Chicago Daily Observer

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”

Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West’s proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West.

According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country’s policy toward Iran, that would be “very ... Read More...

The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman cheers Sen. Obama for holding to withdrawing troops regardless of the circumstances in Iraq and the MidEast. I actually believe that one can mature while not wavering (flip-flopping) in their political campaigns, yet I agree with Chapman’s observation that Sen. Obama is not straying substantially from his left-wing voting record, regardless of how the rest of the media potrays him.

Syria will open an embassy in Lebanon. Lebanon may also opened an embassy in Syria. Syria has pretty much stopped sending fighters into Iraq to battle with the Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. Israel has sent a peace offer to Syria via Turkey. France is stepping up diplomatic efforts inviting both Israel and Syrian leaders to a Bastille Day celebration. Al-Qaeda may be defeated in Iraq or close to it, with 70 more militants surrendering yesterday. President Bush ... Read More...

A potentially dangerous anti-Iran resolution is flying through Congress on the wings of some of our best-known doves. By the time you read this it may already have passed one or the other house with the all-out support of scores of liberals and progressives including Florida’s Robert Wexler, California’s Henry Waxman and the representative of the district next to where I live in Chicago, Jan Schakowsky.

Known as Concurrent Resolution 362, the nonbinding resolution expresses “the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony…”

The big problem is that a key clause can readily be interpreted as urging a naval blockade of the country, likely in the Hormuz Straits, which would be seen by most of the world as an act of war.

Its ... Read More...

Does this generation possess the gravitas to lead the world?

Considering the hysteria that greeted the request of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, the answer is no.

What is it about this tiny man that induces such irrationality?

Answer: He is president of a nation that is a “state sponsor of terror,” that is seeking nuclear weapons, and is moving munitions to the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq.

But Libya was a “state sponsor of terror,” and Col. Gadhafi was responsible for Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie massacre of school kids coming home for Christmas. And President Bush secretly negotiated a renewal of relations in return for Gadhafi giving up his nuclear program and compensating the families of the victims of that atrocity. Has Ahmadinejad ever committed an act of terror like this?

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