* Olmert says peace accord with Palestinians unlikely in 2008 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday he did not believe Israel and the Palestinian Authority would be able to achieve their stated goal of forging a peace deal by the end of the year.

* US talks to Iran to legitimize attack Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, defense officials speculated.

* Russia to propose pan-European security pact Individual European countries should sign up to a legally-binding security pact that includes Russia in a new structure over-arching the EU and NATO.

* What Do High Oil Prices Mean for Iraq’s Future? There are very few silver linings to current record-high oil prices — but a more stable future for embattled Iraq may be one of them.

* Syrian US ambassador: Let’s make peace “Here’s the grand thing on offer: Let us sit together, let us make peace, let us end once and for all the state of war,” said the Syrian Ambassador.

* Deal still elusive at trade talks Rich and poor countries are still struggling to reach a compromise as protracted talks on a global trade pact enter a second week.

* Turkey Blames Kurdish Rebels For Istanbul Blasts That Killed 17 Istanbul’s governor said Monday that two bomb blasts which killed 17 people and injured 150 others.

* Ireland strongly opposed to Lisbon revote Almost three quarters of Irish voters are opposed to the idea of a second vote on the EU’s Lisbon treaty.

* Turkish court deciding AKP’s fate Turkey’s Constitutional Court is meeting to consider if the governing AK Party should be banned for alleged anti-secular activities.

* Gaza poverty at unprecedented high The number of households in the Gaza Strip below the poverty line has reached an unprecedented high of nearly 52 percent.

* Ahmadinejad claims Iran now possesses 6,000 centrifuges Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that Iran’s interlocutors had agreed to allow it to continue to run its program.

* Iraqi Christians urged to return Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has urged Christians who fled the country after the US-led invasion to return home to help rebuild the country.

* IDF vets train NY Jewish paramilitaries Yonatan Stern, the “Sgan Mefaked Hakita” (deputy squad commander) of Kitat Konenut New York, insists his “paramilitary emergency armed response team” is no “group of vigilantes or a JDL [Jewish Defense League].”

* Army deployed to calm Tripoli Lebanese tanks have been sent on to the streets of the northern port of Tripoli where bloody sectarian clashes have killed at least six people.

* Hamas nabs scores of Fatah men in Gaza Hamas security arrested dozens of supporters of the rival Fatah group, hurled grenades at the home of one Fatah leader and set up checkpoints across Gaza.

* Debate on oil speculators hits new pitch Oil prices continued their correction this week as the debate about the influence of speculators in energy markets reached a new pitch.

* Former Iranian leader rejects deadline Iran’s former president, the cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, told the international community on Friday that he rejected any deadline.

* Iran plans mass execution Iran is planning a mass execution of 30 people convicted of murder and drug trafficking.

* ‘UNIFIL flaws may lead to new conflict’ UNIFIL soldiers assigned to maintain the cease-fire that ended the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 are not carrying out their mandate.

* PA mulling unilateral declaration of statehood The Palestinian Authority is considering cutting off its diplomatic contacts with Israel and unilaterally declaring statehood.

* Kuntar: Allah willing, I’ll kill more Israelis Days after his release last Wednesday, convicted Lebanese Druse terrorist Samir Kuntar told Arab television stations that he plans to earn a master’s degree in “military resistance”.

* UN slams new Israeli settlement UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement on Thursday condemning Israel’s decision to authorize the construction of new housing units in Maskiyot.

* More Syria talks following ‘progress’ Israel and Syria are expected to hold a fourth round of indirect diplomatic talks in Turkey next week.

* New Book Shows History of Muslim Religious Violence A new book maintains that the history of Islam displays anti-Semitism and violence against Jews and Christians since the Muslim prophet Mohammed began the religion 1,200 years ago.

* IDF chief receives decoration from US army Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, surprised IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi on Thursday by honoring him with the US military’s highest award.

* Iranian Film Praising Sadat’s Killers Irks Cairo When it seemed that all was going smoothly on the Cairo-Tehran diplomatic front and full relations were not far off after a near 30-year hiatus, out comes a movie in Iran praising the assassins of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

* ‘Still time for peace deal this year’ US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was still hope that Israel and the Palestinians could reach a deal before US President George W. Bush leaves the White House.

* Moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell Claims Alien Contact Cover-up Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell – a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission – has stunningly claimed aliens exist.
(Listen to the Audio.)

By: Ben Bresky – Arutz Sheva

For the past 25 years Micah and Shoshanna Harrari have been manufacturing Biblical style harps and lyres in their workshop. They spoke to Israel National Radio about how they began, why they do it and the snowstorm that brought them to Israel.

Question: Tell us a little about Harrari Harps.

Shoshanna Harrari: We build Biblical harps, the restoration of King David style harps. We call them the Kinor David, equivalent to a small harp, and the nevel equivalent to a lyre. They haven’t been in existence for approximately 2,000 years. About 25 years ago, we brought it back, to its rightful place here in Israel. Some harps are built personally for people on order from our web site. We hand carve designs as the customer asks. There are different woods to choose from, many woods from Israel, some from Africa, very beautiful and musical woods. We also build harps for the Temple Institute, hopefully for the future temple.

Question: What’s the difference between regular harps and your harps?

Shoshanna Harrari: The harp of Israel goes back to the Tanach. It is written that the first person to play was a man called Yuval who played on a kinor. The next person was King David, who was the one who brought it to a very high level of awareness. He used it as a spiritual instrument to connect to Hashem. Then it went right into the Beit Hamikdash where there were 4,000 Leviim who played the harp. The tribe of Levi taught their children at age three to play on the nevel, the kinor, the shofar, and the silver trumpet. They also had cymbals and they sang. That was the music in the Beit Hamidkash (Temple).

So what is the difference between our harp and other harps? Our harps are based on those kind of ancient harps of Israel. They’ve just been missing for 2,000 years. They are the Avraham Avinu, so to speak, of harps.

Harps changed according to the countries they lived in. For example, Ireland and the British Isles have a tradition of harps but they are slightly different. What Western people today know as the harp is called the concert harp. It is very large and is no more than 150 years old. It is meant to be played only by professional musicians. You have to study many years before you can even do anything with it. But our harps are meant for regular people.

King David was a shepherd. He didn’t go to a conservatory to learn to play the harp. He played the harp because had something in his heart and in his soul that he wanted to express through music to bring it up to the Creator of the universe. Our harps are very easy to make a sound out of. Children can play them too. They’re meant to express spiritually something that is deep inside, the shir hadash (new song).

Question: What are the Hebrew letters on the harps for?

We put the aleph bet (the Hebrew alphabet) on the nevel which has 22 strings and therefore the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, allowing a person to expand their music into words and prayers. Each string corresponds to a letter. So you can do things, like playing a word for example, the word ahava is made of four letters, aleph hay vet hay, and you can make a simple melody. So if you have a good imagination, this sound is connected to the word love. you can actually daven with the Hebrew words of the aleph bet put into a musical vibration.

Question: How did you two first get involved in making harps?
They didn’t call for a doctor or psychiatrist or give him Prozac. They brought in the best harpist in the land, David, because they knew that would make him feel better.

Micah Harrari: About 23 years ago my wife Shoshanna had a friend that had a little harp. She asked me to make her one. I was an instrument maker at the time. But we were moving around a lot so it was hard to set up a shop. The last place we lived in was Vermont and we were about to set up a workshop. But I guess G-d didn’t need another harp maker in America and he kind of pulled us out of there in middle of the winter and here we are in Israel.

Shoshanna Harrari: After several years of my having a desire for a harp we finally came to Israel. One day Micah said, you remember that harp you wanted? I’ll make it for you. By hashgacha, we came across an archaeology book where it shows a picture of a cave in Megiddo called the Megiddo Harpist. That harp is what we used as our example. By another wonderful situation, the story was picked up by a journalist from the Jerusalem Post and it went out all over the world. She, in her research, declared that we were the first harp makers to make the harp of David in 2,000 years. The other information comes from the Talmud, where it talks about the number of strings and how many Leviim were playing in the Beit Hamikdash. We took all the information from whatever sources we had and we began to build harps.

Question: Tell us the snow storm story.

Shoshanna Harrari: This is sort of how we came to Israel. We were wandering around the United States looking for the perfect home. We assumed it would be in some physically beautiful place with no people around. We kept going farther and farther into the wilderness until we were living in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Someone showed us a one hundred year old miner’s cabin made out of logs. It had a dirt floor and no facilities. It was basic shelter. But we were very happy and we lived there. Every day Micah would chop wood and I would go down to the river and collect water to drink.

Our entertainment at night would be to light up the wood stove and the candles that I made and read a chapter out of some novel. I remember that year we read Dr. Zhivago. It was like what people used to do for before they had television and computers. Every week we would go into the little town of Telluride, Colorado and trade our used books for different used books that we never read before.

One week we didn’t go for some reason. We figured, so what, we’ll go the next day, but that night there was a big snowstorm. Just the kind that they only have in Colorado. It was a blizzard. You couldn’t see anything but snow. It was very quiet and we were sleeping and didn’t hear it. We woke up in the morning and couldn’t get out of our door. So we were snowed in and actually we really thought this was very romantic. Just like in a movie. It was exciting. We had wood and food, and we could open the window enough to get snow to melt for water.

But after the second day, we had cabin fever. But there was no way out. We didn’t have a telephone. No one even knew where we were. We were stuck in this cabin, it was still snowing and we had read all the books from the used book store. We were very low on entertainment. But there was one book that we never really read. That was the Tanach. We got it somewhere and carried it around. We figured you’re always supposed to have something like that around with you, but we never actually opened it or read it.

But that night we were so bored that we opened up this book and began to read from the beginning, or as you could say “in the beginning”. We kept reading it and it completely captured us. We knew the basic stories like Noah and the ark, but we never really sat down and read it. We were so into this book that even after the snow stopped, we read it as much as we could. Finally we got to the Prophets, and it said “and in those days that Hashem would call his children from the four corners of the earth, from the north the south the east and the west, and He will bring them back to their own land and He will replant them and never uproot them again.” We felt as if it was a personal invitation from the Creator of the universe to his special holy land. And since we were Jewish, we’re His children. Besides, we’re wandering anyway.

It’s a long story, but we went to Vermont and from there we were supposed to make harps, but we were pulled out of Vermont and went straight to Israel. We knew nothing about Israel. Mainly because we didn’t want to know. My parents had come as tourists and my father had an entire slide show from Metula to Eilat. But I never saw one slide because I was totally not interested. So when we finally got to Israel, it was a brand new world. A year and a half later we started making the harps and that’s when our life really began.

Question: What is the door harp?

Micah Harrari: It hangs on the inside of your door and when the door opens and closes it plays. Kind of like a battery-less alarm or a wind chime.. it brings a nice sound into the house. if you’ve ever read Chaim Potok’s Davida’s Harp you’ll know what I’m talking about. on the side is a hook where for Shabbat you hang the strings and balls up on the side so it doesn’t play on Shabbat. So it’s got a heksher.

Question: Tell us about the healing aspects of the harp.

Shoshanna Harrari: Three thousand years ago David, who was at the time just a shepherd, was brought in to play for King Saul. It says that Saul knew that someone had been anointed in his place and he would go into deep depression. Although he knew that he had lost the kingship, his servants didn’t know. They just knew that their king was upset and they wanted to make him feel better. They didn’t call for a doctor or psychiatrist or give him Prozac. They brought in the best harpist in the land, David, because they knew that the harp would make him feel better. So the irony of the story is that the one they brought in was exactly the one that King Saul was concerned about in the first place. It says when they brought in David and he would begin to play with his hands, Saul would begin to feel better and the evil spirit of depression would depart from Saul. It’s a very powerful thing to say for a simple little instrument that has a sweet beautiful sound. But why did they chose the harp? They had other instruments. They somehow knew, not scientifically, but they knew. %aad%

Now 3,000 years later, we have the tools to test things. They have been doing medical testing of the harp on people and they have found that it seems the vibration of the harp as opposed to the guitar or violin or other nice instruments seems to resonate with the healthy vibration of the human being. If a human has stayed up too late or doesn’t feel good, their healthy vibration goes down and that’s when they get colds or flu or chronic fatigues syndrome. But just the vibration of the harp helps.

On our web site we have an a section called Healing Harps with newspaper clippings with people using harps in medical ways. One article is a story about a surgery. They had a woman playing the harp dressed in scrubs. She is completely covered sitting there playing the harp while another woman is having open heart surgery. They wouldn’t do this unless it had an effect. They had a BBC documentary with cancer cells and as the harp begins to play the cells begin to change shape. Another study that’s being done here in a hospital in Jerusalem found that the sound of the harp increases oxygen absorption, which is a real problem in this day and age because we have less and less oxygen in the atmosphere. They found it helpful for Parkinson’s Disease, multiple sclerosis and other nervous disorders. This to me is a confirmation to me to what they seem to have known 3,000 years ago, that they brought in David to play the harp for their ailing king.

Question: What are the different harps you build?

The term kinor would also known as a lyre or lyre in Greek. The nevel is known as a harp today. The kinor is taken from the Bar Kochba coin, the money used in the time of Shimon Bar Kochba and the Roman occupation. It has the imprint of a little kinor on it. In the Talmud it says there were ten strings. In the psalms, many times it says upon a harp of ten strings I will praise thee Hashem. There’s something special about the number ten.

We started making the kinor as well, but unlike the article about the harp, no one knew about it. But one day a man came to us from the religious neighborhood of Meah Shearim in Jerusalem. He heard we had had a ten stringed harp and was very interested in this because in his Talmud studies his big focus was looking for signs of the coming of Moshiach. He said he old enough to have seen the rebirth of Israel in 1948. He saw the Six Day War. He saw the ingathering of the exiles, which is still going on. But one thing he never saw was the ten stringed kinor.

We asked him why this was so important in particular. He replied that it is written in the Talmud that this is connected to the coming of Moshiach and the beautiful song that will rise from the day when the world that is to be will be united in one harmonious whole, as he put it. He counted the strings and was very happy. He told his friends and they came to visit us as well and told us even more interesting things like for example the music of future is going to be different than the music of today.

Even the very scale that music is played on because it’s going to be played on a scale of ten notes and not anymore of a scale of eight notes. Right now we’re into the octave. According to these people, two of the notes you can’t physically hear. That isn’t so surprising because if a person is religious, then they know of the perech shira, which is a beautiful prayer showing how the entire universe is singing praises of Hashem right now. Not just the birds and the frogs but the stars in the sky, the leaves on the trees, everything. We just can’t hear it. We can stand outside in a completely silent night and listen and very few of us can hear the stars singing. But in the future our ears will be open and everything will change.

Question: Any final words you would like to say about your harps?

Shoshanna Harrari: The way David played his harp is that he would hold it over his heart and put his ear on the wood and begin to play extremely quietly. But in his ear it was really loud. He would sit like this for hours and the vibration of the harp would shake loose the shell around his heart and he would stand there before the Creator in the way he really was with no pretensions or ego. At that moment Hashem would send the ruach hakodesh, the holy inspiration to teach him certain songs, words and music that would come into his mind. And that’s how he wrote the Psalms. All we have left of it right now are the words. But there used to be musical compositions to all the Psalms. They were played on the kinor or nevel in the Beit Hamikdash. On the pilgrimage festivals, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, the sound of the harps were heard in Jericho. They must have been playing a lot of harps.

This is what we lost when we went into exile and hung our harps on the willow trees. The wind and the rain and snow and sun and time made them into stardust and it’s only now that it has returned. Why is it so important? These are Jewish instruments. The fact that they’ve returned means good times will be coming. There will be a time when we will play these instruments in the Temple. We won’t have to worry about making money or terrorism or health problems. We will sit around and play our harps and thank Hashem for everything and bring into this world a great, great joy.

For more information on Harrari Harps you can visit their web site at https://www.harrariharps.com

* UK MPs call for talks with Hamas A UK parliamentary committee has called for dialogue with Hamas, as a UN report says poverty has reached an unprecedented high in the Gaza Strip.

* Intelligence bodies warn threat from global Jihad ‘substantial’ Substantial threats to Israel, its citizens, and Jewish people all over the world exist from worldwide Jihad organizations.

* Harrari Harps Recreates Biblical Instruments For the past 25 years Micah and Shoshanna Harrari have been manufacturing Biblical style harps and lyres in their workshop.

* Iran purchases Russian anti-aircraft system Iran is set to receive an advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft system by year-end that could help fend off any preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities.

* Jewish Groups Challenge Obama: Show Support for United Jerusalem The Coalition for a United Jerusalem held a news conference in the capital Tuesday night to demand that US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama express unequivocal support for the unification of Jerusalem.

* ‘We must prepare for every Iran option’ “We all agree that Iran ought to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons”.

* Moon-walker claims alien contact cover-up Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell – a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission – has stunningly claimed aliens exist.

* Italian Lisbon vote builds pressure on Ireland The Italian senate’s unanimous support for the Lisbon treaty on Wednesday (23 July) should help force Ireland into a revote.

* Barak gives Netanyahu security briefing Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday and briefed the Likud chairman on military and security matters.

* Arctic ‘has 90bn barrels of oil’ The Arctic is estimated to hold 90bn barrels of untapped oil, according to figures from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

* ‘To Hell with the Ceasefire’ if Israel Doesn’t Let Up, Hamas Says Moderate Hamas official Ahmed Yousef, the adviser on foreign affairs to de-facto Gaza prime minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, has told the Middle East Times that Hamas’ patience with Israel is wearing thin.

* Iran vows no nuclear concessions Iran will not “retreat one iota” in its nuclear activities, its president says, in his first reaction to a new call for Tehran to end uranium enrichment.

* Kurdish defiance likely to delay Iraqi elections The Iraqi Parliament approved legislation to govern provincial elections, but Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the session.

* Chavez calls for Russia alliance Hugo Chavez has called for a strategic alliance with Russia to protect Venezuela from the US.

* Military strike not an option on Iran, EU ministers say European Union foreign ministers on Tuesday (22 July) called for further diplomacy in dealing with concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.

* Sudan president defiant in Darfur Sudan’s president has said he is “not worried” by International Criminal Court (ICC) accusations against him, during a rare visit to Darfur.

* US general warns Russia on nuclear bombers in Cuba Russia would cross “a red line for the United States of America” if it were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba.

* Manned spaceship design unveiled The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled.

* Livni calls for national unity gov’t Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on Tuesday night for the establishment of a national unity government.

* Gay bishop Robinson ‘should quit’ The Archbishop of Sudan, Daniel Deng, has called for gay American bishop Gene Robinson to resign and go back to being “a normal Christian”.

* Serbia arrests top war crimes suspect Karadzic Serbian security forces arrested Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic on Monday night.

* Maliki tells Germany Iraq is open for business Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his battle-scarred country was now safer and back in business.

* Israelis hit by new digger attack A Palestinian in a mechanical digger has rammed traffic in west Jerusalem, injuring at least 10 people before being shot dead.

* Russia, Venezuela strengthen energy ties Leading oil and gas producers Russia and Venezuela will coordinate energy policies.

* Being a Part of It: Aliyah 2008, in Photos and Words Some 210 Jews from North America made Aliyah on Tuesday, and were welcomed in a gala ceremony in Ben Gurion International Airport.

* Sarkozy suggests Irish revote in June 2009 French President Nicholas Sarkozy has proposed to the Irish prime minister that a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty be held.

* A First: Fatah Chief in the President’s Residence It was a first of its kind event Tuesday afternoon when Palestinian Authority (P.A.) Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) crossed the threshold of the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

* Kadima council paves way to oust Olmert Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be replaced as Kadima leader in mid-September.

* Obama urges political fix in Iraq US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said security in Iraq has improved but the country’s needs must now be addressed politically.

* US official to meet with Syrian negotiator in DC. For the second time this week, a senior American official will meet with representatives of a Middle Eastern country that the US has sought to isolate diplomatically.

By: Saddleback Church – Yahoo News

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, respective presumed Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, will end the primary season by making their first joint appearance of the 2008 campaign at Saddleback Church on Saturday, Aug. 16 at the Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion. Dr. Rick Warren, founding pastor of the 22,000-member Orange County, Calif. mega church and moderator for the event, made the announcement today upon confirmation by both campaigns.

“We’re honored that the candidates chose The Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion for their first joint appearance, an unprecedented opportunity for America to hear both men back-to-back on the same platform,” Warren said. “This is a critical time for our nation and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart — without interruption — in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan ‘gotcha’ questions that typically produce heat instead of light.

“The primaries proved that Americans care deeply about the faith, values, character and leadership convictions of candidates as much as they do about the issues. While I know both men as friends and they recognize I will be frank, but fair, they also know I will be raising questions in these four areas beyond what political reporters typically ask. This includes pressing issues that are bridging divides in our nation, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights.”

Warren confirmed that, at the candidates’ request, this two-hour event from 5-7 p.m. (PDT) will be held in a non-debate format and open to all media. Both candidates also requested that questions be posed exclusively by Warren, instead of a panel or members of the audience. Each will converse separately with Warren for approximately one-hour, beginning with Sen. Obama as determined by a coin toss. This historic forum will be the only joint campaign event prior to each party’s national convention.

“While debates typically focus primarily on the candidates’ positions and only secondarily on how they’d lead and make decisions, this Saddleback Civil Forum will reverse that ratio,” Warren continued. “Since the oath of the President is a commitment to protect the Constitution, it’s critical to know how each candidate interprets the nature of its principles. Leadership involves far more than promoting programs and making speeches, and since no one can predict what crises will happen over the next four years, it is vital to know the decision capacity and process of each man.”

Warren has known each candidate prior to their run for national office. Both men recorded video messages to attendees at Saddleback’s annual Global Summit on AIDS and The Church last November. Along with other national and international leaders, each has also endorsed Warren’s vision of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan, a 50-year strategy to mobilize millions of local churches around the world to address five global problems: spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, poverty, disease and illiteracy. After four years of testing prototypes of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan in 68 countries, the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition, involving business, church and government partnerships, was launched in April.

In conjunction with the Civil Forum event, Warren will convene an interfaith meeting at the church for approximately 30 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to discuss cooperation in projects for the common good of all Americans. Members of the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition Leadership Council will also fly in for weekend events.

On Sunday, Aug. 17, Warren will deliver a special sermon entitled, “Making Up Your Mind: Questions to Consider before the Election,” which will be streamed live on the church Web site, www.saddleback.com, and made available for use in small group discussions within churches across the country.

The Saddleback Civil Forum was established to promote civil discourse and the common good of all. The first forum, held during Passover week this year, featured five Jewish World War II Holocaust survivors sharing their stories. The next Saddleback Civil Forum in September will feature former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“In addition to my primary calling to proclaim the Gospel Truth of salvation in Jesus Christ, these Civil Forums further three other life goals: helping individuals accept responsibility, helping the Church regain credibility and encouraging our society to return to civility,” Warren added.

Saddleback Church has invited Faith in Public Life, which hosted a Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania last April, to co-sponsor this special Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion. Approximately 6,500 tickets to the event will be allotted for seating in six different venues throughout the 120-acre Saddleback campus.

By: Robert Maginnis – Human Events

Regensburg, Germany — In his 2002 State of the Union address President Bush labeled three nations — Iraq, North Korea and Iran — members of an “axis of evil” promising to prevent those regimes “…from threatening America … with weapons of mass destruction.” Unfortunately, the President will leave office with the job one-third completed and a series of last minute, dangerous credibility destroying policy reversals.

President Bush has successfully removed Iraq’s threat but the threats posed by North Korea and Iran will continue into the next administration. Worse, in his final year, President Bush has abandoned conservative principles in favor of accommodating the remaining “axis of evil” nations.

“North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens,” argued the President in 2002. That’s as true today as it was then. Until last month, President Bush was tough, refusing to negotiate with Pyongyang until the regime agreed to take concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear programs.

Last month, however, Bush abandoned his previous all-or-nothing strategy for what Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) labels a “legacy agreement” rather than getting “…to the bottom of North Korea’s nuclear efforts.” Now, the President is doing the same with Iran.

In 2002 Bush said, “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.” Those facts also remain true today.

Iran is undoubtedly pursuing nuclear weapons. It has a robust ballistic missile program that threatens Europe and may soon threaten the US. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly flouts Tehran’s violent intentions and the regime unashamedly sponsors the world’s largest terrorist group, Hizballah. There are no signs its rulers will abandon their repressive ways. Iran has also fueled the Iraq insurgency making it responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers.

Surprisingly, the administration perhaps anxious for a geopolitical legacy is reversing its Iran policy. There are three indicators of that shift.

First, the administration has floated the idea of opening an “American interests section” in Tehran — a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. This would be the first US diplomatic post in Iran since the two countries cut ties after the 1979 hostage crisis, when revolutionary students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and took 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

The return of US diplomats would be welcomed. Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the offer was acceptable to Iran in principle and Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, “We will receive favorably any action which will help to reinforce relations between the peoples.”

One possible explanation for placing an interests section in Tehran is to expand the “engagement” strategy supported by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In her recent statement, Rice said “We are determined to reach out to the Iranian people.” But that contradicts the Bush administration’s standing policy which places the onus to improve relations on Tehran by changing its threatening and irresponsible behavior.

Second, it wasn’t long after the administration floated the interests section idea that Rice found a loop-hole in its “no negotiation until Iran stops uranium enrichment” policy to send a senior American official to the table with Tehran. On July 19, William Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, met with Iranian officials in Geneva to hear Tehran’s response to a US offer outlining a possible way-ahead on the nuclear issue.

Burns was present when – for the umpteenth time – Tehran’s representatives utterly refused to stop its uranium enrichment program.

The loop-hole permitting Burns’ participation is a formula known as “freeze-for-freeze.” Iran must agree to not add to its nuclear program and the six negotiating partners — the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China – would not seek new international sanctions for six weeks to pave the way for formal negotiations. The face saving part of the deal for the Bush administration is that once full fledged (read “real”) negotiations begin Tehran must stop spinning its centrifuges.

Secretary Rice also wants us to pretend that Burns’ Geneva meeting was “not a negotiation.” Rather, she explained the decision to send Burns was a “tactical” move intended only “to receive the reply that the Iranians were expected to give a response to an offer posed by the US” and to make clear that if the Iranians “…want to negotiate, the condition for doing that is to suspend verifiably their enrichment and reprocessing.”

Let’s be honest: Rice is laying the groundwork for direct US negotiations with Iran. Vali Nasr, an international politics professor at Tufts University, explained, “The US realized that the old pattern of diplomatic negotiation, through the Europeans, was just not working.” The US, if it is going to reach its goal of removing Iran as a WMD threat, must drop the pretense that the current approach can work.

Iran has defied three sets of UN sanctions demanding it cease its nuclear program, saying it has a right to its peaceful uses under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But there is widespread concern the Islamic Republic is building nuclear weapons which could destabilize the world.

Unfortunately, the Geneva “freeze-for-freeze”, “not a negotiation” meeting appears to have been a bust. Iran provided a document that failed to address enrichment and Keyvan Imani, a member of the Iranian delegation, said, “Suspension [of uranium enrichment] – there is no chance for that.” That comment cast doubt over the value of the talks and reinforced critics like former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton who said of the meeting, “This is … the total intellectual collapse of the Bush administration.”

Finally, the White House has abandoned its opposition to an Iraq withdrawal timetable which is a policy reversal that helps Tehran. Previously, Bush had often ridiculed Democratic proposals for what he described as “artificial” timetables.

On July 18, Bush agreed with Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to set “aspirational” goals for a US troop drawdown. This change satisfies both Iraqi pressure for a withdrawal timeline which is motivated by domestic politics and Tehran’s desire for a closely aligned Shia-dominated neighbor in Iraq which is free of American influence.

The Bush administration argues that its many policy shifts – North Korea, Iran, Iraq – have been misinterpreted. Gordon Johndroe, a National Security Council spokesman, said these moves are “…fruits of the diplomatic labor that we’ve been engaged in the last couple of years.”

But John Bolton likened Bush’s policy reversals to breaches in a dam that is about to burst. “Once the collapse begins, adversaries have a real opportunity to gain advantage,” Bolton said. “In terms of the Bush presidency, this many reversals this close to the end destroys credibility. … It appears there is no depth to which this administration will not sink in its last days.”

President Bush promised to prevent the “axis of evil” regimes from threatening America and our allies with WMD. He succeeded with Iraq but his legacy will include last minute major policy reversals that made North Korea and Iran more dangerous for his successor.

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