The President's schedule...

...is publicly available information. Based on this information what percentage of daily intelligence briefings does POTUS attend? What percentage should he attend? (Bolding in the article has been done by me for emphasis.)  Read the original here.

Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?
Marc A. Thiessen, Opinion Writer
Washington Post
Published: September 10

President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not attend his daily intelligence meeting.The Government Accountability Institute, a new conservative investigative research organization, examined President Obama’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.

I asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor about the findings, and whether there were any instances where the president attended the intelligence meeting that were not on his public schedule. Vietor did not dispute the numbers, but said the fact that the president, during a time of war, does not attend his daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis is “not particularly interesting or useful.” He says that the president reads his PDB every day, and he disagreed with the suggestion that there is any difference whatsoever between simply reading the briefing book and having an interactive discussion of its contents with top national security and intelligence officials where the president can probe assumptions and ask questions. “I actually don’t agree at all,” Vietor told me in an e-mail, “The president gets the information he needs from the intelligence community each day.”

Yet Vietor also directed me to a Post story written this year in which Obama officials discuss the importance of the intelligence meeting and extol how brilliantly the president runs it. “Obama reads the PDB ahead of time and comes to the morning meeting with questions. Intelligence briefers are there to answer those questions, expand on a point or raise a new issue,” The Post reported. “One regular participant in the roughly 500 Oval Office sessions during Obama’s presidency said the meetings show a president consistently participating in an exploration of foreign policy and intelligence issues.”

Not so consistently, it seems. Since Obama officials have actively promoted the way the president runs his daily intelligence meeting as evidence of his national security leadership (even releasing a photo of him receiving the briefing on an iPad), it is fair to ask why he skips the daily meeting so often.

According to former officials who have detailed knowledge of the PDB process, having the daily meeting — and not just reading the briefing book — is enormously important both for the president and those who prepare the brief. For the president, the meeting is an opportunity to ask questions of the briefers, probe assumptions and request additional information. For those preparing the brief, meeting with the president on a daily basis gives them vital, direct feedback from the commander in chief about what is on his mind, how they can be more responsive to his needs, and what information he may have to feed back into the intelligence process. This process cannot be replicated on paper.

While the Bush records are not yet available electronically for analysis, officials tell me the former president held his intelligence meeting six days a week, no exceptions — usually with the vice president, the White House chief of staff, the national security adviser, the director of National Intelligence, or their deputies, and CIA briefers in attendance. Once a week, he held an expanded Homeland Security briefing that included the Homeland Security adviser, the FBI director and other homeland security officials. Bush also did more than 100 hour-long “deep dives” in which he invited intelligence analysts into the Oval Office to get their unvarnished and sometimes differing views. Such meetings deepened the president’s understanding of the issues and helped analysts better understand the problems with which he was wrestling.

When Obama forgoes this daily intelligence meeting, he is consciously placing other priorities ahead of national security. As The Post story that the Obama White House sent me put it, “Process tells you something about an administration. How a president structures his regular morning meeting on intelligence and national security is one way to measure his personal approach to foreign policy.”

Indeed it is. So is how often he holds it. With President Obama, it seems, the regular morning meeting on intelligence is not so regular.

Marc A. Thiessen, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, writes a weekly online column for The Post.

Why the "Arab Spring" may be a cautionary tale

The phrase "The devil I know versus the devil I don't know" and "The lesser of two evils" come to mind. Was Mubarak a bad guy? Yes. Was Ghaddafi a bad guy? Yes with exclamation points. But when overthrowing a bad guy like Saddam Hussein or Mohammed Omar, it is important to know what to do about the power vacuum that will inevitably occur. This also inevitably requires a truly significant investment of time, energy, resources, personnel, political capital, and risk. However, when you ignore that need, and simply support an overthrow of an existing regime, and move on to your next fundraiser and the next news cycle, you may find that you do not like what or who has filled that vacuum. As usual, Krauthammer takes everyone to school. Read the original here.

The Islamist ascendancy
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: July 12
Washington Post

Post-revolutionary Libya appears to have elected a relatively moderate pro-Western government. Good news, but tentative because Libya is less a country than an oil well with a long beach and myriad tribes. Popular allegiance to a central national authority is weak. Yet even if the government of Mahmoud Jibril is able to rein in the militias and establish a functioning democracy, it will be the Arab Spring exception. Consider:

Tunisia and Morocco, the most Westernized of all Arab countries, elected Islamist governments. Moderate, to be sure, but Islamist still. Egypt, the largest and most influential, has experienced an Islamist sweep. The Muslim Brotherhood didn’t just win the presidency. It won nearly half the seats in parliament, while more openly radical Islamists won 25 percent. Combined, they command more than 70 percent of parliament — enough to control the writing of a constitution (which is why the generals hastily dissolved parliament).

As for Syria, if and when Bashar al-Assad falls, the Brotherhood will almost certainly inherit power. Jordan could well be next. And the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing (Hamas) already controls Gaza.

What does this mean? That the Arab Spring is a misnomer. This is an Islamist ascendancy, likely to dominate Arab politics for a generation.

It constitutes the third stage of modern Arab political history. Stage I was the semicolonial-monarchic rule, dominated by Britain and France, of the first half of the 20th century. Stage II was the Arab nationalist era — secular, socialist, anti-colonial and anti-clerical — ushered in by the 1952 Free Officers Revolt in Egypt.

Its vehicle was military dictatorship, and Gamal Nasser led the way. He raised the flag of pan-Arabism, going so far as changing Egypt’s name to the United Arab Republic and merging his country with Syria in 1958. That absurd experiment — it lasted exactly three years — was to have been the beginning of a grand Arab unification, which, of course, never came. Nasser also fiercely persecuted Islamists — as did his nationalist successors, down to Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the Baathists, Iraqi (Saddam Hussein) and Syrian (the Assads) — as the reactionary antithesis to Arab modernism.

But the self-styled modernism of the Arab-nationalist dictators proved to be a dismal failure. It produced dysfunctional, semi-socialist, bureaucratic, corrupt regimes that left the citizenry (except where papered over by oil bounties) mired in poverty, indignity and repression.

Hence the Arab Spring, serial uprisings that spread east from Tunisia in early 2011. Many Westerners naively believed the future belonged to the hip, secular, tweeting kids of Tahrir Square. Alas, this sliver of Westernization was no match for the highly organized, widely supported, politically serious Islamists who effortlessly swept them aside in national elections.

This was not a Facebook revolution but the beginning of an Islamist one. Amid the ruins of secular nationalist pan-Arabism, the Muslim Brotherhood rose to solve the conundrum of Arab stagnation and marginality. “Islam is the answer,” it preached and carried the day.

But what kind of political Islam? On that depends the future. The moderate Turkish version or the radical Iranian one?

To be sure, Recep Erdogan’s Turkey is no paragon. The increasingly authoritarian Erdogan has broken the military, neutered the judiciary and persecuted the press. There are more journalists in prison in Turkey than in China. Nonetheless, for now, Turkey remains relatively pro-Western (though unreliably so) and relatively democratic (compared to its Islamic neighborhood).

For now, the new Islamist ascendancy in Arab lands has taken on the more benign Turkish aspect. Inherently so in Morocco and Tunisia; by external constraint in Egypt, where the military sees itself as guardian of the secular state, precisely as did Turkey’s military in the 80 years from Ataturk to Erdogan.

Genuinely democratic rule may yet come to Arab lands. Radical Islam is the answer to nothing, as demonstrated by the repression, social backwardness and civil strife of Taliban Afghanistan, Islamist Sudan and clerical Iran.

As for moderate Islamism, if it eventually radicalizes, it too will fail and bring on yet another future Arab Spring where democracy might actually be the answer (as it likely would have been in Iran, had the mullahs not savagely crushed the Green Revolution). Or it might adapt to modernity, accept the alternation of power with secularists and thus achieve by evolution an authentic Arab-Islamic democratic norm.

Perhaps. The only thing we can be sure of today, however, is that Arab nationalism is dead and Islamism is its successor. This is what the Arab Spring has wrought. The beginning of wisdom is facing that difficult reality.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Status check on POTUS: Article from November, 2008

Here is an article from Investor's Business Daily from November 10, 2008.  Read it in its entirety, and it will make you think:

A Checklist Of Obama's Many Promises

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, November 10, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Few presidential candidates have made more specific promises to American voters than Barack Obama. They came so fast and furious in the latter part of the campaign, you'd be excused for not keeping up. So as a public service, we've put together a handy checklist of some of the biggest Obama promises — culled from his "Blueprint for Change," his campaign speeches and advertisements. Clip it. Save it. And see how he did in four years.

Taxes

• Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.

• Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.

• "If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing."

• Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.

• Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.

• Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.

• Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.

• Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.

• Expand the earned income tax credit.

• Create a universal mortgage credit.

• Create a small business health tax credit.

• Provide a $500 "make work pay" tax credit to small businesses.

• Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.

Energy

• Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.

• Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.

• Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.

• Weatherize 1 million homes annually.

• Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.

Environment

• Create 5 million green jobs.

• Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.

Labor

• Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's pay discrimination ruling.

• Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.

• Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.

• Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

National security

• Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.

• Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.

• No more homeless veterans.

• Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.

• Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.

Social Security

• Work in a "bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations."

• Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.

• Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.

Education

• Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.

Spending

• Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don't need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.

• Slash earmarks.

Health care

• Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.

• Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.

• Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

• Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.

POTUS Perturbs Poles

Alliteration aside, President Obama continues his trend of insulting traditional allies. "Smart power", right? Read the original here.

Polish Premier Demands U.S. Response To Obama Death Camp Remark
By Piotr Skolimowski - May 30, 2012 7:00 AM ET

Poland demanded a “strong and clear response” from the U.S. after President Barack Obama’s mention of a “Polish death camp” while honoring a Pole who told the world about the Holocaust.

“We can’t accept such words in Poland, even if they are spoken by a leader of an allied country,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told journalists in Warsaw today. “Saying Polish concentration camps is as if there was no German responsibility, no Hitler.”

Since, 2004 Poland has sought clarifications from several news outlets for the use of a phrase “Polish concentration camps” that were run by the Nazis during the country’s occupation in the World War II, according to the Foreign Ministry’s website. The government has convinced publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle to stop using the phrase.

The U.S. administration regrets “this misstatement,” the Wall Street Journal’s website cited Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman, as saying. The text of Obama’s remarks on the White House website hasn’t been corrected as of today.

“The White House will apologize for this outrageous mistake,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on his Twitter Inc. account. “It’s a shame that such a momentous ceremony has been overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence.”

Obama posthumously awarded Jan Karski the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, at a ceremony in Washington yesterday, saying the Polish officer “illuminated one of the darkest chapters of history” as he “repeatedly crossed enemy line to document the face of genocide, and courageously voiced tragic truths all the way to President Roosevelt.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Piotr Skolimowski in Warsaw atpskolimowski@bloomberg.net

Good News! The War on Terror is declared over...

But it makes me wonder, is it now an "Overseas Contingency Operation part 2"? I wish that I could just rename things to make them "complete". Seems a bit hasty to me... Anyways, read the original here.

'The War on Terror Is Over'
9:29 PM, APR 23, 2012
BY DANIEL HALPER

The Weekly Standard

In the wake of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration is grappling with how to handle Islamists, radical adherents to Islam. Particularly, the issue has come to the fore in regards to Egypt, which, as Reuel Marc Gerecht notes, "is now certain" to elect "an Islamist" as its leaders the next time the Egyptian people go to the polls.

But some in the Obama administration are now seeing things differently.

"The war on terror is over," a senior official in the State Department official tells the National Journal. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."

This new outlook has, in the words of the National Journal, come from a belief among administration officials that "It is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists."

The National Journal explains:

The new approach is made possible by the double impact of the Arab Spring, which supplies a new means of empowerment to young Arabs other than violent jihad, and Obama's savagely successful military drone campaign against the worst of the violent jihadists, al Qaida.

For the president himself, this new thinking comes from a "realiz[ation that] he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively 'moderate' Islamist groups emerging as lead political players out of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere."

This new outlook is radically different than what was expressed under President George W. Bush immediately after September 11, 2001. "Over time it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity," Bush said on November 6, 2001. "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

For President Barack Obama, it would seem, one can be both with us and against us--or not with us, but not quite against us.

White House believes in Double Standards

I don't recall anyone being "disappointed" in the media when Abu Ghraib photos were released. I seem to recall every Democrat from LA to NYC jumping all over it as a sign that George Bush was the devil. But when it happens under their administration, now we should see "restraint". Please. Neither one of them should've happened (the incidents). Whether the photos should've been released to the public is debatable. But treat both sides equally, as opposed to the "politically bashing the wife policy". Read the original here.

W.H. 'Disappointed' L.A. Times Published Photos 'Two Years After the Incident'
1:41 PM, APR 18, 2012
BY DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard

White House spokesman Jay Carney reacted to the publication of photos in the Los Angeles Times of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses in Afghanistan by saying the Obama administration is "disappointed.. [with] the decision to publish two years after the incident," according to a pool report.

Carney is suggesting, it would seem, that the photos might put at risk U.S. soldiers fighting the war in Afghanistan. And that, since the photos were taken two years ago, there would not seem to be pressing need for the Los Angeles Times to publish the photos while the soldiers are in that war theater.

Carney also blasted the photos themselves--at least, the actions of those American in the pictures. "[The] conduct depicted in those photographs is reprehensible and does not in any way represent the high standards of the US military," Carney told the press aboard Air Force One. "And the president certainly shares in the defense secretary's opinion that this should be investigated and those held responsible will be held accountable."

The spokesman said he was unsure whether the president had actually seen the photos in question, though Carney is sure that Obama is aware of the scandal.

N. Korea is not under POTUS's spell

It's a good thing that North Korea's technology is as up to date as their fashion. It looks like politically, POTUS isn't really able to get them to back off. Of course, if the result is always going to be with North Korean technology falling apart and sinking into the ocean like an ACME product bought by Wile E. Coyote, then it's probably okay. However, that's a pretty big if, to me...Read the original here.

Obama engagement policy 'in tatters' after North Korean rocket defiance
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk

Friday 13 April 2012 12.56 EDT
US officials expect Pyongyang to carry out third nuclear test in near future, respresenting significant policy failure for president

Barack Obama's policy of engagement with North Korea lies "in tatters" after it was effectively shot down by Pynongyang's defiant but failed attempt to launch a long-range rocket.

Former US officials closely involved with North Korea policy said Washington's attempt to win agreement from Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and rockets in exchange for desperately-needed food aid has failed. They now expect North Korea to try and overcome the embarrassment caused at the rocket breaking into pieces over the Yellow Sea by carrying out a third nuclear test in the near future.

If that goes ahead, it will represent a significant foreign policy failure for Obama and prove a severe political embarrassment in an election year.

In February, the Washington and Pyongyang reached an agreement under which the communist regime would halt its missile testing and uranium enrichment, and agree to the resumption of international monitoring of its nuclear sites, in return for Washington providing 240,000 tonnes of food to the North Korea which has faced widespread shortages and famine.

The US says it warned North Korea that the rocket launch – which Pyongyang said was intended to carry a satellite but which the Obama administration claimed was a ballistic missile test – would violate the agreement.

Charles Pritchard, a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea in the Bush administration and a special assistant to Bill Clinton on national security, said Obama's policy of engagement has now failed.

"It is essentially in tatters. They made a calculation. They reached out to North Korea and it fell apart," he said. "I think the US will be essentially regrouping on an international basis. They're not going to go back to a bilateral engagement with the North Koreans any time soon."

Pritchard said that the regime's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, is likely to attempt to restore Pyongang's credibility – and possibly also his own with North Korea's military – by pressing ahead with development of a nuclear weapon.

"The failure of the rocket makes it much more likely that there will be a third nuclear test. This has been a huge public and domestic embarrassment for North Korea. A brand new, untested, inexperienced regime that has gone out on a limb to really have a spectacular successful celebration, and now it'll be a dark shadow over all of their celebrations. They need some new achievement."

That view was backed by Christian Whiton, a US state department deputy special envoy to North Korea in the Bush administration.

"It looks pretty likely. The way this usually comes out is that South Korean intelligence starts leaking information to the South Korean press. That has happened and it looks like preparations are underway," he said. "If you step back and look at this it looks like a failure by North Korea with its rocket but actually what you're seeing is more of a power move by the regime."

One of Obama's deputy national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, denied that the administration's dealings with North Korea have been a failure. He argued that the president has taken a tougher stand with Pyongyang than the Bush administration because Washington will not now deliver the promised food aid.

"What this administration has done is broken the cycle of rewarding provocative actions by the North Koreans that we've seen in the past. Under the previous administration, for instance, there was a substantial amount of assistance provided to North Korea. North Korea was removed from the terrorism list, even as they continued to engage in provocative actions. Under our administration we have not provided any assistance to North Korea," he said. "The message that we've been delivering is that North Korea is wasting its money on these weapons as many of their people starve and as their economy is one of the most backward in the world."

Asked if it is proper to leave ordinary North Koreans to go hungry or even starve because the actions of their government, Rhodes said that it is the regime in Pyongyang "that is holding its own people hostage".

He said he would not be surprised if Pyongyang now attempts a nuclear test.
"The North Koreans have tended to pursue patterns of provocative actions to include missile launches, nuclear tests as they undertook in 2006, 2009. And so we're certainly concerned about the pattern of provocative behaviour that the North Koreans engage in. What we want to make clear to them is that each step that they take in terms of provocations will only lead to a deeper isolation, increase consequences. And frankly, that's not just a message they're hearing from us, they're hearing it from the Chinese and the Russians as well," he said.

The US was expected to lead the condemnation at a UN security council meeting on the crisis on Friday. The White House warned of new sanctions.
Obama's domestic critics swiftly accused him of creating the crisis through weakness. Some have contrasted the president's stand against Iran with his more cautious approach on North Korea.

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said Obama was incompetent and naive in handling North Korea.

"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naive as it was short-lived," said Romney. "This incompetence from the Obama administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and undermined the security of the United States and our allies."

Jon Kyl, the Republican whip in the US Senate, called on the White House to "abandon its naive negotiations with North Korea".

Pritchard said the crisis now threatens to become an election issue.

"In a presidential election year, the president can't afford a spectacular loss on the foreign policy side over North Korea where he's been very cautious over the last three years. It will essentially erase all the good things he can point to in other areas of his foreign policy," he said. "So I think Obama steps back. You're not going to see any bilateral engagement on the part of the United States for the remainder of this term."

The former officials now expect the White House to abandon bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang and to attempt to build on collective international pressure.

Pritchard said that will be made difficult by China's dual role of attempting to pressure North Korea while also shielding it. That, he said, will give Pyongyang a relatively free hand.

"This regime (in North Korea) cannot afford to negotiate away, to be seen to be knuckling under to pressure from others to stop what they are doing. They have nothing else going on for them. They are going to march forward and there's very little the international community can do," he said.

Whiton said he regards that as very dangerous.

"There's a cost to doing nothing with North Korea because North Korea proliferates nearly every weapons system it has. In 2007, one of the reasons the last round of talks fell apart was because we caught the North Koreans helping the Syrians build a carbon copy of the North Korean nuclear reactor.

"They were building it in Syria. There were North Koreans on the site. Thankfully the Israelis blew it up," he said.

POTUS and America's allies...

I really hope this is some brilliant strategic move based on "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Something that evolved into "Kiss your enemies, diss your friends". I'm just a lowly citizen, not an esteemed community organizer, but I don't understand this strategy. And I don't understand how you blame "Stop building a nuclear weapon that you publicly swore to use to wipe me off the global map" for rising crude prices. Especially when you supposedly agree with previously said statement? Read the original here.

Report: Obama Blaming Israel for Rising Fuel Prices
The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, says its "posturing" on Iran brought the rise.
By Elad Benari
First Publish: 4/3/2012, 3:16 AM
Israeli National News

The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, according to a Sunday report in The World Tribune. The rise in fuel prices is deemed as harming the U.S. economy and has also hurt Obama in the polls as he seeks re-election in November.

The report cited a leading U.S. analyst, Robert Satloff, who returned from talks with Israeli officials.

Satloff, executive director of theWashington Institute for Near East Policy, said, according to The World Tribune, that the Israeli leadership sawWashington as attributing the higher gas prices to “Israel’s posturing” on Iran.

“They think the Iranians should be held responsible for the higher gasoline prices,” Satloff was quoted as having said.

He added that the officials told him the Obama administration was staging a campaign to undermine Israel.

“I cannot underscore how deep and visceral the [Israeli] comments of the leaking that came out of Washington were,” Satloff said, noting Israel is alarmed by what officials determined were leaks by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama of purported Israeli preparations to attack Iran.

The Israeli concerns come in the wake of a report in Foreign Policy magazine last week, according to which Israel has purchased an airfield in Azerbaijan on Iran's northern border, prompting the United States to watch very closely.

Journalist Mark Perry wrote that the Obama administration is monitoring Israel's relations with Azerbaijan, particularly its military ties.

The Americans believe Israel may use the site as a springboard for an attack on Iran's nuclear plants, or as a landing and refueling spot following one. The site could also be used for aircraft needed for search, rescue and recovery in the wake of an attack.

“We're watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we're not happy about it,” an official told the Foreign Policy writer.

Azeri president Ilham Aliyev later dismissed the speculation and said, “Azerbaijan's territory will never be used to launch an attack against its neighbor, Iran.”

Krauthammer on POTUS telling Russia to wait "...after my election"

Krauthammer strikes again...Read the original here.

The ‘flexibility’ doctrine
By Charles Krauthammer

Published: March 29, 2012
Washington Post

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Vladimir Putin] to give me space. . . . This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”— Barack Obama to Dmitry Medvedev, open mike, March 26

You don’t often hear an American president secretly (he thinks) assuring foreign leaders that concessions are coming their way, but they must wait because he’s seeking reelection and he dares not tell his own people.

Not at all, spun a White House aide in major gaffe-control mode. The president was merely explaining that arms control is too complicated to be dealt with in a year in which both Russia and the United States hold presidential elections.

Rubbish. First of all, to speak of Russian elections in the same breath as ours is a travesty. Theirs was a rigged, predetermined farce. Putin ruled before. Putin rules after.

Obama spoke of the difficulties of the Russian presidential “transition.” What transition? It’s a joke. It had no effect on Putin’s ability to negotiate anything.

As for the U.S. election, the problem is not that the issue is too complicated but that if people knew Obama’s intentions of flexibly caving on missile defense, they might think twice about giving him a second term.

After all, what is Obama doing negotiating on missile defense in the first place? We have no obligation to do so. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a relic of the Cold War, died in 2002.

We have an unmatched technological lead in this area. It’s a priceless strategic advantage that for three decades Russia has been trying to get us to yield. Why give any of it away?

To placate Putin, Obama had already in 2009 abruptly canceled the missile-defense system the Poles and Czechs had agreed to host in defiance of Russian threats. Why give away more?

It’s unfathomable. In trying to clean up the gaffe, Obama emphasized his intent to “reduce nuclear stockpiles” and “reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.” In which case, he should want to augment missile defenses, not weaken, dismantle or bargain them away. The fewer nukes you have for deterrence, the more you need nuclear defenses. If your professed goal is nuclear disarmament, as is Obama’s, eliminating defenses is completely illogical.

Nonetheless, Obama is telling the Russians not to worry, that once past “my last election” and no longer subject to any electoral accountability, he’ll show “more flexibility” on missile defense. It’s yet another accommodation to advance his cherished Russia “reset” policy.

Why? Hasn’t reset been failure enough?

Let’s do the accounting. In addition to canceling the Polish/Czech missile-defense system, Obama gave the Russians accession to the World Trade Organization, signed a START Treaty that they need and we don’t (their weapons are obsolete and deteriorating rapidly), and turned a scandalously blind eye to their violations of human rights and dismantling of democracy. Obama even gave Putin a congratulatory call for winning his phony election.

In return? Russia consistently watered down or obstructed sanctions on Iran, completed Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr, provides to this day Bashar al-Assad with huge arms shipments used to massacre his own people (while rebuilding the Soviet-era naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus), conducted a virulently anti-American presidential campaign on behalf of Putin, pressured Eastern Europe and threatened Georgia.

On which of “all these issues” — Syria, Iran, Eastern Europe, Georgia, human rights — is Obama ready to offer Putin yet more flexibility as soon as he gets past his last election? Where else will he show U.S. adversaries more flexibility? Yet more aid to North Korea? More weakening of tough Senate sanctions against Iran?

Can you imagine the kind of pressure a reelected Obama will put on Israel, the kind of anxiety he will induce from Georgia to the Persian Gulf, the nervousness among our most loyal East European friends who, having been left out on a limb by Obama once before, are now wondering what new flexibility Obama will show Putin — the man who famously proclaimed that the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century was Russia’s loss of its Soviet empire?

They don’t know. We don’t know. We didn’t even know this was coming — until the mike was left open. Only Putin was to know. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” Medvedev assured Obama.

Added Medvedev: “I stand with you.” A nice endorsement from Putin’s puppet, enough to chill friends and allies, democrats and dissidents, all over the world.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

How does POTUS pick which issues he gets involved in?

I swear I hope this just looks bad, and isn't as bad as it looks. POTUS makes public statements about a non-racial, but between different race based parties at Georgetown before an investigation, he makes public statements about the tragic death of a black teenager that may or may not have been racially motivated....because there hasn't been an investigation yet. But foreign nationals get executed by a thug and the grieving parents ask for some sort of response, and you're too busy? If I was David Cameron, I might be having some words. For a post-racial POTUS, and a unifying commander-in-chief, Barack Obama appears to only care when Al and Jesse do. And that is not company I'd want to keep. Read the original here.

Parents of murdered British students criticise Barack Obama
The parents of two British students murdered in Florida have criticised President Barack Obama for his lack of compassion over their sons' deaths.

By Paul Thompson in Sarasota
3:00PM BST 29 Mar 2012
UK Telegraph

His failure to respond to three letters sent to the White House was because there was no "political value" and not worthy of a few minutes of his time.

They spoke out as teenager Shawn Tyson began a life sentence after being found guilty of the murder of James Cooper and James Kouzaris last April. The 17 year old, who shot the men as they begged for their lives, will die in prison. His conviction of first degree murder carries an mandatory life sentence without the chance of parole. The powerfully built teen even looked bored as emotional DVD presentations about the dead men prepared by their grieving parents were shown in court.

Tyson, who has the word 'Savage' tattooed across his chest didn't show a flicker of emotion, slumping in his seat as he was forced to watch a montage of photos showing the victims from early childhood to young men. Two close friends of the dead men who had attended the eight day trial in Sarasota, Florida. had also delivered highly emotional impact statements to the court prior to the sentencing.

Paul Davies and Joe Hallett spoke of the "living hell" they and others who knew the men had suffered since the murders. During the eight day trial they had been shown graphic crime scene and autopsy photos shown in court. Later speaking after Tyson was jailed Davies and Hallett lashed out at Mr Obama saying the deaths of their friends was "not worthy of ten minutes of his time." Davies said:"We would like to publicly express our dissatisfaction at the lack of any public or private message of support or condolence from any American governing body or indeed, President Obama himself. "Mr Kouzaris has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and is yet to even receive the courtesy of a reply. "It would perhaps appear that Mr Obama sees no political value in facilitating such a request or that the lives of two British tourists are not worthy of ten minutes of his time."

The rebuke follows Mr Obama's personal intervention into the shooting in Florida of a young black teenager by a white-Hispanic neighbourhood watch captain. The death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin has sparked nationwide protests with his supporters claiming he was victim of a racist attack. Mr Obama entered the controversy last week by saying if he had a son he would have looked like Martin. The alleged assailant in Martin's death has not been charged with any crime having claimed he was attacked first and used Florida's 'stand your ground' law to shoot in self defence.

The criticism of the US President was made on behalf of the Cooper's parents Stanley and Sandy, from Warwicks, and Peter and Hazel Kouzaris, from Northampton by Davies in a statement read outside the courtroom. The parents of the two victims did not attend the trial but they had access to the proceedings from a live video feed. The filmed interview of the Kouzaris's was played to the court while a message from Sandy Cooper was read out by the prosecutor. The victims close friends delivered an emotional impact statement with Hallett telling Tyson he hoped he would be haunted by his actions. He told him: "Imagine them being killed. Now try to imagine that they died because someone creept up on them and shot them numerous times for no good reason. Welcome to our world. Every night you go to sleep, every morning you wake up, I want you to think of my friends who you murdered. Their images will be imprinted on your conscience up until your very last breath in life."

Former Ambassador John Bolton accuses administration of selling out Israel

This should be a pretty big deal if it's true. There go those international relations. Any other allies the administration hasn't dissed or thrown under a bus? If I were Korea or Australia, I'd look out. Read the original here.

Bolton accuses administration of leaking story on Israeli planning along Iran border
Published March 29, 2012
FoxNews.com

Former U.S. diplomat John Bolton alleged Thursday that the Obama administration leaked a story about covert Israeli activity in order to foil potential plans by the country to attack Iran's nuclear program.

Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration, was responding to an article in Foreign Policy magazine that quoted government sources claiming Israel had been granted access to airfields in Azerbaijan -- along Iran's northern border.

The article did not state exactly what the Israelis' intentions were, but it suggested it could point to a possible strike on Iran.

"I think this leak today is part of the administration's campaign against an Israeli attack," Bolton claimed on Fox News.

The White House did not respond to Bolton's claims Thursday.

Bolton, a Fox News contributor, noted that a strike launched from Azerbaijan would be much easier for the Israelis than a strike launched from their own country -- jets could stay over their targets longer and worry less about refueling. But he said tipping the Israelis' hand by revealing "very sensitive, very important information" could frustrate such a plan.

Speaking afterward to FoxNews.com, Bolton said he didn't have hard proof that this was an intentional administration leak to halt an Israeli attack.

But he noted widely reported comments from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in February that he thinks the Israelis could strike as early as April. If that's the case, Bolton said, then it would be "entirely consistent" for the administration to try to avoid that impending outcome.

The Foreign Policy article quoted what were identified as "high-level sources ... inside the U.S. government." It specifically mentioned "four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers."

One intelligence officer, who was unnamed, told the magazine that the U.S. was "watching" the activity and was "not happy about it."

The Foreign Policy article did not specify whether any of the information came from the White House, and there is no direct evidence that this was a coordinated leak.

"Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak," Bolton told FoxNews.com. "This is not a rogue CIA guy saying I think I'll leak this out."

"It's just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies," Bolton said. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/29/bolton-accuses-administration-leaking-story-on-israeli-planning-along-iran/#ixzz1qbbFGZoG

Quote of the Day? or Sound Politics?

I'm not sure about this one. Is this characterized arrogance, or sound politicking from a stronger position? Is he assuming the election is won? Or is he presenting a stronger argument to Putin and Russia? Read the original here.

Mar 26, 2012 6:17am
President Obama Asks Medvedev for ‘Space’ on Missile Defense — ‘After My Election I Have More Flexibility’
Jake Tapper
ABC News

SEOUL, South Korea — At the tail end of his 90 minute meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Monday, President Obama said that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with controversial issues such as missile defense, but incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to give him “space.”

The exchange was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room for remarks by the two leaders.

The exchange:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

When asked to explain what President Obama meant, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes told ABC News that there is room for the U.S. and Russia to reach an accommodation, but “there is a lot of rhetoric around this issue — there always is — in both countries.

A senior administration official tells ABC News: “this is a political year in which the Russians just had an election, we’re about to have a presidential and congressional elections — this is not the kind of year in which we’re going to resolve incredibly complicated issue like this. So there’s an advantage to pulling back and letting the technical experts work on this as the president has been saying.”

-Jake Tapper

Russian Anti-Terror Troops Arrive in Syria

Umm...I don't think the Russians are there to oust Assad. Which, if they were, would be pretty embarrassing to the US and their allies that the Russians took the lead. (Lead from behind, right Mr. President?) It is more likely that the Russians have arrived in Syria to protect their "investment", since Syria is one of their big weapons customers. And they're probably buying weapons a lot more now. After all, throwing civilians off of rooftops is time consuming, and takes a lot of manual effort. If the Russians are there to boost the regime, that's more worrisome than embarrassing. Read the original here.

Russian Anti-Terror Troops Arrive in Syria
MOSCOW, Russia, March 19, 2012
ABC News

By KIRIT RADIA (@KiritRadia_ABC) and RYM MOMTAZ

A Russian military unit has arrived in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was "a bomb" certain to have serious repercussions.

Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government's violent crackdown on the country's uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council's attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war.

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet's Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency. The Russian news reports did not elaborate on the Russian troops' mission in Syria or if they are expected to leave the port.

The presence of Russian troops in Syria could be a "pretty obvious" show of support to the regime, according to Russian security expert Mark Galeotti.

"No one thinks of the Russians as anything but Assad's last friends," said Galeotti, professor of global affairs at New York University.

The Iman replaced another Russian ship "which had been sent to Syria for demonstrating (sic) the Russian presence in the turbulent region and possible evacuation of Russian citizens," the Black Sea Fleet told Interfax.

RIA Novosti, a news outlet with strong ties to the Kremlin, trumpeted the news in a banner headline that appeared only on its Arabic language website. The Russian embassy to the U.S. and to the U.N. had no comment, saying they have "no particular information on" the arrival of a Russian anti-terrorism squad to Syria.

Moscow has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Assad regime, to which it sells billions of dollars of weapons. In return Russia has maintained a Navy base at Tartus, which gives it access to the Mediterranean.

Last week Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had no plans to send troops to Syria.

"As for the question whether I consider it necessary to confront the United States in Syria and ensure our military presence there… in order to take part in military actions -- no. I believe this would be against Russia's national interests," Lavrov told lawmakers, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied reports that Russian special forces were operating inside Syria. He did say, however, that there are Russian military and technical advisors in the country.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the U.S. government had not heard of the reports of Russian troops in Syria and declined to comment.

Legally, who has the authority to send the US to war?

Here's an exchange in congressional testimony between Sen. Sessions and SecDef Panetta.  I learned in Government class, that only Congress has the authority to declare war.  I know that has gotten muddy with the advent of the military action by Executive Order, but I don't recall anywhere that we have to get permission from the rest of the world in order to do anything.  Am I surprised that apparently, this is the new "precedent" under this administration.  Not so much.  Here's the exchange:


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Do you think you can act without Congress and act, and initiate a no-fly zone in Syria? Without Congressional approval?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Again, our goal would be to uh, to seek international permission and we, and we would come to the Congress and inform  you and determine how best to approach and whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress, I think those are issues we would have to discuss as we decide what to do here.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Well, I'm almost breathless about that.  Because what I heard you say is we're going to seek international approval and then you will come and tell the Congress what we might do.  And we might seek Congressional approval.  


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Well-


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Now, I want to say to you, that's a big dis-, wouldn't you agree? You've served in the congress...


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Yeah-


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Wouldn't you agree? That that's...uh...would be pretty breathtaking to the average americans?  So, would you like to clarify that?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
<Stutter and stammer> You know, I've also served with Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, who have always reserved the right to defend this country if necessary.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
But before you do this, you would seek permission from the international authorities...?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If we're working with an international coalition, and we're working with NATO...we would want to be able to, be able to get appropriate permissions in order to be able to do that. That's something that all of these countries would want to have some legal basis on which to act. 


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
What legal basis are you looking for?  What, what entity?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Well, obviously the UN, if NATO made the decision to go in, that would be one...if we, if we developed an international coalition beyond NATO, then oviously some kind of UN security resolution.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
So you're saying that NATO would give you a legal basis? And an ad-hoc coalition of nations would provide a legal basis?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If we were able to put together a coalition...and we're able to move together, then obviously we would seek whatever legal basis we would need in order to make that justified.  I mean, we can't just pull them all together, in a combat operation, without getting the legal basis in which to act.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Who are you asking for the legal basis from?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If it's um, if the UN passed a security resolution as it did in Libya, we would do that, if NATO came together as we did in Bosnia, we would rely on that. So we have options here, if we want to build the kind of international approach to dealing with the situation.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Well, I'm all for having international support, but I'm really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat. I don't believe it's close to being correct.  They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that's required to deploy the United States military is the Congress and the President and the law and the Constitution.


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Let me, just for the record, be clear again, Senator, so there's no misunderstanding. When it comes to the national defense of this country, the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution, to act to defend this country.  And we will.  If it comes to an operation where we're trying to build a coalition of nations, to work together, to go in and operate as we did in Libya or Bosnia, for that matter Afghanistan, we want to do it with permissions either by NATO or the international community.



Original Video: via Sen. Sessions Youtube:

Why hasn't the US helped Iranian Opposition?

Read the original here.


Did Obama ignore plea for help from Iranian opposition in 2009?
POSTED AT 10:25 AM ON FEBRUARY 28, 2012 BY ED MORRISSEY
Hotair.com

Lost in the debate over whether the US should use military force to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons is the opportunity that arguably arose nearly three years ago to make the entire debate moot. When the mullahcracy that seeks the nukes in order to attack Israel rigged their presidential election even more clumsily than usual in order to return Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office, Iranians poured out into the streets in protest for months. Curiously, Barack Obama made no public overtures for weeks to the opposition, and the White House at one point even confirmed the results of the rigged election. Later, when the opportunity passed, Obama and the White House insisted that the Iranian opposition never asked for help from the US.

Today, the Washington Examiner reports that the leaders of the Green Revolution did indeed ask Obama and the West to help them push out the mullahcracy:

Documents obtained by The Washington Examiner suggest the Obama administration missed at least one major opportunity to help opposition groups in Iran that has not previously been reported. In November 2009, leaders of the Green party, which had staged a revolt on the streets of Tehran in June of that year, sent a long memo through channels to the Obama administration that some analysts said was a clear call for help.

“So now, at this pivotal point in time, it is up to the countries of the free world to make up their mind,” states the opposition memo dated Nov. 30, 2009. “Will they continue on the track of wishful thinking and push every decision to the future until it is too late, or will they reward the brave people of Iran and simultaneously advance the Western interests and world peace.”

The eight-page memo describes the current regime under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “brutal, apocalyptic theocratic dictatorship.”

The memo warns that Iran “with its apocalyptic constitution will never give up the atomic bomb, nor will it give up its terror network, because it needs these instruments to maintain its power and enhance its own economic and financial wealth.”

The administration claimed in 2009 that the Green party in Iran did not want American help. And the State Department repeated that this week. “Most leaders in the Green movement made clear they did not desire financial or other support from the United States,” a State Department senior official said. “As an organic movement, it was concerned that taking outside support would discredit it in the eyes of the Iranian people. We respect that and do not provide financial assistance to any political movement, party or faction in Iran.”

Michael Ledeen provides the context of the communication, which was prompted by back-channel contacts in Europe through Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer to the Greens in Iran:

They decided to try to secretly contact the Greens, and I have learned from persons with first-hand knowledge of the events that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received help from an old friend and Senate colleague, Senator Chuck Schumer.  The New York senator knew a person — a distinguished Iranian-American with no history of political involvement, and with a reputation for impeccable honesty and morality — who had a way to contact the Green leaders.

According to a person familiar with the details of the process, Schumer’s acquaintance was asked to pass two questions to the Green leaders on behalf of the administration:  The Greens were given to understand that the questions came from the secretary of state.  The questions were: “What should we do?  What should we NOT do?”

They were good questions, and they were passed through at least two persons, both known to me, one in the United States, the other in Europe. The person in Europe is well known and admired by the Greens, who now faced a very delicate problem.  It was one of Obama’s problems in reverse:  if any exchange between the Greens and the administration leaked out, the consequences might be very grave.  On the other hand, it would not do to ignore such questions from such a source.

The reply is in the form of a lengthy memorandum, dated November 30, 2009.

The date of the reply suggests that the White House was too late in even asking the question. By November 2009, the Iranian mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard had forcefully put down the Green Revolution, changing the character of the regime from a veneer of theocracy into a full-fledged military tyranny. Even at the late date, though, the US could have demonstrated some leadership in backing the popular uprising and organizing pressure against the mullahs, especially in Europe, where that approach might have found more support than increasing sanctions. In any case, Ledeen makes clear that the Obama administration didn’t respond at all to the desperate plea from the Greens, who must have been nonplussed to find the Obama administration preferring to deal with the mullahs:

Of course, there is a scandal here.  A terrible policy scandal.  The Obama administration didn’t do — and still hasn’t done — anything to help the opposition in Iran.  The Green Movement’s top leaders have been held in solitary confinement for more than a year.  Thousands of dissidents, journalists, bloggers, and normal citizens have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed, and the dreadful repression continues apace, as does the terror war against us and our soldiers on the battlefield.  The president has still not called for an end to the monstrous theocratic tyranny.  Instead, he has catered to the needs of the evil regime, at the cost of American lives, our national security, and his personal legacy.

He should have listened to the Greens in 2009 when they asked rhetorically: “Will (the countries of the West) continue on the track of wishful thinking and push every decision to the future until it is too late?”

So far, he has done just that, and thereby become an accomplice to evil.

Obama had no hesitation in demanding the ouster of nominal ally Hosni Mubarak just eight days after protests erupted in Egypt. He still hasn’t demanded the ouster of the mullahs of Iran.

Are the Israelis jumping the gun...

...or is the US dragging its feet? Read the original here.

U.S. and Israel Split Over How to Deter Iran
NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable.


Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, coined the phrase “zone of immunity” to define the circumstances under which Israel would judge it could no longer hold off from an attack because Iran’s effort to produce a bomb would be invulnerable to any strike. But judging when that moment will arrive has set off an intense debate with the Obama administration, whose officials counter that there are other ways to make Iran vulnerable.

Senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister and leader of the Mossad, have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to make the case that this point is fast approaching. American officials have made reciprocal visits to Jerusalem, arguing that Israel and the West have more time and should allow sanctions and covert actions to deter Iran’s plans.

The Americans have also used the discussions to test their belief, based on a series of public statements by Israeli officials, that an Israeli strike against Iran could come as early as spring, according to an official familiar with the discussions.

President Obama tried to defuse arguments for military action in a telephone call last month with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the substance of which was confirmed by an Obama administration official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the conversation. While the two men have had an often contentious relationship over Middle East diplomacy, American officials emerged from that exchange persuaded that Mr. Netanyahu was willing to give economic sanctions and other steps time to work.

The difference of opinion over Iran’s nuclear “immunity” is critical because it plays into not just the timing — or bluffing — about a possible military strike, but the calculations about how deeply and quickly sanctions against Iran must bite. If the Israeli argument is right, the question of how fast the Iranians can assemble a weapon becomes less important than whether there is any way to stop them.

“ ‘Zone of immunity’ is an ill-defined term,” said a senior Obama administration official, expressing frustration that the Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly, given the many kinds of pressure being placed on Tehran and the increasing evidence that far tougher sanctions are having an effect.

The Israelis have zeroed in on Iran’s plan to put much of its uranium enrichment near Qum in an underground facility beneath so many layers of granite that even the Pentagon acknowledges it would be out of the reach of its best bunker-busting bombs. Once enrichment activities are under way at Qum, the Israelis argue, Iran could throw out United Nations inspectors and produce bomb-grade fuel without fear the facility would be destroyed.

At its core, the official said, the argument the Israelis make is that once the Iranians get an “impregnable breakout capability” — that is, a place that is protected from a military strike — “it makes no difference whether it will take Iran six months or a year or five years” to fabricate a nuclear weapon, he said.

The Americans have a very different view, according to a second senior official who has discussed the concept with Israelis. He said “there are many other options” to slow Iran’s march to a completed weapon, like shutting off Iran’s oil revenues, taking out facilities that supply centrifuge parts or singling out installations where the Iranians would turn the fuel into a weapon.

Administration officials cite this more complex picture in pressing the Israelis to give the latest sanctions a chance to inflict enough pain on the Iranian leadership to force it back to the negotiating table, or to make the decision that the nuclear program is not worth the cost.

Iran’s currency has plunged, they note; its oil is piling up in storage tanks because it cannot find buyers, and there is growing evidence of fissures among the country’s leadership.

After a period of doubt about Israel’s intentions at the end of last year, administration officials said the two sides were now communicating better. Mr. Obama, they said, reflected that when he said in an interview on Sunday with NBC News, “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.”

This is not the first time that the Israelis have invented a phrase that suggests a hard deadline before an attack. At the end of the Bush administration, they said they could not allow Iran to go past “the point of no return.” That phrase was also ill-defined, but seemed to suggest that once Iran had the know-how and the basic materials to make a bomb, it would be inevitable.

While nuclear experts believe Iran now has enough uranium to fuel four or more weapons, it would have to enrich it to bomb-grade levels, which would take months. Beyond that, Iran would have to produce a warhead that could fit atop an Iranian missile — a process that could take one to three years, most experts say.

Still, Mr. Barak’s theory of “immunity” has gained a lot of attention in recent weeks, complicating a debate charged with bellicose language — in Israel and Iran and among Republicans on the presidential campaign trail, where Mitt Romney and other candidates have pledged Israel full support in any military confrontation with Iran.

Disputes between the United States and Israel are inevitable, according to experts, given the radically different stakes of a nuclear Iran for a distant superpower and for a neighbor whose very existence the leaders in Tehran have pledged to eradicate.

“No end of consultations can remove that asymmetry,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Next month, Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Washington to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group, to whom he and other Israeli leaders have regularly spoken about Iran’s “existential threat.” The White House has not yet announced whether Mr. Netanyahu will meet with Mr. Obama, though officials say it is likely.

Officials said that for all the friction between the United States and Israel over issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it had not spilled over into the dialogue over Iran, in part because Mr. Obama has ordered it “walled off” from politics.

Administration officials also noted a distinction in the tone of Mr. Barak and Mr. Netanyahu, who does not publicly favor the phrase “zone of immunity.” This week, an American official noted, Mr. Netanyahu declared that on the topic of Iran, officials should just “shut up.”

“I think that’s good advice,” the American official said.