From Ian:
Reporter Calls Out Obama Admin for Living in Foreign Policy 'Fantasy World'
Melanie Phillips: Turning enemies into friends and friends into foes
Reporter Calls Out Obama Admin for Living in Foreign Policy 'Fantasy World'
Discussing North Korea's recent claim that it tested a nuclear weapon, Lee posed this question to State Department spokesman John Kirby:AP’s Lee Calls Out Obama Administration For Living In A Fantasyland Of Their Foreign Policy Failures
“Every time this happens, we hear from people in this administration, and other governments as well, that we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. And yet it is. You also say this about other things too. You say you will never accept Crimea as a part of Russia. And yet it is. Isn’t it time to recognize these things for what they are and not live in this illusion or fantasy where you pretend that things are, are not?”
Kirby astonishingly responds that "The short answer is no."
"It's preferable to live in a fantasy world?" Lee counters.
Kirby stumbled for a long awkward stretch before finally saying, "At this level of foreign policy, you know, you... you have to make choices. And uh, you don't have to accept everything, even at face value."
"You have to accept reality," Lee interjected.
"No. We're not going to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. We're not going to recognize that. We are, however, going to deal with -"
Melanie Phillips: Turning enemies into friends and friends into foes
Last Tuesday, Iran unveiled a new underground missile depot, with state television showing Emad precision- guided missiles weapons that the US says are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Like its ballistic missile tests last October and November, these violate UN Security Council resolutions.Awarding polemics
For this and other flagrant breaches of trust, the Obama administration has done nothing. Having suggested it would implement sanctions against the bodies it held responsible for aiding the missile program, it promptly retreated after a reported intervention by the State Department following Iranian objections.
Iran is confident that Obama will lift sanctions whatever the regime may do, since if Iran walks away from the nuclear deal this would strip away the figleaf of progress and destroy Obama’s presumed legacy. Consequently, the only binding part of this non-deal deal has become the lifting of sanctions. Obama has effectively become Iran’s hostage.
As a simultaneous consequence of this farce, the US has also lost its leverage over Saudi Arabia which almost certainly will now seek to develop or buy nuclear weapons of its own. To defuse this powder keg, the US should now cancel the Iranian nuclear deal. This would start to rein in Iran and bring Saudi Arabia down from the tree up which it has climbed.
It is said that Obama thought strengthening Shia Iran would produce a regional balance of power with Sunni Saudi Arabia, and usher in an era of peace and stability. Instead, he has pushed Iran and Saudi Arabia to the brink of war with each other, ushered in a nuclear arms race between the two and brought the world much closer to the edge of the apocalypse.
Olof Palme was a charismatic and well-spoken Social Democrat who became prime minister of Sweden in 1969. Palme was known for being both anti-American and anti-capitalist; and throughout his political career he fostered a close relationship to the Palestine Liberation Organization and became a personal friend of Yasir Arafat's, whom he invited to Sweden for numerous official visits. During Palme's time as prime minister, Swedish foreign policy was laced with a staunch anti-Zionism, and from then on, the Swedish government has given generous Swedish aid to the PLO.
After Palme's death in 1986, an award was created in his name, and every year the Olof Palme Prize, and the accompanying $75,000, is given to someone who is said to have done good work for human rights and democracy in the world. This year, the Palme Prize was awarded to Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and Palestinian Lutheran Bishop Mitri Raheb, for their "fight against occupation and violence," according to the jury.
Levy is a journalist at the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, and his attacks on Israel and the IDF are often published in Swedish media as a representation of middle-of-the-road sanity. Raheb is a pastor in the Lutheran church in Bethlehem who is known for preaching the so-called "replacement theology," wherein Christianity is believed to have replaced Judaism, making the Jewish faith -- and its claim to the Jewish homeland -- obsolete. Raheb is known across the world for his hate-propaganda toward Israel and the fact the he preaches a theology that nullifies any Jewish religious or historic heritage, including that of the land of Israel. These two men are being honored for their "courageous and indefatigable fight against occupation and violence, and for a future Middle East characterized by peaceful coexistence and equality for all," as the Olof Palme Memorial Fund phrased it in a statement released on Thursday. (h/t Yenta Press)









