Reality Check_Surfacing For Air After So Long: Schadenfreude for us for once

February 11, 2025
Confessions of Schadenfreude

By Rob Jenkins

It’s difficult to catalog the range of visceral emotions I feel as I watch President Trump, Elon Musk, and his team of whiz kids at DOGE dismantle the Deep State, piece by piece.  Anger.  Joy.  Disgust.  Grim satisfaction.  Schadenfreude.

We’ve known for years that our federal government has been robbing us blind.  We’ve felt it in our bones but been unable to prove it, while those who gorge themselves at the public trough — politicians, contractors, media figures, lobbyists, lawyers, NGO execs — become rich beyond most of our wildest dreams.  To see all that graft and corruption finally dragged into the light of day, with receipts, is almost more than I can process.

As I write, when I find it hard to express my thoughts, I often turn to narrative.  So let me start with a little story, a true story, one I’ve thought of many times in the past two weeks.

Last summer, my wife accompanied me to the Washington, D.C. area, where I was helping conduct a three-day workshop for a group of conservative college kids sponsored by The Leadership Institute.  She often comes with me on these trips, now that we’re empty-nesters, especially if I’m going someplace interesting or somewhere she’s never been.  Usually my expenses are paid, and all we have to do is buy an extra plane ticket.  And since D.C. has always been one of her favorite places to visit, as an ardent American history buff, she was happy to tag along and see some of the sights while I worked during the day and with me at night. 

One fine evening, after a rain shower had cooled things down, we decided to go for a walk in the obviously rather affluent neighborhood right behind our upscale hotel in Arlington.  Lining the quiet, tree-canopied streets were quite a few stately older homes, several smaller older homes, and whole slew of large, modern, brand-new homes, some still under construction.

Out of curiosity, my wife pulled up Zillow on her phone and began looking at home prices, using the function that allows you to see the estimated value of every house in the vicinity all at once.  I heard her exclaim, “Oh, my gosh” and looked over her shoulder at the app.  Even the oldest, most run down house on the block was valued at over $1.5 million.  The larger ones were in the $2–3 million range, with the new homes pushing $4 million.

“Where do all these people get that kind of money?” she asked.

“From us,” I replied.

I understand that’s a bit of a generalization.  Some of those homes have been owned by the same people for years and simply appreciated in value.  Then again, you can see on Zillow when a home has been sold, and most of the ones we were looking at had changed hands at least once within the last five years.

I also understand that not everyone in D.C. makes his money directly from the federal government.  Indeed, most federal employees can’t afford to live in a neighborhood like that, which is why they live far from downtown and commute an hour or more to work.  (Back when they used to commute, I mean, before they all started working from home — something else Trump is putting an end to.)

And yes, it’s true that other metro areas, like San Francisco and Chicago, are also very expensive, because they have lucrative industries that draw people to them.  In the Bay Area, for example, you have Big Tech, which seems to be creating new millionaires every day.  People who are interested in the technology field, and who want to make a lot of money, are drawn to the area.

That’s not to say everyone in the Bay Area works in the tech industry, or that everyone who lives there is rich.  It’s just that the tech sector is the main driver of the area’s economy and the main reason so many rich people live there.  If the tech companies all went away, the economy in the Bay Area would collapse overnight.  (That very thing may be starting to happen.)

So what about Washington, D.C., which is nearly as affluent and expensive as San Francisco, if not more so?  What is the main industry there?  What is the driver of its economy?

You know the answer.  It’s the federal government.  That’s what draws people to D.C.  Not the climate or the food or the history.  People looking to make lots of money are drawn there by Big Gov, with its virtually limitless funds.  And what is the source of those funds?  Why, we are.  We the people, the taxpayers of the United States of America.  Under our Constitution, the government is essentially us.

Here’s where the schadenfreude comes in.

My wife and I have worked hard all our lives to achieve some level of success.  We make a decent living.  We’ve lived frugally.  We sacrificed to put four kids through college.  We haven’t taken on a ton of consumer debt, and we pay our bills on time.  We’ve saved and invested.

Now I look at my portfolio and, factoring in the last four years of inflation, I calculate that I may need to work until I’m 72 or older just so we don’t run out of money in retirement.  On one level, this is fine.  I enjoy what I do, and I’m not actually looking to retire anytime soon.  Nor am I complaining about the hard work.  I was raised to expect life to be like that.  We brought up our children the same way.

But then I stroll through a neighborhood like that one, in (or very near) our nation’s capital, and I see all these people who are making their money — most of them, anyway, directly or indirectly — from the federal government, the government I pay taxes for, and they’re ten times richer than I’ll ever be.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow — that any amount of my hard earned money, however small, goes toward enabling someone else to buy a $4-million home, a home I could never afford if I work until I’m 102.

Then Elon and his wunderkinds come along and show us that we were right all along, that we are being robbed, that the treasury is being plundered, that money — our money — is being funneled to people and places we would never approve, into worthless projects that, besides flouting our values, are mostly just money-laundering schemes to help the rich men north of Richmond get even richer.  

And then Elon and company begin to turn off the spigot.  Suddenly, the trough is no longer filling up.  And the Deep State operators and all their cronies and minions panic.  They’re being starved.  What will they do?  What will happen to the value of all those multi-million-dollar homes they’ve purchased with our money?

Hey, maybe in a couple of years I will be able to afford one of those after all.

Image via Pixabay.

Reality Check: When A Boy Tries Playing A Man's Game_The threat heard 'round the world

 

Obama warns Syria not to cross ‘red line’ 

President Obama's remarks at the White House Monday appear to ratchet up his stance on Syria. Getty Images

 

the CNN Wire Staff
Updated 5:25 AM EDT, Tue August 21, 2012 

 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should heed U.S. warnings to neither use nor move chemical or biological weapons, lest he risk crossing a “red line” and provoke a U.S. military response, President Barack Obama said Monday.

“We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Obama told reporters at the White House. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime – but also to other players on the ground – that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.

“That would change my calculus; that would change my equation.”

Obama added that U.S. officials are monitoring the situation “very carefully” and have put together a number of contingency plans.  

                                         Japanese journalist Mika Yamamoto.

                                        Takuya Yoshikawa/Magazine House Inc.

 

 Saudi support for Syrian rebels shaped by tribal, religious ties

 

“We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons.”

Obama’s remarks appeared to ratchet up his stance on the matter. Last month, talking about Syrian forces, he told a VFW convention, “They will be held accountable by the international community and the United States should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons.”

The Syrian regime “probably has the largest and most advanced chemical warfare program in the Arab world,” Michael Eisenstadt, director of the military and security studies program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told CNN last month.

It includes “thousands of tube and rocket artillery rounds filled with mustard-type blister agents, thousands of bombs filled with the nerve agents sarin and possibly VX, and binary-type and cluster CW warheads filled with nerve agents for all its major missile systems.

“Its CW infrastructure is believed to include several production facilities and numerous storage sites, mostly dispersed throughout the western half of the country,” Eisenstadt said.

Syria is thought to have a biological warfare research and development program, but is not known to have offensive biological warfare agents, Eisenstadt said.

The nation is not a party to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. That’s the body of the Chemical Weapons Convention dedicated to eliminating the weapons.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has said his country too is preparing contingency plans to attack Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal if Israel is directly threatened. In September 2007, Israeli jets bombed a building in Syria that the U.N. nuclear agency eventually concluded was “very likely a nuclear reactor.”

Obama’s warning on Monday came as Muslims in Syria celebrated the second of three days of feasting to honor the end of the holy month of Ramadan, with the holiday’s message of amity and tolerance contrasting sharply with reality.

U.N. observer mission in Syria ends, violence continues

At least 150 people were killed Monday, including two children and their mother in Daraa, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

A Japanese journalist was killed during a gun battle in Aleppo, the Japanese foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Mika Yamamoto, 45, worked for the independent Japan Press news agency and had been reporting on the Free Syrian Army. Her body was taken to Turkey, where officials were working to get more information, the ministry said.

Also among the dead in Syriawere 10 bodies discovered splayed on the ground in the Damascus suburb of Qaboun. Video posted by activists showed at least one of the victims lying on his back, blindfolded, his arms stretched above his head. Others showed victims with bruised flesh and dark red splotches on their clothes. CNN cannot authenticate the video.

Another video, said to have been shot Sunday in the town of Talbeesa, north of Homs, showed children being pushed on swings. The swings are attached to the gun of a tank on which adults are standing, chanting, “Victory for the rebels!”

In a third video, showing the same tank, a man says to the camera, “We will enter Homs with this tank and liberate all of Syria, God willing!”

Daraa province, where the conflict began in March 2011 as peaceful anti-government demonstrations, has suffered heightened violence in recent days.

It is also the home province of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, who rebels say has defected from the regime.

On Sunday, the charred bodies of 20 people were discovered in the Daraa city of Hirak, and 31 other people were killed in the province, the LCC said. Government forces executed 14 people in Daraa hours after they were detained, the opposition network said.

Hirak took another beating Monday, when mortars and rockets rained down on the city, the LCC said.

Inside Syria: Nobody imagined it would turn into this

Since the Syrian crisis began 17 months ago, more than 20,000 people – most of them civilians – have been killed, opposition activists say.[SOURCE]

DSSO_When Obama Didn't Seem Quite As Cool And All-Knowing As We're Supposed To Believe: The Kris Paronto Reply To Barry

Posted this on old leftist twitter over 8 years ago&got kicked from the platform. I guess if you’re @BarackObama it’s ok to call the families of the murdered and those soldiers&sailors that saved lives of CIA personnel liars. But I’ll always be here to set in straight #truth https://t.co/JePI4pEVtW

— Kris Paronto (@KTantoP) July 24, 2024

Military Officials Distorted ISIS Intelligence, Congressional Panel Says

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, Centcom commander at the time, at a hearing before the Senate last year, giving what many lawmakers considered an overly positive assessment of the war.Credit...
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

By Helene Cooper
Aug. 11, 2016


WASHINGTON — Officials from the United States Central Command altered intelligence reports to portray a more optimistic picture of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria than events on the ground warranted, a congressional panel said in a report issued Thursday.

The interim report, from a task force established by the Republican chairmen of the House Armed Services Committee, Intelligence Committee and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, found “widespread dissatisfaction” among Central Command intelligence analysts, who said superiors were doctoring their assessments of American efforts to defeat the Islamic State. Central Command, known as Centcom, is the military headquarters in Tampa, Fla., that oversees American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia.

“Intelligence products approved by senior Centcom leaders typically provided a more positive depiction of U.S. antiterrorism efforts than was warranted by facts on the ground and were consistently more positive than analysis produced by other elements of the intelligence community,” a news release about the report said.

“What happened at Centcom is unacceptable — our war fighters suffer when bad analysis is presented to senior policy makers,” said Representative Ken Calvert, Republican of California. “The leadership failures at Centcom reach to the very top of the organization.”

The 10-page report detailed persistent problems in 2014 and 2015 in Central Command’s description and analysis of American efforts to train Iraqi forces. Although it offers no definitive evidence that senior Obama administration officials ordered the reports to be doctored, it describes analysts as feeling as though they were under pressure from Centcom leaders to present a more optimistic view of the threat posed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“Throughout the first half of 2015, many Central Command press releases, statements and congressional testimonies were significantly more positive than actual events,” the report said. “For example, a Centcom official stated publicly that a major military assault to take back Mosul could begin as early as April or May 2015.”

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Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, remains under the control of the Islamic State.

“After months of investigation, this much is very clear,” Representative Mike Pompeo, Republican of Kansas, said in a statement. “From the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command’s most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command’s intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq.”

Republicans created the task force after learning that analysts had raised concerns that intelligence about the Islamic State was being manipulated. The report released Thursday is to be followed up by more extensive findings as the investigation continues. There is an additional, ongoing investigation of Centcom intelligence by the Department of Defense inspector general.


Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee released their own findings on Thursday that agreed with some of the conclusions of the Republican task force.

“Between 2014 and 2015, Centcom created an overly insular process for producing intelligence assessments on ISIL and Iraqi Security Forces,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. This process, Mr. Schiff said, “stalled the release of intelligence products,” hurt morale among analysts and “insufficiently accommodated dissenting views.”

But Mr. Schiff and the Democrats said they found no evidence that the White House tried to pressure Centcom analysts to fit their conclusions to a “preset or political narrative.”

The preliminary results of the congressional investigation were reported Tuesday by The Daily Beast. Last August, The New York Times reported the existence of the Pentagon inspector general investigation, opened after complaints by Centcom analysts.

Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Evans, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the Defense Department would not comment on the congressional report while the inspector general’s investigation continued. But he said that “experts sometimes disagree on the interpretation of complex data, and the intelligence community and Department of Defense welcome healthy dialogue on these vital national security topics.”

The investigation has repercussions beyond the question of whether the American-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria is succeeding (an assertion now made by a growing number of Defense officials). But last year’s allegations called into question how much President Obama could rely on Central Command for honest assessments of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other crisis spots.

The critiques on the Islamic State intelligence mirror disputes of more than a decade ago, when a Centcom intelligence analyst, Gregory Hooker, wrote a research paper saying that the administration of President George W. Bush, over many analysts’ objections, advocated a small force in Iraq and spent little time thinking about what would follow the 2003 invasion. Mr. Hooker also played a key part in the insurrection over the Islamic State intelligence.

Last year, officials said, Mr. Hooker’s team concluded that despite public statements to the contrary, airstrikes against Islamic State-held refineries had not significantly weakened the terrorist group’s finances because it had built makeshift refineries to sell oil on the black market. But the finding was not distributed outside Central Command, The Times reported in September.

Centcom’s commander then, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, came under criticism last year after Senate testimony viewed by many lawmakers as being an overly positive assessment of the war.

General Austin retired in April and was replaced at Central Command by Gen. Joseph L. Votel. (SOURCE)

Obama Scandal: Emails Show EPA Director’s Extensive Use Of Fictional Alter Ego

Lisa Jackson.


Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer’s email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency’s technology training — including declaring him a “scholar of ethical behavior,” according to documents disclosed late last week.

Windsor.Richard@epa.gov was the controversial email alias used by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who resigned earlier this year amid questions about whether epa-using-instant-messages-avoid-s/?page=all”>her agency was complying with open-records laws.

The new records — the latest in a series that EPA critics have pried loose under open-records requests — suggests Ms. Jackson used the alias even more widely than known, including taking required agency computer training under the fake identity.

EPA officials say there’s nothing unusual in that, since Ms. Jackson used the alternate address regularly to conduct agency business.

The new records show the Windsor account was awarded certificates showing he has “satisfactorily competed the online email records management training”; took the 2010 “No FEAR Act Training Module”; and a completed a “Cybersecurity awareness training” course in 2011, where he scored 83 percent.
Windsor was also awarded the “scholar of ethical behavior” each year from 2010 through 2012. The only training Ms. Jackson appears to have done under her own name was for cybersecurity awareness in 2010. [source]

Hillary's World: How Clinton's Foreign Policy Has Destabilized The Globe

 

 

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – as senator, secretary of state, and active partner in the Clinton Foundation – has had the privilege of influencing major players in governments across the globe.

The result of her efforts has largely been the unfettered consolidation of autocratic power, instability (when not total collapse) in vulnerable states, and a global jihadist movement with its own Caliphate infiltrating some of the world’s most strategic locations.

 

The above map shows the nations of the world Clinton’s policies have destabilized and, below, an explanation of why each is labeled the way it is. This is meant to be a comprehensive list, though by no means complete: there are few nations in which an American secretary of state has no influence whatsoever.

Emboldened Autocrats

China
As secretary of state, Clinton presided over a policy known as the “pivot to Asia,” meant to increase American visibility in the continent and, in particular, bring China and the United States closer together. Clinton publicly supported the “one-China policy” – China’s way of imposing itself on the Republic of China (Taiwan), Tibet, Hong Kong, and the western Xinjiang region – and encouraged China to buy up U.S. debt.

Following her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton expressed support for incoming president Xi Jinping in private. In a 2013 private speech now public, thanks to the organization WikiLeaks, Clinton said it was “good news” that Xi was “doing much more to try to assert his authority” than his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

Since then, Xi has declared himself the “core” leader, comparable to Mao Zedong; colonized the maritime territory of six nations in the South China Sea; used state violence to crack down on the nation’s skyrocketing Christian population; and engaged in multiple Communist Party purges, citing unspecified “corruption.”
Cuba
Hillary Clinton has loudly supported President Obama’s policy to “normalize” relations with Cuba, and her associates maintain close ties to the Washington, D.C., community that benefits from relations with the Castro regime. President Obama’s “normalization” has triggered a boom in violent arbitrary arrests of political dissidents and a new wave of refugees seeking to leave the communist dictatorship before the United States changes its mind about treating them as political refugees.

Iran
Hillary Clinton’s work to embolden the Iranian Islamic dictatorship began early in her term as secretary of state. During Clinton’s tenure, the Obama administration all but ignored the Iranian Green Revolution, a series of protests against then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Clinton’s State Department rejected requests for funding from groups doing the work on the grounds of documenting Khamenei’s rampant human rights abuses against unarmed protesters.
The Obama administration’s crowning achievement in securing the Shiite Caliphate’s rule came years later, of course, in the form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal. While the parties signed the deal long after her departure from State, Clinton was responsible for “naming the negotiators for the nuclear talks and approving two major U.S. concessions to Iran in 2011 – guaranteeing Iran the right to enrich uranium and agreeing to close the IAEA’s investigation of Iran’s past nuclear weapons work,” according to Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy.

Malaysia

Under Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysia has become a hotbed of corruption and, increasingly, radical Islamic sentiment. The Obama administration has, nonetheless, cozied up to Kuala Lumpur, including improving its human rights ratings to make it an eligible partner in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Among the allies Clinton world feared would challenge Clinton, the presidential candidate, on Malaysia were labor leader Richard Trumka and George Soros.

As Secretary of State, Clinton was the first in her office in more than a decade to visit Malaysia as part of President Obama’s “Asia pivot” strategy.

North Korea
Secretary of State Clinton approached North Korea with a policy known as “strategic patience,” which one expert described as “sitting back and watching while North Korea continued to build up its nuclear weapons program.” North Korea has detonated two nuclear weapons since Clinton has been out of office, in part emboldened by “strategic patience” and in part, many argued after the fourth of five tests, emboldened by the Iranian nuclear deal.
Russia
Clinton has attempted to convince the American people that her arch-rival in the presidential election is Russian President Vladimir Putin, but long before it was politically expedient for her to do so, Clinton was the face of President Obama’s “Russian reset” – the one that preceded the collapse of Ukraine – and bragged privately to big-money donors of her close ties to Putin. The strongman trusted her so much, she once boasted, that he invited her to his “inner sanctum.”
Turkey
In her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton reserved praise from President (then-Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan that sounded not unlike her optimistic profiling of Xi Jinping. Erdogan, she said, was “an ambitious, forceful, devout and effective politician.” Of his government, she said Erdogan was correct to seek “zero problems with neighbors.” WikiLeaks-released emails have since revealed that Erdogan sought to buy influence through campaign donations to the Clintons.
During his tenure as president, Erdogan has advanced the cause of Islamism in Turkey to unprecedented levels since the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, going so far as to allow Islamic prayers in the Hagia Sophia, an iconic Christian landmark. He has also conducted mass arrests of political enemies and shut down numerous media outlets who dare challenge his government. Last Friday, Erdogan’s government arrested the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) – a pro-Kurdish, pro-Christian center-left party – in a midnight raid on dubious “terrorism” charges.
Venezuela
Clinton served as secretary of state during the tail end of the tenure of socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, who died shortly after she departed. Chávez presided over a bleak time in Venezuelan history: nationalizing private industries, cozying up to enabling autocrats in Cuba, Iran, and China, and using violence to suppress anti-socialist opposition.
In 2009, Clinton defended negotiating with Chávez and fostering diplomacy with him, telling a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S. should dismiss Chávez’s ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and communist China because “we’ve isolated him, so he’s gone elsewhere. I mean, he’s a very sociable guy.”
Venezuela’s economy is now in free fall as dozens of prisoners of conscience languish in prison under Chávez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro’s management of his own government has been so abysmal that, with Clinton gone, President Obama has declared Venezuela a national security threat.

Emboldened Corruption
Algeria
The government of Algeria is involved in one of the most egregious corruption schemes of the Clinton Foundation: offering the Clintons a $500,000 check. “The donation reportedly coincided with an intense effort by Algeria to lobby Mrs Clinton’s State Department over US criticism of its human rights record,” The Telegraph notes.
Brazil
Earlier this year, Brazil impeached and ousted its socialist President Dilma Rousseff for a variety of fiscal improprieties, including the misrepresentation of government funds to lure investors. Triggering protests that numbered in the millions, however, was Rousseff’s deep involvement in something known as “Operation Car Wash,” a sprawling corruption scheme in which dozens of government officials took millions in kickbacks from projects commissioned by the state-run oil company Petrobras.
As secretary of state, Clinton had longtime ties to Rousseff and praised “her commitment to openness, transparency,” stating that “her fight against corruption is setting a global standard” in 2012.
Haiti
The Clinton Foundation’s exploitation of Haiti’s poverty and the damage caused by a 2010 earthquake has left many of those nation’s leaders disgusted enough to speak up about the corruption. An operation to aid earthquake victims run by the Clintons was also found to have “played a role” in an unprecedented cholera outbreak in that country.
Kazakhstan
Among the more alarming deals Clinton cut at the State Department was the nuclear deal that handed one-fifth of America’s uranium production capacity to Russia. While Russia usurped control of the Uranium One corporation, the Clinton Foundations coffers filled with Russian money.
In addition to Uranium One control, the New York Times reports that Russia gained control of “mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world.”
Morocco
A more recent WikiLeaks reveal shows that the Clinton Foundation received a $12 million donation from the King of Morocco in exchange for Hillary Clinton’s presence at a Foundation summit. At the last minute, she did not attend.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed longstanding ties to the Clinton family and donated at least $50 million to the Clinton Foundation. These ties persisted even as Clinton privately admitted she had evidence that Saudi Arabia provided “clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”
United States
While the Clinton Foundation often served as a laundry service for foreign donations, Clinton fostered questionable ties with plenty of domestic entities, as well. Clinton has raked in millions in donations from big business in America, donors to which she privately promised “open borders.” Clinton’s ties to Department of Justice officials in the wake of an investigation into her use of an illicit private server for state business has also raised many questions regarding cronyism and corruption within our own country.

Jihadist Boom
Afghanistan
President Obama famously declared that the war in Afghanistan was over for American soldiers in 2014. The policies that led to that point only exacerbated the damage a vacuum of American power in the nation wrought following the announcement.
Under Clinton, the State Department largely ignored a sprawling corruption problem that left Afghanistan with few resources to combat the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Clinton policies elsewhere in the world also led to the development of an Islamic State presence in the nation.
Currently, U.S. officials warn that the Taliban is stronger than it has been since September 11, 2001.
Indonesia

One of Clinton’s first stops as secretary of state was Indonesia, where she proclaimed, “If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women’s rights can co-exist, go to Indonesia.” At the time (2009), her visit was met with chants of “Allahu akbar” and an inauspicious shoe-throwing protest against her.

Since then, Clinton’s foreign policy greatly contributed to the creation of the Islamic State, a jihadist group actively courting Indonesian recruits. “Between 300 and 700 Indonesians are believed to have joined the group in Syria and Iraq over the past two years,” the BBC reported in July, adding that 30 Indonesian groups had pledged allegiance to Islamic State “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iraq
Unlike Syria, the collapse of which followed violent acts of oppression by a ruthless tyrant, Iraq’s collapse is more closely tied to American foreign policy due to the nation’s longtime occupation there. An American presence on the ground in Iraq did more to subdue jihadist elements there than any action to routinely fleeing Iraqi military and its corrupt leadership took.
While Clinton was in office, President Obama withdrew most of America’s troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum rapidly filled by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran-backed Shiite militias. Military experts have agreed that a prolonged American presence in the country would have contributed to stability and withdrawing left the nation vulnerable to Islamist colonization.
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon
The nations surrounding Lake Chad continue to struggle with the rise of Boko Haram, a jihadist group founded in 2002 but active throughout the 2010s in northeast Borno state, Nigeria. Boko Haram is currently the deadliest wing of the Islamic State and responsible for killing an estimated 15,000 and displacing millions. The group rose to international prominence following the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in the Borno region in 2014. Most of these girls remain in captivity, “married” off to Boko Haram jihadists for use as sex slaves.
As secretary of state, Clinton refused to designate Boko Haram, at the time affiliated with al-Qaeda, a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The move severely hindered the Nigerian government’s ability to target and neutralize the group, as they could not seek U.S. aid for the mission.
Somalia, Kenya
Clinton traveled to Somalia personally in 2009 t0 offer support against al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. Following that visit, al-Shabaab made its ties to al-Qaeda public and went on two high-profile rampages against civilians in Kenya: the Westgate Mall massacre in 2013 and the Garissa University attack of 2015. It has since then become a popular enough jihadist group to have found itself the object of courtship of both its al-Qaeda overlords and the Islamic State.
Al-Shabaab has also expanded into Libya now that Libya is a failed state.
The United States did little in those in-between years to subdue al-Shabaab, including a “Yemen-like” drone policy to target leadership and an embarrassing failed raid on an al-Shabaab camp in 2013. Clinton herself merely implored the terrorists to allow humanitarian aid.

Collapse of State
Libya
Clinton’s role in the death of Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, in the September 11, 2012, siege of Benghazi is now well-known. She had a major role in pushing for the decision to support Libya’s uprising against dictator Muammar Gadhafi, as well, however – a move President Obama followed up with little strategy to ensure that a stable, secular government would replace Gadhafi. The collapse of the Gadhafi dictatorship has left Libya a failed state, at first governed by two rival parties, but now partially governed by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and a variety of Islamist tribal militias.
Clinton has called the collapse of Libya “smart power at its best” and claimed there were “very few civilian casualties” in the fall of Gadhafi.
Syria
The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, during Clinton’s stewardship of the State Department. The Secretary reportedly pushed President Obama to arm Sunni Arab Syrian rebels, armed militias that included a high number of jihadist elements, many of whom would move on to fight for the Islamic State. The President reportedly did not heed Clinton’s advice, though he failed to do much of anything else, either.
In 2011, however, Clinton referred to dictator Bashar al-Assad as “a reformer” by reputation, whose nascent rule was cause for optimism, casting some doubt on how adamantly she pushed President Obama to arm the Syrian rebels.
Today, Syria remains a land mass governed piecemeal by the Islamic State, Kurdish militias, al-Qaeda linked armed Sunni groups, and the Iranian-Russian-Assad alliance. Assad claimed in an interview earlier this month that Syria is now “much better off” than before the civil war.
Sudan/South Sudan
The creation of South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, was a direct product of Clinton’s foreign policy. Years of civil war in Sudan between the northern Muslim population and the Christian south gave way to secession and a war between two nations, not one. By the time Clinton visited in 2012, the Washington Post referred to the refugee crisis there as one of the worst in the world (soon to be eclipsed by the Syrian crisis).
The State Department persisted in aiding the South Sudanese government, even continuing to provide funding after evidence surfaced that the government employed child soldiers. Subsequent reports unveiled that Clinton-related firms received money from the South Sudanese government, as well.
Clinton’s State Department support appears to have done little to stabilize South Sudan. Report of mass rape at UN camps are common, and the country is now facing a famine.
Ukraine/Georgia
The Obama administration’s tepid responses to Russian colonization of former Soviet states have left Ukraine without its Crimea region and its eastern provinces in collapse. In Georgia, the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, invaded in 2008, remain under pseudo-Russian control.
Hillary Clinton presided over a “Russian reset” policy meant to dissuade Vladimir Putin from pillaging his neighbors. Clinton even gave her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov a literal “reset button” as a gift, leaving him baffled. The reset succeeded in keeping Russia from obstructing the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the invasion of Libya, but did little to convince Putin to change his foreign policy.
Subsequent revelations showed the Clintons taking money from both sides of the Ukraine conflict and being careful of making too tough a stand against Putin’s aggression.
Yemen
As secretary of state, Clinton made the first visit as America’s top diplomat to Yemen since 1990. There, she told Ali Abdullah Saleh that she would support a program to return al-Qaeda terrorists imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen, while also acknowledging that Yemen was a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity. Saleh is now an ally of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which have launched a civil war against current President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi. Al-Qaeda is possibly the most stable entity in a nation where 80 percent of civilians live off of humanitarian aid, quadrupling its presence in the nation in a year. Yemen is a failed state torn apart by an emboldened Iran and Saudi Arabia, both major beneficiaries of the Clinton State Department’s policies.

The Migrant Crisis
Austria, Belgium, the Balkan nations, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, the UK…
The Obama administration’s Syria and Libya policies (See above.), executed while Clinton was secretary of state, have triggered a flood of nearly five million displaced Syrians and more than one million Libyans seeking refuge in Europe and the Middle East. Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, and other volatile regions have added to the masses seeking a new home, rejected in countries like Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia who have criticized the West for being unwelcoming. (source)

Obama Collecting Personal Data For A Secret Race Database

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”
Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.
Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.
So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.

Housing database

The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups — white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino — and publish “geospatial data” pinpointing racial imbalances.
The agency proposes using nonwhite populations of 50% or higher as the threshold for classifying segregated areas.
Federally funded cities deemed overly segregated will be pressured to change their zoning laws to allow construction of more subsidized housing in affluent areas in the suburbs, and relocate inner-city minorities to those predominantly white areas. HUD’s maps, which use dots to show the racial distribution or density in residential areas, will be used to select affordable-housing sites.
HUD plans to drill down to an even more granular level, detailing the proximity of black residents to transportation sites, good schools, parks and even supermarkets. If the agency’s social engineers rule the distance between blacks and these suburban “amenities” is too far, municipalities must find ways to close the gap or forfeit federal grant money and face possible lawsuits for housing discrimination.
Civil-rights groups will have access to the agency’s sophisticated mapping software, and will participate in city plans to re-engineer neighborhoods under new community outreach requirements.
“By opening this data to everybody, everyone in a community can weigh in,” Obama said. “If you want affordable housing nearby, now you’ll have the data you need to make your case.”

Mortgage database

Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records.
Mortgage contracts won’t be the only financial records vacuumed up by the database. According to federal documents, the repository will include “all credit lines,” from credit cards to student loans to car loans — anything reported to credit bureaus. This is even more information than the IRS collects.
The FHFA will also pry into your personal assets and debts and whether you have any bankruptcies. The agency even wants to know the square footage and lot size of your home, as well as your interest rate.
FHFA will share the info with Obama’s brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which acts more like a civil-rights agency, aggressively investigating lenders for racial bias.
The FHFA has offered no clear explanation as to why the government wants to sweep up so much sensitive information on Americans, other than stating it’s for “research” and “policymaking.”
However, CFPB Director Richard Cordray was more forthcoming, explaining in a recent talk to the radical California-based Greenlining Institute: “We will be better able to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.”

Credit database

CFPB is separately amassing a database to monitor ordinary citizens’ credit-card transactions. It hopes to vacuum up some 900 million credit-card accounts — all sorted by race — representing roughly 85% of the US credit-card market. Why? To sniff out “disparities” in interest rates, charge-offs and collections.

Employment database

CFPB also just finalized a rule requiring all regulated banks to report data on minority hiring to an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. It will collect reams of employment data, broken down by race, to police diversity on Wall Street as part of yet another fishing expedition.

School database

Through its mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection project, the Education Department is gathering information on student suspensions and expulsions, by race, from every public school district in the country. Districts that show disparities in discipline will be targeted for reform.
Those that don’t comply will be punished. Several already have been forced to revise their discipline policies, which has led to violent disruptions in classrooms.
Obama’s educrats want to know how many blacks versus whites are enrolled in gifted-and-talented and advanced placement classes.
Schools that show blacks and Latinos under-enrolled in such curricula, to an undefined “statistically significant degree,” could open themselves up to investigation and lawsuits by the department’s Civil Rights Office.
Count on a flood of private lawsuits to piggyback federal discrimination claims, as civil-rights lawyers use the new federal discipline data in their legal strategies against the supposedly racist US school system.
Even if no one has complained about discrimination, even if there is no other evidence of racism, the numbers themselves will “prove” that things are unfair.
Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.
The first black president, quite brilliantly, has built a quasi-reparations infrastructure perpetually fed by racial data that will outlast his administration.[source]

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “The Great American Bank Robbery,” which exposes the racial politics behind the mortgage bust.

Scuttling Iran Deal Might Not Be Easy For Next President

By JULIE PACE
AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unhappy with President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran? Republicans running for the White House are vowing to rescind the agreement, some on their first day in office.

But it may not be that easy.

If Iran lives up to its obligations, a new president could face big obstacles in turning that campaign promise into U.S. policy. Among them: resistance from longtime American allies, an unraveling of the carefully crafted international sanctions, and damage to U.S. standing with the rest of the world, according to foreign policy experts.

"The president does not have infinite ability to get other countries to go along with them," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "One of the consequences is the United States would be increasingly isolated at a time when Iran is increasingly integrated with the rest of the world."

Both Obama and Republicans know firsthand the difficulties of dismantling major policies, a task that only gets harder the longer a policy has been in place.

After more than six years in office, Obama has failed to achieve his promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison, despite signing an executive order authorizing its closure on his first day in office. And more than five years after Obama's health care overhaul became law, Republicans have been unable to find a legal or legislative means for repealing the sweeping measure.

While some elements of the nuclear accord don't go into effect immediately, the centerpiece of the agreement is expected to be implemented quickly. If Iran curbs its nuclear program as promised, it will receive billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.

To Republican presidential candidates, rolling back that quid pro quo would be a top priority if they were to win the White House.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he would "terminate the bad deal with Iran on day one" and work to persuade allies to reinstate economic sanctions lifted under the deal. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry concurred, saying one of his first actions in office would be to "invalidate the president's Iran agreement."

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, said that while he would consult with allies about the deal on his first day in office, he was inclined to "move toward the abrogation of it." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told The Associated Press he would withdraw from a deal even if allies objected.

The next president has no legal obligation to implement the nuclear agreement, which is a political document, not a binding treaty.

But if there's no sign Iran is cheating, it's unlikely the European allies, who spent nearly two years negotiating alongside the U.S., would be compelled to walk away and reinstate sanctions. And it's nearly impossible to imagine Russia and China, which partnered with the U.S, Britain, France and Germany in the talks, following a GOP president's lead.

"Shattering something like this with the British and the French and the Germans - that has consequences," said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former Obama State Department official. "A new president isn't going to want to lead off like that."

To be sure, a U.S. president with a friendly Congress could unilaterally reinstate American sanctions on Iran. But the economic impact would be far less if other countries didn't follow Washington's lead.

Beyond Europe's interests, the White House says U.S. partners in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, will also likely have boosted their financial ties and oil purchases with Iran by the time a new president takes office in January 2017.

A wealthier, more globally integrated Iran is a scary prospect to opponents of the deal. Republicans contend Obama signed off on a weak deal with Iran, leaving the Islamic republic on the brink of building a bomb. Some say the president should have left the negotiating table, increased economic pressure on Iran, then resumed talks with greater leverage.

The president says the only realistic alternative to the diplomatic agreement is war.

Congress has 60 days to review the Iran deal. While lawmakers can't block the agreement itself, they can try to pass new sanctions on Iran or block the president from waiving existing penalties.

Some Republicans say the White House is trying to pre-empt congressional actions by seeking an endorsement of the nuclear deal at the United Nations Security Council next week. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, wrote Obama a letter urging him to postpone the U.N. vote until after Congress considers the agreement.

The White House says the U.N. vote has no bearing on the status of unilateral American sanctions on Iran.

But Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under former President George W. Bush, says the White House's push for quick U.N. action seems to have a longer-term goal than circumventing this Congress. Seeking the United Nations' stamp of approval for the deal, Hayden said, appears to be "for the express purpose of locking in the next president of the United States."[source]

Iranian Nuclear Deal: 'Iran have been given a licence to kill'

Major powers agree historic accord after a decade of on-off negotiations
Lead negotiator John Kerry says U.S. got 'the good deal that we sought'
United States, European Union and the UN agree to lift sanctions on Iran
Tehran accepts long-term curbs on its nuclear programme that the West has suspected was aimed at creating an atomic bomb
Israel reacts angrily to deal and vows to stop the agreement being ratified
Global oil prices plunge over possibility Iranian supply will return to market

Israel today launched a blistering attack on Western powers for agreeing a controversial atomic deal with Iran, warning that it gave Tehran 'a sure path to nuclear weapons'.

Under the accord, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations will be lifted in return for Iran agreeing long-term curbs on a nuclear programme that the West has suspected was aimed at creating an atomic bomb.

The European Union called it a 'sign of hope for the entire world', while President Barack Obama insisted the deal meant 'every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off'.

His views were echoed by David Cameron who said it was a deal 'that will help to make our world a safer place'.

But this was angrily rejected by Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branding the deal 'a bad mistake of historic proportions'.

‘One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: “Death to America”,’ he said.

‘Our concern is that the militant Islamic state of Iran is going to receive a sure path to nuclear weapons.’ He added that Iran would receive a ‘cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars’.

Miri Regev, a former military spokeswoman who serves as Israel's culture and sports minister, said it gave Iran a 'licence to kill', adding that it was 'bad for the free world (and) bad for humanity.'

Naftali Bennett, a member of Israel's Inner Security Cabinet, said the nuclear deal with Iran marked 'a new dark and sinister era for the world.'

Speaking to CNN's Chris Cuomo, Bennett said that '20 years down, if a nuclear bomb explodes in London or New York, we'll know that we can trace it down to July 14, 2015.'

'We're preparing for everything we need to do to defend ourselves', Bennett added.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called the deal 'a historic surrender by the West to the axis of evil headed by Iran.'

She said that Israel would 'act with all means to try and stop the agreement being ratified', a clear threat to try to use its influence to block it in the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.

After long, fractious negotiations, world powers and Iran struck the historic deal earlier today - an agreement aimed at averting the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who spent the last 19 days leading the talks in Vienna, hailed the accord as 'the good deal that we sought'.

'We were determined to get this right and I believe our persistence paid off,' he told reporters, adding that the agreement marked a historic day.

Amid celebrations on streets of Iranian cities, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani claimed the agreement hammered out in Vienna between his team of negotiators and foreign ministers of six world powers, opened a ‘new chapter in his country’s relations with the world’.

A highly selective breakdown of Iran’s gains and few of its concessions were highlighted on state-controlled TV.

Iran was also congratulated by Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad, who has been backed by Tehran throughout his country's four-year conflict.

He said the coming days will witness a 'strengthening of the constructive role played by Iran in supporting the rights of nations.'

Meanwhile, the prospect of a deal has already helped push down global oil prices because of the possibility that Iranian supply could return to the market.

The agreement is a major political victory for both Mr Obama and President Rouhani, a pragmatist elected two years ago on a vow to reduce the diplomatic isolation of a country of 77 million people.

But both leaders face scepticism from powerful hardliners at home after decades of enmity between nations that referred to each other as 'the Great Satan' and a member of the 'Axis of Evil'.

Rouhani was quick to present the deal as a step on the road towards a wider goal of international cooperation.

The deal 'shows constructive engagement works', he tweeted. 'With this unnecessary crisis resolved, new horizons emerge with a focus on shared challenges.'

For Obama, the diplomacy with Iran, begun in secret more than two years ago, ranks alongside his normalisation of ties with Cuba as landmarks in a legacy of reaching out to enemies that tormented his predecessors for decades.

While the main negotiations were between the United States and Iran, the four other U.N. Security Council permanent members, Britain, China, France and Russia, are also parties to the deal, as is Germany.

Prime Minister David Cameron the deal with Iran as 'historic', saying it will 'keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and help to make our world a safer place'.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond added: 'We hope, and expect, that this agreement will herald a step-change in Iran's relations with its neighbours and with the international community.'


Congress has 60 days for a review, though if it rejects the deal, Obama can use his veto.

It would require two-thirds of lawmakers to override such a veto, which means some of Obama's fellow Democrats would have to rebel against one of their president's signature achievements in order to kill the deal. 

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said the nuclear agreement is 'a possible death sentence for Israel' and will 'make everything worse.'

In an interview on MSNBC, the U.S. senator called the deal 'terrible.'

'This is most dangerous, irresponsible step I've ever seen in the history of watching the Mideast,' he said.

'Barack Obama and John Kerry have been dangerously naive about the Mideast in general.

'They've taken it to a new level and any senator who votes for this is voting for a nuclear arms race in the Mideast, voting to give the largest state sponsor of terrorism $18billion.'

Speaker John Boehner said Obama had abandoned his own goals and the deal would likely fuel a nuclear arms race around the world.

Kerry said he does not expect it to be definitively rejected, telling reporters: 'I really don't believe that people will turn their backs on an agreement which has such extraordinary steps in it with respect to Iran's program as well as access and verification.'

Iran is not likely to receive many of the benefits from the lifting of sanctions until next year because of the need to ratify the deal and verify its implementation.

'Celebrating too early can send a bad signal to the enemy,' Iranian conservative lawmaker Alireza Zakani was quoted as saying in parliament by Fars News agency.

He noted that Iran's National Security Council would also review the deal 'and if they think it is against our national interests, we will not have a deal', he said.

'The Islamic Republic will not sign a bad deal.'

The final round of talks in Vienna involved nearly three weeks of intense negotiation between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

It was something that would until recently have been unthinkable for two countries that have been bitter enemies since 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

'I believe this is an historic moment,' Zarif, who was educated in the United States and developed a warm rapport with Kerry, told a news conference.

'Today could have been the end of hope on this issue, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope. Let's build on that.'

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who acted as coordinator for the powers, said: 'It is a decision that can open the way to a new chapter in international relations and show that diplomacy, co-ordination, cooperation can overcome decades of tensions and confrontations.

'I think this is a sign of hope for the entire world.'

Hatred of the United States has been a defining trait of Iran's ruling system, on display last week when it marked the last Friday of the Ramadan fasting month with an annual day of protests, crowds chanting 'Death to Israel!' and 'Death to America!'.

Obama first reached out to Iranians with an address in 2008, only weeks into his presidency, offering a 'new beginning'.

Iran has long denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon and has insisted on the right to nuclear technology for peaceful means, although Western powers feared the enriched uranium that it was stockpiling could be used to make a bomb.

Obama never ruled out using military force if negotiations failed.

Iran's IRNA news agency said billions of dollars in frozen funds would be released under the deal, and sanctions on its central bank, national oil company, shipping and airlines would now be lifted.

Western diplomats said Iran had accepted a 'snapback' mechanism, under which some sanctions could be reinstated in 65 days if it violated the deal.

The breakthrough came after several key compromises.

Iran retains right to conduct research into enriching uranium for 10 years, without stockpiling it

Iran agreed to the continuation of a UN arms embargo on the country for up to five more years, though it could end earlier if the International Atomic Energy Agency definitively clears Iran of any current work on nuclear weapons.

A similar condition was put on U.N. restrictions on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Tehran, which could last for up to eight more years, according to diplomats.

Washington had sought to maintain the ban on Iran importing and exporting weapons, concerned that an Islamic Republic flush with cash from the nuclear deal would expand its military assistance for Assad's government, Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other forces opposing America's Mideast allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Iranian leaders insisted the embargo had to end as their forces combat regional scourges such as the Islamic State.

And they got some support from China and particularly Russia, which wants to expand military cooperation and arms sales to Tehran, including the long-delayed transfer of S-300 advanced air defense systems - a move long opposed by the United States.

Another significant agreement will allow U.N. inspectors to press for visits to Iranian military sites as part of their monitoring duties, something the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had long vowed to oppose.

However, access isn't guaranteed and could be delayed, a condition that critics of the deal are sure to seize on as possibly giving Tehran time to cover up any illicit activity.

Under the accord, which runs almost 100 pages, Tehran would have the right to challenge the UN request and an arbitration board composed of Iran and the six world powers would then decide on the issue.

The IAEA also wants the access to complete its long-stymied investigation of past weapons work by Iran, and the U.S. says Iranian cooperation is needed for all economic sanctions to be lifted.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said Tuesday his agency and Iran had signed a 'roadmap' to resolve outstanding concerns, hopefully by mid-December.

The economic benefits for Iran are potentially massive.

It stands to receive more than $100 billion in assets frozen overseas, and an end to a European oil embargo and various financial restrictions on Iranian banks.

The deal comes after nearly a decade of international, intercontinental diplomacy that until recently was defined by failure.

Breaks in the talks sometimes lasted for months, and Iran's nascent nuclear program expanded into one that Western intelligence agencies saw as only a couple of months away from weapons capacity.

The U.S. and Israel both threatened possible military responses.

The disputes are likely to continue, however.

In a foreshadowing of the public relations battle ahead, Iranian state TV released a fact sheet of elements it claimed were in the final agreement - a highly selective list that highlighted Iranian gains and minimised its concessions.

Among them was an assertion that all sanctions-related U.N. resolutions will be lifted at once.

While a new UN resolution will revoke previous sanctions, it will also re-impose restrictions in a number of categories.

Beyond the parties to the pact, spoilers abound.

In the United States, Congress has a 60-day review period during which Obama cannot make good on any concessions to the Iranians.

U.S. lawmakers could hold a vote of disapproval and take further action.

Iranian hardliners oppose dismantling a nuclear program the country has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing.

Khamenei, while supportive of his negotiators thus far, has issued a series of defiant red lines that may be impossible to reconcile in a deal with the West.

And further afield, Israel will strongly oppose the outcome. It sees the acceptance of extensive Iranian nuclear infrastructure and continued nuclear activity as a mortal threat, and has warned that it could take military action on its own, if necessary.

Sunni Arab rivals of Shi'ite Iran are none too happy, either, with Saudi Arabia in particularly issuing veiled threats to develop its own nuclear program.

FROM COVERT NUKE PROGRAM TO FINAL DEAL, A DECADE OF TALKS

August 2002 - Western intelligence services and an Iranian opposition group reveal a covert nuclear site at the eastern city of Natanz.

An inspection by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency reveals it was used to enrich uranium, a process for producing fuel or nuclear warheads.

June 2003 - Britain, France and Germany engage Iran in nuclear negotiations. Washington refuses to join.

October 2003 - Iran suspends uranium enrichment.

February 2006 - Iran announces it will restart uranium enrichment following the election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a critical Iran report by the IAEA to the UN Security Council, and after Britain, France and Germany walk out of stalled negotiations.

June 2006 - The United States, Russia and China join Britain, France and Germany to form the P5+1 group of nations trying to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program. Washington initially stays away from the negotiating table.

December 2006 - The U.N. Security Council imposes the first set of sanctions on Iran, banning the sale of sensitive nuclear technology. Five more Security Council resolutions are passed by 2010, tightening the sanctions vise on the Islamic Republic.

November 2007 - The number of uranium-enriching centrifuges assembled by Iran reaches about 3,000 from just a few hundred in 2002. Its stockpile of low-enriched uranium also grows, giving Tehran a theoretical ability to make enough-weapons grade uranium for a bomb within a year.

July 2008 - Under President George W. Bush, the United States joins the nuclear talks for the first time.

September 2009 - Western leaders announce that Iran has dug a covert enrichment site into a mountain, escalating concerns because the facility may be impervious to air attack.

October 2009 - Under President Barack Obama, a senior U.S. diplomat meets one-on-one with Iran's top nuclear negotiator. The talks are some of the most extensive between Washington and Tehran in three decades.

February 2010 - Iran announces it has started to enrich uranium to near 20 percent, a technical step away from weapons-grade material.

May 2010 - Brazil and Turkey announce their own nuclear deal with Iran, to America's great dismay. The arrangement quickly falls apart.

January 2011 - Negotiations between Iran and the six world powers break off for what proves a 15-month hiatus. Iran refuses to make deep cuts in its nuclear program.

November 2011 - The IAEA outlines the possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear activities. Iran denies the allegations, saying they're based on falsified Israeli and U.S. evidence.

January 2012 - The IAEA says Iran is enriching to 20 per cent at its mountain facility near Fordo. The European Union freezes the assets of Iran's central bank and halts Iranian oil imports.

April 2012 - Negotiations restart between Iran and the six world powers but go nowhere.

July 2012 - U.S. and Iranian officials meet secretly in Oman to see if diplomatic progress is possible. Talks gain speed the following year, particularly when Ahmadinejad's presidency ends.

August 2013 - Hassan Rouhani defeats several hardline candidates to become Iran's president, declaring his country ready for serious nuclear talks.

By now, Iran has about 20,000 centrifuges and the U.S. estimates the country is only a few months away from nuclear weapons capability.

September 2013 - Rouhani and Obama speak by telephone, the highest-level exchange between the two countries since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif begin their diplomatic exchanges.

November 2013 - Iran and the six powers announce an interim agreement that temporarily curbs Tehran's nuclear program and unfreezes some Iranian assets. The deal sets the stage for extended negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear accord.

July 2014 - Talks miss the deadline for a final pact. A four-month extension is agreed.

November 2014 - The final pact remains elusive. Talks are extended a further seven months.

April 2015 - A framework deal is announced, outlining long-term restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and the removal of many international sanctions. Much remains unresolved, however.

July 14, 2015 - World powers and Iran announce long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement.[source]