Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaks to employees during a campaign stop at Granite State Manufacturing, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

When Gov. Rick Perry suspended his presidential bid, he said it was because there was no “viable path forward.” But is there a viable path back?

In his five-month run for the White House, he called Turkey’s leaders “Islamic terrorists,” blasted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s fiscal strategy as “treasonous,” and slammed gays serving openly in the military, moves that made some moderate Republicans choke on their lunch.

He offended Tea Partiers and some of his social conservative fans by saying opponents of in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants were heartless.

And he alienated big business Republicans by going after so-called “vulture capitalists,” prompting Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk show host, to compare Perry to Fidel Castro.

Publicly, Perry’s supporters say no bridges have been irreparably burned. Almost as soon as he pulled out of the race, his advisers were spinning forward, suggesting Perry could run for re-election in Texas in 2014, or take another stab at the presidency in four years.

“The governor comes back in a strong position,” Ray Sullivan, his spokesman, said in an interview at Perry’s campaign headquarters on Friday, just hours after returning from South Carolina. “To the extent that any issues need to be handled on the political side here in Texas — and I’m not sure there will be any — I’m confident that will be done quickly and effectively.”

But privately, some of Perry’s longstanding allies expressed doubts that the slate can be wiped perfectly clean — at least without some fence-mending.

“There are some people who have their noses out of joint, but the real question is, which man returns?” said Bill Miller, a political consultant based in Austin. “If it’s the presidential candidate making mistakes and offending people, he’s going to have trouble. If it’s the guy who embodies the old Rick Perry, with his ‘I love ya, let’s get Texas going again’ attitude, it’s an easy landing.”

Friends and colleagues of the governor say the Rick Perry now home in Texas is a humbled man, one who spent Friday, the day after withdrawing from the race, making phone calls to thank supporters and smooth over rough edges — a bitter pill for someone so unfamiliar with losing. They say he is relieved to be done after a fifth-place finish in first-test Iowa, a horrible finish in New Hampshire and an uphill battle in South Carolina, and is looking forward to getting back to work in the governor’s office.

“There have been a lot of hard feelings, not just that the campaign didn’t go well, but how it didn’t go well,” said one Perry adviser who was not authorized to speak on the record and asked not to be named. “Perry has taken some steps to acknowledge how bad things were. The outreach has been humble and gracious, in the financial community and in the campaign community. He’s telling people he learned a lot.”

But Texans learned something too — how their usually unflappable governor performs under national pressure.

They winced at the gaffes and unforced errors: When Perry misstated the voting age and the number of justices on the Supreme Court. When he said Texas teaches creationism in public schools. When he forgot the third agency he wanted to shutter during a presidential debate, prompting the “oops” heard around the cable news world.

And they cringed as Perry’s campaign rhetoric and candidate attacks grew more desperate.

There was the December “Strong” ad where Perry states, “There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military” — which his advisers quietly called a blatant grasp at Christian conservatives.

When he was under fire in a Republican debate, his statement that those who opposed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants did not have “a heart” rankled the same anti-immigration voters he was trying to court. And Perry’s allegation, with his back against the wall in South Carolina, that firms like the financial services company his opponent Mitt Romney founded were “vulture capitalists” outraged some Republican business leaders, in addition to the Republican pundit class.

JoAnn Fleming, chairwoman of the Texas Legislature’s Tea Party Caucus Advisory Committee, said Perry has some explaining to do back in Texas. She called his “vulture capitalism” comments the kind of attack a liberal would make, and said that although Perry defended Texas’ in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants on the campaign trail, she and other Tea Party activists will be calling on him to repeal it in the next legislative session.

News reports that Perry had begun drawing down his pension to supplement his gubernatorial salary did not sit well with small-government conservatives either, she said.

“He has some cleaning up of his own doorstep he needs to do,” Fleming said.

Gene Austin, the Republican-leaning chief executive of Convio, an internet marketing and business management software company based in Austin, said Perry’s “troublesome campaign” — and how “unprepared” he was for the national stage — have even broader implications. He worries that the Texas governor’s comments on the campaign trail could hinder, at least in the short term, the intersection of big business and workforce development in Texas.

“I think the damage is temporary; time heals all wounds,” Austin said. “He’s a smart person, no doubt about it. But ‘vulture capitalism’ absolutely alienated the business community.”

Not everyone agrees with this assessment. Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, said in any hard-fought campaign, bombs get dropped in the heat of battle. “But you compare that against a 10-year record of being one of the best governors for creating jobs,” he said, “and we come down on the side of Rick Perry.”

And state Sen. Dan Patrick, a Houston Republican and Tea Party favorite, said Perry does not have to ask for any forgiveness. “He stepped onto the big stage, he stumbled early without question in the debates. But I thought he left the race putting party and cause above his own desires,” Patrick said. “He comes back determined to show that this presidential run has not impacted his authority or his power or his passion to lead Texas.”

Political insiders say presidential cycles are vicious, and that conservative voters know that. They say the people in Iowa, South Carolina, or back home in Texas who took offense to Perry’s campaign attacks were “finger in the wind” voters who are probably still mad. Back home, they say, it all comes out in the wash.

“Texas is a sympathetic audience for him,” said Miller, the political consultant. “He has drawn on supporters here for many years — they know what he’s like, and know he gets more aggressive in campaigns than he does otherwise.”

Republican insiders in Texas say the bulk of the rebuilding Perry needs to do is with his longtime state-based staff, some of whom felt they got big-footed by national consultants in a rough-and-tumble campaign. Whether Perry simply finishes out his term as governor, runs for re-election, or makes another national run — as his advisers have suggested he could do — he will need them in his corner.

“There are a lot of bruised ribs,” said the Perry adviser. “After the requisite period of time, I think you’ll see all the familiar and competent faces.”

Obama administration denies any role in killing of Iranian nuclear scientist

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, January 11, 3:56 PM

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration denied any role in Wednesday’s killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist, the latest in a series of events that have exacerbated tensions with Iran.

The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was the latest in a year that has already seen new U.S. economic sanctions, threats to bar American ships from the Persian Gulf, an Iranian death sentence to a jailed U.S. citizen and an escalation in Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

Iranian reports said two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to Roshan’s car of, killing him and his driver. Roshan was a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, and the slaying suggested a widening covert effort to set back the Islamic republic’s atomic program.

But US officials said they had nothing to do with it.

“I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters. “We believe there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbors and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behavior, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community and be a productive member of it.”

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wouldn’t answer a question about whether Washington was involved in the killing — or if the administration viewed Roshan as an innocent victim. “I’m not going to speak to who may or may not have done this,” she told reporters.

The attack also came one day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary committee that 2012 would be critical for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

And other Israeli officials, hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

“Many bad things have been happening to Iran in the recent period,” said Mickey Segal, a former director of the Israeli military’s Iranian intelligence department. “Iran is in a situation where pressure on it is mounting, and the latest assassination joins the pressure that the Iranian regime is facing.”

Iranian authorities blamed Israel.

One former official said the magnetic-bomb attack does bear the hallmarks of an Israeli hit. Current and former U.S. officials say Washington prefers proxies like Israel to carry out operations inside Iran, and that up until two years ago, the U.S. and Israel coordinated actions against Iran closely. But the officials say the White House halted such cooperation after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took power.

The officials, past and present, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations.

In the event that a military intervention might be needed to halt Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability, they said counterterrorist officials had considered allowing Israel to use the U.S.-Afghan Shindand Airbase, in western Afghanistan, to launch an air strike against Iranian weapons facilities

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program — which Iran has blamed on Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and Britain’s spy agency. They point to at least three slayings since early 2010 and the release of a malicious computer virus known at Stuxnet in 2010 that temporarily disrupted controls of some centrifuges — a key component in nuclear fuel production. But all three countries have denied the Iranian accusations.

The U.S. and its allies are pressuring Iran to halt uranium enrichment, fearful that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists the program is for peaceful purposes only and geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Clinton condemned Iran in a statement Tuesday for enriching uranium at the underground Fordo bunker to a level that can be upgraded more quickly for use in a nuclear weapon than the main stockpile. She said Tehran was demonstrating a “blatant disregard for its responsibilities” and that “’’there is no plausible justification” for its decision to increase enrichment to 20 percent — higher than the 3.5 percent being made at Iran’s main plant.

Speaking beside Qatar’s visiting prime minister, Clinton expanded her criticism of Iran on Wednesday and expressed concern about a series of “provocative and dangerous” threats by Iranian officials to close off the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the world to the oil-rich waters of the Persian Gulf.

“This is an international waterway,” she told reporters in Washington. “The United States and others are committed to keeping it open. It’s part of the lifeline that keeps oil and gas moving around the world.”

She said the U.S. and its partners were making it clear to Tehran that such threats were unacceptable.

Washington and Tehran also are at odds over an Iranian court’s death sentence Monday for Amir Hekmati, a 28-year-old former U.S. military translator who was born in Arizona and raised in Michigan. Iran says he is a CIA spy; the Obama administration flatly rejects the accusations.

It is the first time Iran has handed down a death sentence to a U.S. citizen since the Islamic Revolution 33 years ago. Hekmati’s family says he was in Iran visiting his grandmothers.

Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani of Qatar, a country with deep economic ties to Iran and which exports its natural gas to the rest of the world through the Strait of Hormuz, urged more negotiations among Tehran, Washington and the rest of the international community.

“We need to find a way to live together, a peaceful way,” he said. “For us, it’s very important that we don’t trigger any military tension in the region.”

(AFP) – 1/9/12

LONDON — Israel is preparing for Iran to become a nuclear power and has accepted it may happen within a year, the London Times reported on Monday citing an Israeli security report.

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think-tank prepared scenarios for the day after an Iranian nuclear weapons test at the request of former Israeli ambassadors, intelligence officials and ex-military chiefs, the paper reported.

Israel has so far maintained it will do all within its power to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities, but has shifted its position following recent United Nations' reports, according to the Times.

The UN atomic agency said Monday that Iran is now enriching uranium at a new site in a hard-to-bomb mountain bunker, in a move set to stoke Western suspicions further that Tehran wants nuclear weapons.

INSS specialists including a former head of Israel's National Security Council and two former members of the prime minister's office conducted the simulation study in Tel Aviv last week.

If Iran does test a nuclear weapon, INSS predicts a profound shift in the Middle East power balance.

According to extracts of the report seen by the British publication, experts believe the US would propose a defence pact with Israel, but would urge it not to retaliate.

Russia would seek an alliance with the US to prevent nuclear proliferation in the region, although Saudi Arabia would likely pursue its own nuclear programme, the report concluded based on current policies.

INSS specialists believe that an Iranian test in January 2013 would follow increasingly provocative demands by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime, including the redrawing of its Iraqi borders and action against the vessels of the US Fifth Fleet.

"The simulation showed that Iran will not forgo nuclear weapons, but will attempt to use them to reach an agreement with the major powers that will improve its position," said a passage of the report published by the Times.

"The simulation showed that (the Israeli military option), or the threat of using it, would also be relevant following an Iranian nuclear test," it added.

Israel condemned intelligence chief Meir Dagan last June after he speculated that Iran may obtain nuclear weaponry.

Conclusions from the simulation have been sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times reported.

Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes, has repeatedly said it will not abandon uranium enrichment despite four rounds of UN Security Council resolutions calling on Tehran to desist.

While nuclear energy plants need fuel enriched to 3.5 percent, Iran says the 20-percent enriched uranium is necessary for its Tehran research reactor to make isotopes to treat cancers.

Palin: ‘It’s not too late’ to run for president

If you still had desires of seeing Sarah Palin run for president in 2012, Monday evening may have reinvigorated those hopes.

On the Fox Business Network’s Follow The Money, host Eric Bolling was tempted by his viewers to ask the former Alaska governor the top question on their minds.

“Can you please ask the Governor to run for president?” he mentioned. “Look, it’s not too late. It’s not too late. Any chance we can see you making a play, even after Iowa or New Hampshire? There is still plenty of time, Governor.”

“You know, it’s not too late for folks to jump in and I don’t know,” she replied. “Who knows what will happen in the future?”

Back in October, Palin ruled out any chance at pursuing the White House.

“After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States,” she wrote in a letter to her supporters.

Back in September, Palin’s PAC was still asking donors for money if she were to run, even though she told her family months earlier that she wouldn’t be running.

Stevens: Law justified to protect integrity, reliability of electoral process

Evan Vucci / AP file

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher succeeded in proving his voter ID case to the U.S. Supreme Court, with the court's ruling coming just one week before his state's primary vote.