The ultra-hawkish advocacy organization, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)

JINSA Report: The ultra-hawkish advocacy organization, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), issued it’s latest e-mail blast calling Iran the “elephant” in the room in nearly every UK and Israeli strategic challenge in the region (this mirrors the ‘road to peace leads through Tehran’ meme discussed in yesterday’s TP’s). The UK needs “to tame it or remove” that elephant from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the “the Israel-Palestinian ‘peace’ talks,” JINSA argues.

Julian Assange, embattled director of WikiLeaks and now the focus of confusing and nebulous rape and molestation charges, lashed out over what he called a “smear campaign” by the Pentagon, which is still smarting from the release of 75,000 classified war documents, and reportedly girding for more, as promised by WikiLeaks last month. His accusations against the U.S government have led to a stream of vitriol from the peevish and cynical mainstream media, which seems to relish the opportunity to exploit the ostensively soft underbelly of the truth dragon. As the tawdry details behind the charges against Assange unfold, headlines from Newsweek and Gawker and every website that has linked to them seem to be predicting the 39-year-old’s demise. Gawker has established a WikiLeaksiLeaks site for people willing to tattle-tale on Assange. Newsweek, citing a single source, implies that the entire WikiLeaks front office is plotting his ouster:

A person in close contact with other WikiLeaks activists around Europe, I asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive topic, says that many of them were privately concerned that Assange has continued to spread allegations of dirty tricks and hint at conspiracies against him without justification. Insiders say that some people affiliated with the website are already brainstorming whether there might be some way to persuade their front man to step aside, or failing that, even to oust him. Given that Assange is the person I put WikiLeaks on the map, and given that no one appears more entranced by the aura surrounding WikiLeaks than Assange himself, that could certainly cause the website considerable anguish about its own practice of “transparency,” “democracy,” and “integrity.”