RUTHFULLY YOURS

Britain’s problems with Scotland and the EU have a common origin: an ancient constitution ill-adjusted to our democratic age. The solution: federalism at home, intergovernmentalism abroad and, most of all, the manifestation of a national will to effect much-needed change
During last year’s Scottish referendum, a shocking 45 per cent of voters showed themselves in favour of independence from the United Kingdom, whilst during the recent general election Britain’s first-past-the-post system ensured that the Scottish National Party won almost all of Scotland’s seats at Westminster. That is not a sign of a happy, healthy polity.

Abroad, in its relations with Europe during the last sixty years, Britain has vacillated. On the one hand, it has been a largely reluctant participant in the supranational, confederal project of European political integration represented by the European Union (EU) and its forerunners; on the other hand, before finally joining this project it had set up its own intergovernmental institutions focused on free trade rather than political integration, notably in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which it subsequently abandoned but has never quite forgotten. This, too, suggests unhappiness, as well as an inability to shape events and uncertainty as to how to proceed.

It has become increasingly clear that these questions are intertwined. Not, as frequently said, because an allegedly pro-EU Scottish population would be more likely to exit the UK if the UK voted to exit the EU, but because many who support Scotland leaving the UK are not in favour of Scotland actually going it alone, but of swapping one union for another. They wish to cut out the UK “middle man”, anchoring an “independent” Scotland to the EU instead. And, contrary to conventional wisdom, pulling this off would be far easier if the UK stayed inside the EU than if it left, since far less would be at stake. Survival of the UK and British membership of the EU are hence likely mutually exclusive in the long run. All of this raises profound questions of identity in a country (or a nation?) consisting of four home nations (or countries?) in which it is still not uncommon to speak of Europe as the Continental Other (as in “Australia, Britain, and Europe”).

Within two weeks of the July 14, 2015 announcement of the dangerous and destabilizing [1] Iran nuclear deal, expatriate Iranian journalist Amir Taheri revealed [2] the recent publication of a 414-page tract, largely a compendium of speeches delivered over the past 25 years by Ayatollah Khamenei.

Despite the publication of the Iranian Ayatollah’s vitriolic tract entitled Palestine, Khamenei was recognized by the avatar of moderate Islam, the Jordanian Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre’s [3] 2014/15 “World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims” (issued annually), as the third most important international Muslim figure [4].

Shortly after Taheri’s revelation, my colleague Daniel Akbari — a former leading Iranian Sharia lawyer credentialed [5] to argue potential death penalty cases in the Islamic State, and now an intrepid human rights activist — procured the full Farsi text (posted here [6]), and translated extensive excerpts [7].

Although unabashedly targeting both Israel and the U.S. — on p. 40 [7] he calls for “Breaking the Back of the Oppressive Americans and Their Zionist Servants (i.e., Israel)” — Khamenei’s opprobrium rivets upon destruction of the Jewish State.

Khamenei elucidates [7] why Israel must be destroyed:

The centrality of Palestine for the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Muslim world is undeniable. Even before to the Islamic Revolution, Palestine, the Palestinian people, and the injustice they were experiencing were important issues for [his theocratic predecessor, and leader of the retrograde [8] 1979 “Revolution”] Imam Khomeini and the movement he led. We cannot observe and tolerate the existence and presence of the [Israeli/Jewish] enemy who has occupied the land …

While this foul wound and infected gland called “the Israeli Government” remain in the heart of Islamic territories, we cannot feel we have won. … Palestine is the most important issue of the Islamic world. Palestine is the most important issue of the world of Islam. There is not any other international issue in the world of Islam more important than the issue of Palestine.

Citing an authoritative, traditionalist interpretation of jihad [9] — as applied with broad, modern jurisprudential consensus to the issue of “Palestine” (i.e., all of modern Israel within the 1949 armistice borders, Gaza, Judea and Samaria) — Khamenei, explaining why “Jihad is the answer,” further declared [7]:

The Obama administration lauded as “historic” Monday’s first-of-its-kind meeting at the UN Security Council on gay rights, organized by the U.S. Missions at the UN and Chile.

Much of the meeting focused on the murder of homosexuals by ISIS, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and other groups in the region including the Al-Nusra Front, but UN Ambassador Samantha Power made clear that they want the agenda to be broader.

According to reports, Chad and Angola skipped the closed meeting.

Subhi Nahas escaped execution by fleeing to Lebanon after ISIS took his city, Idlib, Syria. “At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheered jubilantly as at a wedding,” Nahas said. “If a victim did not die after being hurled off a building, the townspeople stoned him to death. This was to be my fate too.”

As buzzards circled around Hillary Clinton’s dying campaign over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden met with left-wing darling Sen. Elizabeth Warren (aka Fauxcahontas) in his residence at the Naval Observatory.

CNN reported that Warren and Biden “discussed economic policy during a meeting that lasted about two hours.”

A person familiar with the discussion told CNN that “the presidential campaign or Biden’s future” was not the focus of the discussion.

Uh-huh. He singled out Senator Warren to have a private meeting with him on economics — just out of the blue for no particular reason whatsoever.

Beloved by liberal Democrats, Warren decided to sit out a campaign of her own, but she has yet to formally endorse a candidate. In an interview on Friday, she told WBZ in Boston: “I don’t think anyone has been anointed.”

Well — no one has been anointed YET.

Jeb Bush seems to have a self-destructive impulse. No, not the same self-destructive mechanism that causes Scott Walker to announce contradictory policy positions with the speed of a tennis ball machine, but rather the urge to express sentiments that seems to show him to be more sympathetic to illegal aliens than he is to American citizens.

This urge could first be seen with his comments that illegal immigration is an “act of love.” Never mind the thousands of illegals who have taken jobs from Americans and consumed our taxpayer dollars for education and health care, and the thousands more who have committed crimes, including murder. That was extremely tone-deaf. But it was only one comment.

Now Bush has done it again. He’s gone to the border, presumably to show that even he would be tough on border security. Instead, he’s made headlines by saying the Asian illegal aliens, not Hispanic ones, are the real problem.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Sunday reopened Britain’s embassy in Tehran nearly four years after it was shuttered following a mob attack reminiscent of the 1979 assault on the U.S. Embassy. Accompanying Mr. Hammond were European business leaders eager to join the ayatollah gold rush—notwithstanding President Obama’s promise of “snap-back” sanctions if Iran cheats on the nuclear deal.

In November 2011 a mob overran the British outpost, breaking windows and trashing the compound. The mullahs never apologized for failing to protect the embassy, and the “Death to England” graffiti is still on the walls. Yet at a news conference with his Iranian counterpart, Mr. Hammond said the embassy will serve as a “practical channel for being able to engage on the very many issues that are of concern and the very many issues that we have shared interests.”

“What’s Vice President Joe Biden up to?” asks Bloomberg View’s Jonathan Bernstein, who answers: “He appears to be inventing a new form of presidential campaigning: The perpetual trial balloon”:

Biden has consistently declined to say whether he’s running or not. The deadline for his decision is always vaguely off in the future, long after other candidates (in both parties) have officially announced or dropped out of the running. The vice president has declined to do the things that candidates do: He has no staff in Iowa or New Hampshire. On the other hand, stories keep leaking about a possible late bid for the presidency.

We’re not sure about that. Last month we noted a Puffington Host report that was fairly specific about a deadline: “Biden is still very much considering a bid for the White House, people close to Biden say, and will make a final decision at the end of the summer, targeted for September.”

The hints are growing stronger that Joe Biden might decide to run for President after all, and there’s no reason we can’t join the frolic among the tea leaves. Especially fascinating is what a Biden run would signal about Hillary Clinton’s political and legal vulnerability over her emails and Clinton Foundation donations.

The Vice President met privately with Elizabeth Warren on Saturday, a meeting no doubt leaked by the Biden team. The Massachusetts Senator is the patron saint of the Democratic left these days and Mr. Biden would love her support if he does run. Then on Sunday our colleagues in the Journal’s Washington bureau reported that the Veep is leaning toward a run. Other media reinforced the story.

The first attempt to de-radicalize an Islamic extremist is happening in Minnesota right now, and it resembles high-school civics more than religious deprogramming.

An American citizen who pleaded guilty to supporting ISIS was ordered by a federal judge to leave jail—and go to a halfway home instead. That rehab center was run by a group that had no prior experience with would-be Islamic terrorists, The Daily Beast has learned.

Abdullahi Yusuf of Minnesota was allowed to depart from jail and stay at a halfway home after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS in January. (Yusuf was stopped at the airport trying to fly to Turkey in May 2014, at age 18.) Once inside the halfway home, Yusuf was to be “de-radicalized” through regular meetings with a counselor whose curriculum looked more like a high-school civics course than religious deprogramming.

Last week, the Associated Press (AP) reported on a heretofore secret agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) allowing Iran to carry out its own, unsupervised inspections of its suspected nuclear site at Parchin. A number of media outlets and nuclear-weapons experts responded by claiming—without evidence—that the AP had based its story on a forged document. Suggestions followed that Benjamin Netanyahu was behind the forgery. Tom Nichols writes:
Iran Deal Truthers
A bizarre and silly social media attack on the Associated Press’ big scoop reveals much about the politicization of expertise.
Sometimes, it’s easy to miss the good old days of the print media. (And yes, I am aware of the irony that you just read that sentence online in The Daily Beast.) In those halcyon days, the diligence required to challenge a story made it more difficult to impugn the integrity of the journalists involved. Accusations of sloppiness, mendacity, or outright fraud usually had to be grounded in something beyond partisan anger. And tarring an entire news organization as unwitting—or worse, willing—participants in a conspiracy was not a charge made lightly by responsible people.

Social media and internet publishing have changed all that.

Late last week, the Associated Press found itself on the receiving end of a kind of Iran Deal “trutherism,” in which people upset by an AP report on one of the Iran Deal’s side-agreements have taken on the same role as the 9/11 “truthers” who were “just asking questions” about conspiracies. They’re not making direct accusations, but the implications are hard to miss. And like the 9/11 truthers, the conspiracies point to the country beloved by truthers everywhere: Israel.

Before we step through that looking glass, let’s back up and review the events of the last few days for a moment.