===
Stratfor's Friedman on Iran deal. (See 1 below.)
===
Sowell and random thoughts. (See 2 below.)
===
What if we are headed in this direction? (See 3 below.)
===
Teleconference recap.
I left before all the questions were answered because I had a previous commitment. (See 4 below.)
===
More Iranian commentary. (See 5 and 5a below.)
===
Dick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Israelis, Saudis and the Iranian Agreement
By George Friedman
A deal between Iran and the P-5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) was reached Saturday night. The Iranians agreed to certain limitations on their nuclear program while the P-5+1 agreed to remove certain economic sanctions. The next negotiation, scheduled for six months from now depending on both sides' adherence to the current agreement, will seek a more permanent resolution. The key players in this were the United States and Iran. The mere fact that the U.S. secretary of state would meet openly with the Iranian foreign minister would have been difficult to imagine a few months ago, and unthinkable at the beginning of the Islamic republic.
The U.S. goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons before they are built, without the United States having to take military action to eliminate them. While it is commonly assumed that the United States could eliminate the Iranian nuclear program at will with airstrikes, as with most military actions, doing so would be more difficult and riskier than it might appear at first glance. The United States in effect has now traded a risky and unpredictable air campaign for some controls over the Iranian nuclear program.
The Iranians' primary goal is regime preservation. While Tehran managed the Green Revolution in 2009 because the protesters lacked broad public support, Western sanctions have dramatically increased the economic pressure on Iran and have affected a wide swath of the Iranian public. It isn't clear that public unhappiness has reached a breaking point, but were the public to be facing years of economic dysfunction, the future would be unpredictable. The election of President Hassan Rouhani to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the latter's two terms was a sign of unhappiness. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei clearly noted this, displaying a willingness to trade a nuclear program that had not yet produced a weapon for the elimination of some sanctions.
The logic here suggests a process leading to the elimination of all sanctions in exchange for the supervision of Iran's nuclear activities to prevent it from developing a weapon. Unless this is an Iranian trick to somehow buy time to complete a weapon and test it, I would think that the deal could be done in six months. An Iranian ploy to create cover for building a weapon would also demand a reliable missile and a launch pad invisible to surveillance satellites and the CIA, National Security Agency, Mossad, MI6 and other intelligence agencies. The Iranians would likely fail at this, triggering airstrikes however risky they might be and putting Iran back where it started economically. While this is a possibility, the scenario is not likely when analyzed closely.
While the unfolding deal involves the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, two countries intensely oppose it: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Though not powers on the order of the P-5+1, they are still significant. There is a bit of irony in Israel and Saudi Arabia being allied on this issue, but only on the surface. Both have been intense enemies of Iran, and close allies of the United States; each sees this act as a betrayal of its relationship with Washington.
The View from Saudi Arabia
In a way, this marks a deeper shift in relations with Saudi Arabia than with Israel. Saudi Arabia has been under British and later American protection since its creation after World War I. Under the leadership of the Sauds, it became a critical player in the global system for a single reason: It was a massive producer of oil. It was also the protector of Mecca and Medina, two Muslim holy cities, giving the Saudis an added influence in the Islamic world on top of their extraordinary wealth.
It was in British and American interests to protect Saudi Arabia from its enemies, most of which were part of the Muslim world. The United States protected the Saudis from radical Arab socialists who threatened to overthrow the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. It later protected Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein after he invaded Kuwait. But it also protected Saudi Arabia from Iran.
Absent the United States in the Persian Gulf, Iran would have been the most powerful regional military power. In addition, the Saudis have a substantial Shiite minority concentrated in the country's oil-rich east. The Iranians, also Shia, had a potential affinity with them, and thereby the power to cause unrest in Saudi Arabia.
Until this agreement with Iran, the United States had an unhedged commitment to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iranians. Given the recent deal, and potential follow-on deals, this commitment becomes increasingly hedged. The problem from the Saudi point of view is that while there was a wide ideological gulf between the United States and Iran, there was little in the way of substantial issues separating Washington from Tehran. The United States did not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranians didn't want the United States hindering Iran's economic development. The fact was that getting a nuclear weapon was not a fundamental Iranian interest, and crippling Iran's economy was not a fundamental interest to the United States absent an Iranian nuclear program.
If the United States and Iran can agree on this quid pro quo, the basic issues are settled. And there is something drawing them together. The Iranians want investment in their oil sector and other parts of their economy. American oil companies would love to invest in Iran, as would other U.S. businesses. As the core issue separating the two countries dissolves, and economic relations open up -- a step that almost by definition will form part of a final agreement -- mutual interests will appear.
There are other significant political issues that can't be publicly addressed. The United States wants Iran to temper its support for Hezbollah's militancy, and guarantee it will not support terrorism. The Iranians want guarantees that Iraq will not develop an anti-Iranian government, and that the United States will work to prevent this. (Iran's memories of its war with Iraq run deep.) The Iranians will also want American guarantees that Washington will not support anti-Iranian forces based in Iraq.
From the Saudi point of view, Iranian demands regarding Iraq will be of greatest concern. Agreements or not, it does not want a pro-Iranian Shiite state on its northern border. Riyadh has been funding Sunni fighters throughout the region against Shiite fighters in a proxy war with Iran. Any agreement by the Americans to respect Iranian interests in Iraq would represent a threat to Saudi Arabia.
The View from Israel
From the Israeli point of view, there are two threats from Iran. One is the nuclear program. The other is Iranian support not only for Hezbollah but also for Hamas and other groups in the region. Iran is far from Israel and poses no conventional military threat. The Israelis would be delighted if Iran gave up its nuclear program in some verifiable way, simply because they themselves have no reliable means to destroy that program militarily. What the Israelis don't want to see is the United States and Iran making deals on their side issues, especially the political ones that really matter to Israel.
The Israelis have more room to maneuver than the Saudis do. Israel can live with a pro-Iranian Iraq. The Saudis can't; from their point of view, it is only a matter of time before Iranian power starts to encroach on their sphere of influence. The Saudis can't live with an Iranian-supported Hezbollah. The Israelis can and have, but don't want to; the issue is less fundamental to the Israelis than Iraq is to the Saudis.
But in the end, this is not the problem that the Saudis and Israelis have. Their problem is that both depend on the United States for their national security. Neither country can permanently exist in a region filled with dangers without the United States as a guarantor. Israel needs access to American military equipment that it can't build itself, like fighter aircraft. Saudi Arabia needs to have American troops available as the ultimate guarantor of their security, as they were in 1990. Israel and Saudi Arabia have been the two countries with the greatest influence in Washington. As this agreement shows, that is no longer the case. Both together weren't strong enough to block this agreement. What frightens them the most about this agreement is that fact. If the foundation of their national security is the American commitment to them, then the inability to influence Washington is a threat to their national security.
There are no other guarantors available. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to Moscow, clearly trying to get the Russians to block the agreement. He failed. But even if he had succeeded, he would have alienated the United States, and would have gotten instead a patron incapable of supplying the type of equipment Israel might need when Israel might need it. The fact is that neither the Saudis nor the Israelis have a potential patron other than the United States.
U.S. Regional Policy
The United States is not abandoning either Israel or Saudi Arabia. A regional policy based solely on the Iranians would be irrational. What the United States wants to do is retain its relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia, but on modified terms. The modification is that U.S. support will come in the context of a balance of power, particularly between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While the United States is prepared to support the Saudis in that context, it will not simply support them absolutely. The Saudis and Israelis will have to live with things that they have not had to live with before -- namely, an American concern for a reasonably strong and stable Iran regardless of its ideology.
The American strategy is built on experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington has learned that it has interests in the region, but that the direct use of American force cannot achieve those goals, partly because imposing solutions takes more force than the United States has and partly because the more force it uses, the more resistance it generates. Therefore, the United States needs a means of minimizing its interests, and pursuing those it has without direct force.
With its interests being limited, the United States' strategy is a balance of power. The most natural balance of power is Sunni versus Shia, the Arabs against the Iranians. The goal is not war, but sufficient force on each side to paralyze the other. In that sense, a stable Iran and a more self-reliant Saudi Arabia are needed. Saudi Arabia is not abandoned, but nor is it the sole interest of the United States.
In the same sense, the United States is committed to the survival of Israel. If Iranian nuclear weapons are prevented, the United States has fulfilled that commitment, since there are no current threats that could conceivably threaten Israeli survival. Israel's other interests, such as building settlements in the West Bank, do not require American support. If the United States determines that they do not serve American interests (for example, because they radicalize the region and threaten the survival of Jordan), then the United States will force Israel to abandon the settlements by threatening to change its relationship with Israel. If the settlements do not threaten American interests, then they are Israel's problem.
Israel has outgrown its dependence on the United States. It is not clear that Israel is comfortable with its own maturation, but the United States has entered a new period where what America wants is a mature Israel that can pursue its interests without recourse to the United States. And if Israel finds it cannot have what it wants without American support, Israel may not get that support, unless Israel's survival is at stake.
In the same sense, the perpetual Saudi inability to create an armed force capable of effectively defending itself has led the United States to send troops on occasion -- and contractors always -- to deal with the problem. Under the new strategy, the expectation is that Saudi soldiers will fight Saudi Arabia's wars -- with American assistance as needed, but not as an alternative force.
With this opening to Iran, the United States will no longer be bound by its Israeli and Saudi relationships. They will not be abandoned, but the United States has broader interests than those relationships, and at the same time few interests that rise to the level of prompting it to directly involve U.S. troops. The Saudis will have to exert themselves to balance the Iranians, and Israel will have to wend its way in a world where it has no strategic threats, but only strategic problems, like everyone else has. It is not a world in which Israeli or Saudi rigidity can sustain itself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Random thoughts on the passing scene:
By Tom Sowell
Many people take pride in defying the conventions of society. Those conventions of society are also known as civilization. Defying them wholesale means going back to barbarism. Barbarians with electronic devices are still barbarians.
After the government shutdown crisis, the one thing that Congressional Democrats and Republicans finally agreed on was to kick the can down the road a few more months, so that we can go through all this again -- and perhaps again after that.
One of the best peace speeches I ever read was one delivered back in the 1930s -- by Adolf Hitler! He knew that peace speeches would keep the Western democracies from matching his military buildup with their own, or attacking him to prevent his buildup from continuing. Peace speeches by Iran today serve the same purpose of buying time -- until they can create a nuclear bomb.
President Obama really has a way with words, such as calling the problems that millions of people have had trying to sign up for ObamaCare "glitches." When the Titanic sank, was that a "glitch"?
Among the painful signs of our time are TV programs built around paternity tests. Apparently the way these women live, it is anybody's guess who their child's father might be.
Don't you love it when a politicians says, "I take full responsibility"? Translated into plain English, that says, "Now that I have admitted it, there is nothing more for me to do (such as resign) and nothing for anyone else to do (such as fire me)." Saying "I take full responsibility" is like a get-out-of-jail-free card in the Monopoly game.
No one seems as certain that they know what the Republicans need to do to win presidential elections as those Republicans who have lost presidential elections, such as Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole. Moreover, people take them seriously, and seem not to notice that what the losers advocate is the opposite of what won Ronald Reagan two landslide election victories.
If you believe in equal rights, then what do "women's rights," "gay rights," etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.
One of the painfully sobering realizations that come from reading history is the utter incompetence that is possible among leaders of whole nations and empires -- and the blind faith that such leaders can nevertheless inspire among the people who are enthralled by their words or their posturing.
The one thing that the national debt ceiling does not do is put a ceiling on the national debt. It just provides political melodrama when the existing ceiling is repeatedly raised to accommodate ever higher spending.
Those who want to "spread the wealth" almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?
President Obama said to the world that Bashar Assad's days as ruler of Syria are numbered. All our days are numbered but Assad will probably still be ruling Syria on Obama's last day in the White House.
Parole is just another way of lying to the public -- in this case, lying about the time that convicted criminals will spend behind bars. Suspended sentences are another form of make-believe punishment to mollify the public.
Writing about the Habsburg Empire, distinguished British historian Paul Johnson said, "Every reform created more problems than it solved." That was not peculiar to the Habsburg Empire. The same could be said of modern welfare states, and especially our own ObamaCare.
Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to intervene and make some of our decisions for us. From what galaxy government is going to hire creatures who do not make mistakes is a question they leave unanswered.
One of the reasons it has taken so long for some people to finally see through Barack Obama is that people do not like to admit, even to themselves, that they have been played for fools by a slick-talking politician.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) A COOL BUNCH OF OBSERVATIONS ON WHERE AMERICA IS HEADED BY ONE OF THE BEST AMERICAN BRAINS, WALTER WILLIAMS! MOST OF THE UNDEREDUCATED AMERICANS SCHOOLED IN THE LAST 50 YEARS WOULD HAVE A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING THIS.
According to some estimates, there are more than 100 million traffic signals in the U.S., but whatever the number, how many of us would like Washington, in the name of public health and safety, to be in sole charge of their operation? Congress or a committee it authorizes would determine the position of traffic signals at intersections, the length of time the lights stay red, yellow and green, and what hours of the day they can be flashing red.
While you ponder that, how many Americans would like Washington to be in charge of managing the delivery of food and other items to the nation's supermarkets? Today's average well-stocked U.S. supermarket stocks 60,000 to 65,000 different items from all over the U.S. and the world. Congress or some congressionally created committee could organize the choice of products and their prices. Maybe there'd be some cost savings. After all, what says that we should have so many items from which to choose? Why wouldn't 10,000 do?
You say, "Williams, those are ludicrous ideas whose implementation would spell disaster!" You're right. Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, said it is a fatal conceit for anyone to think that a single mind or group of minds, no matter how intelligent and well-meaning, could manage to do things better than the spontaneous, unstructured, complex and creative forces of the market. The biggest challenges in any system, whether it's an economic, biological or ecological system, are information, communication and control. Congressmen's taking over control of the nation's traffic signals would require a massive amount of information that they are incapable of possessing, such as traffic flows at intersections, accident experiences, terrain patterns and peak and off-peak traffic flows.
The same information problem exists at supermarkets. Consider the challenge in organizing inputs in order to get 65,000 different items to a supermarket. Also, consider how uncompromising supermarket customers are. We don't tell the supermarket manager in advance when we're going to shop or what we're going to buy and in what quantity, but if the store doesn't have what we want when we want it, we'll fire the manager by taking our business elsewhere. The supermarket manager does a fairly good job doing what's necessary to meet that challenge.
You say, "C'mon, Williams, nobody's proposing that Congress take over the nation's traffic signals and supermarkets!" You're right, at least for now, but Congress and the president are taking over an area of our lives infinitely more challenging and complex than the management of traffic signals and supermarkets, namely our health care system. Oblivious to the huge information problem in the allocation of resources, the people in Washington have great confidence that they can run our health care system better than we, our physicians and hospitals. Charles Darwin wisely noted more than a century and a half ago that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." Congress exudes confidence.
Suggesting that Congress and the president are ignorant of the fact that knowledge is highly dispersed and decisions made locally produce the best outcomes might be overly generous. It could be that they know they really don't know what they're doing but just don't give a hoot because it's in their political interest to centralize health care decision-making. Just as one example, how can Congress know whether buying a $4,000 annual health insurance policy would be the best use of healthy 25-year-old Joe Sanders' earnings? Would he be better off purchasing a cheaper catastrophic health insurance policy and saving the rest of the money to put toward a business investment? Politicians really don't care about what Joe thinks is best, because they arrogantly think they know what's best and have the power to coerce.
Hayek said, "The curious task of economics is to illustrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." We economists have failed miserably in that task.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Recap of teleconference:
The agreement has now placed Israel at cross road according to Dichter. No intention for Iran to create existential threat and though Obama has created problems out of complete naivety there should be no doubt Israel will do what is necessary if the threat becomes increasingly real.
Ganor says Israel is incapable of stopping Iran's nuclear development and America is unwilling to strike Iran. This is the baseline from which Ganor assesses the agreement which he concludes was a very dangerous and bad one.
He does admit the agreement is biting Iran and should Iran wish to go forth with nuclear development it will now be a bit more difficult.
What Israel should do now is fight about what is agreed 6 months from now. The world's enemy is Iran and a new international alliance should be established. Now the world needs another alliance which is directed at Iran not Russia in the form of a mutually assured destruction agreement aimed at Iran and based on new alliances.
Ganor sees the following which, for the time being, is positive for Israel:
Hamas is now in deteriorated position and its relations with other Arab nations and their economy is, down the drain
Hezballah position same as Hamas.
Egyptian counterrevolution is positive outcome from Israeli perspective.
The fact that most, if not all of Syria's chemical has been destroyed, is also positive.
Saudi relationship with Israel has been improved dramatically.
The agreement causes Iran to slow down and hide their nuclear progress.
Ground attack against Israel now has evaporated.
Ganor does not believe Israel could do anything militarily speaking beyond slowing down Iran's development and an Israeli attack could unleash an enormous rocket attack which could be the equivalent of a nuclear attack and also legitimize Iran's desire to militarize its nuclear efforts.
Avi believes Israel has the military capability but should not be considered a super power in a military sense.
My own conclusion is that Israel has been placed in an untenable situation and the world will eventually walk away from the threat of a nuclear war because they will be motivated by economic eagerness and opportunities. Making money eventually trumps morality and self interest because Iran's threat is not perceived as being against the world but more limited to Israel and a few Arab nations in the region.
All wars have been caused by feckless behaviour and miscalculations but then I generally take a pessimistic conclusion.
Will the next Kristalnacht come in the form of a nuclear bomb?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)Under the Iran Deal
The Obama administration is entitled to be furious with Israel. Although the U.S. got bragging rights for its (one-sided-not-in-our-favor) deal with Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined publicly to say what the President wants to hide: Iran's nuclear program could not be negotiated away, rolled back significantly or inspected properly. The only means to a signed document was for the U.S. to abandon its principles and pressure its allies. The U.S. has done that.
5a)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Recap of teleconference:
The agreement has now placed Israel at cross road according to Dichter. No intention for Iran to create existential threat and though Obama has created problems out of complete naivety there should be no doubt Israel will do what is necessary if the threat becomes increasingly real.
Ganor says Israel is incapable of stopping Iran's nuclear development and America is unwilling to strike Iran. This is the baseline from which Ganor assesses the agreement which he concludes was a very dangerous and bad one.
He does admit the agreement is biting Iran and should Iran wish to go forth with nuclear development it will now be a bit more difficult.
What Israel should do now is fight about what is agreed 6 months from now. The world's enemy is Iran and a new international alliance should be established. Now the world needs another alliance which is directed at Iran not Russia in the form of a mutually assured destruction agreement aimed at Iran and based on new alliances.
Ganor sees the following which, for the time being, is positive for Israel:
Hamas is now in deteriorated position and its relations with other Arab nations and their economy is, down the drain
Hezballah position same as Hamas.
Egyptian counterrevolution is positive outcome from Israeli perspective.
The fact that most, if not all of Syria's chemical has been destroyed, is also positive.
Saudi relationship with Israel has been improved dramatically.
The agreement causes Iran to slow down and hide their nuclear progress.
Ground attack against Israel now has evaporated.
Ganor does not believe Israel could do anything militarily speaking beyond slowing down Iran's development and an Israeli attack could unleash an enormous rocket attack which could be the equivalent of a nuclear attack and also legitimize Iran's desire to militarize its nuclear efforts.
Avi believes Israel has the military capability but should not be considered a super power in a military sense.
My own conclusion is that Israel has been placed in an untenable situation and the world will eventually walk away from the threat of a nuclear war because they will be motivated by economic eagerness and opportunities. Making money eventually trumps morality and self interest because Iran's threat is not perceived as being against the world but more limited to Israel and a few Arab nations in the region.
All wars have been caused by feckless behaviour and miscalculations but then I generally take a pessimistic conclusion.
Will the next Kristalnacht come in the form of a nuclear bomb?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)Under the Iran Deal
By Shoshana Bryen
The Obama administration is entitled to be furious with Israel. Although the U.S. got bragging rights for its (one-sided-not-in-our-favor) deal with Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined publicly to say what the President wants to hide: Iran's nuclear program could not be negotiated away, rolled back significantly or inspected properly. The only means to a signed document was for the U.S. to abandon its principles and pressure its allies. The U.S. has done that.
I
t was hard to oppose negotiations, it always is hard. Churchill said, "Its better to jaw, jaw than war, war" (you need the accent to make it work). But a deal that is not a capitulation by one side requires two conditions: the parties must equally value the process; and there has to be a compatible endgame. The West invested the process with much more value than did Iran, providing the mullahs with instant leverage, but most important, t
here was no agreed-upon end game.
The P5+1 wanted to negotiate the terms of Iran's nuclear surrender; Iran was negotiating the conditions under which it will operate its nuclear program.
We're familiar with the rules of buying a rug in the souk. The goals are compatible – he wants to sell, you want to buy. If you want the rug more than he wants the deal, you will overpay; if he wants the deal more than you want the rug, you win. But either way, money and rug will change hands. Alternatively, if you want to buy a rug and he wants to sell a camel, no matter how ardently you bargain there will be no deal. Unless you change your mind and take the camel.
The White House took the camel.
Here is how it happened. At the UN General Assembly this year, President Obama put forward his theory of Iran's bellicosity, ascribing motives and goals to the Islamic regime that mirror American motives and goals – starting with American mistakes. "Iranians have long complained of a history of U.S. interference in their affairs and of America's role in overthrowing the Iranian government during the Cold War." Since he asserted that the nuclear program stemmed from Iranian fear of American meddling, he assuaged what he said were their concerns. "We are not seeking regime change, and we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy." Then he promised what he called a better future. "I do believe that if we can resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear program, that can serve as a major step down a long road toward a different relationship based on mutual interests and mutual respect."
But what if Iran doesn't believe we have "mutual interests" and seeks a future in which the Islamic Republic is the hegemonic Gulf power and the United States is banished from the region, leaving its Sunni allies and Israel without a patron? (Russia is already taken.) What if Iran seeks religious hegemony over the world's Muslim population, which requires supporting Syria and Hezbollah in the face of more numerous Sunni adversaries?
In that case the nuclear program is not an "issue" to be "resolved," but a means toward a considered end. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – the only real power in Iran – believes, as did the Ayatollah Khomeini before him, that the program is the determinant of Iran's power and prestige, and necessary to resist political and economic domination by the West. A nuclear-capable Iran would be a power with influence in the Muslim and the wider world, equal to the nuclear-armed United States and, as an oil-producing country, superior to Israel.
From that angle, the Administration's belief that a mild easing of sanctions (a "tiny portion," according to Secretary of State Kerry, and "very limited, temporary and reversible" according to President Obama) would induce Iran to begin the process of de-nuclearizing or denuding itself under the watchful, powerful, and punitive eye of the despised West was farfetched at best. Even large-scale bribery (the$20 billion or so FDD's Mark Dubowitz estimated might become available to the regime) would be unlikely to move the Iranians from their national nuclear project.
That was the most important understanding in the development of international sanctions. Sanctions were NOT designed to force Iran choose between nuclear progress and "mutual respect" with the West. Sanctions, rather, were designed to force Iran to negotiate with itself. To choose between two of its own national goals: the nuclear project and economic stability. But at the very moment sanctions began to work and Iran began the internal conversation, the White House decided to buy the camel Iran was selling – temporary, reversible paper promises – for which the West would pay with eased sanctions and at least tacit acceptance of Iran's "right" to uranium enrichment.
France (for itself, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Congress) saved the Western position for a week. Unable to acknowledge the fundamental American shift, and having pulled France back into the fold, the administration continues to blame Israel and, if reports are true, has warned it not to consider military action against Iran without American "permission." Somehow, the U.S. has become the guarantor of the security of Iran's nuclear program, and thus the guarantor of the Islamic Republic's rotten regime.
The implications are staggering. Iran has supported militias that killed American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It traffics in weapons and missile technology with North Korea, some of which it then supplies along with troops to the gruesomely murderous regime of Bashar Assad and the equally murderous Hezbollah. Iran ships weapons through Somalia and across North Africa to jihadists in Sinai and Hamas in Gaza. It stirs trouble for American allies in the Gulf and threatens Israel with genocide on a regular basis.
The election of the so-called "moderate" Hasan Rouhani made no difference at all to the Iranian people. In the first 100 days of his administration, 207 people have been executed, some publicly. Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedani, in prison for over a year for practicing Christianity, was been moved to the "violent criminal" ward and denied medical treatment for injuries suffered in prison. Veteran Iran-watcher Michael Ledeen has chronicled the regime's domestic violence, including the stoning deaths of four women and mass arrests of Kurds in Tehran in October.
Putting international priority on Iran's nuclear program might have been reasonable given the stakes, but Iran presents a basket of issues for the West, the Sunni Muslim world and Russia. The Administration's willingness to undermine the allied position on the nuclear program has left no room to maneuver on the other points – if it wants to.
5a)
Our world: The goal of Obama’s foreign policy
| |
|
|
It isn’t surprising that the US and the other five powers signed a deal with
Iran on Saturday. Over the past few weeks, US President Barack Obama
and Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear that they were committed
to signing a deal with Iran as quickly as possible.
And it isn’t surprising that the deal these overeager leaders signed with the
world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism makes the world a much more
dangerous place than it was before the agreement was concluded.
With the US and its allies far more eager to reach an accord with Iran on
its illicit nuclear weapons program than Iran was, it was obvious from the
outset that any deal ultimately reached, at least as long as these
negotiating conditions remained in force, would facilitate rather than inhibit
Iran’s quest to build a nuclear arsenal. And indeed, the sanctions relief that
Iran has gained simply by signing on the dotted line will be sufficient to
buffet the Iranian economy through a successful nuclear weapons test.
Iran will achieve nuclear capability while enriching itself through the deal
because the deal gives Iran sanctions relief without requiring Iran to make
any irreversible concessions. Indeed, Iran just received the international
community’s permission to continue to enrich uranium, keep all its nuclear
installations open and build new centrifuges.
While the deal isn’t surprising in and of itself, Obama’s decision to conclude
it now makes clear the true goal of his foreign policy. To understand that
goal, it is first necessary to consider an aspect of the deal that, on the
surface, makes little sense.
The negotiations with the Iranians that culminated in Saturday night’s
agreement went on for a year.
And yet, the final deal reflects Iran’s opening positions. That is, over the course of the entire year, American and European
negotiators were not able to move Iran’s positions one iota.
So what has the Obama administration been doing for the past year?
Since Iran’s positions were the same all along, why didn’t they sign this
deal a year ago? The US’s strength relative to Iran did not diminish
significantly since a year ago. So the US didn’t need this agreement more
now than it did a year ago.
Clearly, Obama did not spend the last year trying to build domestic
American support for a deal that enables the regime that calls daily for the
annihilation of America to become a nuclear power. With Iran building
military bases all over Central and South America, Obama never bothered
trying to make the case to the American people that they would be more
secure with this regime in possession of the capacity to kill millions of
Americans with one bomb.
Obama never stood before the Congress to explain how a deal that gives
America’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to Iran’s illicit nuclear
weapons program advances US national security. He never explained how
allowing Iran to continue to enrich uranium decreases the likelihood of war.
So what did Obama need the last year for? If he wasn’t concerned with
getting a less dangerous deal, and he didn’t care what the American people though about his facilitation of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, what prevented him from
okaying the agreement last year? To ascertain the answer, it is worth
considering Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s comments Sunday morning.
Beyond noting the nuclear deal’s danger to Israel’s security, Lapid said, “I
am worried not only over the deal but that we have lost the world’s
attention.”
And indeed, Israel has lost the world’s attention. Its appropriately deep
concerns over Iran’s nuclear behavior were belittled, ignored and derided,
first and foremost by the Obama administration. Worse than belittling
Israel’s concerns, which are completely shared by the Sunni Arab world,
Obama and Kerry have castigated as warmongers those Americans who
agree with Israel’s concerns and have attacked them as traitors who seek
to push America into an unnecessary war. At the same time, they have
presented the dispute as one of Israel against the rest of the world,
ignoring that the Sunni Arab world shares Israel’s concerns.
Statements to this effect from US officials have been legion since the
details of the deal were first divulged to Israel and the Gulf States by the
French and the British three weeks ago.
The brazenness of these anti-Israel statements points to the main action
Obama and his advisors have engaged in for the past year, while not
moving Iran a millimeter from its opening position at the nuclear talks.
Over the past year, Obama has engaged in systematically weakening Israel’s position both regionally and in Washington. Regionally, the US has
forced Israel into talks with the Palestinians that are engineered to
weaken Israel strategically and diplomatically. The US has delegitimized
Israel’s legal rights to sovereignty and self-defense, while effectively
justifying Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate response to Israeli actions –
which themselves were perfectly legal. So, too, the US has given a green
light to the EU’s illegal, discriminatory economic war against Israel.
Beyond that, the Obama administration has significantly expanded the
prospect of war between Israel and Syria by leaking Israeli strikes against
Syrian targets that posed a threat to Israel’s security.
The US has also weakened Israel’s capacity to take steps short of war to
prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons possessing state by
leaking key components of Israel’s covert operations against Iran’s nuclear
program.
In the US, the Obama administration has targeted Israel’s American
supporters. This has been advanced, first and foremost, by actively
weakening AIPAC. As Lee Smith explained in Tablet, the administration
has taken three key steps to neutralize AIPAC as an effective force in
Washington.
It has supported J Street and so legitimized anti-Israel policymaking. Obama appointed outspoken critics of the US-Israel alliance to key
positions in his national security team. First and foremost in this arena was
his appointment of Chuck Hagel to serve as defense secretary.
Finally, Obama discredited AIPAC, painting it as an unthinking warmonger
by forcing the group to lobby Congress to support his helter-skelter rush to
war against Syria. The coup de grace was Obama’s sudden abandonment
of his plans to bomb Syria, which left AIPA C high and dry, looking like an
anti-Semitic caricature of itself.
The culmination of this long process of delegitimizing Israel as a
warmongering, ungrateful ally and its supporters as turncoats who are
forcing the US to endanger itself for the benefit of the Jewish state was the
administration’s hysterical campaign against Israel and its supporters in the
lead-up to Saturday’s signing ceremony in Geneva. Everyone, from the
White House to Kerry, accused Israel and its supporters of trying to force
the US to fight an unnecessary war.
When we consider Obama’s decision to wait for a year to sign the deal
that enables Iran to become a nuclear power in the context of his main
activities over the past year, we understand his foreign policy.
His goal is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. It isn’t even
to facilitate a rapprochement between America and Iran. The goal of
Obama’s foreign policy is to weaken the State of Israel.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment