Iran nuclear deal fuels anger, jitters in Mideast

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister harshly condemned the international community's nuclear deal with Iran on Sunday while Western allies in the Persian Gulf were conspicuously quiet, reflecting the jitters felt throughout the Middle East over Iran's acceptance on the global stage.

Elsewhere, many welcomed the agreement as an important first step toward curbing Iran's suspect nuclear program.

Israel and Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia have formed an unlikely alliance in their opposition to Sunday's deal, joined together by shared concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran.

While most Gulf countries remained silent in the first hours after the deal was reached in Geneva, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted little time in criticizing it, calling it a "historic mistake" and saying he was not bound by the agreement.

Speaking to his Cabinet, Netanyahu said the world had become a "more dangerous place" as a result of the deal. He reiterated a long-standing threat to use military action against Iran if needed, declaring that Israel "has the right and the duty to defend itself by itself."

Via: Town Hall

Continue Reading.....

Is Obama Still President?

His cadences soar on, through scandal after fiasco after disaster.­ 

We are currently learning whether the United States really needs a president. Barack Obama has become a mere figurehead, who gives speeches few listen to any more, issues threats that scare fewer, and makes promises that almost no one believes he will keep. Yet America continues on, despite the fact that the foreign and domestic policies of Barack Obama are unraveling, in a manner unusual even for star-crossed presidential second terms.

Abroad, American policy in the Middle East is leaderless and in shambles after the Arab Spring — we’ve had the Syrian fiasco and bloodbath, leading from behind in Libya all the way to Benghazi, and the non-coup, non-junta in Egypt. This administration has managed to unite existential Shiite and Sunni enemies in a shared dislike of the United States. While Iran follows the Putin script from Syria, Israel seems ready to preempt its nuclear program, and Obama still mumbles empty “game changers” and “red line” threats of years past.

We have gone from reset with Russia to Putin as the playmaker of the Middle East. The Persian Gulf sheikhdoms are now mostly anti-American. The leaders of Germany and the people of France resent having their private communications tapped by Barack Obama — the constitutional lawyer and champion of universal human rights. Angela Merkel long ago grasped that President Obama would rather fly across the Atlantic to lobby for a Chicago Olympic Games — or tap her phone — than sit through a 20th-anniversary commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Via: NRO

Continue Reading.....