Iranian protests and Obama

The ayatollahs bringing Iran to ruin are the enemies of the Iranian people just as much as they are our enemies. And the Iranians demonstrating in the streets, with no protection of the 2nd Amendment, nor support from Europe, which is heavily financially invested in the murderous, expansionist regime, deserve the same freedom that we have learned to take for granted. Time to debunk the myths that the Iranian nuclear deal or the previous administration cared about security or freedom for anybody. If they did, they would have denounced the bellicose regime, instead of supporting it.

Why The Usual Suspects Are Silent on the Plight of Afro-Cubans

The Castro regime's outright racism draws no attention from the liberal-minded human rights defenders in the views. Those who were the first to decry (and rightfully so), South Africa's apartheid regime see no reason to raise alarms over Cuba's isolation and exclusion of Afro-Cubans, a narrative that challenges the "conventional wisdom" of equality for all in this Communist paradise. Same people, I'm sure, still believe in the fairy tale of Cuba's "superior" free medical care, oddly accessible only to the top echelons of the regime at the level that goes beyond Potemkin villages presented for tourists, or its "exceptional" free education, which somehow has failed to eradicate the vast poverty in which most Cuban citizens find themselves.

There are no Black Lives Matter demonstrations for the miserable status of the Afro-Cuban, and the staunch defenders of "normalization", two years in, have no comment about the failure to improve the condition of most people, particularly Afro-Cubans, in any perceptible way. Were they so naive as to think that cronyist support of investments into the regime would somehow translate into human rights? Or were they so ideologically married to their support of the Obama administration that the nature of the actual policy and its ramification was irrelevant? If so, some of these "human rights activists" are even more cynical and soulless than I thought.

Trump, Don't Be Obama

My article was published in Israel HaYom, and republished on Instapundit.org

http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/trump-dont-be-obama/

Irina Tsukerman

Trump, don't be Obama
Eight months into the Trump administration, it is time to stop making excuses. The Obama administration holdovers are not exclusively responsible for everything going wrong with U.S. foreign policy. Multiple agencies doubling down on foreign policy are a clear indication that the policy in question comes from the top, not from some rogue employee in one agency.

These actions by the U.S. are doing nothing but damaging its credibility and relationships.

First, the United States contributes free weapons to the Lebanese Air Force, which are then shared with Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a fearsome Iranian proxy that has now grown to the size of a standing army and plays a distinctive and influential role in Lebanese politics. It has also attacked Americans, Israelis, and other targets over the course of the last several decades in a number of locations, and has played a destructive role in Syria. That has not worked out so well with the branch of the Afghani mujahedeen that has grown into the Taliban, and arming Hezbollah is likewise not likely to contribute to peace and stability in the world.

Second, U.S. policy in Syria, which has focused only on ISIS, has essentially allowed Iran to step in uninhibited.

Admittedly, this policy started under former U.S. President Barack Obama; however, no clear explanation has ever been provided as to why the Trump administration should go along with the terrible policies of its predecessor. The White House let Iran build a land corridor to Lebanon, which will facilitate arms and drug trafficking and offer passage for terrorists. All the while, Iran is looking to build bases in Syria and gaining control of the Strait of Hormuz, which has essentially sidelined the U.S.

Third, Trump's capitulation to Iraqi and Turkish demands on opposing Kurdistan independence emboldened Iran in its interventionism policy in Kurdistan. And it's no excuse to say that the U.S. clarified well in advance that it won't support Kurdish aspirations. The Republican-led Congress has failed to repeal the law against directly arming Kurds. As a direct result of the heavy-handed U.S. pressure on the Kurds to postpone their referendum, Iraq's government openly invited the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to plan the takeover of Kirkuk, which, by use of some force, displaced over 170,000 people, murdered over 400 civilians and injured hundreds more. And it did not stop at Kirkuk. Faced with the administration's "neutrality" policy, Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani entered Kirkuk freely on numerous occasions, and opened headquarters and military bases, solidifying Iran's presence in the area.

Iranians and Iraqis continue their punitive march past Kirkuk, placing minorities, such as the Yazidis, in harm's way. The Iraqi army refuses to take control or responsibility for these militias, which are wreaking havoc, and, coupled with Baghdad's harsh, isolationist policies, are ruining the region's economy. Further, Iraq, armed with U.S. weapons, ignored U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's gentle admonition that Iranian militias should go home. Iraq has now found a new, stronger ally, and the U.S. is being pushed out.

Fourth, Tillerson and Trump both said that there was no plan to try to stop America's European partners from doing business in Iran. And despite the positive indication that Trump will not allow a major Boeing deal with Iran to go through, such statements send, at best, a mixed signal. It was the complete isolation of Iran that forced it to seek relief from sanctions by way of the nuclear deal in the first place. Now, not only is Iran flush with money and investments, but continued business with other countries will make U.S. sanctions a mere drop in the bucket. U.S. sanctions alone will not affect Iran's economy, it won't diminish the strength of the Revolutionary Guards, nor will it hamper Iran's geopolitical ambition. Instead, the U.S. will be at a distinct business and economic disadvantage vis-à-vis European states. Disunity among allies is sure to be exploited by the Iranian regime, which thrives on the divide-and-conquer approach to dealing with its adversaries.

Fifth, the U.S. is allowing Hamas to do business with Iran, even as it is facilitating Palestinian unity between Fatah and Hamas and trying to work out a peace deal with Israel. Iran is encouraging the worst possible behavior in Hamas and praises the return to the destructive rhetoric that makes any sort of coexistence with Israel, much less normalization, impossible. Funding from Iran will also serve to nullify any effect from the Taylor Force Act, which would curb U.S. taxpayer funding of the Palestinian Authority in response to its continuous incitement to terrorism.

Separately, each of these policies, continuing under Trump, not Obama, is destructive enough. Together, they create a pattern of paying lip service to decertification and opposing Iran's military expansion across the Middle East and beyond, while tacitly allowing Iran and its proxies to profit from the U.S. defense industry and sacrificing American allies – a familiar pattern from the preceding administration. It is time for the Trump administration to stop finger-wagging while de facto perpetuating Obama's outdated and failed policies and refocus its energy on finding solutions.

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security lawyer based in New York.

The Obama Administration loses war plans and keys to the front door to North Korean hackers

In the latest in the series of embarrassing cybersecurity incidents involving the Obama administration, which had included giving Pentagon source code to Russia for examination, having NSA data stolen by Russian hackers,  and much more, apparently US-South Korea war contingency plans were grabbed by North Korean hackers last year, just as Obama was condemning candidate Trump for collusion with Russia and screaming bloody murder about Russian hackers hacking voting machines.

Is there anything the Obama Administration didn't manage to lose or have stolen by one deadly adversary or another?

Has anyone checked whether the nuclear codes are still there?

How Obama's policies left the US government vulnerable to Russian hackers

The real story with Russia was not the series of stupid meetings between Trump campaign officials and diplomats who were trying to set them up, playing on Trump's admiration of Putin. The story that should have been all over the front pages then, and now, is the complete lack of security infrastructure across our government, Obama's complete inability to protect the country from cybersecurity threats, and the way Russians were able to easily take advantage of all our vulnerabilities throughout the last 8 years to make a series of devastating blows that are only coming out to public awareness now.

Many of these issues came up during the last two years of the administration when he was busy crying "Russian hackers", while Russian hackers were having a ball right under his eye. This combination of lack of situational awareness, recklessness, arrogance, and ignorance of even the basic factors to take into consideration was evident in Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's watch at the DNC, among Democratic Congressmen in the Pakistani IT staffer scandal, with Hillary's various misuses of email, with John Podesta falling easy bait to a phishing trick, and so much more. But all of that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg, as we are now learning, mere red flags compared to the utter disaster that was taking place behind the close doors, with Edward Snowden being but the first red flag and warning sign of just how unprepared was our counterintelligence for the combination of cybersecurity threats and social engineering from Russians and other actors.

Much of it has come out within this past year, and with regards to cybersecurity, in the last couple of weeks, with the story of the NSA breach and access to Pentagon source code. Meanwhile our own reaction has been belated and laughable. Over two years after Kaspersky was used to retrieve NSA data, the government finally advised its agencies not to use that software. I don't even want to know what happened after the Russians got the source code and whether that software is still in place, but my guess is, not much has changed. The pervasive problem of such proportions should be a national scandal. Obama left the front door open while looking for boogeymen out in the back. Thanks to the atrocious decisionmaking throughout his administration, the country has been vulnerable, basically naked, to Russian hacking. But the press, instead of thoroughly investigating the extent of the damage and excoriating the officials responsible for it, are dripping their findings, while covering up who's really at fault.

The cybersecurity breaches of the past 8 years deserve a thorough, competent investigation. If Mueller is anything other than a political hack with an agenda, he should be looking at this main stage event, while also investigating whatever improprieties came out from last year's election and the financial shenanigans from some of the actors. I am afraid, however, that most people are not interested in the "whole truth". They just want to be fed stories convenient to propping up their preconceptions.