Israel preparing to 'strike Iran's nuclear programme', says army chief

MENA: Israeli army chief Aviv Kochavi said Monday a strike on Iran was becoming more likely as talks on its nuclear programme stall and "disappointment" over Arab-US talks in Jeddah.

"Preparing for a military option against Iran’s nuclear programme is a duty...and comes at the core of [our] national security," Kochavi was quoted as saying, by Israel's i24News.

He added that, while diplomacy was the better option, "history has proven many times that diplomacy can fail or succeed for a certain period of time, and then be violated or betrayed".

"The Israeli army continues to prepare for the attack on Iran…therefore we must be prepared for all developments and scenarios," he stated.

Kochavi's warning comes after a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader told Al Jazeera's Arabic service on Sunday that Tehran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but has yet to decide whether to build one, despite for many years saying it never intended to create weapons from its nuclear programme.

The statement has further angered Israel, already disappointed with the results of a US-Arab summit in Saudi Arabia over the weekend which it considers failed to address Iranian threats.

"The breakthrough that Israel had hoped to achieve with the Saudis did not materialise, and the security problems facing it will worsen in the near future," Israel’s Yedioth Ahranoth wrote.

While US President Joe Biden vowed not to allow Iran to own a nuclear bomb, Gulf Arab states voiced positivity towards their long-time, regional foe, saying they wanted better relations with Tehran.

They also denied reports that a regional military alliance, similar to NATO, was in the works to confront Iran.

The great knights of Donald Trump and their quest for the Voter Fraud

Opinion by Alexandra Petri

The Washington Post: Lo, it was a chill day of November and the wind did blow from the north, and then did President Trump gather all his great champions to the Resolute Table, for he waxed wroth. And the lieutenant governor of Texas did gather, and the senators from Georgia, both junior and senior, and Mike Pence the vice president, of gray hair and stern countenance, who had vowed a mighty vow to dine with no maiden saving only his wedded wife, did gather, and they all did prepare themselves to hearken unto what the president would bespeak them of.

And he said unto his beknighteds, “I have seen a terrible vision of a great Voter Fraud. It hath robbed me of the presidency which is mine by right, as has been foretold to me many times by OANN and Newsmax and other outlets. Of the betrayal of Fox News let me speak not! But this Voter Fraud is a fearsome beast, and it hath devoured up millions upon millions of ballots, though none has seen it, save these 234 pages of signed Michigan affidavits, which were alas mainly hearsay or a misunderstanding of how the votes were to be counted. But it grieveth me full sore that none has detected it no wheres, which is sign of its great cunning and stealth, for it possesseth the ability both to devour up many hundreds upon thousands of ballots and to go invisible.”

And he commanded them that they go forth and seek out the Voter Fraud and find proof of it, and then he should reward them with much gold that he had raised up from amongst his loyal followers, and Rudy Giuliani should bespeak them fair and give unto them even half his kingdom total landscaping.

And they rode forth in quest of this Voter Fraud. But no Voter Fraud did they see. And they did wander all across the land in quest of it. And Joe Biden did offer them water to drink if they would but leave their quest and congratulate him, but at his hands they would accept none, and congratulations did they offer not the one.

And they did find some poll-watchers who said that they had averted their eyes for a moment and in that moment perhaps the terrible monster had come swooping in with his talons to destroy certain votes and deposit other votes, but no evidence of this could they discover, though they sought long and hard. Many an enchanter and a teller of tales did they discover who could think of many ways that a Voter Fraud might have happened, but by none of them had it been seen. And a fraud hotline did they establish, and many maidens came unto the hotline, but the maidens were all pranking it for the lols.

And they rode up and down the land in quest of the Voter Fraud or even one who had seen the Voter Fraud and might point them in its direction, but none did they discover. They had many questions to inquire of this dread beast: For why should it rage and raven upon the ballots for the president, but leave the down-ballot Republicans untouched, and why should it deliver back unto the Congress all the Republican incumbents it might wish, and only wound the president full sore?

They traveled many leagues in quest of it. And they bespied a postal worker who said that he had seen the Voter Fraud, but he did not speak them full sooth, and no Voter Fraud did they find. And they found the great beast Gritty, rampant orange over the streets of Philadelphia, but no Voter Fraud did they find. And Trump did fulminate that 2 million votes had been destroyed by the vile sorcerer Dominion, but no sign of this could they see.

And the great knights were sore beset, and they said, “Is it that I am not pure? I seek the Voter Fraud in vain, full many weeks, and soon the count shall be certified and no Voter Fraud shall I have seen, and then the Presidency shall be lost.”

And homeward they did wend their way, full sore, and Trump inquired of them if they had seen the beast and done battle with it. And they said, “My liege, we did battle with the secretary of state of Georgia, but Voter Fraud saw we none. And we did ally ourselves with divers postal workers of dubious credibility, but Voter Fraud saw we none. And many lawsuits did we raise, but in the lawsuits we could not allege that we had actually seen any Voter Fraud happening, we just wanted to look like we were doing something and delay the count, for we have not seen hide nor hair of the Voter Fraud.”

And the noise was great in the court, for he would not leave off believing in this beast, whom he had dreamed of many times, even unto 2016, and he did send them back forth from his castle gates. And legend has it that they are seeking it to this very day, and if ye see a faint light, like unto a not-bright bulb, that wavers over the great cornfields and under the great overpasses of this fair land, it may be one of them still questing for this immense Voter Fraud, hoping to delay yet more the certification of the ballots. But no one has glimpsed it yet.

Trump is a racist demagogue. But he’s not a fascist.

By David A. Bell

The Washington Post: Is the year 2020 or 1933? It is unclear judging by the sudden ubiquity of the word “fascism” in our political discourse. Even as President Trump warns of “a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance,” his opponents insist that he is the true fascist dictator-in-waiting. Such charges have appeared since the 2016 election and have been made by credible authorities such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright. The deployment of armed federal agents against protesters in Portland and other cities gave further credence to these accusations.

In the modern political lexicon, at least for secular people, “fascism” has taken the place of the devil. But it is not appropriate for describing the United States in 2020.

Undoubtedly, some of Trump’s supporters — in their racism, their attraction to violence and their contempt for democratic norms — have things in common with European fascists of the interwar period. They belong to a long and sinister American tradition that includes the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that the great historian of fascism, Robert Paxton, called “the earliest phenomenon that can be functionally related to fascism.” And Trump’s extreme nationalism, his praise of violence, his not-so-coded racism and his insistence on absolute loyalty from his followers all recall elements of fascist ideology.

How fascist is President Trump? There’s still a formula for that.

But the existence of these echoes and connections does not mean that the United States is in danger of a fascist takeover. The accusations of fascism leveled against Trump and some of his supporters distract attention from the real threat to democracy that Trump poses, which is a far older and more common one. The accusations are also highly unlikely to convince anyone other than liberals. It may indeed prove counterproductive.

Fascism, as it took shape in Europe between the world wars, was bound up with a unique phenomenon that has had no real equivalent in American society: a regimented mass movement, with a uniformed paramilitary arm, committed to the radical remaking of society as a whole. Even before Hitler came to power in Germany in early 1933, his SA paramilitary force had hundreds of thousands of members. Fascist seizures of power depended on these mass movements effectively merging with, and taking control of, the state. Only then could the party leader’s rhetorical violence be transformed into mass violence, the suppression of all opposition, the nullification of civil rights and the vicious persecution of vulnerable minorities.

But Trump not only lacks a mass movement at his command; he has made no attempt to create one. The various far-right militia groups, including the armed protesters who marched into the statehouse in Michigan after Trump’s call to “liberate” the state, remain small, disorganized fringe movements. The few hundred federal agents sent into Portland and other cities, while threatening and abusive, do not amount to a fascist paramilitary. Even as Trump threatens to involve new cities in the program, the Department of Homeland Security is already starting to remove agents from the Portland hot spot, in a sign it may be retreating from its blundering attempts to use them as a political police. At best, as Yale political scientist Jason Stanley puts it, Trump has been “performing fascism.” But the performance — perhaps better-called playacting — is far from the real thing.

Trump’s speeches may sometimes recall the rhetoric of fascist leaders in his praise of violence, his demands for obedience and his disregard for constitutional restraints. Nonetheless, his actual abuses of power fit into a very different, older pattern. From the start, the history of modern democratic republics has been inseparable from that of charismatic political leaders who can forge intense emotional connections with committed cadres of followers. Indeed, modern democracies have often depended on such leaders to bind together their fractious polities.

Some leaders have a greater ability than others to inspire emotional responses, but in many cases followers project hopes and fantasies onto surprisingly unlikely figures (as with the relationship between many Christian evangelicals and a president who embodies the seven deadly sins). The charismatic bond takes shape through, and is shaped by, media such as print in the 18th and 19th centuries, supplemented by radio, film and television in the 20th, and by the Internet and social media today.

If powerful enough, the bond forged with supporters allows the leaders in question to run roughshod over constitutional restraints. In what is often misleadingly called the “age of democratic revolution,” democracy soon failed in most of the revolutions in question: in France, in Haiti, throughout South America. It was not just a matter of the fragility of new constitutional systems in the face of civil war and social collapse, but of the positive attraction of charismatic authoritarianism, especially in moments of national crisis when figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint L’Ouverture and Simón Bolívar exploited widespread popular acclaim to usurp extra-constitutional powers >>>

David A. Bell is a professor of history of Princeton and the author of "Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution."