I have more than once said that this would happen. North Korea has been getting freebies from America for 15 years to stop their nuclear development and has done nothing but make nukes. You cannot deal with madmen. If you read this article you will see even after the 11 disablement measures are actually taken (they have been halted) it would only take North Korea only about a year to start the facilities up again (what a great deal!). Not to even mention the secret uranium project that North Korea has that is still making nuclear material that no one is talking about or the nuclear bombs it already has made for export. So the North Koreans found ways to backed out of all the deals and have make fools out of both the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration. North Korea now hopes to take on what they know will even be a more foolish Obama Administration.

The U.S. State Department continues to be run by liberals and is in denial all over the world. They are just as loony with Iran. There is an old saying. Fool me once and shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me, fool me three times and I should get the Olympic gold metal for foolishness. Does anyone in our government know that North Korea has EMP capabilities? Does anyone care? And Rice thinks Russia will take anything we say on George or elsewhere seriously?

Maybe the world should reward the North Koreans with the Olympics and just pretend that they are such a wonderful free nation like they did with Communist China. I notice the North Koreans waited to after the Olympics to do this. Does anyone really think that was not coordinated with China? Sure, and China’s 14 year old woman gymnasts were 16 years old. You know one of these days this whole foolish appeasement thing is going to unravel worldwide and we are going to be in a world of hurt.

North Korea says it halts nuclear reactor disablement | International | Jerusalem Post

The North’s announcement marks the emergence of the biggest hurdle yet to the communist nation’s denuclearization process under a landmark deal last year and is expected to escalate tension in the nuclear talks involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, the US and Russia.

Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said it suspended the disablement work at the reactor and other facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex as of August 14 because the US did not keep its promise to delist Pyongyang as a terror sponsor under last year’s deal.

The ministry also said the country will “consider soon a step to restore” the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, but did not elaborate.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, called Tuesday’s statement “very serious” and said that it could mean Pyongyang may have decided not to deal with the administration of US President George W. Bush.

South Korean and US officials have said eight of the 11 disablement measures have been finished and that when the entire disablement is completed, it would take at least a year for the North to restart the facilities.

Full article

It is weak presidents that lead to miscalculations and war. Zumwalt did not even mention that JFK also got us into the war with Vietnam. With the facts of this article in mind if Obama gets elected we can expect a test of Obama’s metal by Islamic radicals in the first year of Obama’s Presidency. We really should not be putting people in the White House in troubled times that are idealistic unrealistic dummies. Inexperience will not be Obama’s only problem it is his unrealistic worldview.

Islamic Extremism for Dummies - HUMAN EVENTS

Obama’s JFK analogy conveniently omits two important points: it was Kennedy’s perceived weakness that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis; it was not his negotiation talents that extracted him from it.

It was the absence of Kennedy’s backbone in the Bay of Pigs invasion that then led to the Cuban Missiles Crisis the following year. Emboldened by Kennedy’s earlier misadventure, the Soviets secretly positioned missiles in Cuba — drastically reducing US response time in the event of a missile launch by Moscow. This led to a test of wills between Moscow and Washington that brought the two superpowers to the brink of war.

Inexperience and naivete in the White House would come back to haunt the US again seventeen years after the Bay of Pigs disaster. An American public anxious for change voted into office a US president whose later actions paved the way for Iran’s Ahmadinejad.

As civil unrest hit Iran in 1979, Jimmy Carter pressured Tehran’s pro-US Shah to abandon his country to a man Carter believed to be Islam’s Mahatma Gandhi — the Ayotollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This “Gandhi” turned out to be more like Attila the Hun. Khomeini embarked upon a purge grander than the reign of terror introduced by the French Revolution’s Robespierre almost two centuries earlier. Carter’s naivete provided Islamic extremism with a national flag and a breeding ground for exporting Islamofascism abroad and into the 21st century. America’s reward for Carter’s assistance was the seizure of the US embassy and hostages there, followed by Tehran’s designation of the US as the “Great Satan.”

We have been in a perpetual and undeclared war with Iran ever since.

Of course, the Iranians already knew, from Obama’s earlier actions, he would be a weak-kneed leader. They gained this insight last year when Obama refused to vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which sought to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — the organization of holy Islamic warriors that has left its violent footprint throughout the region — on the grounds it constituted “saber-rattling.” Color as “weak” — from Iran’s viewpoint, and ours — any US leader who refuses to officially label a terrorist group as “terrorists.”

Ignoring the fact the only times Iranian extremists reigned in their adventurism was in the face of US resolve, Obama believes he, as president, is capable of talking rationally with an Iranian leadership incapable of doing so. It is inexperience that causes one to boast he can do what three-decades of domination by theocratic extremism in Iran’s leadership and the failure of the international community in curtailing Tehran’s nuclear program tells us cannot be done

I have been hearing that there is no reason to pump more oil for some time now. If plenty of oil is being pumped but everyone is cutting back because of the price where is the oil? You can only store so much oil and then you would have to stop pumping but no one is doing that so obviously greed is the reason that OPEC does not want to increase production. They are lying through their teeth.

I would be past asking OPEC and Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Its time the world told them they will pump more oil until the price gets down to around $50 a barrel or OPEC is going to be internationally outlawed as the criminal cartel it is.

OPEC is bring the world to an economic crises point and if the big powers don’t do something rather quickly it is going to be too late.

I have a suggestion. Everyone should open up their national oil reserves right now and at the same time the U.S. should take care of the Iranian nuclear and military threat. After this threat is out of the way there will be no future oil speculation because of the Iranian threat. Then we should go all out to help Iraq gear up their oil producing capability and also tell Saudi Arabia that they will fill the gap or they risk dire consequences.

OPEC sees no need to pump more after price surge | Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - OPEC members saw no need on Sunday to pump more oil in response to last week’s double-digit surge in oil prices to over $139 a barrel that top exporter Saudi Arabia described as unjustified.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC member with capacity to boost output quickly and significantly.

But Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and his Pakistani counterpart met on Sunday and agreed that the price rise was unjustified and unrelated to market fundamentals, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

“The increase of the oil prices is becoming a real threat to the worldwide economy,” Germany’s Economy Minister Michael Glos told Reuters.

$150 OIL?

OPEC blames factors beyond its control, including speculation and international political tension, for the price rises. Those factors could take prices even higher soon, said Iran’s OPEC representative Muhammad Ali Khatibi.

“I forecast that by the end of summer the price of oil will reach $150 a barrel,” Mohammad Ali Khatibi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state broadcaster.

It sometimes only takes one strong man to began a movement. Europe does not know it yet but leaders like Wilder are Europe’s future. People will soon see that the appeasers of Islam have brought them social unrest and destruction. They will see that those appeasing a foreign culture with radical religious laws are destroying their own national security and identity. They will see that the same type of men who are best at hiking their skirts and groveling at bully’s feet brought this all on them. Will it get nasty? Yes. Will the native homeland movements in Europe be essential for Europeans own self respect. You bet. Will Islam around the world go nuts? You bet. The Wilder solution is all the more reason not to let Iran get nukes.

FrontPage Magazine

In an unprecedented speech to the Dutch parliament this month, Wilders again pointed to the danger a creeping Islamification poses to Holland and Europe, warning it was “a few minutes to midnight.” He also chided the ruling party for betraying the Dutch culture and people, calling one minister “stark raving mad” in the speech for having said that sharia law could be introduced into Holland.Wilders has paid a heavy price for his position. He has had his own freedom restricted. Death threats from Muslim extremists have caused him to be put under 24-hour police protection for the past two years. Wilders thus joins the growing list of people in Europe requiring protection from Islamic radicals. At one time, it was only Salman Rushdie who was forced to live in hiding; now, as one observer pointed out, such people are so numerous they nearly constitute a new, social class.

Most citizens of the Netherlands have forgotten, but the Dutch were once made of sterner stuff.

“Europe is now light years away from such a resolute response to the threat of radical Islam. And that makes Wilders’ film — a lone note of dissent in a continent resigned to cultural submission — all the more important.”

McCain in the only Presidential candidate who gets this issue correct.

McCain: Terrorism threatens all we hold dear | Jerusalem Post

“If Hamas/Hizbullah succeeds here, they are going to succeed everywhere, not only in the Middle East, but everywhere. Israel isn’t the only enemy,” Arizona Sen. McCain said, in the only interview he is giving to the Israeli media during his visit here.”They are dedicated to the extinction of everything that the US, Israel and the West believe and stand for. So America does have an interest in what happens here, far above and beyond our alliance with the State of Israel.”

Ahmadinejad is obviously delusional. When a country allows a clearly delusional leader to stay in power they richly deserve my Demented, Delusional or Dumb Club of the week award. To all people in Iran who support Ahmadinejad I say congratulations.

FOXNews.com - Ahmadinejad Calls Iran World’s ‘Number One’ Power, Attacks Domestic Critics - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

“Iran is the number one power in the world,” Ahmadinejad said Thursday in a speech to the families of those killed in his country’s war with Iraq more than 20 years ago.”Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful and it puts them in their place,” the president said in an address broadcast live on state television, AFP reported.

This statement by the Iran Foreign Minister is dumb and delusional. Why in the world would Israel use nukes against a rag tag army that was not a strategic  threat to Israel? If Israel takes out Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran and Syria take military action against Israel it is a whole different ball game.

One has to wonder why Iran is again spouting this rhetoric each day. They either must believe what they say - that would make them delusional, or else they think they can scare Israel off by their belligerent words. But all their words against Israel’s right to exist just makes an attack on their nuclear facilities more likely.

Iran: Israel too weak to confront us

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Jewish state’s ballistic missile capability won’t help it in confrontations with Islamic republic; meanwhile, Iranian-Egyptian rapprochement in the works
Dudi Cohen

“Israel is too weak to confront Iran. The leaders of this illegitimate fake regime know well would happen in the region in response to an attack (against us),” Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday in response to a successful Israeli ballistic missile test.

In a press conference in Tehran, Mottaki said that “If Israel’s nuclear missile warheads could have helped, she would have won the (Second) Lebanon War.”

Full article

The report says that the NIE will make an attack on Iran more likely because it stopped the sanctions.

clipped from www.worldnetdaily.com MI6 chief John Scarlett and Mossad leader Meir Dagan believe the U.S. report not only has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran but, ironically, makes a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities more likely. The prospect of that attack came closer when Israel’s new ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, said that Iran “will have enough uranium to make an atomic bomb by 2009.” Proser is one of Israel’s leading experts on Iran’s nuclear program.

Looks like someone else sees things pretty much the same as I stated on my previous post. The boats should have been sunk and Iran needs to be told that any threat to any international ship will be dealt with swiftly.

clipped from frontpagemag.com EARLY Sunday morning, the US Navy lost its nerve and guaranteed that American sailors will die at Iranian hands in the future. We should’ve sunk every one of them. Not because we’re warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later? They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

We had no way of knowing that this was not a real attack or what these boats were carrying. As soon as they announced that our ships would be blown up in minutes, we should have blown all the boats out of the water. Perhaps then some would get the message they we are not going to be intimidated by Iran’s silly little navy and they had better think twice before pulling this stunt again.

I frankly do not care if our military action causes a military confrontation with Iran. It is coming sooner or later anyway and better sooner then later. If they want to challenge the most powerfully navy in the world with a attack rehearsal they should be prepared to pay the consequences. They did something similar with a British vessel and make a complete mockery out of Britain. This has to stop. Iran is not a first class military power and they can only be deluded into thinking they are by Western commanders acting like a bush of silly pansies.

clipped from http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24355 The reasoning may appear convoluted, wickedly Byzantine, but if Iran’s domestic malaise continues to get worse, and domestic tensions seed violent street demonstrations, the most radical Khomeinists apparently believe dramatic attacks on U.S. forces — such as the destruction of a U.S. Navy capital warship – enhance their political position. Their willingness to run great risks demonstrates they are “the true believers.” An extended confrontation with the United States also gives them the opportunity to portray their domestic opponents as traitors — and then kill them.

Quiet D.C. coup spells big trouble, in the War on Terror — not only for America, but Israel, too: “Sadly, Washington now seems all too ready to yield on matters of principle. Or, as former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the German magazine Der Spiegel this week, American foreign policy ‘is in free fall. The president is acting against his own judgment and instincts under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.’

The result has effectively been a quiet coup, as George W. Clinton replaces Bush. And that spells trouble, big trouble, in the War on Terror — not only for Israel, but for America too.”

Bush has been cowed. Exactly who got to him is open for speculation. Obvious those who think Islamics can be assimilated into the elitist planned global community have taken control. Since they are practical atheists they underestimate the power that Religion has to control nations and people. They think all problems can be solved by dialog, compromise and bribery. They are wrong. America and the world will reap the inevitable consequences.

FrontPage Magazine: “While Petrodollars Propaganda showers networks in the Middle East, Europe and North America to weaken democracies’ resolve to confront the Iranian and Syrian regimes and as ‘lobbies’ in the West accelerate the campaign to break the isolation of Damascus and Tehran, these two regimes turned against their opposition in several attempts to crush them as long as the ‘window of opportunity is open’ according to insiders. The Khamenei and Assad regimes, witnessing the Baker-Hamilton report causing confusion throughout the West and taking advantage of the findings of the NIE rushed to clump down on what they consider the real dangers emerging from the inside their countries. Interestingly, and while the Iranian propaganda machine uses efficiently the Oil generated revenues to place favorable stories in the international media and impact think tanks around the world, Syrian Mukhabarat and Pasdaran operated swiftly over the past few days to shut down dissident groups and youth activities deemed ‘dangerous’ -read too close to provoke political changes”

As expected the perceived weakness because of the Baker-Hamilton report and the NIE report has lead Iran and Syria to crush their opposition. I am sure all resistance groups would like to personally thank those in Washington who stabbed them in the back.

NIE in the sky? - - The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper: “There are several reasons for concern about NIE’s about-face on Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.

The assessment appears to have been triggered primarily by recent humint input. Worrisome is the weight given to what may well be a counter-intelligence effort by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The humint relied upon is a claim by senior IRGC official Ali Rez Asgari who defected during a February trip to Turkey. Mr. Asgari told a foreign intelligence agency all activity on Iran’s nuclear weapons program stopped four years ago. His claim purportedly was supported by intercepted communications among Iranian officials.”

Against this backdrop of declared Iranian intentions to destroy us, of past questionable U.S. intelligence assessments, of the timing of Mr. Asgari’s defection, of the inexperience and motivations of the analysts, can we afford to put the world at risk by blindly accepting it? Previously, the U.S. was able to bounce back following flawed intelligence assessments. But that will not be the case if we are wrong about Iran.
Therefore, the only assessment we can afford to accept is one obtained via verifiable inspection of a nuclear weapons development program Tehran keeps hidden deep beneath the Earth’s surface, while claiming peaceful intent.

FOXNews.com - Iran Is Making a Greater Push Into Nicaragua - International News News of the World Middle East News Europe News: “Some state department officials are concerned that Iran’s presence in Nicaragua would allow Tehran to stage strikes on American interests by deploying the terrorist group Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard operatives already in Latin America, the Express reported.”

Grappling with Iran - Carol Devine-Molin - Dec 17, 07: “Let’s be clear: The CIA is not only incredibly inept, it’s diligently pushing its liberal anti-Bush agenda as evidenced by the unmitigated spin put forth in its recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Thankfully, the American gut-check reflects considerable wisdom on the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The public is understandably skeptical of the NIE’s claim that Iran had halted its nuclear program in 2003. In a national telephone survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports in the wake of the NIE release, only 18 percent of Americans believe that “Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program”, while about two-thirds of Americans reject that notion. Moreover, about 67 percent of Americans still view Iran as a threat to US national security.”

‘Iranian threat not understood’ Jerusalem Post: “Despite international efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, the world does not yet appreciate the gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat, and ‘one miss’ in its assessment has the potential to alter the international community’s course of action and enable Iran to turn nuclear, Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the IDF’s incoming military attaché to the United States, has told The Jerusalem Post.”

Iran says U.S. report a declaration of surrender Politics Reuters: “TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran’s president said on Sunday the publication of a U.S. intelligence report saying Iran had halted a nuclear weapons program in 2003 amounted to a ‘declaration of surrender’ by Washington in its row with Tehran.”

How else would we think that they would take it? They know that they are building a nuclear weapons capability and they know that we know they are.

Dichter: NIE proves that Israel failed Jerusalem Post: “Washington’s stance on the Iranian nuclear threat in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate will lead to a ‘regional Yom Kippur,’ in which other states besides Israel will be seriously threatened, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said Saturday.”

“The softened intelligence report proves that Israel failed to provide the Americans with the whole picture concerning the Iranian nuclear threat,” Dichter said during a speech at a ‘Cultural Shabbat‘ event in Holon“

They are not stupid they know the threat. Those that accomplished this coup d’état think the bombing of Iran is worse than having a nuclear Iran. The NIE report was drafted in such a way as to prevent George Bush from taking military action against Iran. Israel is now going to have to deal with the next US administration.