President Biden: Stop Support of Islamic Terrorism
© David Burton 2020
President Biden: Stop Support of Islamic Terrorism
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| NOTE: Bold Text in quoted material reflects the emphasis of this writer, David Burton, and not that of the originator of the quoted material. Early in April 2021, “the Biden administration changed its stance on Iran {and Islamic terrorism in general}, announcing it was prepared to accede to Iranian demands to lift sanctions before Iran resumes its compliance with the nuclear deal aimed at preventing the rogue regime from developing nuclear weapons.” (Ref. 1) Why should America accede to any demands from the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism? The announcement was made in Washington as negotiating teams from the partners behind the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), held talks in Vienna with Iran. The major powers are trying to convince the Islamic Republic to stop violating the agreement and cease producing enriched uranium. So, Iran has been violating the agreement all along and has been producing enriched uranium when it supposedly had agreed not to in an agreement that it signed six years ago. Why would any sane person believe that all of a sudden Iran would live up to any agreement that it felt wasn’t to its advantage? "We are prepared to take the steps necessary to return to compliance with the JCPOA, including by lifting sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA," said State Department Spokesperson Ned Price. That’s just great! We’re ready to comply with JCPOA while Tehran has been ignoring and violating JCPOA for the past 6 years! Are the people in this administration crazy or just stupid? Maybe they are both. Price’s statement is an about-face for President Biden, who in an interview in February indicated that Iran would first have to stop enriching uranium before the U.S. would lift sanctions. So, if Iran won’t stop violating the agreement, then we’ll give in to the ayatollahs and lift the sanctions. It must be clear to these sponsors of global terrorism that there’s a new sheriff in town who will give in to anything they want. After all, this is the Middle East and the ayatollahs are experts in negotiating in the bazaars of the Middle East. We Americans are naive neophytes! While the UN Security Council’s five permanent members – Britain, China, France and Russia, along with Germany were resuming talks in Vienna with the Iranians, the U.S. team, led by special envoy Robert Malley, was working in a separate hotel at the insistence of the Iranians, who refused to meet with them for the time being. Great – the Iranians wouldn’t even let us in to the negotiating room. And yet, we are already making concessions to them? Is there anybody with brains and intestinal fortitude heading up America’s Middle East foreign policy? Previously, the Americans had insisted that Iran first stop its enrichment of uranium as they had agreed to do in 2015 before any economic sanctions would be lifted. The Iranians refused. So naturally, the Biden administration agreed to first roll back sanctions before they would talk. Biden must have asked John Kerry what to do before caving to the Iranian demands. After all, we wouldn’t want to get Iran mad at America! During his term in office, former President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, saying in 2018 that the Iranians had lied about their nuclear weapons program. Trump hit the Iranians with harsh economic sanctions to try and force them to scale back their nuclear ambitions and military expansion in the region. Ah, there was someone who understood the art of negotiation, particularly as negotiations are conducted in the Bazaars of the Middle East. Iran’s leaders have maintained their mantra of “death to America, death to Israel,” with an explicit national policy that seeks the “total annihilation” of Israel. One thing to be said in the ayatollahs’ favor is that they are certainly consistent. Arab states in the region fear Iran’s nuclear weapons program, with Saudi Arabia demanding that they be consulted before the U.S. makes any policy changes. Israel has repeatedly stated it will not accept a return to the original JCPOA, under whose terms the Iranians could resume unimpeded uranium enrichment when the agreement expires. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that, “Even to our best friends, I say: We are not bound in any way to an agreement with Iran that paves the way for nuclear weapons. We are obligated to only one thing: To prevent anyone who seeks to destroy us from carrying out their plot.”[1] “{Just} one month into his term in office, and US President Joe Biden {was} already facing criticism from Arabs over his administration's soft policy toward Iran. - - - " ‘In Tehran's eyes, Biden is a pushover,’ wrote Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Ashraq Al-Awsat. " ‘It has only been eight weeks since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, but Iran has already tested him on several fronts. First, thousands of the Iran-backed Houthi militia rushed to threaten the densely populated city of Marib in Yemen. Afterwards, Iranian militias targeted Basra and Baghdad, and more recently, Erbil and Iraqi Kurdistan, with dozens of missiles, killing and wounding several individuals in a US facility. Then Lokman Slim, Iran's most prominent and vocal opponent in Beirut, was murdered and his body was found on the sidewalk." - - - “Al-Rashed pointed out that Iran ‘does not deny responsibility for all these events that were organized by its affiliated militias in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon.’ “According to Al-Rashed, all these attacks were ‘a test of Biden's administration, and so far, we did not see anything from Washington except for verbal condemnation. This is an expected start on both sides; Iranian provocations and American silence.’ - - - “Another Saudi columnist, Hella Al-Mashouh, also criticized the Biden administration's soft approach toward Iran. She specifically criticized the Biden administration's recent decision to revoke designation of Yemen's Houthi militia as a terrorist group. The decision reversed actions taken by the former US administration of President Donald Trump regarding the Iran-backed militia. “Commenting on the decision, Al-Mashouh wrote: " ‘Today, we are facing an imminent Iranian threat and a lenient American administration policy toward this danger. We will face this Iranian threat over the next four years. The question that arises here: Who benefits from this Iranian terrorism and tampering with the region? Syria is devastated, and Hezbollah is dominating Lebanon, which is collapsing economically, politically and socially. Iraq is being flooded with weapons and militias of Iranian terrorism. The Houthis and Al Qaeda are tampering with a disintegrated and ravaged Yemen. So what next? Who will deal with the head of the snake?’ “Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf newspaper Akhbar Al-Khaleej, predicted that Iran and its proxies would step up their terror attacks in the Middle East in the next few years. “Zahra said that the recent escalation of terror attacks by Iran's militias in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon were aimed at ‘practicing direct terrorism’ against the Biden administration to force it to make the concessions Tehran wants from the US. According to Zahra: " ‘The Iranian message to Biden is clear. It wants him to understand that Iran has many terrorist cards and can undermine security and stability in the region and present his administration with major challenges. The Iranian regime, in other words, wants to force the Biden administration to yield to its demands regarding sanctions and the nuclear agreement. The Iranian regime bases its calculations on the basis that Biden is weak with regard to the nuclear file." “Zahra pointed out that Iran knows that many Biden administration officials, especially those concerned with the issue of relations with Iran and the nuclear agreement, are the same people who worked in the Obama administration: " ‘Most of these people are sympathetic to Iran in general, and it is not possible for them to engage with it in any form of confrontation. Iran knows that Biden does not have Trump's resolve and strength in dealing with it. . . Iran is testing Biden's weakness.’ - - - “Iraqi journalist and political analyst Ahmed Al-Adhame said that the recent terror attack on a US facility in Iraq ‘came because of the failed policies of the Biden administration toward Iran.’ Al-Adhame noted that the US administration gave orders to withdraw the aircraft carrier Nimitiz from the Middle East, a move that further emboldened Iran and its proxies. “Arabs are turning to the Biden administration with the frank plea: Your weak approach to the Iranian regime is already threatening whatever precarious stability exists in the Middle East. It is already emboldening terrorist groups. We are begging you: do not back down to Iranian threats. “Such messages show that many Arabs share Israel's concern over US and European efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. It is, frankly, the last thing the Arabs want. It will only lead to war and set back the region more years than one would care to count. ” (Ref. 2) Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated the prime fallacy in the Biden attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons when he stated: “The nuclear deal with Iran, which gives it international approval to advance the development of an arsenal of atomic bombs, is once again on the table. But history has taught us that such agreements, with such extremist regimes, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.” (Ref. 3) “There are basic principles of human behavior which the Biden-Harris administration is ignoring in its misguided approach to Iran. The great psychologist B.F. Skinner elucidated the principle that when a particular behavior is followed by a reward, that behavior increases. We can see this process occurring as President Biden and Vice President Harris closely follow each instance of Iranian intransigence regarding re-entry into an Iran deal with a new, more conciliatory offer. From releasing billions of dollars to dropping the requirement that Iran first cease its nuclear proliferation violations of the Iran deal, the Biden-Harris administration is guaranteeing increased Iranian intransigence. “Skinner found that intermittent rewards increase the rewarded behavior even further. Just like the Las Vegas visitor who throws ever more coins into a slot machine that pays off irregularly, the Iranians will respond to intermittent concessions by Biden and Harris with even more bellicosity. “What would work to decrease Iran‘s persistent, illicit nuclear proliferation would be a consistent application of negative reinforcement for such actions {as was done by former president, Donald Trump} . . . What we do not need is the Potemkin sham mandated by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, on which Iran persistently cheated anyway. “It doesn’t take a behavioral psychologist to see this pattern. Anyone can look up ‘Neville Chamberlain, Munich, 1938’ to see where the Biden-Harris appeasement paradigm is leading our country and the world at large.” (Ref. 4) President Biden has reverted to a failed American Foreign policy that for 7 decades contributed to war, death and destruction in the Middle East. He has reversed the Trump breakthroughs that brought hope and actual positive results to that region of the world. “Commencing shortly after his inauguration, President Biden has been decreasing U.S. support for Israel that had existed under former President Trump. He has done so by resuming relations with and payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA), undermining the Abraham Accords; by withdrawing U.S. opposition to the Durban Declaration; and by stating his intention to resume U.S. participation in Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran. "President Trump, by engineering the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries, proved what {many had} been saying for decades: that the Palestinians, whose only reason to exist is to fight against Israel’s nationhood, are irrelevant to peace in the Middle East. They had been used by the Arab states as a political tool against Israel, and Biden evidently wants that use to resume. “The Abraham Accords were one of two of Trump’s major diplomatic accomplishments, the other being his cancellation of Obama’s 2015 nuclear weapons deal with Iran, the so-called “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA). Revoking the JCPOA greatly benefitted both our and Israel’s national security significantly, as did Trump’s massive campaign of economic sanctions against Iran. “Trump did much more, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving our embassy there from Tel Aviv, and cutting off U.S. funding of the Palestinians. “In short, Trump threw out the old approaches to Middle East peace that had failed to bring it about for more than three decades and pushed ahead with better solutions that actually had a chance to succeed. Biden is in the process of throwing it all away and returning to Obama’s anti-Israel policies. - - - “Much of the aid we and other nations give to the PA isn’t spent on helping refugees but on support for terrorists and their families. It is a matter of record that in 2020 alone the PA paid about $150 million to incarcerated or freed terrorists as well as in ‘martyr’s’ benefits to the families of terrorists who were killed while conducting or attempting terrorist attacks. Those payments continue. “Two more recent actions by the Biden administration make clear its reorientation of U.S. policy to resume Obama’s opposition to Israel. “The 2001 Durban Declaration – a laboriously long resolution – was made by the 'World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.' Its effect has been to single out Israel as a 'racist' state and affirms the Palestinians’ key demand of a ‘right’ of all ‘Palestinians’ – not the 700,000 who left in 1948, but at least six million of their descendants – to return to Israel. “If all of those people were to return to Israel, Israel would have a majority Arab population and cease to be the self-governing Jewish state created by the UN. (The ‘right of return’ is entirely fictitious, based on disinformation and an intentional misreading of a subsequent UN Resolution.) “Since 2001, the U.S. had voted against UN resolutions supporting the Durban Declaration. In February, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. would rejoin the UN’s Human Rights Council despite its dedicated opposition to Israel and consistent support for the Durban Declaration. On March 19, an acting assistant secretary of state issued a statement, supported by 150 nations, that effectively endorsed the Durban Declaration. “At about the same time, the State Department issued its annual Country Report on Human Rights, which significantly changed the Trump administration’s language in the previous report. “The new report eliminates the statement that the Palestinians exercised no control over Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. It also adds the term ‘occupied’ to lands Israel controlled since the 1967 war, saying that one section of the report ‘covers Israel within the 1949 Armistice Agreement line as well as Golan Heights and east Jerusalem territories that Israel occupied during the June 1967 war and where it later extended its domestic law, jurisdiction, and administration.’ "Those two statements indicate a significant shift in policy away from what Trump accomplished. As significant as those indications of a policy shift are, Biden’s undermining of the Abraham Accords are equally significant. . . . “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the most vocal opponent of Obama’s JCPOA, which puts him in opposition to Biden’s big push to rejoin the agreement. Israel cannot afford for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. The Jewish state could easily be wiped off the map by any nuclear attack, as Ayatollah Khamenei has often said. "Biden visited Israel in 2010 to assure Israel that Obama was committed to its security after Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech, in which Obama praised the Palestinians, quoted from the Koran, and said he wanted all U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2012. Biden went to Israel to convince the Israelis of Obama’s dedication to ensure Israel’s security in regard to the growing Iranian nuclear threat and to visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In meeting with Abbas, Biden encouraged the never-ending ‘peace process’ negotiations. “Biden’s assurance of Obama’s commitment regarding Iran, as the signing of the JCPOA proved, was entirely false. The JCPOA, which contains no right to inspect all of Iran’s nuclear sites and ignores its development of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, is enormously dangerous for Israel, the U.S., and the entire world. Yet Biden is committed to undoing Trump’s revocation of the JCPOA.” (Ref. 5) In mid-April of 2021, Iran announced that it had been enriching uranium far beyond the amount allowed in the JCPOA deal, to an unprecedented 60%. This was nothing but a slap in America's face and an additional pressure tactic by Iran in the formal negotiations started by President Biden. It’s a very short step from 60% enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium. Iran has been making the entirely unreasonable demand that American sanctions be lifted before compliance - even as it was and is non-compliant. In addition to the negative reaction over the Biden administration's apparent surrender to the Iranian terror regime, Biden's decision to renew funding to both the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has also been roundly and justifiably criticized. “Neither the PA nor UNRWA has implemented any of the reforms demanded by humanitarian groups and the Taylor Force Act, which was signed into law in 2018 . . . - - - “In particular, the Palestinian Authority retains its infamous ‘Pay to Slay’ program, which provides generous rewards to Palestinians – or their families – who murder innocent Israeli and American citizens. “UNRWA was forced to admit earlier this year that its ‘educational materials,’ including math textbooks, encourage suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. On multiple occasions during earlier conflicts, its schools were used as storage sites and launch facilities for missile attacks against Israeli civilians, incriminating UNRWA itself in war crimes. “ ‘It is unconscionable that the Biden administration would abandon the successful pro-peace policy agenda of its predecessor,’ . . . “ ‘The Biden administration has chosen to support organizations that continue to encourage and reward acts of terror and, thus, have not shown a hint of necessary reform.’ “ (Ref. 6) Fortunately, There has been angry opposition to Biden’s moves from members of the opposition Republican Party. “Two Republicans have thrown a roadblock in front of the $75 million the Biden Administration wants to give to the Palestinian Authority, saying there must be a quid pro quo from the Palestinians . . . - - - “{Republican} Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, used their authority to temporarily block $75 million that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had allocated for the Palestinian Authority. "Risch and McCaul in their respective committees stopped the USAID budget request notification that by law needs to be sent to Congress, meaning the $75 million the Biden Administration wanted to distribute via USAID cannot begin on April 10 as intended . . . The aid money would begin to flow 15 days after Congress receives the request. “In a statement released on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee website, the two called out the Biden Administration for not ensuring that the Palestinians are complying with U.S. anti-terror legislation that conditions the transfer of funds to the Palestinians on not using it for endorsing terrorism. “. . . ‘The PA is spending millions annually to compensate terrorists . . .’ “. . . a GAO report released last month . . . was highly critical of the lack of oversight by USAID for not vetting that the end recipients of tens of millions of dollars in American aid were not connected to Palestinians organizations that are on the government’s list of designated terror groups. - - - “{The Taylor Force Act, named} for American grad student Taylor Force who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in 2016, . . . blocks U.S. funding to the PA until it stop giving monthly cash stipends to terrorists who carried out attacks and their families. “{Earlier . . .}, the State Department announced $290 million in financial aid for the Palestinians that includes renewed funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – funding that was cut by the Trump Administration. “ ‘Additionally, we are disappointed that the Biden Administration has decided to resume funding for UNRWA without securing any reforms from the organization,’ Risch and McCaul said. {It should be noted that UNRWA, throughout its more than 70 years of existence, has been highly biased against Israel and has been an unrepentant strong supporter of ‘Palestinian’ terrorist activities and organizations.} “ ‘UNRWA schools regularly use materials that incite against Israel and the twisted definition used by the agency to determine who is a ‘refugee’ only perpetuates the conflict,’ . . . In addition to the blocking of USAID funding, a group of Republican senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the Biden Administration to halt aid to the Palestinians until there were guarantees the funds would not end up in the hands of terrorists . . . “ ‘We call on you to halt these expenditures until the State Department accounts for statutory restrictions and remedies known deficiencies in the distribution of such assistance, which have for years promoted and facilitated terrorism against Americans and Israelis,’ the letter stated.” [7] Israel’s displeasure with the Biden administration’s decision to resume funding of UNRWA came quickly. “Israel’s envoy to the UN on {7 April 2021} reacted angrily to the US State Department’s announcement that it was restoring aid to the Palestinians - including a $150 million sum for a UN agency that is dedicated solely to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and which has been denounced by Israel for propagating antisemitism. “Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, said in a statement that in conversations with US officials he had made clear his ‘disappointment and objection’ to the renewal of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) - a body created in 1947 to assist the Arab refugees from Israel’s 1947-48 War of Independence. UNRWA has been maintained in subsequent decades as a body dedicated to the descendants of the original 700,000 refugees, who presently number five million and are served by UNRWA centers in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. {UNRWA is the only refugee agency that has existed for so long and with only one objective – to keep the people and their descendants that it was set up to serve in refugee camps instead of helping them to be resettled in the Arab lands in which these camps are located. Even in Gaza and the West Bank, the descendants of the original refugees are kept in refugee camps rather than being allowed to be settled among their Arab ”brethren”. Why is this so? Simply to create a reason for these homeless people to be hostile to Israel and to give Islamic extremists an issue – “the right of return” - with which to continually attack the State of Israel and the Jewish People.} “ ‘Israel is strongly opposed to the anti-Israel and antisemitic activity happening in UNRWA’s facilities,’ Erdan declared. ‘We believe that this UN agency for so-called ‘refugees’ should not exist in its current format. UNRWA schools regularly use materials that incite against Israel and the twisted definition used by the agency to determine who is a ‘refugee’ only perpetuates the conflict.’ “ (Ref. 8) President Biden and his administration must understand the ongoing threat posed by Iran and they must bring themselves to actively continue the Trump administration policy of vigorously opposing the terrorist regime in Tehran. Iran continues actively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability while denying that it is doing so. It is building and testing advanced ballistic missiles that would enable itsnuclear weapons to reach Israel, Europe and the United States. It is doing so in contravention of agreements it has signed and it admits to producing enriched uranium in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran’s terror tentacles are evident throughout the Middle East. In Lebanon, Iran’s terrorist army Hezbollah has amassed an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles to be used against Israel and stored them within Lebanese communities, using civilians as human shields. In Gaza, the Iranian proxies, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups, have fired roughly 13,000 rockets into Israel since 2005. These groups have also built more than 50 terror tunnels to infiltrate Israel and attack Israelis and they have launched incendiary balloons that have scorched over 2,000 acres across Israel. [9] In the few short months that he has been in office, President Joseph Biden has irresponsibly moved to reverse all the positive results that were achieved by Donald Trump with regard to bringing peace and stability to the Middle East. President Biden has endangered Israel and the entire world by offering to return to the unenforceable and ineffective agreement with Iran regarding its march toward obtaining nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of delivering these weapons of mass destruction to much of the globe. President Biden, STOP! The terrorist regime in Tehran most be thwarted in its efforts to spread Islamic terrorism throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. The extremist ayatollahs in Tehran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons and they must continue to be punished for being the largest supporters of terrorism in the world. You must not reward the so called “Palestinians” that have obstructed every effort to bring peace between the “Palestinian” people and Israel by delivering American money to them that they use to reward murderers of innocent Israeli civilians. President Biden, do not destroy what America accomplished in the Middle East between 2016 and 2020 and return to the innumerable failures of 1948 to 2016! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- References:
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| 22 April 2021 {Article 470; Islam_44} |