* Solana calls for restraint in Jerusalem European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana expressed concern Wednesday over “recent clashes in east Jerusalem.”

* EU eyes bigger global role The ‘Yes’ vote by Irish voters on the Lisbon Treaty has brought forward the prospect that the European Union might play a greater role in world affairs.

* ‘US may be planning to bomb Iran’ The US could be in the process of accelerating provisions for a possible attack on Iran.

* Czechs ‘to back treaty this year’ The Czech PM, Jan Fischer, has told EU leaders he fully expects his country to ratify the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by the end of this year.

* ‘Old City violence may lead to 3rd intifada’ Recent violence in the capital and the ongoing tensions surrounding the Temple Mount could trigger a third intifada.

* Saudi king in Damascus to mend fences with Assad Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah flew to Syria on Wednesday for talks with President Bashar Assad.

* Like it or not, the Temple Mount is key to Israeli-Palestinian peace Here we go again. As Jews celebrate in their tens of thousands the festival of Booths, Succot, religious extremists like Sheikh Raed Salah incite Palestinian masses to recapture Jerusalem with “blood and fire.”

* MEPs pressure member states on diplomatic service MEPs are rushing to establish the European Parliament’s formal position on the union’s fledgling diplomatic service.

* Few Muslims willing to mimic Salah’s actions Raed Salah, the outspoken leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel’s northern branch, called Tuesday on all Israeli Arabs and residents of east Jerusalem to immediately make their way to the Old City and “shield the Aksa Mosque with their bodies.”

* Obama ‘rules out’ Afghan cutbacks US President Barack Obama has said his review of Afghan strategy will not look at pulling out or cutting troop levels.

By: Nissan Ratzlav-Katz – Arutz Sheva

Amnon Lin, a former Knesset Member and authority on the Middle East, told Israel National News’ Hebrew-language radio that a segment of the Arab-Israeli community is taking its orders from global jihadist organizations, such as Hizbullah and Hamas.

“We need to get used to the idea that today, among Arab Israelis, there is a very extremist group – led by the Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, Kamal Khatib and others – who maintain very close relations with organizations in the Islamic movement outside Israel, be it Hamas, the Hizbullah or other elements, such as Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon – the Muslim Brotherhood. Israeli Arabs no longer live on an isolated island,” Lin explained.

Connections between Israeli Arabs and Islamist groups worldwide, Lin said, are by way of the Internet, telephone, through the mass media, and more. This facilitates events such as the pre-planned rioting in Jerusalem this week, which can be essentially orchestrated from afar.

“Nowadays,” Lin told Arutz Sheva, “Arab Israelis have many methods by which to receive guidance, and even orders and instructions, that ‘you must do such-and-such’ and thus place the struggle for Jerusalem – that is, the battle for the Temple Mount – at the center.”

Asked by the interviewer if this constitutes, in effect, an operational arm within Israel of the global jihadist movements, Lin replied: “I am certain that [the Islamist leadership in Israel] is an operational arm that acts in full coordination with the leadership of the Hamas groups or of Hizbullah. It is all networked by the extremist fundamentalist Islamic movement.”

INN: “If so, then we have to treat it like a spy network, because we are a country that has to deal with existential threats.”

Lin: “I don’t think you or I need to encourage the security services. They do their job well.”

Asked if he sees the justice system at fault for the growth of Islamic fundamentalist activity, Lin replied that, in his estimation, the legal penalties for terrorist activities are not sufficient to deter those who want to attack innocent Jews.

“The only thing that surprises me,” added Lin, “is that we, Jews in the State of Israel, apparently have not yet learned, and are not investigating or aspiring to learn well, the sad truth that describes the situation among the Arab Israelis – [that they are] not separate from the general Arab public or from the Islamic fundamentalist public in the Arab countries.”

Amnon Lin, a graduate of the Shomer HaTza’ir Kibbutz movement in pre-state Israel, started his political career as in the mainstream socialist Mapai party led by David Ben-Gurion. Lin was responsible for Mapai party activities among the Israeli Arab sector in the 1950s and ’60s. By the 1970s, Lin had switched parties and joined the Likud under Menachem Begin. Then, due to local political issues in his hometown of Haifa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lin rejoined the left-wing Labor party, Mapai’s successor. His last term in the Knesset ended in 1988.

Lin has published several publications and many articles dealing with the Arab refugees of 1948, the Arab states, politics in the Arab Israeli community, as well as on the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

By: BreitBart

The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.

“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,” UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.

Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: “It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity.”

He said: “Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes,” he said.

The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and pound — which is calculated daily.

China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.

By: Robert Fisk – The Independent

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China’s former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. “Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable,” he told the Asia and Africa Review. “We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security.”

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region’s conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China’s extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America’s power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China’s growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China’s reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America’s trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington’s control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. “The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies,” a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. “The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won’t be able to use the US dollar.”

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker said. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

By: STEPHEN CASTLE and STEVEN ERLANGER – The New York Times

LONDON — Ireland’s vote to ratify the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty has finally cleared the way for the creation of a powerful new president, intended to elevate the 27-nation bloc’s standing on the global stage.

But do European leaders actually want one?

Ahead lies a difficult discussion about how much power and influence a new European Union president should have and whether the post should fall to a political star — like former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain — or one of his grayer, more technocratic rivals.

The leaders of member countries will decide, probably this month, and their decision could determine whether the union really seeks the bigger role it says it needs to try to match the influence of the United States and that of rising powers like China, Russia, India and Brazil.

The Lisbon Treaty, which aims to streamline decision-making and reform the bloc’s ramshackle structures, lays down a two-and-a-half-year term for a full-time president of the European Council, the body that represents member nations. The treaty, if finally ratified by the Poles and Czechs, also mandates a single new foreign affairs chief, in charge of both policy and aid money, and a new European diplomatic corps.

Both new jobs would be subordinate to the leaders of member countries, and the position of commission president, held by José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, continues. But those who fill the two new posts will have a considerable chance to carve out significant roles for themselves, since they will be the most prominent faces of a collective Europe.

There would also be greater powers for the European Parliament — the only popularly elected European Union institution — an effort to improve democratic accountability.

The treaty, assuming it passes, is “a splendid virtual success,” said Justin Vaïsse, a French scholar at the Brookings Institution. “It is virtual not only because much will depend on the men and women who occupy the main functions, and how they choose to define them and assert their authority, but also because there will be no real improvement without greater convergence and cooperation between the big three European countries,” he said, referring to France, Germany and Britain.

So when they gather at a summit meeting this month, the 27 European leaders face a clear choice between appointing a prominent president to represent them, or someone who will be more submissive.

The identity of the new president will determine the type of job that is created, said Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute in London. “If you have someone like Tony Blair, he will not want to be talking about the minutiae of service-market liberalization,” she said. “He would want to be talking about Iran to Barack Obama.”

While the European Union says it desires a bigger international role, national politicians know that a charismatic figure would overshadow many of them and could shift the bloc’s center of gravity.

There are no declared candidates. But the politician thought to have the best prospect is also the most controversial: Mr. Blair. Other contenders include: Jan Peter Balkenende, François Fillon, Herman Van Rompuy, and Jean-Claude Juncker, respectively the Dutch, French, Belgian and Luxembourgian prime ministers; Paavo Lipponen and Felipe González, the former Finnish and Spanish prime ministers; and former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland.

Though Mr. Blair led the British Labour Party to three victories, he does not have the support of most European center-left parties, which have not forgiven him for his role in the Iraq war. Britain remains outside several important union initiatives, like its single currency, the euro, and Mr. Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, is thought very likely to lose the next election to David Cameron of the Conservatives, who is sharply critical of further European integration.

But with the possible exception of Mr. Fillon, Mr. Blair’s is the only credible big name to emerge so far from informal discussions. Supporters say that Mr. Blair thinks he could play a useful role because of his good relations with Mr. Barroso and several other European leaders. Smaller countries suspect that Mr. Blair would be too susceptible to favoring the big nations, reducing the influence of the bloc’s minnows.

Mr. Fillon, who is reaching the end of a successful premiership, has already proven his ability to work with and around an imperious and sometimes petulant leader, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

But Mr. Sarkozy and the freshly re-elected German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will be crucial in deciding who gets the job, and both do not want their influence diminished.

Mr. Sarkozy has spoken positively of Mr. Blair for the post, but his current thinking is unclear. Mrs. Merkel was never enthusiastic about Mr. Blair, but she was more open to the idea during recent talks with Mr. Sarkozy, a European diplomat said.

Olivier Ferrand, the president of Terra-Nova, a research institute in Paris, said Mr. Sarkozy backed Mr. Blair because the British leader would strengthen the leadership of big member states like France in an enlarged Europe.

But there will be other political considerations, too, like balancing politicians from the left and the right and from large and small nations.

If the president comes from the center-right, for example, the foreign policy chief is likely to come from the left.

Mrs. Merkel is pressing for a woman to be appointed to one of the two big jobs, with the Greek foreign minister, Dora Bakoyannis, and Austria’s former foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, possible contenders.

“We don’t want to have a big-personality president, like Tony Blair, and then a big-personality foreign high representative, because then they will compete with each other,” said Ms. Barysch, of the Center for European Reform. “We already look ludicrous on the international stage having so many different voices.”

By: Douglas Birch – Associated Press

MOSCOW – Russia should ease barriers to immigration in order to reduce the impact of labor shortages, slower economic growth and other pressures brought on by its ongoing demographic crisis, a United Nations report said Monday.

The report said that Russia should adopt legal and other reforms that insure basic rights and access to services for millions of migrants, many of them from other former Soviet nations, who work in construction and other industries. These workers often face discrimination, exploitation and occasionally even violence.

Konstantin Poltoranin, deputy chief of the Federal Migration Service’s international and public relations department, told the Interfax news agency Monday that Russia has already taken the necessary steps toward reform.

“Many of the procedures have become more transparent and we can see progress,” he said. “Russia will decide on its own what migrants it needs and how many. Russia is in no need of a huge inflow of unskilled workers from abroad.”

Migrants in the former Soviet Union not only provide a crucial source of labor for Russia, the report found, they serve a vital economic purpose in their home countries.

The amount of money sent to Tajikistan by its citizens working abroad represents 45 percent of its gross domestic product, the highest level in the world, an earlier U.N. study found. Most of the country’s migrant workers are employed in Russia.

Russia’s population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993, despite the influx of millions of immigrants, according to a U.N. report released last year, and by 2025 the country could lose a further 11 million people.

Recent Kremlin efforts to reward women for having more babies have caused a surge in the birth rate, the U.N. has said, but won’t make much difference in the long term.

Population levels in many developed countries have stagnated and are expected to fall by 2025, but Russia’s population, currently around 142 million, has been in retreat since 1992. Russia’s mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world, with average life expectancy for males at barely 60 years.

For reasons that are not fully understood, Russians suffer very high levels of cardiovascular disease. But most experts blame the country’s overall high death rate on alcohol. Drinking has been linked to everything from liver disease to Russia’s high number of murders, suicides and fatal accidents.

The U.N. has also urged Russia to overhaul the health system to provide more efficient care, while encouraging lifestyle changes to reduce the number of deaths related to alcohol consumption.

By: Malcolm Hedding- The Jerusalem Post

Benjamin Disraeli, the prime minister of the United Kingdom at the turn of the 20th century, had a special way of taking on detractors who heckled him as a Jew when he rose to speak in parliament. “My people were kings in Jerusalem while you were still scratching around in the fields for mushrooms,” he would say.

The point is, Jerusalem was the Royal House of Israel long before London or Paris had regal palaces, and before Berlin or New York even existed. Yet it is these capitals in their arrogance that seek, almost daily, to disinvest the Jewish people from their ancient, biblical claim and connection to Jerusalem.

This is a people that for thousands of years expressed its attachment to and longing for the city by exclaiming every Passover: “Next year in Jerusalem!” The city has been the capital of only one people, and that is the Jewish people. No other nation can or should lay claim to it. As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently declared, “Jerusalem is not a settlement!” It is the City of David, Solomon, the great prophets and sages of the Bible, and the city that Jesus himself prayed for and recognized as Jewish.

Even the Patriarch Abraham, 4,000 years ago, travelled to Moriah and the city of Salem to worship God. It is from this divine encounter that the city, even the modern one, takes its name. It is Jerusalem, the city of peace and of righteousness.

IN CONTRAST, when the Ottoman Turks conquered the region and reigned over it for 400 years, they never treated the city as anything more than a backwater provincial town. It was no one else’s capital and remained neglected and broken down. Even the Islamic legend that Muhammad ascended into heaven from here is doubtful and disputed by Islamic theologians. Yet the great Israelite kings David and Solomon wrote magnificent eulogies to the city 3,000 years ago, and these can all be read in the poetry section of the Bible.

The great Hebrew prophets did the same as they called the city’s Jewish inhabitants to account. The apostle Paul always returned to Zion to worship and had a great longing to be in Jerusalem for the biblical feasts. Jerusalem has always had a Jewish presence, and a Jewish majority once more since the mid-1800s.

How strange it is then that the world believes that the ancient biblical city should not be Jewish. What nonsense is this? The Jews have more claim to Jerusalem than the French have to Paris or the Germans to Berlin or the British to London. It is absurd to think otherwise, and yet this is the nature of the global political consensus today. It is nothing short of shameful.

At our annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration this week, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem will mark 30 years of unequivocally standing with and advocating for a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people, and those who contest this statement have to either rewrite or totally ignore history. Yet sadly, this they happily do.

The Psalmist of Israel, King David, looked over the walls and ramparts of Jerusalem and wrote, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper who love her.” His great prayer was for peace and joy to rain down upon the city as the Jewish worshipers gathered to celebrate their prescribed festivals and as the nations also came to this “house of prayer for all peoples.” This is our prayer as well. And as the only embassy in Jerusalem, representing millions of like-minded Christians around the globe, we gladly take ownership of it. “Jerusalem united!” is our rallying cry this Succot.

* Temple Mt. access to remain restricted Following another day of Arab violence in Jerusalem, access to the Temple Mount was to remain restricted on Tuesday to Muslim men over the age of 50 and women.

* The demise of the dollar In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil.

* ‘We’ll pay any price to defend Al Aksa’ After Israeli ministers called for his indictment on Tuesday morning, a defiant Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch, said that he and his supporters “would pay any price to defend the Aksa [Mosque]” in Jerusalem.

* UN calls for new reserve currency The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.

* ‘Hall of Ages’ uncovered within Western Wall tunnels As police forces guarded the closed-off Temple Mount Monday, a group of visitors accompanied by a Jewish-Ukrainian philanthropist toured Jerusalem’s Western Wall tunnels.

* Riots in Jerusalem Guided by Global Jihad Amnon Lin, a former Knesset Member and authority on the Middle East, told Israel National News’ Hebrew-language radio that a segment of the Arab-Israeli community is taking its orders from global jihadist organizations.

* Gates blames past lack of troops for Taliban edge Defense Secretary Robert Gates blamed the Taliban’s revival on a past failure to deploy enough troops to Afghanistan.

* Jewish Purchases in Jerusalem Fuel PA Fears Jewish efforts and successes in spurring on the historic process of the national return to Jerusalem have the Palestinian Authority concerned.

* ‘Jewish’ Ahmadinejad is a Fraud According to experts on Iranian history and culture, the recent Daily Telegraph article purporting to show that Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Jewish is a fraud.

* Gold hits record high Gold hit a record high at $1,036.40 an ounce as the dollar dropped on a report, later denied, that Gulf Arab states were considering abandoning the U.S. currency for oil trade.

By: – Col. Bob Maginnis

Recent nuclear talks with Iran postponed the brewing crisis and emboldened Tehran’s radical regime. The rogue emerged from those talks the clear winner and as a result a long-term solution will be more difficult to reach.

Both sides postured for the Oct. 1 talks. The week prior to the talks, the Iranians launched missiles, paraded sophisticated air defense weapons, threatened Israel, revealed a secret enrichment facility and vowed it would not be cowed by the West.

The other side, five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China) plus Germany (P-5+1), set the stage for the talks in April when President Obama agreed with the G-8 economic world leaders that Iran had until Sept. 24 and the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh to engage in meaningful talks and stop uranium enrichment or face “crippling sanctions.”

Days before that deadline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepted the P-5+1’s talks invitation but refused to abandon uranium enrichment. No wonder skepticism about the talks ran high.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy expressed that skepticism at the UN’s nuclear non-proliferation summit on Sept. 24. “Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council resolutions,” said Sarkozy. He said past proposals for talks resulted in “Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges” and warned “At a certain moment hard facts will force us to take decisions.”

The talks took place but the P-5+1 was not ready “to take decisions.” Tehran walked away the clear winner.

First, Iran won yet another delay to come clean before suffering so-called “crippling sanctions.” The parties agreed to talk again on Oct. 18 in Vienna and the U.S. acknowledged that any decision to punish Iran is delayed at least until year’s end.

Second, Iran will continue enriching uranium. This was a key issue for the P-5+1, but at the talks the Persians cleverly arranged a “confidence building” agreement to ship 2,600 pounds of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment. The French agreed to turn the higher enriched uranium into rods and return them to Iran for use in a medical research reactor, which will run out of fuel next year. This deal pleased the P-5+1 because it removed most of Tehran’s known LEU from the country, enough for one bomb.

The problem with this deal is whether Tehran has hidden stocks of LEU. Iran’s long record of deception regarding its atomic activities should make the P-5+1 very suspicious. On Oct. 4, the New York Times gave cause to that suspicion when it reported the U.N. nuclear agency concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

Third, the talks appear to have put Israel’s military strike plans on hold. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The diplomatic situation vis-à-vis Iran has improved, but (Iran) is continuing with its nuclear program.” Likely, Israel has established red lines regarding Tehran’s atomic program and if crossed Jerusalem will attack with or without American support.

Finally, the talks put Tehran in a stronger diplomatic position. Iran dictated the terms of the recent talks and appears to be driving future engagement as well. It’s also significant that the U.S. has in principle accepted one-on-one talks with Tehran and as a signal, William Burns, the U.S. representative at the talks, held a 45 minute one-to-one meeting during the talks with Iran’s top negotiator. Also, to bolster Tehran’s credibility, Washington granted Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottoki a visa to visit Washington last week. It’s not clear whether the foreign minister participated in secret talks during his 14 hour overnight in Washington.
The P-5+1 got a few crumbs from Tehran to fuel the charade. The rogue promised to provide international inspectors access “within weeks” to the military-run clandestine enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. This facility was kept secret until last week when Iran realized it was about to be exposed by the Obama administration. Expect Iran to provide limited access to the facility and withhold important information.

Iran also agreed “in principle” to put about 80 percent of its enriched uranium stocks in other than military hands. This is a positive step if all stocks are indeed accounted for and a mechanism to deny military access to those stocks is verifiable.

So what happens next?

Iran will follow the North Korean model of deception and manipulation by stretching out the negotiations by providing piecemeal cooperation. It will try to divide the P-5+1 by doing just enough to satisfy the weakest partners. Predictably, such behavior will frustrate the Israelis to action and could force Obama to finally make tough decisions.

The options on Obama’s plate are hard. Sanctions without Russian and Chinese cooperation will be difficult. The much talked about gasoline embargo won’t work because Russia is prepared to make-up any Iranian shortfalls via rail resupply from under worked Russian refineries and besides, Venezuela signed a pact in Sept. to ship 20,000 barrels of gasoline to Iran beginning in Oct. and China recently increased its gasoline shipments to Iran by one-third to improve its leverage with the West.

Moscow and Beijing are not likely to abandon their economic and strategic ties with Iran to support sanctions. Their price for cooperation will be too high. Russia could seek the West’s disengagement from Eurasia and China might insist America back away from supporting Taiwan, China’s Achilles heel.

A military strike option depends on the quality of intelligence, not our strong suit. At best, our bombs could set the regime’s atomic program back a few years. Predictably, the regime would respond to a strike with damaging blows on our forces in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan, it might seek to close the Strait of Hormuz which would disrupt the global economy by cutting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf and it might attack Israel with missiles and Hizbullah terrorists.

Possibly a better option or one done in conjunction with a military strike would be to encourage internal dissent. We saw massive demonstrations after the tainted presidential election in June which needs to be encouraged.

The U.S. should aggressively support Iranian dissent and insurgents. We could work with regional partners to provide sanctuary for dissenters and insurgents, money, broadcast anti-regime messages into Iran and arms. Tehran’s political and religious leaders are already divided and paranoid so ratcheting up dissent and insurgent attacks might push them into chaos.

Finally, the White House and Congress must understand the regime’s motivation. Iran’s leaders are driven by radical theology. Last month at the U.N., Ahmadinejad outlined his Shia Islamic eschatology regarding the coming messiah, who returns to Earth to rule the world under Islam in the battle against the infidels. Ahmadinejad believes he can hasten the messiah’s return through instigating war. In fact, in an NBC News interview with Ann Curry two weeks ago, Ahmadinejad claimed he’s in direct communications with this Islamic messiah.

Tehran will use its success from the recent talks to divide the P-5+1 in order to defeat their actions. This strategy could give Iran many months to continue its secret atomic weapons work. Inevitably, much as we saw with North Korea, Tehran will eventually end the charade, kick the inspectors out, call off talks and test an atomic weapon. Then look for Ahmadinejad’s war that hastens the return of his Islamic messiah.

* Muslims in Jerusalem are ungrateful Jerusalem’s Muslim residents are “ungrateful,” the city’s police chief, Cmdr. Aharon Franco said Monday, in the wake of recent clashes between police and Palestinian rioters in the Old City.

* After Vote, Debate Shifts to New European Leader Ireland’s vote to ratify the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty has finally cleared the way for the creation of a powerful new president, intended to elevate the 27-nation bloc’s standing on the global stage.

* ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that “Israel is number one threat to Middle East” with its nuclear arms.

* Jordan slams Jerusalem for Temple Mount disturbances Jordan rebuked Israel for violent clashes the erupted on the Temple Mount and expressed dismay at Jerusalem’s decision to close the compound.

* Thousands of Christian pilgrims arrive to fulfill ancient Succot prophecy The voices of thousands of Christian pilgrims worshiping “Yehoshua Christ” echoed for miles over the hills of the Judean Desert late Friday night – the first night of Succot.

* Hamas children’s TV program again calls for the slaughter of Jews A popular Hamas children’s program that usually gives advice to youngsters, such as instructing them to listen to their parents, aired a call for the “slaughter” of Jews in Israel late last month.

* Pope warns of new colonialism Pope Benedict has warned that a form of colonialism continues to blight Africa.

* Jerusalem united! Benjamin Disraeli, the prime minister of the United Kingdom at the turn of the 20th century, had a special way of taking on detractors who heckled him as a Jew when he rose to speak in parliament.

* UN: Russia should reform immigration practices Russia should ease barriers to immigration in order to reduce the impact of labor shortages, slower economic growth and other pressures brought on by its ongoing demographic crisis.

* Russian FM: Iran enrichment deal just needs finalizing Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that a plan for his country to help enrich uranium for an Iranian reactor has yet to be finalized, in the highest-level Russian confirmation of a tentative agreement reached between Teheran and six world powers last week.