Iraq PM Rejects the Antichrist

Abadi rejects al-Sadr call to dissolve Hashd al-Shaabi | Iraq News

Hashd al-Shaabi, a Shia unit alternatively called the Badr militia, was established in 2014 with the avowed purpose of fighting ISIL, also known as ISIS, after it captured vast expanses of territory in northern and western Iraq.
“The Hashd al-Shaabi … is for Iraq and will not be dissolved,” Abadi said in the capital Baghdad on Saturday.
“The next phase after liberating the land from Daesh is the battle of the unity of word.” Daesh is the Arabic term for ISIL.
Hashd al-Shaabi has faced accusations of abuses against civilians in Sunni-majority areas.
Last month, the Iraqi army recaptured Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, from ISIL, which overran the city in 2014.
Speaking to supporters on Friday, Sadr called for dissolving Hashd al-Shaabi and absorbing its fighters in the Iraqi army.
Sadr issued the statement after his visit to Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with the kingdom’s leadership.
He met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and discussed issues of common interest, Reuters news agency reported on July 30.
Anti-American figure
The visit came with the Gulf region embroiled in its worst crisis in years – a dispute between Qatar and four Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia which severed ties with Qatar.
Sadr, an anti-American figure, commands a large following among the urban poor of Baghdad and the southern cities, including Saraya al-Salam, or Peace Brigades militia.
He is now seen as a nationalist who has repeatedly called for protests against corruption in the Iraqi government, and his supporters have staged huge protests in Baghdad calling for electoral reform.
On Thursday, Sadr issued a new call for protests in Baghdad and other cities to denounce “corrupt politicians” and demand reforms.

Rapprochement between Riyadh and Baghdad Won’t Last

Rapprochement between Riyadh and Baghdad can only be a good thing
Mina Al Oraibi
August 6, 2017
2017 has been a year of surprising headlines. Perhaps none more so than that of the visit of Moqtada Al Sadr, the Iraqi Shia cleric and leader of the populist Sadrist movement, to Jeddah last week. Greeted by Thamer Al Sabhan, the Saudi minister for Arabian Gulf affairs, who was withdrawn from Riyadh’s embassy in Baghdad last year due to heightened tensions between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Mr Al Sadr went on to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Although no media statements were given at the time, the picture of the two of them together spoke a thousand words. It reflected the possibility of the formulation of a new alliance in the region, with an active Saudi foreign policy in Iraq.
After years of fraught and disjointed ties, Riyadh and Baghdad are finding ways to engage with one another. Ironically, Mr Al Sabhan was withdrawn from Iraq due to his open criticism of the Popular Mobilisation Units last October, and was seen last week greeting Mr Al Sadr, the most outspoken critic of the Iranian-backed, state-mandated armed groups. An emergence of an alliance between those who want to limit Iran’s military influence in Iraq and find a framework to escape the sectarianism that is plaguing the region could be one of the Middle East’s most surprising and stabilising developments.
Mr Al Sadr’s trip comes after historic visits by officials from the two sides – starting with Adel Al Jubeir’s historic visit to Baghdad and culminating in Haider Al Abadi’s visit to Riyadh last May.
It would, of course, be naive to think that these visits alone will be able to heal the deep divides between the two nations. Momentum has now been built and needs to be solidified, before it unravels. Only two years earlier, when Saudi Arabia named its first ambassador to Baghdad in a quarter of a century, similar hopes were raised, only to be quickly dashed. However, this time the outreach is happening at the highest levels of Saudi decision-making.
Mistrust remains between the two countries, in part due to a severing of diplomatic relations after Saddam Hussein’s disastrous invasion of Kuwait 27 years ago. Official diplomatic exchanges were cut and many of Iraq’s then-opposition didn’t maintain the ties they fostered with Saudi officials during their years of exile.

Preparing for the Nuclear War (Revelation 15)

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Get inside. Stay inside. Stay tuned. That’s the advice some cities and counties encourage as threats of nuclear attack from North Korea seem to grow more real. North Korea claims it’ll soon be able to launch a nuclear missile into the United States. Some sources say it could reach California or Illinois. So what are some communities doing to prepare for a possible nuclear strike? Dr. Robert Levin is the chief health officer of Ventura County, Calif. Dr. Levin, thanks so much for being with us.
ROBERT LEVIN: You’re welcome. Thank you.
SIMON: And you take this seriously, I gather.
LEVIN: I do take it seriously, and I have for probably a decade or more.
SIMON: Well, what do you tell people?
LEVIN: All they really need to know at the moment that they’re hearing of a possible nuclear detonation anywhere nearby is to get inside, stay inside, stay tuned. Get inside the biggest structure they can find as centrally located as they can. They should stay inside. And the moment they get inside, they should stay tuned to a reputable station. Like, an emergency broadcasting system will tell them if it’s a false alarm, will tell them if they should stay inside because, indeed, there is a threat from fallout.
SIMON: I think a lot of people might be hearing us and think, oh, my gosh, I thought those years were over.
LEVIN: Well, it’s comparable to what initiated our concerns. My concern was that a terrorist – Osama bin Laden was saying 10, 12 years ago, you know, we’re going to kill as many Americans as we can. We’re going to terrify Americans. And we’re going to do everything we can to break their economy. And it occurred to me at the time that if he takes out three West Coast cities, he would take out 55 percent of our economy and do some of those other things, as well. So that’s what initiated this in our county, Ventura County.
SIMON: And I have to ask, Dr. Levin, are you concerned that even just by sharing this information, some – it might shut off some anxieties in people that will cause them to live in a way that’s unwise or do something silly?
LEVIN: I am not in the least bit concerned, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve learned over the years, over the decades as a health officer that when the public comes to you, whether it’s about Zika or HIV or tuberculosis or a contaminated restaurant – that what they want is information that they can use to protect themselves and the ones they love. We are providing information for people who have some anxiety – and at some times in history, it’s better deserved than others – about a possible nuclear detonation in America. We’ve met with countless groups in our county. We’ve met with focus groups. We’ve met with citizens groups. And I honestly have never heard anybody in any of those audiences say, you’re scaring people. Instead, what I hear over and over again is, thank God somebody is doing something about this.
SIMON: Dr. Robert Levin of Ventura County, Calif. – thanks so much for being with us, doctor.
LEVIN: My pleasure.

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Before the First Nuclear War (Revelation 8)

Editor’s note: As chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee, Larry Pressler advocated the now-famous Pressler Amendment, enforced in 1990 when President George HW Bush could not certify that Pakistan was not developing a nuclear weapon. Aid and military sales to Pakistan were blocked, including a consignment of F-16 fighter aircraft, changing forever the tenor of the United States’ relationships with Pakistan and India, and making Pressler “a temporary hero throughout India and a devil in Pakistan”. In a new book, Neighbours in Arms, Senator Larry Pressler reveals what went on behind the scenes in the years when the Pressler Amendment was in force, through a cast of characters that includes presidents, prime ministers, senators and generals in the US, India and Pakistan. The following excerpt is from a chapter titled ‘The Enforcement of the Pressler Amendment’, reproduced here with permission from Penguin Random House.

‘It was the most dangerous nuclear situation we have ever faced since I’ve been in the US government. It may be as close as we’ve come to a nuclear exchange. It was far more frightening than the Cuban missile crisis.’
— Richard J Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA, in an interview with reporter Seymour Hersh, describing the 1990 nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan.
In June 1989, Pakistan’s new prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, addressed a joint session of Congress in the US, where she said, ‘Speaking for Pakistan, I can declare that we do not possess, nor do we intend to make, a nuclear device.’ I was present when she made that public testimony. It was an outright lie to Congress. But she just did not know it. When she was accused of lying, I came to her defence. She did not know about the nuclear weapons because the ISI never told her. They had developed a bomb without the approval or the knowledge of the prime minister and Parliament. Incredible!
The incident testifies to the power that the ISI wields in the Pakistani political system. When I spoke privately with her at a prayer breakfast during that same visit, she told me how hopeless she felt trying to govern when the ISI, with American generals coaxing them on, controlled everything in Pakistan. Consequently, I was disappointed when President Bush followed Reagan’s lead and, once again, issued a certification that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon, in October 1989. An exasperated Senator Glenn took to the floor of the Senate in November of that year to protest this certification, asserting that:
‘I must conclude that the President had to make the most narrow possible interpretation of law to conclude that Pakistan does not possess the bomb — a statement I find very difficult to accept and really believe. To me, the President’s action represents both bad policy and a disservice to a good law.’
Almost a year after the Soviet Army had withdrawn from Afghanistan, why did we feel the need to continue to funnel aid to Pakistan? I could not understand it. In October 1990, five years after the Pressler Amendment became law, President Bush finally invoked it. Why did President Bush enforce the law when President Reagan did not? Maybe it had something to do with the nuclear face-off between India and Pakistan in May 1990, a nuclear catastrophe narrowly avoided but kept largely under wraps by the US government until journalist Seymour Hersh revealed the details in an article in the New Yorker magazine on 29 March 1993.

Hersh was a controversial journalist, but on matters of Pakistan and the South Asia region, he was dead on. In this article, Hersh described how the American intelligence community witnessed in horror the fast-rising tensions between India and Pakistan in the spring of 1990, originating where it always seemed to, in Kashmir. Protests, rioting and an Indian police crackdown resulted in hundreds of Kashmiri civilian deaths. The Pakistanis’ reaction was frightening: intelligence analysts believed that Pakistan was training Muslim Kashmiri ‘freedom fighters’ on the border and outfitting a nuclear bomb that could be placed under the wing of an F-16.

The National Security Agency (NSA) had intercepted an order from the Pakistan Army’s chief of staff, General Mirza Aslam Baig, to actually assemble a nuclear weapon. The situation quickly escalated as India prepared an offensive ground strike into Pakistan and Pakistan planned to preempt this ground invasion with a nuclear hit on New Delhi. A quick intervention by American diplomats, including Robert Gates (who later served as President George W Bush’s and President Obama’s secretary of defense), was planned. Gates and his team were dispatched to the region to meet with the leaders of both India and Pakistan. They convinced both countries to stand down and move their troops away from the border. India agreed to improve the human rights conditions in Kashmir, and Pakistan agreed to shut down insurgent training camps in Kashmir. All sides agreed and war was averted, but many involved in the event consider it to be the closest the world has come to a nuclear exchange since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Everyone in Washington who was involved in non-proliferation knew about this crisis before Hersh’s article was published a few years later, but no one talked about it publicly. After this crisis, making the certification required under the Pressler Amendment was going to be very difficult and the State Department knew it. In August 1990, the department sent a ‘Top Secret’ memorandum to Brent Scowcroft, the President’s national security adviser. In it were recommendations that President Bush send letters to both Pakistan’s Prime Minister Bhutto and President Ghulam Ishaque Khan. The memo and draft letters, recently declassified and released, outlined a proposed diplomatic strategy that would allow President Bush to rationalise the Pressler Amendment annual certification. ‘We believe that non-certification would spark an accelerated Indo-Pak nuclear race, putting the pronuclear elements in both governments under highly public and emotional pressure to move ahead full tilt.’ Weren’t they already moving ahead ‘full tilt’ — with American taxpayers’ support?
The memo went on to recommend asking Pakistan,
to demonstrate tangibly that it is complying with the three steps we had earlier told them are essential for certification (cease production of highly enriched uranium, refrain from production of highly enriched uranium metal, ensure that Pakistan does not possess any highly enriched uranium metal in the form of nuclear device components).
The State Department made it clear they believed that Pakistan would never allow US officials to inspect its nuclear facilities:
Demanding inspection of all Pakistan’s HEU [highly enriched uranium] has almost no chance of acceptance. In these circumstances, if we believe the Pressler standard can be met with less than [an] inspection of HEU, we should not limit the President’s ability to certify by setting our standards at an unrealistically high level.
Essentially, the State Department was arguing that President Bush should be satisfied with Pakistan’s stated intentions. I could not understand how we could ever be satisfied by Pakistan’s promises. They were empty. President Bush obviously agreed. Two months later, he finally invoked the Pressler Amendment and refused to certify to Congress that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapon. He bucked the State Department. How could he ever have made any other choice? Bush’s action stunned the world — and particularly the Octopus*. I was so happy and proud that Bush took this bold action. It was risky, because he might have incurred the wrath of all those who stood to gain from arms sales to Pakistan, including the delivery of numerous fighter jets with a nuclear delivery capability.
*By the Octopus, what is being referred to, is Washington, or the Military Industrial State. Andrew J Bacevich Sr, a professor at Boston University, and respected American military historian, wrote about the ‘Octopus’ in his book titled ‘American Rules’:
As used here, Washington (the Military Industrial State) is less geographic expression than a set of interlocking institutions headed by people, who, whether acting officially or unofficially, are able to put a thumb on the helm of state. Washington (the Military Industrial State), in this sense, includes the upper echelons of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government. It encompasses the principal components of the national security state — the Departments of Defense, State, and more recently, Homeland Security, along with various agencies comprising the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Its rank extends to select think tanks and interest groups. Lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, former officials, and retired military officers who still enjoy access are members in good standing. Yet Washington (the Military Industrial State) also reaches beyond the Washington ‘Beltway’ to include big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors, and major corporations, and television networks . . . With rare exceptions, acceptance of the Washington (the Military Industrial State) rules forms a prerequisite for entry into this world.

Published Date: Aug 05, 2017 03:33 pm | Updated Date: Aug 05, 2017 03:37 pm

The Iran-Korean Alliance Strengthens

North Korea’s ‘No. 2’ official strengthens ties with Iran as UN hits Pyongyang with new sanctions

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani meets with North Korea’s ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam in 2013.
Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty Images
Amid new international sanctions, North Korea’s “No. 2” official embarked on a 10-day visit to Iran, a move that could result in the two sides expanding their ties.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported Kim Yong Nam, chairman of the Supreme Assembly of North Korea, arrived Thursday for the weekend inauguration ceremony for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
But given the head of North Korea’s parliament is expected to stay for 10 days in Iran, the trip is being seen as a front for other purposes, including expanding military cooperation. At the same time, Pyongyang is looking for ways to counter sanctions and to boost the hard currency for the dynastic regime led by Kim Jong Un.
“There could be very problematic cooperation going on because of the past history and because it makes strategic sense, especially for Iran now,” said Emily Landau, a senior research fellow at the Israeli-based Institute for National Security Studies and head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program. INSS is an independent think tank affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
UN Security Council takes action
Kim Yong Nam’s visit coincided with a move by the United Nations Security Council to slap sanctions that bar exports of North Korean coal, lead, iron ore and seafood. The new restrictions could slash the hermit regime’s roughly $3 billion annual export revenue by one third.
The U.S.-sponsored resolution, which passed unanimously, followed the North’s second intercontinental ballistic missile launch last month. It also curbs the number of North Korean laborers working abroad and clamps down on new economic joint ventures with Pyongyang.
The new sanctions have been proposed for some time by Washington, and pressure was applied on China, North Korea’s longtime ally and its largest trading partner, to go ahead with them. Once the U.S. obtained Beijing’s approval on the new resolution, it began negotiating with other nations part of the 15-member U.N. Security Council.
In comments after his swearing-in ceremony Saturday, Iran’s Rouhani said, “The sanctions policy in today’s world is a failed and fruitless policy,” according to a report from Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
Meanwhile, the man whom Iran described as the North’s “No. 2” is believed to be traveling with a delegation of other officials from Pyongyang, including economic and military officials.
“For North Korea, it’s not a question of ideology,” Landau said. “It’s not a question of being close politically and maybe in terms of any of their religious orientation. It’s all about who can pay in hard cash. That’s what makes North Korea a very dangerous source of nuclear technology, components and know-how.”
CIA targets Iran, Korean problems
Last month, Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo said in a speech at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance that he had “created two new mission centers aimed at focusing on putting a dagger in the heart of the Korean problem and the problem in Iran.”
“Both the North Koreans and Iranians feel a serious threat from the United States and the West and sort of see each other as very different countries but facing a somewhat similar situation,” said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert and professor of practice at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
North Korea’s newly built embassy in Tehran opened Wednesday, according to the North’s state-run KCNA news agency. It said the new embassy was “built to boost exchanges, contacts and cooperation between the two countries for world peace and security and international justice.”
After the second ICBM test last month, defense experts said it appeared North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile had the range to reach half, if not most, of the continental United States. Iran could have an ICBM capability similar to North Korea within a few years, as just last week it successfully launched a satellite-carrying rocket that some see as a precursor to long-range ballistic missile weapon capability.
‘Extensive’ missile cooperation
“There’s been fairly extensive cooperation on missiles,” said Bunn. “And in fact, early generations of Iranian missiles were thought to be basically modestly adapted North Korean missiles.”
For example, Tehran’s Shahab-3 ballistic missile, capable of reaching Saudi Arabia from Iranian land, is based on technology from North Korea’s Nodong-1 rockets. Iran’s Ghadir small submarine, which in May conducted a cruise-missile test, is a vessel remarkably similar to those used by Pyongyang.
There’s still a bit of a mystery on the nuclear side, but some former CIA analysts have previously said Iranian scientists have attended nuclear tests in North Korea. There have been recent reports North Korea may be preparing for its sixth nuclear test, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that new international sanctions could provoke Pyongyang to go ahead with the test as a form of protest.
Tehran’s hands are tied due to the international nuclear agreement, although there’s a possibility it could quietly be teaming up with North Korea on nuclear research and doing it from the Korean Peninsula.
“The fact they are cooperating so closely on the missile realm is cause to believe that there could be even more cooperation going on even directly in the nuclear realm,” said Landau, the Israeli-based national security expert.
Bunn, however, isn’t so sure there’s currently any collaboration on the nuclear side between the two regimes but said “there’s a real danger potential” of it happening.
– Reuters contributed to this reporting.

Day: August 7, 2017

Iraq PM Rejects the Antichrist

Rapprochement between Riyadh and Baghdad Won’t Last

Preparing for the Nuclear War (Revelation 15)

Preparing For A Nuclear Attack (Seriously) : NPR

Before the First Nuclear War (Revelation 8)

Neighbours in Arms: The time India and Pakistan almost came to a nuclear exchange

The Iran-Korean Alliance Strengthens