple. One is a Marxist and the other is a messianic jihadist. But on closer inspection it makes perfect sense. They share the same obsessions with hating the US and loving power.

Chavez has demonstrated his commitment to maintaining power by crushing his opponents, taking control over the judiciary and media, amending the constitution and repeatedly stealing elections.

Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks sabotage campaign against the US gave us a first person account of the magnitude of Ahmadinejad’s electoral fraud.

In a cable from the US Embassy in Turkmenistan dated 15 June 2009, or three days after Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian presidential elections, the embassy reported a conversation with an Iranian source regarding the true election results. The Iranian source referred to the poll as a "coup d’etat."

The regime declared Ahmadinejad the winner with 63% of the vote. According to the Iranian source, he received less than a fifth of that amount. As the cable put it, "based on calculations from [opponent Mir Hossain] Mousavi’s campaign observers who were present at polling stations around the country and who witnessed the vote counts, Mousavi received approximately 26 million (or 61%) of the 42 million votes cast in Friday’s election, followed by Mehdi Karroubi (10-12 million)…. Ahmadinejad received ‘a maximum of 4-5 million votes,’ with the remainder going to Mohsen Rezai."

There is no fence-sitting along the Iran-Israel divide. Latin American countries that embrace Iran always do so to the detriment of their ties with Israel. Bolivia and Venezuela cut their diplomatic ties with Israel in January 2009 after siding with Hamas in Operation Cast Lead. In comments reported on the Hudson New York website, Ricardo Udler, the president of the small Bolivian Jewish community, said there is a direct correlation between Bolivia’s growing ties with Iran and its animosity towards Israel. In his words, "Each time an Iranian official arrives in Bolivia there are negative comments against the State of Israel and soon after, the Bolivian authorities issue a communiqué against the Jewish state."

Udler also warned that, "there is information from international agencies that indicate that uranium from Bolivia and Venezuela is being shipped to Iran."

That was in October. With Iran it appears that if you’re in for an inch you’re in for a mile. This month we learned that Venezuela and Iran are jointly deploying intermediate range ballistic missiles in Venezuela that will be capable of targeting US cities.

THERE IS no doubt that the Venezuelan-Iranian alliance and its growing force in Latin America go a long way towards explaining South America’s sudden urge to recognize "Palestine." But there is more to the story.

The final trend that the media in Israel have failed to notice is the impact that US foreign policy in South America and the Middle East alike has had on the positions of nations like Brazil and Argentina towards Israel. During the Bush administration, US Latin America policy was an incoherent bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, the US failed to assist Chavez’s opponents overthrow him when they had a chance in 2004. The US similarly failed to support Nicaraguan democrats in their electoral fight against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in the 2007 elections. On the other hand, the US did foster strong alliances with Colombia and Chile.

Under the Obama administration, US Latin American policy has become more straightforward. The US has turned its back on its allies and is willing to humiliate itself in pursuit of its adversaries.

In April 2009 US President Barack Obama sat through a 50-minute anti-American rant by Ortega at the Summit of the Americas. He then sought out Chavez for a photo-op. In his own address Obama distanced himself from US history, saying, "We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations."

Unfortunately, Obama’s attempted appeasement hasn’t done any good. Nicaragua invaded neighboring Costa Rica last month along the San Juan River. Ortega’s forces are dredging the river as part of an Iranian-sponsored project to build a canal along the Isthmus of Nicaragua that will rival the Panama Canal.

Even Obama’s ambassador in Managua admits that Ortega remains deeply hostile to the US. In a cable from February illicitly published by WikiLeaks, Ambassador Robert Callahan argued that Ortega’s charm offensive towards the US was "unlikely to portend a new, friendly Ortega with whom we can work in the long-term."

It is not simply the US’s refusal to defend itself against the likes of Chavez that provokes the likes of Brazil’s President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to embrace Chavez and Iran.

They are also responding the US’s signals towards Iran and Israel.

Obama’s policy of engaging and sanctioning Iran has no chance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And just like the Arabs and the Europeans, the South Americans know it. There is no doubt that at least part of Lula’s reason for signing onto a nuclear deal with Ahmadinejad and Turkey’s Reccip Erdogan last spring was his certainty that the US has no intention of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.

From Lula’s perspective, there is no reason to participate in the US charade of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He might as well be on the winning side. And since Obama doesn’t mind Iran winning, Iran will win.

THE SAME rules apply for Israel. Like the Europeans, the Arabs, the Asians and everyone else, the Latin Americans have clearly noted that Obama’s only consistent foreign policy goal is his aim of forcing Israel to accept a hostile Palestinian state and surrender all the land it took control over in 1967 to the likes of PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. They see that Obama has refused to rule out the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state even if that state is declared without a peace treaty with Israel. That is, Obama is unwilling to commit himself to not recognizing a Palestinian state that will be in a de facto state of war with Israel.

The impression that Obama is completely committed to the Palestinian cause was reinforced this week rather than weakened with the cancellation of the Netanyahu-Clinton deal regarding the banning of Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The deal was to see Israel banning Jewish construction for an additional 90 days, in exchange for a US pledge not to ask for any further bans; to support Israel at the UN Security Council for a limited time against a Palestinian push to declare independence without peace; and to sell Israel an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets sometime in the future.

It came apart because Obama was unwilling to put Clinton’s commitments – meager as they were – in writing. That is, the deal fell through because Obama wouldn’t make even a minimal pledge to maintain the US’s alliance with Israel.

This policy signals to the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Uruguay that they might as well go with Chavez and Iran and turn their backs on Israel. No one will thank them if they lag behind the US in their pro-Iran, anti-Israel policies. And by moving ahead of the US, they get the credit due to those who stick their fingers in Washington’s eye.

When we understand the trends that led to Latin America’s hostile act against Israel, we realize two things. First, while Israel might have come up with a way to delay the action, it probably couldn’t have prevented it. And second, given the US policy trajectory, it is again obvious that the only one Israel can rely on to defend its interests – against Iran and the Palestinians alike – is Israel.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

 

The WikiLeaks challenge

Make no mistake about it, the ongoing WikiLeaks operation against the US is an act of war. It is not merely a criminal offense to publish hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents with malice aforethought. It is an act of sabotage.

Like acts of kinetic warfare on military battlefields, WikiLeaks’ information warfare against the US aims to weaken the US. By exposing US government secrets, it seeks to embarrass and discredit America in a manner that makes it well neigh impossible for the US to carry out either routine diplomacy or build battlefield coalitions to defeat its enemies.

So far WikiLeaks has published more than 800,000 classified US documents. It has exposed classified information about US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and it has divulged 250,000 diplomatic cables.

One of the most distressing aspects of the WikiLeaks operation is the impotent US response to it. This operation has been going on since April. And the US had foreknowledge of the attack in the weeks and months before it began. And yet, the US has taken no effective steps to defend itself. Pathetically, the most it has been able to muster to date is the issuance of an international arrest warrant against WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange on rape charges in Sweden.

The US has not taken down the website. Aside from the US Army soldier Pfc Bradley Manning who leaked most of the documents to the website, no one has been arrested. And the US appears impotent to prevent the website from carrying through on its latest threat to publish new documents aimed at weakening the US economy next month.

Neither US President Barack Obama nor any of his top advisers has had anything relevant or useful to say about this onslaught. Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured journalists that the damage caused by publishing US operations on the battlefield, classified reports of meetings with and assessments of foreign heads of state and other highly sensitive information will have no long lasting impact on US power or status.

Ignoring the fact that the operation is aimed specifically against America, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was "an attack on the international community."

While the expressed aim of the attackers is to weaken the US, Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs called them "criminals, first and foremost." And US Attorney-General Eric Holder said he’s checking the law books to figure out how to prosecute WikiLeaks personnel.

The leaked documents themselves expose a profound irony. To wit: The US is unwilling to lift a finger to defend itself against an act of information warfare which exposed to the world that the US is unwilling to lift a finger to protect itself and its allies from the most profound military threats endangering international security today.

In spite of the unanimity of the US’s closest Arab allies that Iran’s nuclear installations must be destroyed militarily – a unanimity confirmed by the documents revealed by WikiLeaks – the US has refused to take action. Instead it clings to a dual strategy of sanctions and engagement that everyone recognizes has failed repeatedly and has no chance of future success.

In spite of proof that North Korea is transferring advanced ballistic missiles to Iran through China, again confirmed by the illegally released documents, the US continues to push a policy of engagement based on a belief that there is value to China’s vote for sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. It continues to push a policy predicated on its unfounded faith that China is interested in restraining North Korea.

In spite of the fact that US leaders including Gates recognize that Turkey is not a credible ally and that its leaders are radical Islamists, as documented in the classified documents, the US has agreed to sell Turkey a hundred F-35s. The US continues to support Turkish membership in the EU and of course embraces Turkey as a major NATO ally.

The publication of the US’s true feelings about Turkey has not made a dent in its leaders’ unwillingness to contend with reality. On the heels of the WikiLeaks exposure of thousands of documents from the US Embassy in Ankara discussing Turkish animosity towards America, Clinton flew to Turkey for the first leg of what The New York Times referred to as an "international contrition tour."

There she sucked up to the likes of Turkish Foreign Minister and Islamist ideologue Ahmet Davutoglu, who was kind enough to agree with Clinton’s assertion that the publication of the State Department cables was "the 9/11 of diplomacy."

THE MOST important question that arises from the entire WikiLeaks disaster is why the US refuses to defend itself and its interests. What is wrong with Washington? Why is it allowing WikiLeaks to destroy its international reputation, credibility and ability to conduct international relations and military operations? And why has it refused to contend with the dangers it faces from the likes of Iran and North Korea, Turkey, Venezuela and the rest of the members of the axis of evil that even State Department officers recognize are colluding to undermine and destroy US superpower status? 

The answer appears to be twofold. First, there is an issue of cowardice.

American leaders are afraid to fight their enemies. They don’t want a confrontation with Iran or North Korea, or Venezuela or Turkey for that matter, because they don’t want to deal with difficult situations with no easy answers or silver bullets to make problems disappear.

WikiLeaks showed that there is no Israel lobby plotting to bring the US into a war to serve Jewish interests. There is something approaching an international consensus that Iran is the head of the snake that must be cut off, as the Saudi potentate described it.

Yet that consensus opinion has fallen on deaf American ears for the past seven years. This despite the fact that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration certainly recognized that if the US were to attack Iran’s nuclear installations or help Israel do so, despite all the theater of public handwringing and finger- wagging at Israel, the Arabs and the Europeans and Asians would celebrate the operation.

THE SECOND explanation for this behavior is ideological. The Obama administration will not take concerted action against WikiLeaks because doing so will compromise its adherence to leftist politically correct nostrums.

Those views assert that there is something fundamentally wrong with the assertion of US power and therefore the US has no right to defend itself. Moreover, nothing the Arabs or any other non-Western governments do is a function of their will. Rather it is a function of their response to US or Israeli aggression.

So it is that in the wake of the WikiLeaks disclosures that put paid the fiction that Israel is behind the fuss over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Juan Cole, the anti-Israel ideologue and conspiracy theorist favored by the Obama administration, published an article in The Guardian proclaiming that Israel is to blame for Saudis’ fear of Iran. If the Arab masses weren’t so worked up over Israeli aggression in Gaza, he claimed, the Saudi leadership wouldn’t have been upset about Iran.

It is this sort of non sequitur that allows the Obama administration to continue pretending that the world is not a hard place and that there are no problems that cannot be solved by pressuring Israel.

So too, Fred Kaplan at Slate online magazine claimed that the leaks showed that the Obama administration’s foreign policy is successful because it succeeded in getting China on board with UN sanctions against Iran. But of course, what the documents show is that China is breaching those sanctions, rendering the entire exercise at the UN worthless.

And the Left’s voice of "reason," the New York Times editorial page, lauded the Obama administration for its courage in rejecting the pleas of Arab states and Israel and fiddling while Iranian centrifuges spin. According to the Times, true courage consists of defying reality, strategic necessity and allies to defend the dogmas of political correctness.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate how fecklessly the US is behaving is by comparing its actions to those of Israel, which suffered a similar, if far smaller case of data theft earlier this year.

In April, the public learned that towards the end of her IDF service, a secretary in the office of the commander of Central Command named Anat Kamm copied some 2,000 highly secret documents onto her zip drive. After leaving the army she was hired as a reporter by the far-left Walla news portal, which was then partially owned by the far-left Haaretz newspaper. Kamm gave the documents she stole to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau, who began publishing them in November 2008.

Haaretz used its considerable power to discredit the investigation of Kamm and Blau by falsely telling foreign reporters that the story was an issue of press freedom and that Kamm was being persecuted as a journalist rather than investigated for treason she committed while serving in the military.

In the face of the predictable international outcry, Israel stuck to its guns. Kamm is on trial for stealing state secrets with the intent of harming state security and Blau, who fled to London, returned to Israel with the stolen documents.

While there is much to criticize in Israel’s handling of the case, there is no doubt that despite its international weakness, Israeli authorities did not shirk their duty to defend state secrets.

THE FINAL irony of the WikiLeaks scandal is the cowardice of WikiLeaks that stands at the foundation of the story. Founded in 2006, Wikileaks was supposed to serve the cause of freedom. It claimed that it would defend dissidents in China, the former Soviet Union and other places where human rights remains an empty term. But then China made life difficult for WikiLeaks and so four years later, Assange and his colleagues declared war on the US, rightly assuming that unlike China, the US would take their attacks lying down. Why take risks to defend dissidents in a police state when it’s so much easier and so much more rewarding to attempt to destroy free societies? 

Assange and company are hardly the first to take this course. Human Rights Watch, created to fight for those crushed under the Soviet jackboot, now spends its millions of George Soros dollars to help terrorists in their war against the US and Israel. Amnesty International forgot long ago that it was founded to help prisoners of police states and instead devotes itself to attacking the imaginary evils of the Jewish state and Western democracies.

And that brings us to the real question raised by the WikiLeaks assault on America. Can democracies today protect themselves? In the era of leftist political correctness with its founding principle that Western power is evil and that the freedom to harm democracies is inviolate, can democracies defend their security and national interests? 

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

 

Out of South Africa

Last month I was invited to South Africa by the South African Zionist Federation. The visit, my first to the country, opened my eyes to the daunting challenges facing the country and its dwindling Jewish community of 70,000 16 years after the end of the apartheid regime.

South Africa is a country of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is exhilarating to see the blacks now in charge after their long struggle. On the other, the ruling African National Congress’ record of governance is at best a mixed bag.

On the positive side, in 2008 it peacefully and democratically replaced the failed former president Thabo Mbeki with his opponent, President Jacob Zuma.

But the negatives are glaring. Corruption is endemic. Rather than punishing officials for criminal behavior, the ANC is going after the messenger. South Africa’s ruling party intends to pass a draconian media law to bar journalists from reporting on governmental corruption. The ANC has dismissed opposition to the bill as racist, accusing opponents of attempting to advance a "white agenda."

Auguring particularly ill for the future is the fact that ANC’s Youth League is one of the most illiberal bodies in the party. Aside from being among the most enthusiastic supporters of the move to end press freedom, the Youth League is also one of the primary forces driving foreign investors away from the country. Its leader Julius Malema’s signature policy is his demand to nationalize the country’s mines.

This has been a great year for South Africa. Throngs of tourists visited during the World Cup soccer championship, and the international press coverage was fantastic. Unfortunately, the relative safety enjoyed by World Cup tourists was a striking deviation from the norm. The ANC has failed to provide personal security for South Africans. According to the UN, South Africa has the second highest per capita murder rate in the world. South African sources place the annual murder rate at 23,000.

South Africa is the rape capital of the world. In a 1998-2000 UN survey, one in three women said they had been raped in the past year. One in four men admitted that he was a rapist. Carjackings are a commonplace.

Even more devastating is South Africa’s AIDS epidemic. Nearly 20 percent of South Africans are infected with the HIV virus. One of the impetuses for removing Mbeki from office was that he denied that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, claiming instead that AIDS is caused by poverty and the legacy of white oppression. Owing to this view, Mbeki refused to allow South Africa to participate in international programs to distribute anti-retroviral drugs which stem the development of AIDS.

Two years ago a team of Harvard scientists published a paper alleging that Mbeki’s actions had caused the preventable deaths of some 300,000 South Africans. They also alleged that his refusal to provide HIV-positive pregnant women with access to anti-retroviral drugs caused 35,000 babies to be born with HIV.

Neighboring Zimbabwe also suffers from South African neglect. With its international cachet and relative military might, the ANC could put an end to Robert Mugabe’s reign of terror in Zimbabwe if it desired. But Mugabe aided ANC fighters during their struggle against apartheid, and the ANC refuses to act against him.

According to the UN and other international organizations, more than two million Zimbabwean refugees have streamed across the border since 2000. But since the ANC effectively sides with Mugabe, these refugees are denied basic services like housing and health care.

Unprotected by the government, refugees are victimized by xenophobic violence. Countrywide xenophobic riots in 2008 in which some 62 people were reported killed and thousands injured have been followed by sporadic, often murderous violence against foreign refugees. Rather than protect the refugees, the ANC just announced a new visa policy that will likely see the deportation of millions of them.

ON A per capita basis, South Africa’s Jewish community was more active in the struggle against apartheid than any other nonblack group. This fact has not won the community any gratitude or friendship from the government, however. In part due to the ANC’s close ties to the PLO, the post-apartheid government has favored the country’s large Muslim community and distanced itself from the Jews. Muslims hold most of the senior positions in the civil service.

The vast majority of South African Jewry resides in crime-ridden Johannesburg. The physical insecurity of the community is palpable at all times. The Jews live behind walls and electric fences. It seems that everyone has either been the victim of a violent crime or knows someone who has. Even inside of Jewish neighborhoods, it is too dangerous for children to play in the streets.

Partly because the state schools are horrible, partly because of community cohesion and religious commitment, 80 percent of Jewish children in South Africa study in Jewish schools. With the children in Jewish schools, community involvement is higher than in most Diaspora communities.

But the schools are at risk. Some years ago Jewish school buses were stoned. The community responded by unmarking the buses. Everyone entering or leaving Jewish campuses must pass through security posts.

Community security is handled by the Community Security Organization. The day I arrived in Johannesburg, the community’s radio station received a bomb threat and the group’s representatives arrived on the scene within moments. Guards from the organization are present at all community events.

The future of the CSO is an open question. The government just passed a strict gun control law that will make it difficult for its guards to bear arms. Without guns, it is hard to see how the CSO will be able to provide protection.

Crime levels are much lower in Cape Town, and it is safe to wander around the city. But Cape Town’s Jews face other challenges, not the least of which is that whereas there are some 15,000 Jews in Cape Town, the city is home to 750,000 Muslims.

Ignoring the Jewish community’s deep involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, the ANC berates it for Israel’s economic and military ties to the apartheid regime. The fact that the Arabs – and particularly Saudi Arabia – had much stronger and longer economic and military ties to the apartheid regime than Israel is never mentioned.

The ANC is one of the most anti-Israel governments in the world today. After the Mavi Marmara incident, aside from Turkey, South Africa was the only country to recall its ambassador from Israel. 

Whereas the media and the government are in a virtual state of war over goveremental corruption, they see eye to on Israel. As Beverley Goldman from the South African Zionist Federation explained at a Zionist conference in Cape Town two weeks ago, the anti-Israel bias of the South African media is overwhelming.

The boycott, divest and sanction Israel campaign was arguably born in South Africa at the UN’s anti- Semitic hate fest in Durban in August 2001. It enjoys the support of South African notables like retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who just called for the Cape Town Opera to cancel its visit to Israel.

Last month the University of Johannesburg narrowly defeated a motion to cancel its water desalination research agreement with Ben-Gurion University. However, the motion will likely be passed in the future, because while rejecting the motion, the university demanded that BGU end ties with the IDF.

A movement to ban Israeli products from the shelves of South African stores is gaining steam.

A Jewish-owned grocery store chain was recently picketed.

Last month a firm that produces logo briefcases refused a contract with the South African Zionist Federation to produce briefcases for the Federation’s upcoming conference.

THE JEWISH community’s responses to the challenges it faces are varied. Emigration rates are high and rising. Australia is the preferred destination, but aliya rates are also relatively high and rising. The Jewish Agency’s representatives are energetic and committed. It would be helpful if Bnei Akiva sent more representatives to South Africa in light of the religiousness of many members of the community.

Most Jews leaving South Africa are young. Israel must adopt measures to help older Jews come here.

On the other side of the spectrum, the number of Jews who have joined the anti-Israel chorus is growing. Jews were among the founders of an anti-Zionist, pro-boycott group called Open Shuhada Street.

The option of turning on Israel and their community is an attractive one for many young Jews. Since the end of apartheid, with the rise in influence of the Muslim community and the ANC’s hostility toward Israel, the only way Jews can achieve sure notoriety is by joining forces with Israel’s enemies.

For its part, the organized Jewish leadership struggles to remain relevant. It excels at its primary task of caring for the welfare needs of an aging community. But defending Israel and Zionism in the face of a vocal Jewish anti-Israel minority is becoming increasingly difficult. Cultivating good ties with a government hostile to Israel and committed to economic policies that hurt most members of the community is also growing more challenging.

Sadly, it seems that despite the best efforts of many committed Jewish leaders, the organized community is breaking under the burden of these Sisyphean tasks. For instance, rather than attacking anti-Semites like Tutu, who among other things claims that Israel uses the Holocaust to justify its oppression of Arabs, South African Jews have honored him by making him a patron of their Holocaust foundation. Richard Goldstone is also a patron.

In the hopes of bringing blacks to the Holocaust museum in Cape Town, the museum’s exhibition begins with a remembrance of apartheid. By doing so, the museum equates the discrimination against blacks with the genocide of Jewry.

The community’s fear of Jewish turncoats has prevented it from discrediting them. For example, at last month’s Zionist Federation conference in Cape Town, the organizers invited a self-proclaimed non-Zionist attorney named Hayley Galgut to participate in a panel titled "South African Zionism Today." Galgut used her time to explain why she is not a Zionist, and why the audience should abandon Zionism.

Organizers defended their decision to invite her by noting Galgut’s plan to move to Israel. But the fact that she wishes to move to the front line of the war against Israel does not make hers a legitimate voice. Galgut’s presence on the panel was evidence of the community leadership’s unwillingness to take measures to maintain a coherent Zionist message.

THE PHYSICAL beauty of South Africa is arresting, particularly along the coast. And the material standard of living that South African Jews enjoy is impressive. It is easy to see why many Jews find it hard to leave.

But it is also clear that Jewish life in South Africa will only get worse. The ANC is unlikely to improve its general governance or its policies toward Israel. 

It can only be hoped that the Jews of South Africa will make their way to Israel before the ANC fails them even more spectacularly than it already has.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

Communist dictatorship presents trouble in Asia and abroad

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates met with China’s Minister of Defense Gen. Liang Guanglie last week at the ASEAN defense ministers conference. Although the specifics of their agenda were unknown, China’s aggression and arrogance this year means there should have been no lack of talking points. Certainly, China’s unprecedented military buildup along with its illegal claims to the South China Sea should have been addressed head-on. However, it appears the main focus was on getting the Chinese to resume military-to-military relations and extending an invitation for Mr. Gates to visit Beijing in 2011.

It should be clear by now that China’s Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army refuse to value building military-to-military relationships as does the United States. The more we stress this goal, the more China is simply going to use it as a means to force U.S. concessions. For example, two presidents have failed to approve the sale of new F-16 aircraft and new conventional submarines to Taiwan in hopes that China will moderate its aggressive actions. China deftly employs the same psychology to prevent the United States from defending its interests in the useless six-party talks on North Korea while China’s increasing support for North Korea allows Pyongyang’s nuclear threat to grow.

On the other hand, China has no problem with advancing its priorities, which start with building the most powerful military in Asia as a direct challenge to the United States. In so doing, its intent is to place Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) nations in positions of strategic subordination as well as destroying the democratic system in Taiwan. Furthermore, from the 2020s onward, China intends to challenge the United States for global military supremacy. In short, China’s goal is to make the world "safe" for the continued survival of the Chinese communist dictatorship. China’s successes, if unchecked, will come only with diminished influence and freedoms for the United States as well as for our friends and allies.

So far in 2010, China in April conducted provocative naval exercises in the East China Sea followed by precipitating low-level clashes with Japanese fishing trawlers in August. In September, a Chinese trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard patrol boats in the Senkakus, stoking Chinese bluster when the captain justly was arrested. Further, China has made illegal claims to most of the South China Sea and then declared it to be a "core interest," meaning it is on par with Tibet and Taiwan in importance. China’s continued military buildup opposite Taiwan, despite progress on economic and political relations, makes no sense unless China is preparing for war against the only Chinese democracy.

China also has expanded foreign military activities, such as maintaining constant naval patrols off Somalia, and a peace mission 2010 exercise in Kazakhstan in September that demonstrated heightened capabilities for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization alliance of dictatorships. Most disturbing was a late-September Chinese air force exercise with the Turkish air force (which included a stop in Iran) that probably compromised sensitive NATO air-war-fighting tactics. Such an exercise, when coupled with other unhelpful recent Turkish actions, raise questions about Turkey’s continued slide away from NATO. Certainly there is a need to review the decision to sell Turkey our latest F-35 stealth fighter.

As China faces no ostensible threat, its accelerating military buildup cannot be allowed to go unchecked. The Chinese have begun testing an ABM system at the same time suspicion grows that it is putting multiple warheads on its ICBMs, which should raise concerns over the START Treaty with Russia. China’s new naval base on Hainan Island for its nuclear-missile, nuclear-attack submarines and aircraft carriers threatens the critical sea lanes from the Straits of Malacca to our key Western Pacific allies. China’s anti-ship ballistic missile clearly is aimed at denying the U.S. Navy freedom of action in the Western Pacific. China has built more than 500 fourth-generation combat aircraft and is moving its fifth-generation fighter into testing. It also has accelerated construction of its first aircraft carrier. It also has launched a new conventional submarine with the possibility of two production lines. Finally, China is advancing its moon and space-station program, which likely will have military missions.

After a year of dallying, the Obama administration has started to stand up to China, but it is not doing enough. Its January arms-sales package to Taiwan was empty without F-16s and submarines. It laid down a marker on China’s illegal claims to the South China Sea by siding with the ASEAN nations, but this is only rhetoric until we revive a real, conventional military relationship with the Philippines, our only treaty ally in that region. Support for South Korea after the North Korean torpedo attack was wobbly in the face of Chinese opposition. To its credit, the administration backed Japan against Chinese intimidation in the East China Sea.

Deterring Chinese aggression will require much more. We need to increase our military capability in the Western Pacific, to include our own anti-missile and anti-ship ballistic-missile capabilities as well as enhanced anti-submarine forces. We should convert older ballistic-missile submarines with core life remaining to cruise-missile submarines, which is allowed under the New START Treaty.

Our message should be that the world’s leading democracy will not be intimidated or bullied by another communist threat. In addition to remaining militarily superior, the United States also can begin to organize multinational political and economic pressures that could help accelerate China’s evolution from communism. We led a similar campaign in the not-too-distant past.

 

Retired Navy Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations. He is the Chairman of the Center for Security Policy’s Military Committee and a co-author of Shariah: The Threat to America.

Geert Wilders in Berlin

These are highlights of a speech given by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders in Berlin to the Freiheit Party (Freedom Party), October 2, 2010:

Dear friends, tomorrow is the Day of German Unity. Tomorrow exactly twenty years ago, your great nation was reunified after the collapse of the totalitarian Communist ideology. The Day of German Unity is an important day for the whole of Europe. Germany is the largest democracy in Europe. Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse. The wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a benefit to all of us, because the wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a prerequisite for the wellbeing and prosperity of Europe.

Today I am here, however, to warn you for looming disunity. Germany’s national identity, its democracy and economic prosperity, is being threatened by the political ideology of Islam. In 1848, Karl Marx began his Communist Manifesto with the famous words: “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism.” Today, another specter is haunting Europe. It is the specter of Islam. This danger, too, is political. Islam is not merely a religion, as many people seem to think: Islam is mainly a political ideology.

This insight is not new.

I quote from the bestselling book and BBC television series The Triumph of the West which the renowned Oxford historian J.M. Roberts wrote in 1985: “Although we carelessly speak of Islam as a ‘religion’; that word carries many overtones of the special history of western Europe. The Muslim is primarily a member of a community, the follower of a certain way, an adherent to a system of law, rather than someone holding particular theological views.” The Flemish Professor Urbain Vermeulen, the former president of the European Union of Arabists and Islamicists, too, points out that “Islam is primarily a legal system, a law,” rather than a religion.

The American political scientist Mark Alexander writes that “One of our greatest mistakes is to think of Islam as just another one of the world’s great religions. We shouldn’t. Islam is politics or it is nothing at all, but, of course, it is politics with a spiritual dimension, … which will stop at nothing until the West is no more, until the West has … been well and truly Islamized.”

These are not just statements by opponents of Islam. Islamic scholars say the same thing. There cannot be any doubt about the nature of Islam to those who have read the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. Abul Ala Maududi, the influential 20th century Pakistani Islamic thinker, wrote – I quote, emphasizing that these are not my words but those of a leading Islamic scholar – “Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle … to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam.”

Ali Sina, an Iranian Islamic apostate who lives in Canada, points out that there is one golden rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In Islam, this rule only applies to fellow believers, but not to Infidels. Ali Sina says “The reason I am against Islam is not because it is a religion, but because it is a political ideology of imperialism and domination in the guise of religion. Because Islam does not follow the Golden Rule, it attracts violent people.”

A dispassionate study of the beginnings of Islamic history reveals clearly that Muhammad’s objective was first to conquer his own people, the Arabs, and to unify them under his rule, and then to conquer and rule the world. That was the original cause; it was obviously political and was backed by military force. “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah,’” Muhammad said in his final address. He did so in accordance with the Koranic command in sura 8:39: “Fight them until there is no more dissension and the religion is entirely Allah’s.”

According to the mythology, Muhammad founded Islam in Mecca after the Angel Gabriel visited him for the first time in the year 610. The first twelve years of Islam, when Islam was religious rather than political, were not a success. In 622, Muhammad emigrated to Yathrib, a predominantly Jewish oasis, with his small band of 150 followers. There he established the first mosque in history, took over political power, gave Yathrib the name of Medina, which means the “City of the Prophet,” and began his career as a military and a political leader who conquered all of Arabia. Tellingly, the Islamic calendar starts with the hijra, the migration to Medina – the moment when Islam became a political movement.

After Muhammad’s death, based upon his words and deeds, Islam developed Sharia, an elaborate legal system which justified the repressive governance of the world by divine right – including rules for jihad and for the absolute control of believers and non-believers. Sharia is the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran, among other Islamic states. It is also central to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which in article 24 of its Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, proclaims that “all rights and freedoms are subject to the Islamic Sharia.” The OIC is not a religious institution; it is a political body. It constitutes the largest voting block in the United Nations and writes reports on so-called “Islamophobia” in Western Countries which accuse us of human rights violations. To speak in biblical terms: They look for a speck in our eye, but deny the beam in their own.

Under Sharia law people in the conquered territories have no legal rights, not even the right to life and to own property, unless they convert to Islam.

Before I continue, and in order to avoid any misunderstandings, I want to emphasize that I am talking about Islam, not about Muslims. I always make a clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam. There are many moderate Muslims, but the political ideology of Islam is not moderate and has global ambitions. It aims to impose Islamic law or Sharia upon the whole world. The way to achieve this is through jihad. The good news is that millions of Muslims around the world – including many in Germany and the Netherlands – do not follow the directives of Sharia, let alone engage in jihad. The bad news, however, is that those who do are prepared to use all available means to achieve their ideological, revolutionary goal.

In 1954, in his essay Communism and Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis spoke of “the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.” Professor Lewis said that “The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, … has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. … The aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same.”

The American political scientist Mark Alexander states that the nature of Islam differs very little – and only in detail rather than style – from despicable and totalitarian political ideologies such as National-Socialism and Communism. He lists the following characteristics for these three ideologies.

  • They use political purges to “cleanse” society of what they consider undesirable;
    They tolerate only a single political party. Where Islam allows more parties, it insists that all parties be Islamic ones; They coerce the people along the road that it must follow;
  • They obliterate the liberal distinction between areas of private judgment and of public control;
  • They turn the educational system into an apparatus for the purpose of universal indoctrination;
  • They lay down rules for art, for literature, for science and for religion;
  • They subdue people who are given second class status;
  • They induce a frame of mind akin to fanaticism. Adjustment takes place by struggle and dominance;
  • They are abusive to their opponents and regard any concession on their own part as a temporary expedient and on a rival’s part as a sign of weakness;
  • They regard politics as an expression of power;
  • They are anti-Semitic.

There is one more striking parallel, but this is not a characteristic of the three political ideologies, but one of the West. It is the apparent inability of the West to see the danger. The prerequisite to understanding political danger, is a willingness to see the truth, even if it is unpleasant. Unfortunately, modern Western politicians seem to have lost this capacity. Our inability leads us to reject the logical and historical conclusions to be drawn from the facts, though we could, and should know better. What is wrong with modern Western man that we make the same mistake over and over again?

There is no better place to ponder this question than here in Berlin, the former capital of the evil empire of Nazi Germany and a city which was held captive by the so-called German “Democratic” Republic for over forty years.

When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected Communism in 1989, they were inspired by dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Václav Havel, Vladimir Bukovsky, and others, who told them that people have a right, but also an obligation, to “live within the truth.” Freedom requires eternal vigilance; so it is with truth. Solzhenitsyn added, however, that “truth is seldom sweet; it is almost invariably bitter.” Let us face the bitter truth: We have lost our capacity to see the danger and understand the truth because we no longer value freedom.

Politicians from almost all establishment politicians today are facilitating Islamization. They are cheering for every new Islamic school, Islamic bank, Islamic court. They regard Islam as being equal to our own culture. Islam or freedom? It does not really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire establisment elite – universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians – are putting our hard-earned liberties at risk. They talk about equality, but amazingly fail to see how in Islam women have fewer rights than men and infidels have fewer rights than adherents of Islam.

Are we about to repeat the fatal mistake of the Weimar Republic? Are we succumbing to Islam because our commitment to freedom is already dead? No, it will not happen. We are not like Frau Merkel. We do not accept Islamization as inevitable. We have to keep freedom alive. And, to the extent that we have already lost it, we must reclaim it in our democratic elections. That is why we need political parties that defend freedom. To support such parties I have established the International Freedom Alliance.
As you know, I am standing trial in the Netherlands. On Monday, I have to go to court again and I will have to spend most of the coming month there. I have been brought to court because of my opinions on Islam and because I have voiced these opinions in speeches, articles and in my documentary film Fitna. I live under constant police protection because Islamic extremists want to assassinate me, and I am in court because the Dutch establishment – most of them non-Muslims – wants to silence me.

I have been dragged to court because in my country freedom can no longer be fully enjoyed. Unlike America, we do not have a First Amendment which guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions and foster public debate by doing so. Unlike America, in Europe the national state, and increasingly the European Union, prescribes how citizens – including democratically elected politicians such as myself – should think and what we are allowed to say.

One of the things we are no longer allowed to say is that our culture is superior to certain other cultures. This is seen as a discriminatory statement – a statement of hatred even. We are indoctrinated on a daily basis, in the schools and through the media, with the message that all cultures are equal and that, if one culture is worse than all the rest, it is our own. We are inundated with feelings of guilt and shame about our own identity and what we stand for. We are exhorted to respect everyone and everything, except ourselves. That is the message of the Left and the politically-correct ruling establishment. They want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity that we refuse to fight for it.

The detrimental obsession of our cultural and political elites with Western guilt reinforces the view which Islam has of us. The Koran says that non-Muslims are kuffar (the plural of kafir), which literally means “rejecters” or “ingrates.” Hence, infidels are “guilty.” Islam teaches that in our natural state we have all been born as believers. Islam teaches that if we are not believers today this is by our own or by our forefathers’ fault. Subsequently, we are always kafir – guilty – because either we or our fathers are apostates. And, hence, according to some, we deserve subjugation.

Our contemporary leftist intellectuals are blind to the dangers of Islam.

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky argues that after the fall of communism, the West failed to expose those who had collaborated with the Communists by advocating policies of détente, improved relations, relaxation of international tension, peaceful coexistence. He points out that the Cold War was “a war we never won. We never even fought it. … Most of the time the West engaged in a policy of appeasement toward the Soviet bloc – and appeasers don’t win wars.”

Islam is the Communism of today. But, because of our failure to come clean with Communism, we are unable to deal with it, trapped as we are in the old Communist habit of deceit and double-speak that used to haunt the countries in the East and that now haunts all of us. Because of this failure, the same leftist people who turned a blind eye to Communism then, turn a blind eye to Islam today. They are using exactly the same arguments in favor of détente, improved relations, and appeasement as before. They argue that our enemy is as peace-loving as we are, that if we meet him half-way he will do the same, that he only asks respect and that if we respect him he will respect us. We even hear a repetition of the old moral equivalence mantra. They used to say that Western “imperialism” was as bad as Soviet imperialism; they are now saying that Western “imperialism” is as bad as Islamic terrorism.

In my speech near Ground Zero in New York on September 11, I emphasized that we must stop the “Blame the West, Blame America”-game which Islamic spokesmen are playing with us. And we must stop playing this game ourselves. I have the same message for you. It is an insult to tell us that we are guilty and deserve what is happening to us. We do not deserve becoming strangers in our own land. We should not accept such insults. First of all, Western civilization is the freest and most prosperous on earth, which is why so many immigrants are moving here, instead of Westerners moving there. And secondly, there is no such thing as collective guilt. Free individuals are free moral agents who are responsible for their own deeds only.

I am very happy to be here in Berlin today to give this message which is extremely important, especially in Germany. Whatever happened in your country in the past, the present generation is not responsible for it. Whatever happened in the past, it is no excuse for punishing the Germans today. But it is also no excuse for you to refuse to fight for your own identity. Your only responsibility is to avoid the mistakes of the past. It is your duty to stand with those threatened by the ideology of Islam, such as the State of Israel and your Jewish compatriots. The Weimar Republic refused to fight for freedom and was overrun by a totalitarian ideology, with catastrophic consequences for Germany, the rest of Europe and the world. Do not fail to fight for your freedom today.

I am happy to be in your midst today because it seems that twenty years after German reunification, a new generation no longer feels guilty for being German. The current and very intense debate about Thilo Sarrazin’s recent book is an indication of the fact that Germany is coming to terms with itself.
I have not yet read Dr. Sarrazin’s book myself, but I understand that while the ruling politically-correct establishment is almost unanimously critical of his thesis and he lost his job, a large majority of Germans acknowledges that Dr. Sarrazin is addressing important and pressing issues. “Germany is abolishing itself,” warns Sarrazin, and he calls on the Germans to halt this process. The enormous impact of his book indicates that many Germans feel the same way. The people of Germany do not want Germany to be abolished, despite all the political indoctrination they have been subjected to. Germany is no longer ashamed to assert its national pride.

In these difficult times, where our national identity is under threat, we must stop feeling guilty about who we are. We are not “kafir,” we are not guilty. Like other peoples, Germans have the right to remain who they are. Germans must not become French, nor Dutch, nor Americans, nor Turks. They should remain Germans. When the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited your country in 2008, he told the Turks living here that they had to remain Turks. He literally said that “assimilation is a crime against humanity.” Erdogan would have been right if he had been addressing the Turks in Turkey. However, Germany is the land of the Germans. Hence, the Germans have a right to demand that those who come to live in Germany assimilate; they have the right – no they have a duty to their children – to demand that newcomers respect the German identity of the German nation and Germany’s right to preserve its identity.

We must realize that Islam expands in two ways. Since it is not a religion, conversion is only a marginal phenomenon. Historically, Islam expanded either by military conquest or by using the weapon of hijra, immigration. Muhammad conquered Medina through immigration. Hijra is also what we are experiencing today. The Islamization of Europe continues all the time. But the West has no strategy for dealing with the Islamic ideology, because our elites say that we must adapt to them rather than the other way round.
There is a lesson which we can learn in this regard from America, the freest nation on earth. Americans are proud of their nation, its achievements and its flag. We, too, should be proud of our nation. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was very clear about the duty of immigrants. Here is what he said: “We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else … But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. … There can be no divided allegiance here. … We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

It is not up to me to define what Germany’s national identity consists of. That is entirely up to you. I do know, however, that German culture, like that of neighboring countries, such as my own, is rooted in judeo-christian and humanist values. Every responsible politician has a political obligation to preserve these values against ideologies which threaten them. A Germany full of mosques and veiled women is no longer the Germany of Goethe, Schiller and Heine, Bach and Mendelssohn. It will be a loss to us all. It is important that you cherish and preserve your roots as a nation. Otherwise you will not be able to safeguard your identity; you will be abolished as a people, and you will lose your freedom. And the rest of Europe will lose its freedom with you.

My friends, when Ronald Reagan came to a divided Berlin 23 years ago he uttered the historic words, "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.“ President Reagan was not an appeaser, but a man who spoke the truth because he loved freedom. Today, we, too, must tear down a wall. It is not a wall of concrete, but of denial and ignorance about the real nature of Islam. The International Freedom Alliance aims to coordinate and stimulate these efforts.

Because we speak the truth, voters have given my party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, and other parties, such as the Dansk Folkeparti and the Schweizerische Volkspartei, the power to influence the political decision process, whether that be in opposition or in government or by supporting a minority government– as we want to do in the Netherlands. President Reagan showed that by speaking the truth one can change the course of history. He showed that there is no need to despair. Never! Just do your duty. Be not afraid. Speak the truth. Defend Freedom. Together we can preserve freedom, together we must preserve freedom, and together, my friends, we will be able to preserve freedom.

Thank you.

Who lost Turkey?

You have to hand it to Turkey’s Islamist leaders. They sure know how to get their way. In the seven years since they first took power, the Islamist AKP party has successfully transformed Turkey from a staunch ally of the US and Israel and a member of NATO into a staunch ally of Iran and a member of NATO.
And that’s not all. Turkey’s Islamist leaders have used the Western language of democracy and freedom not only to abandon the West. They have used that language to destroy the foundations of Turkey’s Western-style secular democracy and transform the governing system of NATO’s sole Muslim member into a hybrid of Putinist autocracy and Iranian theocracy.
On September 12, the AKP took an enormous step toward consolidating its achievements and expanding its power. The Islamist regime won a national plebiscite on constitutional amendments that remove the remaining obstacles to its absolute power.
As a National Review reader noted, the vote was a mockery of democracy. It was held at the end of Ramadan during which the AKP provided 30 consecutive free post- Ramadan fast dinners to voters in key voting districts.
SINCE TAKING office, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party have used both lawful and unlawful means to intimidate, repress and silence all significant organs of secularist opposition to their rolling Islamic revolution. The media, civil service, police and business community have all been co-opted and intimidated into submission.
According to the Kemalist constitution, the military was the constitutional protector of secular Turkey. It was constitutionally bound to combat all threats to Turkey’s secular regime – including threats posed by political parties and political leaders. Over the past seven years, the AKP has done everything it could to demoralize and criminalize the military’s leadership and eviscerate the military’s constitutional powers and organizational independence. Most recently, President Abdullah Gul began intervening in promotions of generals to block all non-Islamists from acquiring command positions.
The constitutional amendments just passed further emasculate the military, placing it under the jurisdiction of AKP-controlled civilian courts.
In 1980, in accordance with its constitutional responsibility, the military ousted a precursor of the AKP from power in what the West incorrectly characterized as a coup. The new constitutional amendments make the military commanders who ousted the Islamists vulnerable to criminal prosecution for their actions. No doubt, in the near future these generals will be brought into court in shackles and charged with subverting the will of the people.
The message to any general with any thought of removing Erdogan and his colleagues will be crystal clear.
Aside from the chastened military, the only remaining outpost of secular power in Turkey has been the judiciary. In the past, the judiciary has overturned many of the government’s actions that it ruled were unconstitutional and illegal. The new constitutional amendments will work to end judicial independence by giving the government control over judicial appointments. The AKP’s justice minister will also have increased power to open investigations against judges and prosecutors.
Not surprisingly, Erdogan has praised the results of the plebiscite. As he put it, "The winner today was Turkish democracy."
Now, with his constitutional amendments in hand, the only thing separating Erdogan from absolute power are next year’s elections. If he and his party win, with their new constitutional powers, they will have no obstacles to remaining in power forever. If they win, whether Erdogan declares it or not, Turkey will be an Islamist state with no effective domestic checks on the power of its rulers to do what they wish at home and abroad.
Erdogan also promised that the new amendments will facilitate entrance into the European Union. And judging by the EU’s initial response to the vote, he may be correct. The European Commission’s enlargement commissioner, Stefan Fule, hailed the vote as "a step in the right direction."
Fule said that the constitutional changes "address a number of long-standing priorities in Turkey’s efforts toward fully complying with [EU] accession criteria."
The EU has been one of AKP’s primary enablers. Ruled by their ideology of multiculturalism, European leaders have refused to recognize the unique role the Turkish military played in securing the country’s secular regime. That regime was of course, the EU’s most vital strategic asset in Turkey. And so they gave the AKP the international cover it required to remove the greatest threat to its Islamic revolution.
AS FOR the US, President Barack Obama praised the plebiscite as proof of the "vibrancy of Turkish democracy." As Michael Rubin has noted in National Review, not only has Obama approved the sale of 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to Turkey, the Defense Department has demurred from conducting a study to see whether the sale will threaten US interests in light of Turkey’s burgeoning strategic ties with Iran. And not wishing to embarrass the administration that has given a full-throated endorsement to Erdogan’s regime, the Democrat-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee has refused to ask the Pentagon to conduct such a review.
After the Obama administration canceled the F-22 project, the F-35 will be the US military’s only advanced fighter. In light of its strategic alliance with Iran, Turkey’s possession of the jets could constitute a serious threat to US air superiority in the region.
As for NATO, the US’s most important military alliance had no comment on Turkey’s rolling Islamic revolution. This is not in the least surprising. NATO has stood at a distance as Turkey has undermined its mission in Kosovo and transformed it into a virtual Turkish colony. So too, NATO has had no comment as Turkey has worked consistently to disenfranchise Bosnia’s non-Muslim minorities and intimidate the Serbian government. At this late date, it would have been shocking if NATO had a comment of any kind on the AKP’s consolidation of its Islamist thugocracy.
Iran, for its part, is not at all squeamish about both recognizing the significance of events in Turkey and extolling them. It has reportedly agreed to contribute $25 million to the AKP to help Erdogan in his bid for reelection next year. Turkish-Iranian trade has gone up 86 percent in the past year.
In a visit to Istanbul this week, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, "Turkey is the best friend of Iran in the world. Turkey is very important for Iran’s political and economic security. Our Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei also asks for acceleration of political, economic and security relations with Turkey."
And still the West sleeps.
As it watched the AKP’s steady transformation of Turkey from staunch ally to staunch enemy, for seven years Israel tried to make light of what was happening. Indeed, its decision to opt for denial over strategic disengagement prompted it to continue selling Turkey state of the art military equipment. The IDF now acknowledges that Turkey has shared this equipment with the likes of Syria and Hizbullah.
Israel hoped that Turkey would grow so dependent on its military relationship that it would abandon its intention to ditch the alliance. That foolish hope was finally destroyed when Turkey committed an act of war on the high seas on May 31 with its terror flotilla to Gaza.
EVERY MOVE since then to make light of Turkey’s actions has been shot down by yet another Turkish affront. In its latest slight, Turkey loudly announced that Gul will not have time to meet with President Shimon Peres at the UN General Assembly in New York this week while Gul was only too pleased to free hours from his schedule to meet with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
And still, perhaps out of deference to Obama, Israel has remained circumspect in its statements about the dangers Islamist Turkey poses not only to it but to the free world as a whole. And this is a shame. But then, it is hard to imagine Israeli warnings making any difference.
The US and Europe’s refusal to consider the implications of Turkey’s abandonment of the West in favor of Iran goes hand in hand with their abandonment of the cause of liberalism throughout the Middle East and the world as a whole. Among other things, their dangerous behavior is emblematic of their consummate elitism.
The likes of Obama and the heads of Europe view their own publics as mere nuisances. For Obama, the groundswell of opposition to his radical and failed economic reforms doesn’t indicate that there is something wrong with what he is doing. As he has made clear in repeated statements in recent weeks, as far as he is concerned, his steady loss of support is simply proof of the American people’s ignorance.
As for Europe, it is not a great stretch to say that the entire EU is an elitist project consolidated against the will of the peoples of Europe. The EU leadership thought nothing of ramming its expanded powers down the throats of its unwilling constituents. After the Lisbon Treaty was rejected in referendum after referendum, Europe’s leaders conspired to pass it by bureaucratic fiat.
This contempt for their own people leads the leaders of the West to disregard human rights abuses from China to Syria as unimportant. So too, it has paved the path for Obama’s courtship of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US and Egypt and his decision to back the mullahs against the Iranian people in the aftermath of the stolen presidential election in June 2009.
Making deals with authoritarian leaders is so much easier than actually selling the case for the West and its values to the peoples of the world. This is particularly so given the contempt with which Western leaders hold their own publics.
Unfortunately, it is this contempt for the peoples of the West, of Turkey, Iran, China and the rest of the world that is making Erdogan’s revolution a preordained success. At this late date, the only possible way for the Turkish opposition to win next year’s fateful elections is if it receives massive political and other support from the West. Only if the US, the EU and NATO state outright that they view the turn to Islamism as dangerous to their interests and to their relations with Turkey will the opposition gain the necessary momentum to put up a fight. Only if the West puts its money where its mouth is and matches Iran’s generosity toward the AKP with generosity of its own toward its political opponents will there be any chance that the until now unstoppable Islamist transformation will be checked.
Obama and his European colleagues may believe that they will not be blamed for the loss of Turkey. After all, its transformation into Iran’s best friend started seven years ago. But they are wrong. If they continue to sit on their elitist laurels, Turkey will be lost on their watch and they will not be forgiven by their own peoples for their failure to act in time.

A prayer for 5771

On August 28, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck confounded his colleagues in the media when he brought hundreds of thousands of Americans to the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a rally he called "Restoring Honor."
While former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker, the rally was decidedly apolitical. The speakers said nothing controversial. The crowd was enthusiastic but not rowdy. US President Barack Obama was never even mentioned by name. In the event, the massive crowd gathered, prayed, celebrated American military heroes, listened to patriotic speeches and songs. Then the participants picked up their garbage and went home.
So what was it all about? Why do many people see it as a watershed event? 
Although Beck called the rally "Restoring Honor," it wasn’t really about restoring honor. It was about restoring something even more important. It was about restoring the American creed. 
That creed is so ingrained that it has served as the subtext of every major political and civic speech by every American political and civic leader since the eighteenth century. 
The American creed has two main components. First, its core belief is that America is an exceptional country and that the American people are an exceptional nation. Second, it asserts that as Abraham Lincoln first said outright, America is the last, best hope for mankind. 
The reason Beck’s rally was a watershed event is that in the Age of Obama, millions of Americans for the first time feel the need to reclaim what they believe is their birthright as Americans. Because what distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is that he is the first American President who clearly rejects the American creed. 
This basic truth was first brought to the public’s attention during Obama’s visit to Turkey last year. A reporter there asked him, "[Do] you subscribe, as many of your predecessors have, to the school of ‘American exceptionalism’ that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world, or do you have a slightly different philosophy?"
Obama replied, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
That is, the US President said, no, he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism. He rejects the American creed.
Obama’s unprecedented position stands at the core of the actions he has taken and the positions he has adopted since coming into office. From his move to nationalize the American healthcare system, to his attacks on the free market; from his insinuations that his political opponents are bigoted and primitive to his effective rejection of the mantle of US superpower status and global leadership in favor of transnationalism, Obama has clearly rejected the building blocks of America’s national DNA. 
And this is why Beck’s rally was important. At the rally Beck and the crowd he assembled committed themselves to repairing the damage Obama is causing. What the multitudes who congregated at the Lincoln Memorial two weeks ago understood is that America’s greatness as a nation is entirely predicated on its creed. If the creed is abandoned, while America may hang around for awhile, its path to ruin will be inexorable. 
Lincoln once called Americans "God’s almost chosen people." In saying that, he linked American history to the history of the Jews. Whereas the Jews singled ourselves out as the chosen people by agreeing to accept God’s law, in Lincoln’s view, Americans accepted the burdens and the gifts of a unique national path and mission in accepting the American creed.
THE AMERICA creed has been cultivated, preserved and defended for some 350 years. The Jewish creed America’s founders turned to for inspiration has been cultivated, preserved and defended for 3,500 years. 
The Jewish creed is predicated on the dual destiny of the Jews: to be both a nation that dwells alone and a light to the nations. 
God bestowed the Jews with three tools to achieve these twin, and seemingly contradictory missions. He gave us the Law of Israel. He gave us the Nation of Israel. And he gave us the Land of Israel. 
The law of Israel, the Torah, is the human path to righteousness and holiness. By obeying the laws and recognizing the frailty of mankind as a collective, the Jews comprise a distinct nation that is a blessing and an inspiration to the world. 
By building our lives in the land of Israel, our birthright, the Jews are able to cultivate our heritage and perform our dual mission in relative peace and make the blessing of choseness tangible for ourselves and the world as a whole.
For 3,500 years, successive generations of Jews have understood our mission and creed. They internalized it and lived their lives by it. 
Since the dawn of modern Zionism, the overwhelming majority of Jews, in Israel and throughout the world have recognized the return to the land of Israel as the harbinger of redemption for the Jewish people – and through it, for the world. This understanding has been so ingrained that it has seldom necessitated a mention. 
On almost every level, the State of Israel has been an overwhelming success for the Jewish people and for the world that has enjoyed its blessings. Economically today, the Israeli economy is the envy of the world. And this is no mean feat. In its first forty-five years of independence, Israel’s socialist and otherwise economically backwards leaders went to extraordinary lengths to stifle market forces and essentially doomed Israel’s economy to sclerotic performance and basket-case status.
But the reforms enacted over the past fifteen years or so, mainly initiated and pushed through by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have transformed Israel into an economic powerhouse. Although much remains to be done to expand economic opportunity and growth, because of Netanyahu’s sound economic leadership, Israel has been largely immune to the recession now plaguing much of the Western world. 
Technologically as well, as the world is now recognizing, Israel has become a pintsize superpower. As George Gilder demonstrated in The Israel Test, Israeli computer entrepreneurs created the foundations of the digital age by inventing, among other things, the microprocessor and the main components of cellular telephone technology. The world we inhabit would be inconceivable without Israel’s pioneering role in building it. 
As for Judaism, it is flourishing in Israel today as it never has at any time in the past two thousand years. The Jewish people emerged from the brink of annihilation 65 years ago to build a Jewish state whose population is more learned in Jewish law than any Jewish community has ever been. More Jews study in institutions of Jewish learning in Israel than have studied at any time in our history. And even non-observant Jews live Jewish lives in Israel to a degree their families could never have enjoyed or imagine just four generations ago. 
ISRAEL’S EXTRAORDINARY success is marred by but one failure. Since Theodore Herzl’s untimely death in 1904, Israel has lacked a leader who recognized the importance of espousing the Jewish creed both to the world and to the Jewish people. That is, since Herzl, Israel has lacked leaders who have understood the first principle of statecraft. 
For a nation to flourish and succeed over time, its leaders must assert its creed with utter confidence both to their own people and to the world at large. They must assert their nation’s creed with complete confidence even to leaders who reject it. And they must never give anyone else the right to deny their people their identity.
That is, whereas Obama is the first American president to deny and denigrate the American creed, Israel has never had a prime minister who was willing to assert Israel’s creed. Leftist prime ministers have failed to assert the creed because they don’t accept it. Rightist prime ministers have failed to assert our creed because they fail to understand what it means to have the confidence to boldly assert an identity that people don’t want you to have.
Many scholars have argued that Jewish history is also the history of anti-Semitism. By not asserting Israel’s creed, Israel’s leaders have essentially accepted this claim. But this claim is utterly false. The history of the Jews and the history of anti-Semites are based on parallel narratives – one is true and one is false. And like parallel lines, they never intersect.
Throughout history, anti-Semites have sought to deny Jews the right to define ourselves by replacing our creed of law and holiness and homeland with a false creed of conspiracy and avarice and rootlessness. Today the instruments anti-Semites employ to tell Jews who we are involve accusations against a monstrous "Israel lobby," and an attempt to deny our rights to the land of Israel. 
Jews have survived repeated attempts to destroy us not because we have argued the finer points of the anti-Jewish narrative of the day, but because we have been faithful to our creed. That is, we have not survived by attacking anti-Semitic slurs, but by loyally upholding our truth. 
Yet in Israel, rather than proudly assert the extraordinary, tenacious and indeed miraculous nature of our people, our law and our land, our leaders have turned our creed into a bargaining point. And if this course is not soon abandoned, it will be our undoing. 
Our leaders are leading us astray by insisting that it is possible to achieve peace in the near term with our neighbors. Peace today is impossible because our neighbors reject at least two of our national creed’s three components: Jewish nationhood and the Land of Israel. 
Furthermore, by introducing the demand that the Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish state, our leaders are only making matters worse. In presenting this demand, our leaders are suggesting that the Arabs have the power to grant or deny that which is not theirs to give or take away. 
THIS EVENING we begin our observance of Rosh Hashana. The bible describes Rosh Hashana as the day of trumpeting. When we assemble in prayer and blow the shofar, we engage in a loud and boisterous celebration of national unity and uphold our sacred birthright to our religious heritage and the land of Israel. 
At his rally Glenn Beck reminded us of the importance of loud, boisterous celebrations which recommit nations to their destiny and creed. Yet what Lincoln referred to as "the mystic chords of memory" cannot only be recalled in times of celebration. Like the American nation, for the Jewish nation to survive and prosper, that creed must resonate in all we do on all the other days of the year when the trumpets are silent.
It is my prayer for the coming year that our leaders take a measure of strength from our people and our creed. I pray that they recognize that it is both their duty and their great privilege to confidently represent and defend our exceptionalism and our destiny as the nation of Israel.  
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.