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What, if anything, will Biden do regarding Iran. The day is approaching when he will no longer be able to ignore their nuclear progress, The concern is that he has seldom, if ever, been on the right side of any major issue. Look at his record.
A Breakout Moment for a New Approach to Iran
Neither arms control nor military force is realistic. What would a more practical policy look like?
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
Mohammad Khatami, an affable, intellectual cleric who believed in the Islamic revolution but wanted more humanity and democracy in government, unexpectedly won the Iranian presidential election on May 23, 1997. His victory marked the beginning of the Western left’s conviction that the clerical regime was evolving into a less religious and oppressive system.
But that isn’t panning out. Ebrahim Raisi, a cleric renowned for his ruthlessness, became president this week and is the apparent successor to Ali Khamenei as supreme leader. Joe Biden may be forced to answer a question presidents have preferred to avoid: Would Washington use force to stop the development of Iranian nuclear weapons? American presidents since 2002, when the Islamic Republic’s clandestine atomic program was revealed, have declared that Iran’s possessing such arms is unacceptable.
President Biden appears unprepared to unleash the U.S. Air Force, and the administration can’t plausibly argue that opening up more trade hurts the theocracy’s aggressive, Islamist ambitions. This leaves few options beyond economic penalties. The White House probably doesn’t appreciate the irony of its now reportedly contemplating leveling more sanctions on Tehran to coerce Mr. Khamenei to re-enter the nuclear deal, after Mr. Biden and his Iran team derided the sanctions diplomacy of Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with its sunset clauses and nonchalance about aggressive inspections, made sense as an arms-control agreement if the accord was merely one step in a process. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has, in his own way, stated exactly this, endorsing the need to make the agreement “longer, stronger, broader.” That wouldn’t be necessary if the JCPOA actually stopped, as former Secretary of State John Kerry put it, “all pathways” to the bomb and did something about the theocracy’s ballistic missiles and imperialism.
Messrs. Raisi and Khamenei have made it crystal clear, however, there will be no follow-on talks. By rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, Washington would at best be giving tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief to the clerical regime for a short-term fix. Iran has already started building advanced centrifuges; with the JCPOA, Tehran can build 400 advanced machines in two years and put rotors into them in four. Even as a mechanism to kick the can down the road, the nuclear deal no longer makes much sense.
It would be less strategically damning, and probably more intellectually honest, for Mr. Biden and his senior advisers to admit, at least to themselves, that the White House isn’t going to stop Tehran from getting the bomb—barring an outrageous Iranian misstep that provokes the U.S. to attack. Admitting that neither diplomacy nor war is an option for this administration would free Washington from being extorted. It would allow Mr. Biden to advance a far more moral and practical foreign policy against an egregious human-rights-violating regime that has spread sectarian conflict throughout the Middle East.
Letting go of arms control won’t be easy for a Democratic president, but it wouldn’t necessarily be politically dangerous. In 2015, when President Obama lambasted those who opposed the deal as warmongers, many Republicans dodged the issue of using force, preferring to stress the need for coercive diplomacy and a “good” deal. Today, many on the right appear to want to pass responsibility for militarily thwarting Tehran’s atomic aspirations to the Israelis, who surely would prefer that Washington retain that burden.
If the Biden administration walked away from counterproductive diplomacy and challenged the GOP to do something beyond the sanctions the White House would keep, it would force Republicans to debate what they really are prepared to do to stop nuclear proliferation in the Persian Gulf.
Without arms control dictating policy, a new bipartisan consensus—focused on human rights and support to the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people—might develop. Republicans who tried to argue against such moralistic interventionism or who said, à la Mr. Trump, that they could deliver a better deal would seem short-sighted and naive—a nice jujitsu move for Democrats. The left could play to history: As the Soviet Union discovered, possessing nuclear weapons doesn’t stop dictatorial rot or the allure of freedom.
The president could handle the progressive left, which is deeply uncomfortable with most measures against Iran. Keeping sanctions on a theocracy that is directly complicit in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and the dislocation of millions of civilians in Syria surely isn’t a political loser. Since sanctions became serious in 2018, Iran has seen major demonstrations without protesters venting against America. The clerical regime views these protests as potential rebellions; we should, too.
The Biden administration says it wants to amp up the U.S. commitment to democratic values abroad. The biggest potential return on investment is in Iran. Mr. Khamenei’s selection of Mr. Raisi should tell the White House it has nothing now to lose by trying.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Last Shah: America, Iran and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.”
Dismantle Iran Now
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,113
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In Iran, more and more non-Persian minorities— who make up about half the country’s population—are demanding independence, suggesting that Iran could disintegrate into ethnic/national states. This outcome, and the accompanying collapse of the rule of the ayatollahs, would open a new and better page in human history.
In recent weeks, mass demonstrations have taken place in three peripheral provinces of Iran populated by non-Persian ethnic groups. The most prominent is the Arab-inhabited Ahwaz province, located on the banks of the Persian Gulf. Mass demonstrations were also conducted in the Kurdish and Azeri regions in the north of the country.
Iran’s economic crisis has resulted in a lack of investment in, among other things, water infrastructure. The Persian region of Iran has suffered severe drought for years. To address that problem, the Islamic regime diverted streams from the province of Ahwaz to the Persian region. This resulted in thousands of cows, sheep, and goats in Ahwaz dying of thirst. Because those animals are the source of many of their livelihoods, the people of Ahwaz consider the water diversion a theft.
This was hardly the first indignity the people of Ahwaz have been expected to tolerate; the water issue was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. Ahwaz residents have been suffering from toxic pollution for years as a result of emissions of deadly substances from oil and gas wells and refineries located in the area. All Iran’s oil and gas fields are situated in the province as well as oil ports, which are major environmental pollutants.
The toxic substances emitted by the Iranian oil and gas industry penetrate the soil in Ahwaz and thereby taint fruits and vegetables that are eaten by locals. The toxins seep into the drinking water and poison the waters of the Gulf, affecting fish that are consumed by the local population. As a result of this exposure to poisonous substances, a very large proportion of babies in Ahwaz are born deformed and with severe birth defects.
As if that were not enough, the regime set up the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Ahwaz. The local population claims that their province was deliberately chosen so that if an ecological disaster occurred as a result of a nuclear leak, as took place in Chernobyl, it would be the Arab minority—not Persians—who would be harmed by the disaster.
The Ahwazis have staged demonstrations in the past against the Iranian regime, and the response has always been harsh and painful: extensive arrests and executions, sometimes including hangings on cranes in the streets in front of passersby. The latest wave of demonstrations began as a protest against the problem of water and thirst, but quickly developed into a broad public demand for the release of Ahwaz from the “Iranian occupation.”
Unsurprisingly, the response of the regime has been harsh. About 25 are dead so far, with about 370 wounded and about 3,400 detainees. These numbers would likely have been much higher had the regime not feared that a massacre of civilians might increase pressure on the Biden administration to keep the sanctions on the Iranian regime and avoid returning to the nuclear deal.
In response to the Ahwazis’ demand for independence, the regime cut off the Internet in the province. People from the area now have to film events in Ahwaz and travel to other areas to get the images out to the world.
Concurrently with the outbreak of demonstrations in Ahwaz, demonstrations broke out in support of the Kurdish and Azeri regions in northern Iran, as well as in Tehran, where slogans like “Death to the dictator” and “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, the money for Iranians” were chanted.
It is important to note that despite widespread opposition to the Islamist regime among Iranians of Persian descent, they oppose the demand of ethnic minorities for disengagement from Iran. Indeed, when I raised in meetings with Persian-Iranian exiles the possibility that Iran would be partitioned into ethnic/national states (Persians, Arabs, Baluchs, Kurds, Turkmen, etc.) similar to what happened in the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, their response was always completely negative. They aspire to remove the ayatollahs from power, and some even speak of the return of the Shah’s son and the renewal of the monarchy, but they unequivocally support Iran’s continued existence in its current form, which perpetuates Persian control of the country’s many ethnic minorities.
However, it is quite feasible that Iran will disintegrate into ethnic states. This possibility is steadily increasing due to expanding public demand for independence among the non-Persian minorities that make up about half the country’s population. Recently, greater cooperation has been observed among various opposition organizations that sense the end of the regime on the horizon and even the disintegration of the state.
Both these goals are achievable.
Iran’s disintegration would probably not be peaceful. It is likely to be more like the Yugoslav model than the Soviet one, if only because of the unwillingness of the Persian majority to lose the oil, gas, water, and other natural resources found in the territories of non-Persian minorities. Persian national dignity also plays an important role in the controlling of non-Persian peoples.
And yet, the collapse of the ayatollahs’ regime and the disintegration of Iran would be a blessing not only to the tens of millions of Iranians who will be freed from the yoke of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, especially the country’s ethnic and national minorities. This development would also bring an end to Iranian subversion throughout the Middle East and the attendant civil wars and internal instability it has caused. It could eliminate the international wave of terrorism Iran has spread over the past four decades, as well as the counterfeiting, money laundering, and drug smuggling in which it engages. The collapse of the regime could go far toward ensuring the safety and security of the Middle East and the wider international community.
The international community must therefore vigorously support the struggle of the ethnic/national minorities in Iran against the Islamist regime (as well as the struggle of the Persian majority against this regime) and their efforts to dismantle the Iranian state. President Biden must immediately abandon any intention to return to the nuclear deal or to remove sanctions from the regime, and instead invest significant resources—overt and covert, civilian and military—in helping the Iranian minorities free themselves from Persian suffocation.
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served for 25 years in IDF military intelligence specializing in Syria, Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups, and Israeli Arabs, and is an expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.
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What made Bill Maher awake? Did he finally read Washington Irving's book? Is his audience of aging hippies beginning to fray and his ratings about to decline?
"Real-Time" host Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by sounding the alarm on China's growing dominance over the United States. Why are Americans sleeping?...We aren't sleeping, we are spending our time teaching and assisting little boys how to become little girls!!! And, if we aren't busy doing that we have the Sec of Defense, responding to an order from the 'commander' in chief, designing stylish new uniforms for pregnant 'soldiers’.
"You're not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are such silly people. And Americans are all silly people," Maher began the monologue, alluding to a "Lawrence of Arabia" quote.
Do you know who doesn't care that there's a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China," he said. "All 1.4 billion of them couldn't give a crouching tiger flying f--- because they're not silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”
Maher acknowledged that China does "bad stuff" from the concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims to its treatment of Hong Kong. But he stressed, "There's got to be something between an authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can't do anything at all.”
"In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals. Oh, and they bought Africa," Maher said, pointing to China's global Silk Road infrastructure initiative.
He continued: "In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. ... We've been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they're eating babies. We are such silly people.
"Nothing ever moves in this impacted colon of a country. We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it with each other, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn't kick in for 10 years," Maher explained. Then the half-assed bill is forgotten.
"China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”
The HBO star cited how it took "ten years" for a bus line in San Francisco to pass its environmental review and how it took "16 years" to build the Big Dig tunnel in Boston, comparing that to a 57-story skyscraper that China built in "19 days" and Beijing's Sanyuan Bridge, which was demolished and rebuilt in "43 hours.”
"We binge-watch, they binge-build. When COVID hit Wuhan, the city built a quarantine center with 4,000 rooms in 10 days and they barely had to use it because they quickly arrested the rest of the disease," Maher said. "They were back to throwing raves in swimming pools while we were stuck at home surfing the dark web for black market Charmin. We're not losing to China, we LOST. The returns just haven't all come in yet. They've made robots that check a kid's temperature and got their asses back in school. Most of our kids are still pretending to take Zoom classes while they watch TikTok and their brain cells fully commit ritual suicide." Our teacher's unions are finding every single way to keep themselves on the payroll, but keep students out of the classrooms. WAKE UP AMERICANS!! That means ALL of YOU.
Maher then blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing him of degrading school standards by eliminating merit and substituting a lottery system for admittance to schools for advanced learners. Our country is going down the toilet.
"Do you think China's doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest?" Maher continued. "Do you think Chinese colleges and universities are offering courses in 'The Philosophy of Star Trek, 'The Sociology of Seinfeld,' and 'Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse'? Can this be real? Well, let me tell you, China is real. And they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they'll be hungry again."
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Now that Gov. Cuomo has been accused of breaking laws and violating women the ensuing days should be fun.
To date the following has already occurred:
Biden has covered his ass by telling Cuomo to resign knowing full well Cuomo is not going to take that advice.
Second, CNN has been exposed, once again, for the disastrous company it has become. The fact that they continue to have any audience is a reflection on those who watch and says something about the vacuous board of directors at AT&T.
Third, it now is up to the weenies in New York who are going to either vote to impeach him or not.
Meanwhile, Cuomo will continue to govern, as he always has, so his distinguished career of hypocrisy, illegalities, corruption and personal depravity, continues into the night. He wrote a book about how great he was so how can you argue with him? See cartoon above.
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