THE GREAT IRAN NUCLEAR DIVIDE

Both the protagonists and antagonists on either side of the divide as to whether to ratify the nuclear agreement with Iran share the same opinion of the Iranian Theocracy. Defense Secretary Carter and his State counterpart Kerry both told the  Senate Foreign Relations Committee that they, nor anyone else for that matter, had reason to expect Iran to change its belligerent behavior towards the United States and Israel as a result of the accord. Nor had the Iranians given the slightest indication that they would stop supporting terrorism in the Middle East as a result of the pact. Where the two parties differ, inescapably, is whether or not to uphold the Vienna agreement that while placing severe limits on the uranium enrichment process allows for the Iranian economy to re emerge with all the political and military consequences that will ensue. 

The detractors of the recent deal, predominantly Israel, the Gulf States, Egypt and large sections of the United States Congress are at odds with ninety - nine percent of the world according to President Obama. While Obama seems to be engaging in hyperbole he is probably quite close in his assessment as to the overwhelming universal support the outcome of the months of tortuous negotiations enjoys. The ayes include the whole Security Council and in fact unanimity rarely seen in this day and age including all the nations of Europe, China and Russia. In addition the African, Latin American, Caribbean and East European groups and even Jordan are ad idem. In fact this is the very same crowd that have been condemning Iran in the Security Council for decades, mainly for leading the International Atomic Energy Agency a merry dance, and had as a result participated in the devastating sanctions against them. 

All this begs the question as to why that self same whole world, who not so long ago regarded Iran as a nuclear cheat and now acknowledge that they will not change their general behavior as a result of the deal, are so gung ho for it. This in contrast to the way the Israelis, their government and their opposition, the Gulf Sates and Egypt see the Iranian pact. (Blog: Why the Iranian Deal?).

HOW DID THIS ALL COME ABOUT?

Why after decades long defiance on nuclear issues did these talks even come about? On the surface the Ayatollah Khameini was defiant and why would the Security Council want to make concessions when they were grinding Iran to submission. Ostensibly it was the election of Prime Minister Rouhani in 2013 that paved the way for Iran’s new “flexible” approach and coaxed the Security Council members to give the decade long crises a rethink. Now any casual observer of the Iranian scene knows that to be so much tripe. The Iranian Prime Minister does what the Ayatollah tells him to do. So there had to be more to it than that. And then there was Iran being screwed economically and at a standstill, the populace was getting restless and already there had been a brutal bloody crackdown, Iran’s major allies Syria and Iraq were tottering and ISIS was becoming a direct threat to the Iranian integrity. All of the latter good enough arguments for the grand poobah of Iran to change his strategy on his nuclear policy.

Well that accounts for Iran involvement into the negotiations but what schlepped the world into it? The world could not really get too exited about Iran’s nuclear capability because, if push really came to shove, they or the Israelis would bomb them to smithereens. In addition the world just needed to stick around a bit longer and Iran would had to have caved because they were now being caught between the pincer of economic sanctions and ISIS. Also the seasoned politicians in the Security Council could not really buy that the election of Rouhani made one jot of difference in the Ayatollaha's decision making process. It was more like the Ayatollah was desperate.

Jay H. Ell believes that the nations of the world knew all of this but in weighing up its options rated the all conquering ISIS a bigger threat than Iran. (Blog: Why the Iranian Deal?). The irresistible temptation was thus to make Iran an ally in the war against ISIS. The fear too was that ISIS could take hold of weakened Iran and thereby propose an even greater threat to the world. 

THE MIDDLE EAST FACTION, (GULF STATES AND ISRAEL), WORLD VIEW

Now this is precisely the opposite world view of Israel, the Gulf States and Egypt. They believe that it is Iran that is the greatest threat to world peace, far greater than ISIS, who they rate as more of the same. ISIS just represents the growing Sunni radical movement. In addition ISIS’s biggest battle is with the Shia made up of Assad’s Syria, Iraq and Iran - not to mention the Hezbollah terrorist group. So the Middle East faction of Israel and the Gulf States can watch by as the radical ISIS Sunnis and Iran and their Shia allies duke it out. ISIS has no air force, no missiles no potential nuclear capability so they cannot take on the world or even Israel or the Gulf States like Iran can, so why worry about them? 

You don’t notice Israel in the thick of the battle against ISIS ..… 

WHY THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD VIEWS OF THE WORLD AND THE MIDDLE EAST FACTIONS

The rest of the world is worried about ISIS because they are worried about terrorism. They are concerned about the impact that an established Caliphate can have on recruitment via the internet and social media in every country in the world. They are worried about the asymmetric strategy that the internet spurns in every chat room and on facebook, twitter and in blogs and websites. ISIS is on U Tube every other day lobbing someone’s head off from their new country screaming salvation to the pure and death to all the infidels. There is very little doubt that a successful base and country provides a nidus for the recruitment of the disaffected, unhinged and radicalized youth throughout the world. In addition training can take place there and terrorism exported. The Al Quada experience tells it all. When Al Quada, Osama and the Taliban ruled the roost in Afghanistan, Al Quada terrified the world. Al Quada were chased out of Afghanistan together with the Taliban and now they are very low down on the radar. Who can be inspired by a loser? 

So Israel and the Gulf States are worried about the existential threat that Iran portends. They are adjacent to their genocidal neighbor while the rest of the world are worried about the impact ISIS may have in their home countries. 

WHAT ABOUT THE NUCLEAR THREAT?

Ah yes the nuclear threat. This is what this is supposed to be about after all and in fairness to the hardworking Kerry and his team they cobbled together a large improvement to the status quo. So there is very little doubt that Iran are in less of a position to make a nuclear weapon then they were 6 months ago, but so what. The argument being made at the moment that the alternative to this deal was war is utter nonsense. The alternative to this nuclear deal was the status quo with Iran sweating it out further. A nuclear weapon was still a ways to go and if it happened then the same outcome could have ensued that did with the Iraqi and the Syrian nuclear sites - elimination. Iran with the world on top of them and the Security Council screaming and the International Atomic Energy Agency producing report after report with the Rial going through the floor, with empty shops and inflation skyrocketing would like Iraq and Syria not go to war if their key reactor was snuffed out. They would shut up.

In any case to put it bluntly if Iran subsequently decides to build a nuclear weapon that’s exactly what they will do. North Korea take a fat lot of notice of their treaties. Mean time Iran, with a deal, will have got their mojo and their economy back and will behave just as they did before, except of course they are not going to build a nuclear weapon for the moment. They can then effectively back Assad, rearm Hezbollah and Hamas and with the West’s help take out ISIS. They will be then ready to assume their fight to control the Muslim world as they will control Syria, Iraq and their own terrorist organizations. If and when they are ready to take on Israel they will do so.Then onto the world…

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

As Jay H. Ell has argued this is about ISIS more than it is about nuclear threats. (Blog: Why the Iranian Deal). For everyone to scream at Obama as if it is all about him versus the rest of the world when in fact he is just a part of the ninety - nine percent he was talking about, is not facing the real issues. Jay H. Ell believes that regardless of the grandstanding by the GOP in the US this deal will go through. The GOP has also bought into the ISIS narrative. (Blog: Why the Iranian Deal).

Netanyahu did his cause not much good by coming to America at the Republicans behest and turning the Iran issue into a partisan issue. However he is irrelevant for the moment. Nobody is listening to what he is saying. 

SO WHO IS RIGHT?

So the issue, whether it is tied to a nuclear deal or not, is whether to ally and strengthen Iran because of ISIS or to just let the ISIS issue play out in the Middle East. In making a decision one should surely listen very carefully to those most involved in the contretemps, namely the Israeli/Gulf faction.   Does anyone really think the Gulf States and Israel would be doing as little as they are doing about ISIS if they thought they were the main threat? Iran and their terrorist groups are still public enemies number one. 

As for homegrown terrorism that should be fought at home. Even without ISIS the radical Jihadists have wreaked havoc and one imagines that they will continue to do so till internal security is stiffened up. A good start in the USA would be to stop making weapons so easily available to them.

AT THE END OF THE DAY.

This nuclear deal is going through and one will see what a strengthened Iran might do. But the Iranian nuclear deal is just the beginning not the end. They will certainly have to fight ISIS. They will certainly aid Assad’s Syria and the Shia in Iraq. The major battle as to who will control the Muslim world will still continue. How will the Gulf States respond to the scenarios that might ensue? The question too is what will the Israelis do. They owe the “rest” nothing. Also wanna bet that the Saudis are fishing around for nuclear technology?

If the world got lucky Iran just might rejoin the human race.

Watch this space…..

TRUMP COMES UP TRUMPS

The American Political scene has finally reached reductio  absurdum with the emergence of Donald Trump as the leading nominee for the GOP Presidency nomination. Jay H. Ell states leading advisedly as there is a long long way to go before the election - nearly eighteen months - and if history is anything to go by The Donald will have disappeared off the scene by then. But The Donald is more about making history than mirroring it and Jay H. Ell believes this time he is in it for the long run. He is already threatened a third party run if necessary. The very fact that he is currently center of the Republican thrust is reflective of the dysfunction of the American political process and the Republican Party’s failure to define itself. 

NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS ESPECIALLY REALITY TV

Jay H. Ell has blogged again and again that the media circus dictates the race. (“Governor Walker - The Tea Party’s and Media’s White Hope”, “The 2016  GOP Presidential Horse Race”, “The 2016 POTUS Race - Its Hillarious” and “The GOP Leadership Race and My Fair Hillary”). The media have every incentive to keep the race close and or interesting in order to keep up their ratings over the two year period leading up to the election. The chief dramatis personae - the Presidential candidates - are available at no cost and come with their own scripts. The candidates even subsidize their own appearances by paying astronomical sums for advertisements. So the media moguls have the bonanza of getting free programming material, a free cast and the participants paying to be in the show.

 However in order to make the Primary races “competitive”, for example, Bernie Sanders a well meaning populist, who initially had about 1 per cent of the electorate support, gets unbelievable coverage for his views. Hillary's woes are front page news to the extent that if she could dig herself a hole till election time she would. Such is the burden of being the odds on favorite in the light of the media's need to make this a competitive horse race. 

Now nobody understands the media like Trump. He is the very epitome of the belief that there is no such concept as bad publicity - all publicity is good publicity. While the media berates the fact that he is receiving so much attention they add to the food fest by providing more coverage pretending how painful it is. It is in this reality show environment that a real reality show star, the unashamedly megalomaniacal Donald Trump, takes center stage. Now this is more than just acting where many American politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger have excelled. This is about projecting real life situations onto the world stage and acting them out to massive audiences - reality TV. Trump has already excelled in this being the star in “The Apprentice” where he behaves as in real life, firing people left right and center and being as boorish as he is in his day to day interactions, treading all over the sensibilities of all. Winning is what he is all about as he proudly displays his daily antisocial behaviors before a gawking public. 

TRUMP DOES IT “MY WAY”

So Trump is a winner. Unlike any other presidential candidate he boasts about the billions he has made. He has done it all by himself by flaunting convention and giving meaning to the American dream. He is not looking for donations he is paying for his own campaign. He has stated he will spend as much as is necessary if he stays up there in the polls. Anyway he is receiving billions in free publicity. Currently he is sucking up all the political oxygen. Every

day its another story - McCain is a coward, Jeb Bush has no energy, Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number is announced to the world, Perry’s attack on him and his response labelling the former Texas Governor “unintelligent”, Ted Cruz’s endorsement, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee’s Chairman’s hour long telephone call to him telling him to cool it, “Trump heads the polls”, Rupert Murdoch disowns Trump while his Fox news supports him, Trump hits out at Obama’s foreign policy….

Trump is not stomping at the Iowa bake sales and exchanging pleasantries with the locals. He is not tramping down the trendy New Hampshire streets buying souvenirs rather he is occupying the national stage with a vengeance. He has name recognition, he doesn’t need anyone’s patronage and most of all he knows how the media works and plays them like a fiddle. He has  the highest paid political advisor but no political infrastructure to speak off. 

The media that is his lifeblood is attacked by him with the populist refrain that nobody trusts them. He picks fights with those he perceives are against him and is sycophantic to those that agree with him. Convention is thrown out of the window. He is defining his race and he is the policy and all that “Trumpism” represents. His campaign is out of the box - not subtly like Obama’s was by winning Primary delegates in non Democratic states - but by revolutionizing the way campaigns are run.

TRUMP AND THE GOP

The Republican establishment by angering him and cutting him loose have ironically made it harder for him to retreat even if he wants too. He has maintained that he has been badly treated by them. He was their fair haired boy when he was dishing out donations now they are trying to sideline him. If the GOP treat him fairly he may not consider a run as a third party candidate if he does not get the GOP nomination. It is not only the establishment that will shun Trump. The Koch Brothers, for example, are not going to spend a billion on someone’s agenda they can’t control. Walker is their man.

Everyone knows he had a dressing down from the establishment. He wears it as badge of honor. Michael Steele, the former GOP National Chairman, said Trump has redefined what angina means at the Head Office. The hierarchy must have run out of antacids he added, visibly relieved that this wasn’t his problem.

Jay H. Ell believes that Trump is in the process of finally overseeing the dissolution of the two headed GOP. He resonates with the Tea Party and has no stake in keeping the two wings together. He has no time for the Bushs. Trump may be an elitist but he is a self made. He was not born on third base. There is little doubt that he, unlike all the other Conservative Presidential wannabes from now and before, can emerge as the unified right wing candidate. This makes him a real threat against Jeb Bush. The latter cannot just hang around like Romney did as the mediocrities on the right drop out one by one. Trump is emerging early as the front runner gaining support each day. He is what the Tea Party revolution is all about.

If Bush emerges as front runner Trump will immediately believe that the Party Organization did it and fancy his chances as a third Party candidate. That decision will give the second Clinton a shoo in as much as Ross Perot did for her husband. The establishment better be working long and hard to give Trump an honorable exit as soon as possible. It was the height of arrogance to take him on in that fashion.

TRUMP’S POLITICS 

So here he is playing out this role in real TV telling the electorate what scum of the earth the Mexican illegal immigrants are while in the next breath saying that some of his best employees are Mexicans. He has a populist message - low taxation, no welfare and America uber alles, for example. At the moment he is focussing on immigration and will continue to do so while it resonates. He is off to the Texas border, replete with a baseball cap blaring,”Make America Great Again”, where he attracts massive crowds with the accompanying media coverage. If Trump continues he is sure to gear his populist message to the issue du jour as he has no need to spell out a comprehensive manifesto. He boasts that he will win the Hispanic vote….his position has been misrepresented……

True to form Trump confronted CNN’s Anderson Cooper with the bluster that he was going to make the dead American dream bigger, better and stronger. He continued, “I do it with great bravado and the audience goes crazy”.

NO JOKE

For those who think that this whole exercise is a joke they better think again. This is not a neophyte like Herman Cain. Trump, for better or worse, is an American icon. He is used to success and strides his world like a colossus. The longer this goes on the more his ego is at stake and this is all about his ego. The influential Huffington Post have put Mr. Trump on the entertainment page with the well known reality show, the Kardashians, as they think that is what he is all about. They miss the point that Jay H. Ell has been making again and again - the media have turned politics into entertainment long ago. The point that it is all about entertainment is not lost on The Donald and there is no-one better in this milieu.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Realistically Trump cannot win the Presidency as he has irreversibly antagonized the growing Hispanic vote. Also his message does not carry beyond the Republican base. His tactic would be if he ever got in a position to challenge would be to smear the opposition to kingdom come and say the electorate needs to dump politics as usual and give him, a Washington outsider and a highly successful entrepreneur and manager, a chance. He has also reassured that he can be dignified if need be!

 However, one thing is for sure he has to have cheered up the Democratic National Party Headquarters as much he has depressed the Republican one. The GOP establishment has to be cringing at the thought of how destructive the GOP Primary debates are shaping up to be.They are almost certain to be a rerun of the last two electoral cycles' disasters. As Jay H. Ell has argued the longer this goes on the more “The Donald” has personally at stake. If he really does become the challenger he might just have to come to terms, publicly, with a massive defeat - something that is not on his radar and a circumstance for which he has never rehearsed.

But then again Trump has never been embarrassed or wrong. When challenged about his donations to the Democrats he maintained that was “business”. After years’ long campaign that Obama had not been born in America he maintained that his investigators had uncovered evidence to that effect. He was then confronted with Obama’s “long” birth certificate. At a press conference that he was going to make his major revelation on the birther issue, without flinching, he bombastically proclaimed that he had done the country a favor by forcing Obama to reveal proof of his American birth - apparently his investigators had found nothing! Jay H. Ell knows of a few other entities he could do a favor by calling it quits. 

No one knows how this will all end least of all The Donald. Jay H. Ell warns him if he indeed becomes a serious contender he will not know what hit him as the barrage of interest groups backing other candidates ascend on him and reveal each detail of his lugubrious career.  Whatever the outcome he will still declare victory. 

All in all scary stuff. 

TENNESSEE, COLORADO AND ALL SHOOTINGS - NO HOPE TO STOP THEM?

Federal agents have searched high and low to find ties connecting the Tennessee shooter at military facilities, Mohammed Youssef Abdulazeez, with a terrorist organization with no success. “At this time, we have no indication he was inspired by or directed by anyone other than himself,” Edward Reinhold, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Knoxville, Tennessee, told reporters Friday. That Abdulazeez is a murderer who killed at least 5 people and injured a number is not in dispute but whether or not he can be connected to a terrorist organization is. The good news is if he isn’t a card carrying member of ISIS International then it is not homegrown terror it is only just another mass murder - nothing to get too exited about.

All this according to The Washington Post has lead them, (FBI), to the uncomfortable question that counterterrorism is reaching the practical limits as to what they can do to detect homegrown plots. The report goes on further to detail that Abdulazeez had at least two rifles or shotguns and a handgun when he opened fire on a military recruiting center and a Navy Reserve center in Chattanooga Tennessee. “Some of the weapons may have been purchased legally and some of them may have not been”, according to the FBI.

So we all have to be resigned to wholesale slaughter. Apparently if the shooter hasn’t blurted out on Facebook that Jihad or racism is the answer mass murders are just going to take place. Implicit in this report is that the authorities have given up on stopping wholesale slaughters such as the one that has just been played out in Aurora Colorado where an “unstable” young man, James Holmes opened fire in a theater killing 12 people and wounding 70 others. That he had mental problems and had schizophrenia was not the issue in his trial but rather whether he was psychotic at the time of the shooting. Holmes had endless numbers of guns of all types  including semi automatic rifles, which had been Federally banned from 1994 - 2004, which he used in his attack

PEOPLE NOT GUNS KILL. - NRA

So if the FBI cannot as yet find a connection to a terrorist motive Abulazeez and Holmes are just lumped in the same category. According to the NRA they are two evil people who would have slaughtered all these people regardless of whether they had access to guns. Now evil people and mentally challenged citizens are not unique to America they are all over the world so one wonders why all the other countries in the world do not have a mass murder every month or so? (Mass murders being defined as more than four people being killed).

Perhaps, just perhaps these evil people or mentally disturbed cannot obtain guns so easily. Sadly, for them, they have no second amendment rights that have been distorted to allow them the means to kill who you like as often as you like with whatever weapon you like.

The number of killings with guns has been very difficult to record as the NRA have lobbied the GOP not to fund the Center of Disease Control to collect data. President Obama issued an executive order ever since Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 souls, mainly young children were slaughtered by an individual who had semi automatic weapons in his stolen arsenal. He too had major mental problems and an obsession with mass murders. 

GUN DEATHS AND THEIR COST

It is accepted that there at least 33,000 gun related deaths in America each year. Little wonder when there are at least 300 million guns floating around and if the NRA had its way there would be 300 million more. Little focus takes place on most of these deaths unless there are sensational murder trials, celebrity suicides, police shootings or on the odd occasion when the potential shooter kills less than four people such as in Foot Hood. For the most part these deaths don’t even rate the same news coverage as road accidents do. The latter are responsible for a similar number of deaths. In 2013 the commonest causes of death in the ages 15 to 34 were unintentional deaths, suicides and homicides.  The commonest method of suicide is by gunshot as is the commonest method of homicide. Put another way gun deaths are a big problem in the USA. Almost as big a problem in 2014 as breast cancer deaths, (40,000) as common as prostate deaths, (29,450) larger than leukemia, (24,000) and far more than carcinomas of the ovary, cervix and  uterus combined. 

COSTS OF RESEARCH OF GUN AND CANCER DEATHS.

One needs hardly have to detail how much has rightfully spent on research to avoid cancer deaths. In 2010 cancer research costs were estimated at 124 billion dollars and they are projected to be between 158 and 200 billion in 2020. When you compare this with the virtually nothing spent on gun deaths, remember Congress nixed the expenditure on even tallying how many gun deaths there were, it is a scandal. Mother Jones the internet website studied the costs to society of gun violence and it was 229 billion per year. This equals nearly the total costs of Medicaid countrywide. 

Jay H. Ell is reduced to arguing the dollar cost of this slaughter as no-one seems to care about them unless they are acts of international terrorism. The same citizens who teach their children to look to the left and the right before they cross the road seem comfortable sending their children to school or college and attend places of worship where they have a chance go being cut down by gun fire. 

At the same time Congress and State legislatures do not seem to be pressurized into increasing the mental health care budget. The most vulnerable group to accidental and gun deaths are the age group 15 - 34 a tragedy that gets no attention while there endless resources spent on weather prediction. 

NOTHING LEFT TO BE SAID

This subject has figuratively been shot to death. Everything has been written and nothing done. Jay H. Ell has blogged repeatedly, "The Tuscon Massacre and American Culture - Can There Be a Solution",  "Guns: Obama, NRA, GPO = Stalemate", "Boston, Bombs, Guns, Cars and Society", "Obama Wants to Take Away Our Guns - Mr. Martinez" and all those blogs on Police shootings. (The latter number also very difficult to come by and are accepted as being 400 per year - a number said to have been reached already this year. In addition more than 40 police are said to be the victims of gun violence per year).

At the very least the subject is worthy of research which is the last thing that the NRA want as it may be established that guns are responsible for gun deaths. Sooner or later there will be consensus on the subject as numbers get reported from now on. In addition the very factor that finally enabled bipartisan support on draconian mandatory jail sentences for non violent drug offenders was the cost of incarceration not to mention all the other expenditures, could result in the investigation into this slaughter and its obvious solutions - register gun holders who have to show proficiency and care of weapons, ban multi shooting weapons and improve mental health care while keeping guns out of their hands. On a cost benefit analysis the effort has to be worth 229 billion dollars a year and for the soppy, like Jay H. Ell, there is a profound humane side to it all!

PS: The Charleston Church shooting, with a handy hand gun that contains 13 rounds that could be fired in rapid succession, by a racist has almost faded into history but for the removal of the Confederate flag but the Colorado mass murder will still be in the news the trial moves to the sentencing phase..... 

WHY THE IRANIAN DEAL ?

The predictable has occurred. There has been deal on limiting Iran’s nuclear capability between the Security Council five, lead by Obama’s US and Germany and the Islamic Republic. It will take days to sort out the details and those will need to be analyzed. However, those that were against the deal in the first place, are already in the forefront of slamming it. All along the bargaining process was not really understandable as there was little doubt that Iran was at the table because they are in a state of economic collapse so it appeared inexplicable that they were calling the shots.  

Jay H. Ell has blogged that on its face Obama’s policy on the Middle East is incoherent. (Blog: The New Middle East - Obama’s Failure To Create a Coherent Policy). Till this exercise is explained in the whole context of Middle East Policy it is difficult to judge it in a vacuum however “good” or “bad” it might be. 

Jay H. Ell has further, mainly, in a flurry of blogs maintained the following:

IRAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST

• That Iran has throughout the period of nuclear negotiations not toned down its vitriolic rhetoric towards Israel and the United States of America nor backed down on its terrorist sponsored activities.
• That Iran entered negotiations because the sanctions had devastated their economy.
• That a new dynamic has entered the Islamic world with a three way battle for supremacy - the Sunni zealots ISIS and Al Qaeda, versus the fundamentalist Gulf State Sunnis and the radical Shiites lead by Iran. 
• ISIS has made great gains in Syria and Iraq and have shocked the world by their naked brutality and savagery. Furthermore they appeared to be gaining recruits from all over the planet. There are either copycat terrorist atrocities or ISIS has indeed a world wide organization.
• That this new dynamic, the threat of ISIS and the battle for supremacy in the Islamic world has lead to new alliances in the Middle East with the Gulf States and Jordan and Egypt allying with Israel. The only stumbling block to this becoming public is that these traditional Israeli enemies cannot go public till the Palestinian impasse resolves.
• That if anything the Palestinian Israeli confrontation has hardened. There is a chasm between Abbas and Hamas. The former regarded as the negotiator by the world is becoming less and less representative of the Palestinians. Hamas on the other hand publicly is belligerent but realistically wants a period of consolidation. In short the two state plan for the moment is dead and Hamas in all probability want a one state solution so that they can claim that they have no rights in it. They punctuating that political ploy with rocket firing and the like.
• The Iranian sponsored terrorist entities Hamas and Hezbollah are at odds with ISIS. The latter in fact are at war with ISIS as they defend Assad against ISIS while Hamas have been castigated by ISIS as Iranian vassels. 

ISRAEL, US AND THE WORLD

• There is a sharp tension between USA and Israel as reflected through Netanyahu and Obama. It has always been difficult to really know what this meant because of the open contempt these two leaders have for one another. However whatever the truth the perception of Israel’s supporters is, that in spite of reports of cooperation between the two regimes at every level, that Obama is in the process of selling out Israel in the Iranian talks.
• All this is taking place in a world of growing anti semitism, boycotts, disinvestment, sanctions and attempts to isolate Israel regarding it as the aggressor in the Palestinian conflict.
• Objectively it is very difficult to equate the callous behavior of Hamas with the Israeli response. This notwithstanding the provocative behavior of Netanyahu such as continuing to establish settlements. Yet the world has used a double standard to attack Israel on this issue. Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who is known for his balance, has stated that these attacks are the new form of anti semitism.
• Israel is a very important in American politics for a number of reasons. This is not as popularly believed because the Jewish sector control America politically and economically. They only represent 1.4% of the USA population and other than a few constituencies they are irrelevant. While there is little doubt that members of that tiny minority have disproportionate clout that cannot be the only basis of the US Israeli axis.
• The reasons for the American public’s close affinity to Israel are multifactorial. The Americans believe that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East and its only ally against terrorism and bigotry. The Israeli democratic system is believed to be comparable to the American one. A large section of the fundamentalist conservative population of America, the base of the Republican Party, support Israelis to the hilt. The return to the holy land as prophesied in the Old Testament has happened and without Israel there will be no Messiah. The Democrats have traditionally been Israel’s strongest supporters but at the moment are suspect because of Obama’s apparent abandonment. 
• However the most important factor in all of this is the fact that they the top priority in American politics is security and Israel is in the forefront in the battle against those who wish to harm and destabilize the homeland. This is the bottom line and the red line in the sand. To hell with the niceties - security is where it is at. We stand in long lines at the airport and take off our shoes and belts in every government building we enter. 9/11 was a turning point in history. The new warfare had started and who is in the front line fighting it - Israel!
• This makes Israel very important in American local politics and Obama is weakening the Democrats by the Iranian negotiations where he appears to be inexplicably selling out Israel.
• Jay H. Ell has opined that the US should get out of the Middle East. Israel has never asked the US for troops. Why on earth is Obama mixing in? Why is he apparently giving Iran concessions for fighting ISIS? The latter are a far bigger existential threat to Iran than they are to the USA. Let Iran take on ISIS on their own. Also a nuclear Iran could attack the USA as it has promised and ISIS hasn’t got one plane let alone a nuclear infrastructure to hobble the USA. 

WHY IS THE USA NOT TELLING IRAN TO GO TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET? 

Part of the answer was provided to Jay H. Ell by a highly talented personable Congressman, Robert Dold, a long time friend of Israel, who is fighting to retain his seat in the US Congress where the Jewish vote may well make a difference. Jay H. Ell put the following question to him:

“Why is Obama apparently making concessions to Iran so that they would support him in the fight against ISIS? Why do we not tell Iran that ISIS is more their problem than ours so we are not going to make any concessions?”

Dold did not answer this question directly. He countered that ISIS was a major threat to America’s security. He maintained that what kept him awake at night was the fear that a container ship, for example, may contain the means for a major terrorist attack. To paraphrase, his response was ISIS was the top security priority.  

Taken in the context that in diplomacy there are activities that aren’t public, such as the new Arab Israeli axis there is another mushroom diplomacy in effect. Evidence for this, implicitly, is the fact that the US and the West are not going after Syria’s Assad. If anything it could be argued that they are supporting him. Who is Assad’s biggest problem at the moment? - ISIS. 

Explicitly the answer is provided by the United Kingdom’s former Ambassador to the US, Christopher Meyer. He argued in a piece published in the British Daily Telegraph that in view of the chaos in the Middle East the West should completely halt their activities in the Middle East and abandon their traditional ally Saudi Arabia and join Iran in their fight against ISIS. Now Meyer is no fringe player, the UK ambassador to the USA is a cabinet level position. However, by being the “former” Ambassador the UK can have it both ways - this statement does not officially involve the Government but it still sends a message.

This coalition of poler opposites is not exactly a novel position. In World War 11, the Allies included Stalin’s Soviet Union. As the statesman who coined the term “Iron Curtain”, Churchill referred to the self same Russians who had backed Hitler, as “Our Noble Allies”. The nascent threat of the USSR was always obvious and if Patton had had his way he would have marched onto Moscow after conquering the Nazis. Also Stalin wasn’t our chosen ally. He had originally signed a non aggression pact with Hitler which the latter reneged on and invaded Russia. (Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy). So arguing the USSR parallel in supporting Iran while claiming ISIS is the real enemy is comparing apples to oranges.

But it seems that there is a consensus that ISIS is the number one threat to the Western world at the moment. But where does that take us?

WHAT NOW?

While the West may believe that ISIS is their number one priority their assessment is not shared by their allies in the Middle East - Israel and the Gulf States. The latter in fact, believe it is Iran. As far as Jay H. Ell is concerned there is  very little difference between the two of them. A lesson should have been learned from World War 11. Leaving the USSR intact and giving them half of Europe left them in a position to take on the civilized world for half a century nearly resulting in a nuclear holocaust. Iran and ISIS  are both evil and should be fought at the same time. Iran cannot be trusted just because we have a common enemy. They too are purveyors of terrorism. Like Stalin, who had already killed 20 million of his own, and who by an accident of history become an ally, Ali Khameini is no better. 

Any nuclear deal with Iran is fraught with danger as it does not, for example take into account America’s traditional Middle East allies and what they might do. It ignores Iranian terrorist activity and their arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. In short it is one helluva risk.