Republicans Send "Open Letter" to Iran To Thwart Nuclear Negotiations

Republicans are demanding final approval of the Iranian agreement, but don't realize that they are functionally disrupting the process of agreement negotiations?

Click Here to access the full letter

I don't buy it and neither should the American public.  Without a doubt, even congressional representatives of limited intelligence are educated by their peers on the danger of disrupting active negotiations.  The act of doing so represents a deliberate attempt to force one of the participants into a place of distrust and ultimately away from the negotiation table altogether.

Congressional Republicans and Hardliner Iranians

Apparently, Iran is full of hardliners who also do not want this deal, though probably for different reasons than congressional republicans.  Whether 10 years of uranium enrichment restrictions is a part of the final deal or not is separate from the fact that somebody has to come to the table, and those participants must negotiate in good faith in order to come to an agreement.  Open letters to Iran warning the agreement participants that their unspecified deal will not be allowed to stand is a last ditch effort to throw a grenade on Obama's potential historic negotiation.  He has already shocked the world by convincing moderate Iranian's to join the fight against ISIS or run the risk of answering to them one day.  Add to that the recent news that ISIS is starting to suffer from the impact of persistent air attacks and Obama's foes are losing a grip on their strongest area of criticism of this president, uncontrolled terrorism.

Netanyahu did not convince the world of his claim, he only came across as a desperate politician trying to hold on to his role of prime minister.  Netanyahu is already giving considerations to the idea of a unity government that would provide him access to power whether he succeeds in the March 17 Israeli elections or not.  Inherent to the unity path will be a necessity to negotiate with Palestine and Iran, a path that Netanyahu supporters defiantly resist while congressional republicans don't care about either way.  Their mission is to block the Obama legacy and Netanyahu is just a pawn in that game.

What becomes most peculiar while watching modern republicans work diligently to paint the picture of the Obama years is seeing how they miss their own place in the portrait.  Establishing your own legacy as the people who tried to destroy Obama is a twisted legacy to write for yourself.  Not only have republicans pushed their party further away from the hopes of the presidency, they are now behaving as if congress will always be the only place that they will ever be allowed to influence the direction of America.

I think they're right.

King Abdullah Believes Pathway Of Terror Points Towards Jerusalem

What makes America's path against radical Islamic terror most confusing is that we are expected to both support the fight and create the plan.

To date, I have yet to hear one credible plan that doesn't sound either too limited or too counterproductive.  Most except that Arab nations must lead this fight while disregarding that King Abdullah of Jordan has raised a hand to assume the job. As a result, very few are listening to the voices  of the same people we've asked to lead the fight.

King Abdullah of Jordan is leading, and thanks to an historic interview, he's talking too.

Did ISIS pull the wrong tiger's tail when they
burned the Jordanian pilot?

Fareed Zakaria (of CNN's GPS) has secured an exclusive interview with the person now in charge of the war against ISIS. King Abdullah, who has not spoken since the death of the Jordanian pilot, has remained consistent on the side that believes this fight must be lead by Arab nations.  Yet, determining who will lead the charge only represents one aspect of the current unrest.  Although many people don't want to hear him say it- King Adullah believes that, in the end, "all roads lead to Jerusalem".

For the love of God, the USA endures and insures a non-partisan, Christian commitment to the safety and security of the nation of Israel.  Despite the tensions that exist between Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Barack Obama, even Netanyahu acknowledges that Obama has committed more resources to the safety of Israel than ever before under any other US president.  If Obama's willingness to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran is a sticking point in the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama, it is only one big point on a very thin list.  That other big point makes Obama just as maligned as is King Abdullah in the eyes of Netanyahu supporters.  Both Obama and Abdullah ardently agree that Israel must resolve the Palestinian issue and establish a two state solution between these two nations.  The iron-dome keeping a cap upon the entire middle-eastern powder keg is an inseparable dedication to God that America makes to keep God separated from our government even while we allow Him to dictate our policy towards Israel.

Israel should be appalled by Gaza too!

These religious commitments of America do not technically make us a caliphate, because ALL religious ideologies are free to be in the home of the brave.  Disregard, if you can, that we do claim a Trust in a God that we reference on our demigod. Disregard also that because of that very God, WE will never allow the death of Israel, even if Benjamin Netanyahu and his political crony John Boehner ignorantly test our divine marching order.

Despite the differences that this current president has with Israel's current prime minister, why would Netanyahu wish to risk the image that America has towards Israel and those who support him?  No visit - especially one with political ramifications- should be worth the risk of disrupting a relationship that will determine the future of your people.

Nothing reasonably good could come of the behavior of Netanyahu except the re-election of Netanyahu.  Ben has read our bible too and he knows that WE are as religiously dedicated to their safety as evil is to their destruction.  At times it feels that WE are even more invested in Israel than Netanyahu and those like him.  When you make a mockery of our congress, you religiously mock the very messianic message that demands we protect you.

Since our investment in Israel might one day require the death of millions and the next true world war, King Abdullah, President Barack Obama and I are on the side of reasonable diplomacy before unabashed acceptance of the death of millions.  Diplomacy means oversight in Iran to monitor and delay their walk towards a nuclear reality instead of hoping that they will never do it absent worldwide oversight. Diplomacy means rebuilding Gaza so we don't have to keep bombing it. Diplomacy means that we quit ignoring this war torn region as though its not a humanitarian disgrace.


Gaza is a disgrace to all of humanity.

Just saying Ben.

Moreover, Gaza is as legitimate a tool for the recruitment of terror as anything in the world.  Airstrikes in response to beheading's help modern recruitment efforts, but Gaza is an old problem and far from being addressed with the kind of focus that confronts terror on all fronts, especially recruitment paths.  This mission will be won by attacking every supply chain, and all roads truly do point towards Jerusalem.

Jordan Retaliates Against ISIS. Do The Ends Justify The Means?

My wife typically refrains from the hours of news information that I digest through every media outlet I can.  I even stream public radio through the headphones just so I can get the "old news" version of the daily news and not the slanted politicized national news that taints most television airwaves. When ISIS decided to up the ante recently by burning the Jordanian pilot alive, even my wife couldn't turn away.

My hunch is that ISIS hoped she wouldn't turn away this time since the beheading's- that we don't fully televise anyway- have lost their impact.  Beheading's are old school tactics, so the propensity to turn back tortures clock speaks of an organization reaching for anything that it can grab hold of.  For a while, the beheading's achieved the purpose, but eventually one blurry video of a dying victim in an orange suit starts to resemble the next blurry video.  President Obama is limping his way towards the finish line of his tenure and never believed in the idea of fanning the terrorism flame anyway.  He came into office with the mission of ending our middle eastern wars and he hardly intends to leave office with a battalion of US soldiers waiting to be brought home by some other president.  If we are to return to the battlefields of Iraq, and now Syria, it will not be from another beheading.

But has burning someone alive changed the game?

The burning certainly has my wife wondering why we wouldn't just go blow them up and be done with it.  Typically, our response to every provocation is to blow them up and try to be done with it, but ISIS is a 30,000 soldier (and growing) fighting force that has taken over lands occupied by well over 1 million people.  The easy way to get rid of those 30,000 is to get rid of the million as well.  Everything else is a surgical process of weeding the needle out of the haystack that leaves you stuck in the middle east for a long time.

The pilot was from Jordan but ISIS is attacking humanity.

This fight must be lead by those most impacted by it, but even they are vulnerable to react impulsively. One of the hostages that  Jordan decided to kill was an Iraqi suicide bomber who only became captured because her chest bomb didn't go off.  She is alive today as a result of technical difficulties and her release would have certainly given her the opportunity to fix that error.  Jordan may feel better for having killed an Iraqi woman (women are typically excluded from these horrific acts) but have they elevated the cause of those who oppose Islamic extremism?

Of significant note is the digital production quality of the video.  Though it may have been a Jordanian pilot that was killed, the video targets western civilization and western sensibilities.  It pursues the kind of barbarism that would enrage Jordan and provoke the west into doing something more than drone strikes and military aid to the Kurds.  This is Pearl Harbor for ISIS except they have to send their suicide planes one beheading- or burning at a time.  Nothing says legitimacy like inciting a world war, and if ISIS can pull it off, they solidify their place in the spectrum of terror groups as the leader of the pack.

As long as the world remains disjointed in their response to ISIS, ISIS wins this war.  Collectively we can easily defeat this foe, but collectivism is not a characteristic of worldwide politics.  Jordan has fed the monster with their response to ISIS and so have we.  We must accept the negative impact of giving ISIS publicity in order to counter it with properly weighted opposition.  Some of it will happen in a traditional way but much of our war with ISIS will have to be fought in a new way that has yet to be developed.  Deflating ISIS will require a combination approach of every military and non-military counter effort that we know of- and a few yet imagined. The rules of engagement will have to be altered to address an enemy that doesn't behave by rules.  They're not even afraid to be known.

We Know Who They Are!!
Defining the enemy could be an important first step if it were not for the willingness of this enemy to define themselves.  Their behaviors define them and the scene of their behaviors clarifies their location.  Defining war against radicals is difficult because who they are is an evolving definition.  They come from all areas of the world and will eventually make the entire world their battlefield if allowed to operate freely.  Stopping terror is as impossible as ending serial killers.  While terror tactics are harsh and enraging, their outcomes are about the equivalent of a serial killer.

Thinking Like Killers

When we begin to win against terror, we will behave much as it does.  That will demand the courage to stand tall in the face of the inevitable mistakes while extracting embedded terrorist', but it will also demand the courage to stand tall in the face of human rights groups who will scream about covert strikes that America reveals only after the damage is done.  Gaining secret intelligence and responding to it with secret force will put terror on the run but it will also send American's chasing for information.  Terrorists that we kill NEED the news report more than they needed the bullet in their head and our demand for information feeds their need.

Fighting a war of legitimacy demands an enemy, and while middle eastern radicals add the US to their vast list of enemies, we only legitimize their war by publicly acknowledging them as we do or by killing sympathetic hostages in response.  Did Jordan consider executing these hostages by fire and then creating a video as well? Even without similar nastiness, ISIS is using Jordan's retaliation as a recruiting tool so that they can gain 5,000 while losing 2 sympathizers.

In the face of any war, the ends have to justify the means.