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Ruth King

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Trump: Israel not sidelined, no frustration with Netanyahu By David Isaac

By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/trump-israel-not-sidelined-no-frustration-with-netanyahu/

Donald Trump is not frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the U.S. president said, addressing a question from Fox News anchor Bret Baier during a May 16 interview following his tour of three Arab Gulf states.

Trump told Baier that it was important to keep the Arab states “in our fold. … They’re back loving the United States again. That was a full embrace.”

The trip, which skipped the Jewish state, had been characterized in the media as “shrugging off” or “sidelining” Israel, particularly as Trump appeared to ignore Israeli concerns about Qatar, a funder of Islamist groups, and met with Syria’s new leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whom Netanyahu’s government said is a “jihadist.”

However, Trump expressed empathy for Netanyahu in the wide-ranging interview with Baier, saying Israel’s prime minister is dealing with a difficult situation.

“[Netanyahu] is an angry man, and he should be because of October 7. And he’s been hurt badly by that. But in another way, he’s been sort of helped because I think he’s fought hard and bravely,” Trump said.

Trump had already attempted to allay fears that his Mideast trip meant a change in the U.S.-Israel relationship.

On Air Force One from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, Trump told reporters he wasn’t shunting Israel aside. “No not at all,” he said. “This is good for Israel, having a relationship like I have with these countries, Middle Eastern countries, essentially all of them.

“You have to remember, there was an October 7 that everyone forgets. It was one of the most violent days in the history of the world, not the Middle East, the world. When you look at the tapes, and the tapes are there for everyone to see,” Trump told Baier, referring to video of the massacre filmed and distributed on social media by the Hamas terrorists.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Disunited Kingdom New SNP leadership and an unpopular Labour Party may yet force Scottish independence back onto the political agenda.John Lloyd

By on May 19th, 2025

https://quillette.com/2025/05/19/a-disunited-kingdom-snp-swinney-forbes-europe/?ref=quillette-daily-newsletter

Many European states have political parties that exist to convince a part of their population to secede and make their own way in a separate polity. Most of these parties are small, electorally insignificant, and only occasionally violent (as on the French island of Corsica). But they are all likely to be assisted by the turbulence of our political moment.

Germany hosts two separatist parties—the Bavaria Party and the Free Voters of Saxony, both of which have local followings but attract only a small number of votes. In Italy, the Northern League was established in the early 1990s to create “Padania,” a new state freed from the corruption of Rome. It has since contracted its name to The League to become a small right-wing party and a partner in the current right-wing government. Belgium is divided between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. The country was expected to split after the 2024 election, but the far-right secessionist party in Flanders, Vlams Belang, came second to the more moderate, centre-right N-VA. After seven months of talks, the N-VA formed a national coalition government with Wallonia’s centre-right party, and Belgium is holding together—for the time, at least.

Spain is a country of passionately autonomist regions and it is currently experiencing a period of strong economic growth. But the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, is under constant attack, and the fragile coalition he leads has been dependent on the support of Catalonian independence parties. An election in the region last year, however, showed a significant rise in support for Catalonia’s pro-government socialist party. This has weakened both of the region’s secessionist parties and the grip they exercise over Sanchez.

So, a tentative peace has settled over the governments of Europe, relieved for now of the immediate worry that their borders will be challenged and that politics will return to a hectic series of late-night meetings called to avert a national break-up. Yet one country still threatens to split into separate states through the process secessionists like to call liberation, and it is the state that most boldly proclaims its national wholeness: the United Kingdom.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Stephen Eide Marijuana and the Mentally Ill Legalization is pushing community mental health to the brink.

By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/marijuana-legalization-weed-mental-illness-health

America’s ongoing marijuana-legalization experiment will have many consequences. That goes especially for the seriously mentally ill, a sliver of the adult population but overrepresented among the ranks of compulsive pot users. Treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is never easy; even when treatment is available, the seriously mentally ill often fail to comply. A schizophrenic who spends most of his days in a dark room smoking weed is not a clinically promising case.

Modern mental-health systems are community-based and thus shaped by community norms. Decades ago, clouds of pot smoke were not often encountered on city streets. Now that they’re ubiquitous, a seriously mentally ill individual may be inclined to wonder what’s so objectionable about an activity that normal Americans do daily, in public and even during working hours.

The issue is only partly whether pot causes mental illness. A large body of research studies, involving tens of thousands of people, has suggested, with impressive replicability, that heavy cannabis use increases the risk of developing mental illness. Legalization proponents reject this, contending that, while the rate of marijuana consumption has soared over recent decades, the rate of serious mental illness seems to have stayed flat.

But this debate has eclipsed interest in the effect of continued cannabis use on those already mentally ill. What can be done about that? For scores of clinicians and families of the mentally ill across the nation, it’s the more pressing question.

In recent years, countless family memoirs and nonfiction accounts of mental illness have extensively chronicled the descent into madness. This literature often highlights marijuana more than any other intoxicating substance. Pot plays a notable role in several recent book-length treatments of mental illness, including Randye Kaye’s Ben Behind His Voices (2011), Patrick and Henry Cockburn’s Henry’s Demons (2011), Paul Gionfriddo’s Losing Tim (2014), Mindy Greiling’s Fix What You Can (2020), Miriam Feldman’s He Came in With It (2020), Meg Kissinger’s While You Were Out (2023), and Jonathan Rosen’s The Best Minds (2023).

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ISRAEL, MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Cannes Celebs Virtue Signal in Pro-Hamas Letter to Industry All the usual Progressive suspects signed on. by Mark Tapson

By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cannes-celebs-virtue-signal-in-pro-hamas-letter-to-industry/

The 78th annual Cannes Film Festival is underway and the pretentious participants wasted no time virtue-signaling their support for the savage terror group Hamas and their self-righteous indignation over Israel’s right to self-defense.

On the filmfest’s opening day, an open letter was published in French on the website of France’s Libération newspaper (which, by the way, was founded by nihilist Jean-Paul Sartre in 1973 as a far-Left daily), in which 380 artistes called out their industry’s purported “silence” over what they ludicrously call a “genocide” in Gaza. The hundreds of Hamas supporters included the usual Progressive suspects Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Pedro Pascal, and Susan Sarandon.

The letter begins by acknowledging correctly that the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel were “terrible massacres” (although the letter does not state who committed them or why, because to do that would be to shift the focus/blame from Israel to Jew-hating Palestinians). But then it regurgitates the standard Progressive lies about the Israeli military action in Gaza: “The Israeli army is targeting civilians. More than 200 journalists have been deliberately killed. Writers, film-makers and artists are being brutally murdered.” [Emphasis added]

Let’s set the record straight before moving on. As has been noted many times elsewhere and always ignored by the mainstream media: not only are the Israeli Defense Forces not “targeting civilians,” they are unique in world history for their extraordinary efforts to minimize civilian casualties, especially considering that the enemy Hamas ruthlessly and intentionally puts its own civilians in harm’s way in order to maximize their casualties and exploit them for propaganda purposes. Similarly, the IDF is neither “deliberately” killing journalists (except for ones that moonlight as terrorists) nor “brutally murdering” filmmakers.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Philly Funds Sharia Josh Shapiro just gave away the largest Muslim grant in state history. Why? Aynaz Anni Cyrus

By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/philly-funds-sharia/

Local and state outlets reported it—and even quietly celebrated it. But no one asked the hard questions. No one challenged the ideology, the curriculum, or the dangerous precedent. That didn’t happen until Liberty Sentinel and journalist Alex Newman blew the lid off what this really was: a taxpayer-funded expansion of Sharia under the banner of “diversity.”

In March 2025, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania awarded $5 million in taxpayer money to Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy—a Philadelphia-based Islamic school currently serving about 300 students. With this grant, the school now plans to expand to 3,000. It is the largest Muslim-specific education grant in Pennsylvania’s history—and likely one of the largest in the United States.

Governor Josh Shapiro made the announcement during a Ramadan iftar dinner, cloaking the moment in the usual buzzwords: “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “fighting hate.” He called it bridge-building. But what he built was a bridge to ideological conquest—not cultural unity.

Governor Shapiro didn’t just make the announcement. He used it to signal virtue with a now-familiar script:

“We are building bridges… promoting inclusion… and standing up to hate.”
— Gov. Josh Shapiro, Ramadan 2025

No, Governor. You’re funding religious indoctrination—an ideology rooted in supremacism and submission, not pluralism.

The $5 million came from Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP)—a fund that’s supposed to support infrastructure, economic growth, and public benefit projects. Roads. Housing. Public safety.

Instead, it’s being used to triple the size of a religious school with a documented ideological agenda.

This isn’t economic development. It’s state-funded ideological expansion.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Must Reject Qatar’s Dubious ‘Flying Palace’ Offer by Con Coughlin

By on May 19th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21631/trump-qatar-flying-palace

[Trump’s] soft approach, however, to the Saudi Crown Prince — that he was welcome to join the Abraham Accords “in your own time” — could easily be a “never”….

“This is Qatar’s classic game: support the Islamist terrorists and then present itself as a mediator, liaison, and even peacemaker – the arsonist playing firefighter. As in Afghanistan, as in Egypt in 2010, and as in every Muslim country.” — Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli intelligence officer and founder and president of the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), May 15, 2025.

“Mr. Trump revealed the essential philosophy behind his foreign-policy decisions: He hates war and loves gold. That’s it. To hear it fully, to get near its meaning and debate its sufficiency, you had to step over so much broken glass. ‘Flying Palace’ Violates Emoluments Clause. Sons Enjoy Steep Profits From Trump Presidency.” — Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2025.

If Trump is really serious about achieving his goal of bringing peace to Gaza, then his first course of action should be to persuade the Qataris to end their funding of Hamas, which has allowed it to maintain its murderous war against Israel. Trump should also once again demand that Qatar’s client, Hamas, release all remaining hostages by the end of the week.

“The President is offering a foreign-policy realism built on commerce, but shorn of American idealism.” — Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, May 16, 2025.

Also, what precedent is being set? Would the first gesture toward all future administrations be to bestow lavish tributes on the president and his family members to gain preferential treatment from the US?

Trump’s political rivals may well be hoping that their chance has finally come to impeach him again — this time with $400 million dollars’ worth of evidence. “Sorry,” the New York Post noted, “this ‘gift’ is far from free; Qatar will surely expect something in return.”

Trump would be well-advised to reconsider their gift of a luxury jet and reject this highly questionable offer.

If US President Donald Trump is really serious about bringing peace to the Middle East, then he should rethink again accepting the gift of a luxury $400 million aircraft from the rulers of Qatar. The country is renowned for its continuing support for Islamist terror groups, for continuing to fan the flames that would reignite the fundamentalist Arab Spring, for anti-US terrorist activity and for attacks on the US.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump in Riyadh: A Rejection of the Globalist Gospel Trump’s Riyadh speech rejected nation-building and globalist dogma, marking him as a bold champion of sovereignty over interventionism. By Roger Kimball

By on May 19th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/18/trump-in-riyadh-a-rejection-of-the-globalist-gospel/

I want to begin this column by paying homage to the two most extraordinary passages in Donald Trump’s extraordinary speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last week.

Here’s the first:

In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins . . . I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment—my job [is] to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace.

And here’s the second: Speaking of the “great transformation” that has come to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries in recent decades, Trump noted that

This great transformation has not come from Western interventionists . . . giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called “nation-builders,” “neo-cons,” or “liberal non-profits,” like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves . . . developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies . . . In the end, the so-called “nation-builders” wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.

Both points are coruscatingly true. They were clearly pleasing to Trump’s audience. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was overcome with admiration for Trump’s words. He kept smiling, putting his hand on his heart in benediction, and later personally escorted Trump around the city and then to the airport to say farewell.

The globalist neo-cons of whom Trump spoke still form a powerful lobby in Washington, in those NGOs he mentioned, and in academia. Indeed, they might be said to represent the default or consensus Weltanschauung of the foreign policy establishment.

Donald Trump represents the antithesis of that establishment. It would take a very long post, or, indeed, a book, to detail all the ways that Trump is the antithesis of the Washington consensus on . . . well, on just about everything. I have long been a supporter of Donald Trump, though not always. When he first ran, in 2016, I thought the idea of a Trump presidency was a sort of joke and said so.

Two things changed my mind. First, when it became clear that his opponent would be Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most corrupt serious contender for the presidency in U.S. history (granted, she may have been outdone by Joe Biden), I decided to cast my lot in with Donald Trump faute de mieux.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Uniformity, Inequity, and Exclusion Genius once found a way without credentials—when talent, not paperwork, opened doors, and diversity meant difference, not uniformity. By Anthony Esolen

By on May 19th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/17/uniformity-inequity-and-exclusion/

In 1933, a young fellow who detested school, but who was now working as a janitor while paying his way for instruction at the Chouinard Art Institute, got a call from a friend, offering him a job as a cel washer at the Ub Iwerks cartoon studio. He took the job and worked his way up from one feature of the rather complicated process of cartoon making to the next, till in a couple of years he joined the team of the great Fred “Tex” Avery, the comic genius who played with the cartoon medium itself, defying the laws of physics and biology and social etiquette and everything else. The chief animators were all male, and camaraderie bound them together in painstaking, exhausting, and poorly remunerated work.

People who love cartoons will know their names: the storyman Mike Maltese, the composer and adapter of classical music Carl Stalling, the man of a thousand voices Mel Blanc, and the animators Avery, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Robert McKimson, and the greatest of them all, the man whose madcap genius elevated Bugs Bunny to international renown and who invented Marvin the Martian, the amorous Pepe Le Pew, the songster Michigan J. Frog, and many others—Chuck Jones.

That was the lad who, at age 20, got the job by a phone call.

It seems unlikely that a Chuck Jones could catch such a break now. People at that time did not take schooling so seriously. Everyone understood that you might be highly literate, as Jones was, and well-versed in the arts, as Jones also was, without having the credentialed initials after your name and without any paper evidence of such from your high school. Nor was there any federal or state agency overseeing your employer when he chose whom to hire. I understand that America is still paying the price of racism, and part of me says that the nation deserves no better than what it has gotten. But our current employment laws have rendered freedom of association nugatory, and they exact a high cost to liberty, to genuine diversity among workplaces, and to the unconventional or exceptional employee. I am not the first to notice, for example, that the best-rewarded beneficiaries of anti-discrimination laws are white women with college credentials. These do not often come from working-class families or Appalachia, or from tight economic circumstances, as Jones did. Where then is the real diversity?

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on May 18th, 2025

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

On May 14th, 1948 international Zionists celebrated the declaration of independence of the State of Israel three years after the end of the Holocaust and victory in Europe. To his eternal credit President Harry Truman recognized the new Jewish state of Israel. This made the United States the first country to officially recognize the newly formed Jewish state.

Jubilation was short lived when on May 15th a coalition of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq declared war on the new Jewish state, cheered and abetted by all the Moslem nations.

The rest is history, and in his weekly report Michael Ordman details the enormous and outsize contributions that Israel continues to make to the health and hopes for a better life for billions of citizens on every continent, even during wartime. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Father and son serve together. Reserve Major Professor Nahum Nesher (63) and his son, Koren, have clocked 250 cumulative days of reserve duty in the Hermon outposts. Nahum returns to Syria having been brutally treated as a PoW in 1984. Koren survived a car accident after mandatory IDF service, but he still re-enlisted.
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/sj5s7zkxlx
 
Paralyzed soldier walks again. (TY OurCrowd) An IDF soldier who was paralyzed after being wounded in Gaza is walking again with the help of ReWalk, the exoskeleton developed by Israel’s Lifeward (formerly ReWalk – see here previously).  
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/04/24/3067430/0/en/Paralyzed-Israeli-Soldier-Walks-Again-with-Use-of-the-ReWalk-Personal-Exoskeleton.html
 
Edan returns. In a moment of profound relief and national significance, Edan Alexander an Israeli-American IDF soldier was freed after 584 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza. His return marks the first release of a male IDF soldier kidnapped on Oct 7 2023, and the last known living American hostage held by the terror group.
https://www.israpundit.org/first-male-idf-soldier-taken-on-oct-7-to-return-home-hailed-as-emotional-victory-for-israel-and-u-s/
 
Olympic committee honors fallen hero. (TY Yanky) On Memorial Day, Israel’s Olympic Committee changed its official logo to incorporate the handwriting of IDF Captain Eden Nimri, a professional swimmer. She fell while battling Hamas fighters at the Nahal Oz IDF base on 7 Oct 2023, allowing 11 female soldiers to escape.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/article-851893
 
NIS 3 billion in benefits for IDF reservists. Israel has approved a benefits package totaling 3 billion shekels (some $800 million) for active IDF reservists. It includes tax credits, employer grants, subsidized housing, welfare expenses, support for small businesses, plus priority access to civil service jobs and other services.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-govt-approves-800m-in-benefits-for-idf-reservists/
 
Technion awarded Shield of Appreciation. On 28 May, Israel’s Technion Institute will receive the Defense Minister’s Shield for 2025 in recognition of its outstanding support for military reservists. The Shield is granted to organizations and institutions that have demonstrated exceptional commitment to reservists.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/article/defense-ministers-shield-to-be-awarded-to-the-technion/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp6BRPPaVyo
 
More than a bakery. Another tale of resilience as the Tosha Bakery between Acre and Rosh Hanikra in Israel’s far north had to close due to Hezbollah rockets. The owners opened a pastry stand in Nahariya until they could return to Tosha, clean up and repair their equipment and recover. With help from JNF-USA.
https://www.jnf.org/jnf-blog/post/blog/tosha-bakery—the-bread–the-heart–and-the-war
 
Sheba’s mental health spin-off. Israeli startup Mentaily, founded in response to the aftermath of Oct 7 2023, has taken on the LIV AI mental health platform developed by Sheba Medical Center (see here previously). LIV simulates clinical psychiatric assessment, addressing the acute lack of mental health professionals and services.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rk40xhk11xg 
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
 Defective heart gene. (TY Rhoda) Researchers at Israel’s Clalit Research Institute & Rabin Medical Center (Beilinson) have discovered that the gene TRIM63 is a major genetic driver and risk factor for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the world’s most common hereditary heart disease. Screening could save many lives.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-852473
 
Partner for Parkinson’s blood test. (TY Atid-EDI) The previous article (see here) about a new rapid simple blood test for Parkinson’s Disease didn’t mention that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had jointly developed the test with Israel’s ATED Therapeutics – a finalist in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250326481006/en/ATED-Therapeutics-Ltd.-New-Rapid-Simple-Blood-Test-for-Parkinsons-Disease-Developed   https://www.atedtherapeutics.org/
 
Tomographic 3D imaging. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Nanox (see here previously) has received US-FDA general use approval for the Nanox.ARC X, its new multi-source digital tomosynthesis system. Its sliced 3D views include the musculoskeletal system, and pulmonary, intra-abdominal and paranasal sinus indications.
https://investors.nanox.vision/news-releases/news-release-details/nanox-receives-fda-clearance-general-use-new-imaging-system
 
European approval for glaucoma treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Sanoculis has received the CE Mark for its MINT (Minimally Invasive Nasal Trabeculostomy) product for the treatment of adult patients undergoing glaucoma angle surgery.  (See MINT and MIMS on Sanoculis website)
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/sanoculis-receives-ce-mark-for-mint-product-for-the-treatment-of-glaucoma-302431454.html   https://sanoculis.com/
 
It’s all in the mind. Neuroscientists at Israel’s Technion Institute have discovered that neural networks in the brain transition from a “beginner” to an “expert” structure when learning a new skill (e.g. playing sport). The process depends on the local release of dopamine in the motor cortex.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/article/technion-neuroscientists-uncover-the-key-role-of-dopamine-in-learning-new-motor-skills/  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55317-4
 
Israel’s first medical drone. (TY UWI) A drone stationed on the roof of the Bezio Medical Center is the pilot phase of Israel’s medical drones project. Dubbed “Ziv Eye” it will transport equipment, samples and blood donations between the separate campuses of the Ziv Medical Center, close to the border of Syria and Lebanon.
https://tps.co.il/articles/drones-set-to-enhance-efficiency-of-israels-medical-industry/
 
Something for expectant mothers to chew on. Israel’s TopGum (see here previously) has launched OMG3! -its new prenatal product which delivers all the crucial nutrients for expectant mothers in a natural fruity chewable. The “all-in-one” gummy houses essential omega-3 fatty acids as the principal ingredient.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/topgums-fresh-take-on-omega-3-new-gummy-line-delivers-flavor-and-high-dosage-302447035.html

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran Is Using North Korea’s Playbook — And the US Is Falling for It Again by Majid Rafizadeh

By on May 17th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21627/iran-using-north-korea-playbook

Iran appears to be using diplomacy to stall, deceive and advance its nuclear capabilities behind closed doors, while securing financial and geopolitical concessions from the West.

The disturbing part is not that Iran’s mullahs are following their usual tactics. The horror is that American officials and Western leaders appear to be falling for this shell-game all over again.

The problem with enriching hostile regimes to “buy quiet” is that this is the money they use to build nuclear weapons with which to attack us.

An additional problem, unfortunately, is that the Iranian regime has a well-documented history of lying.

No deal that permits any level of enrichment or allows Iran to keep its centrifuges intact will prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

We are trying to “deal” with theocrats who believe it is their divine duty to destroy Israel and America, and take over the oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf.

What makes the current situation even more exasperating is that despite decades of talks, deals and diplomatic theater with North Korea, Russia, China and Iran, we have watched them exploit Western weakness and lack of resolve time and again right under our noses. Yet, like Charlie Brown and the football, the West insists on accepting the same failed, bogus guarantees. We do not need another Swiss-cheese agreement filled with loopholes. We do not need photo-ops and press conferences proclaiming bogus triumphs.

As the United States continues negotiations with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, if it does not already have them, it has become clear that the Islamic Republic’s regime is not pursuing these talks in good faith.

Far from viewing negotiations as a means toward a peaceful resolution, the Iranian regime appears to see them as a tool that has proven successful before, not only for itself but also for its authoritarian ally, North Korea.

Iran appears to be using diplomacy to stall, deceive and advance its nuclear capabilities behind closed doors, while securing financial and geopolitical concessions from the West.

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