Obama used the IRS to silence opposition and this same gum shoe agency now claims it can't find over 2 years of e mails notwithstanding, the fact their own rules require they have technical back up .
Those who run the IRS are lying and stonewalling assuming it will blow away because Americans are disinterested, stupid and no longer have values. Hell, they may be right.
Meanwhile, Iraq is falling apart because Obama pulled our troops out and he went playing golf over the weekend. (See 1 below.)
You got to hand it to him. Obama's arrogance, his incompetence, and his display of contempt for his job is incomparable and beyond explanation other than the fact that he is overwhelmed by the enormity of the demands of The Oval Office, for which he was never prepared.
At least Nero could play a fiddle!
My friend Bret must be reading my memos because I recently wrote one about the quickening pace of Obama's fumbles. It has become one a day from one a year.(See 1a below.)
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Now I understand. (See 2 below.)
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Old but now more relevant than when they were written articles on Iran! (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Obama's apparent willingness to talk with Iran over Iraq, if carried out, will lead to the legitimacy of Iran and probably the attainment of nuclear weapons, which they are well on their way to obtaining in any event. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) The Intrigue Lying Behind Iraq's Jihadist Uprising
By Reva Bhalla
Events in Iraq over the past week were perhaps best crystallized in a series of photos produced by the jihadist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Sensationally called The Destruction of Sykes-Picot, the pictures confirmed the group's intent to upend nearly a century of history in the Middle East.
In a series of pictures set to a purring jihadist chant, the mouth of a bulldozer is shown bursting through an earthen berm forming Iraq's northern border with Syria. Keffiyeh-wrapped rebels, drained by the hot sun, peer around the edges of the barrier to observe the results of their work. The breach they carved was just wide enough for the U.S.-made, Iraqi army-owned and now jihadist-purloined Humvees to pass through in single file. While a charter outlining an antiquated interpretation of Sharia was being disseminated in Mosul, #SykesPicotOver trended on jihadist Twitter feeds. From the point of view of Iraq's jihadist celebrities, the 1916 borders drawn in secret by British and French imperialists represented by Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot to divide up Mesopotamia are not only irrelevant, they are destructible.
Today, the most ardent defenders of those colonial borders sit in Baghdad, Damascus, Ankara, Tehran and Riyadh while the Europeans and Americans, already fatigued by a decade of war in this part of the world, are desperately trying to sit this crisis out. The burden is on the regional players to prevent a jihadist mini-emirate from forming, and beneath that common purpose lies ample room for intrigue.
Turkey Searches for a Strategy
With the jihadist threat fanning out from Syria to Iraq, Turkey is struggling to insulate itself from the violence and to follow a strategic agenda in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey has forged an alliance with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership in a direct challenge to Baghdad's authority. With the consent of Turkey's energy minister and to the outrage of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, two tankers carrying a few million barrels of Kurdish crude left the Turkish port of Ceyhan in search of a buyer just as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant was ratcheting up its offensive. Upping the ante, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz announced June 16 that a third tanker would be loaded within the week. With al-Maliki now relying on Kurdish peshmerga support to fend off jihadists in the north, Ankara and Arbil have gained some leverage in their ongoing dispute with Baghdad over the distribution of energy revenue. But Turkey's support for Iraqi Kurds also has limits.
Ankara had planned to use a tighter relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government to exploit northern Iraq's energy reserves and to manage Kurdish unrest within its own boundaries. However, Turkey never intended to underwrite Kurdish independence. And with Kirkuk now in Kurdish hands as a result of the jihadist surge, the largest oil field in northern Iraq stands ready to fuel Kurdish secessionist tendencies. Much to Turkey's dismay, Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the People's Protection Units are already reinforcing peshmerga positions in northern Iraq. At the same time, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and its jihadist affiliates are holding 80 Turkish citizens hostage.
Turkey will thus enlarge its footprint in Mesopotamia, but not necessarily on its own terms. Some 1,500 to 2,000 Turkish forces have maintained a quiet presence in Iraqi Kurdistan. That force will likely expand now that Turkey has an array of threats to justify such a presence and a growing need to temper Kurdish ambitions. Iraq's Kurdish leadership will be reminded of their deep distrust for Turkey but will also be overwhelmed by its own challenges, not least of which is Turkey's main regional competitor, Iran.
Iran on the Defensive
Unnerved by Turkey's increasingly assertive Kurdish policy and possibly in anticipation of the expanding jihadist threat sweeping Iraq's Sunni belt, Iran over the past several months has been expanding its military presence along its northern border with Iraq. Tehran now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of having to reinforce its Shiite allies in Iraq militarily. Though Iran has perhaps the most sophisticated and extensive militant proxy network in the region to do the job, this strategy carries enormous risks.
Iran has spent recent years painstakingly trying to consolidate Shiite influence in Iraq under a central authority in Baghdad. Tehran was never wedded to al-Maliki in particular, but it did need to maintain a strong enough foothold in Baghdad to manage Iraq's naturally fractious Shiite landscape. Employing Shiite militias enables Iran to reinforce the Iraqi army in a time of urgent need but risks undermining Iran's long-term strategy to manage Iraq through a firm hand in Baghdad. The more empowered the militias and the weaker Baghdad becomes, the harder Iran will have to work to keep a lid on separatist moves in Iraq's Shiite south.
The militants rampaging through Iraq's core Sunni territories will embrace deeper Iranian involvement in the conflict. There is no better motivation for Arab Sunni fighters of various ideological stripes than a call to arms against their historical Persian foes and their Arab Shiite allies. An outpouring of sectarian blood feuds will also make it all the more difficult for Iraq's Shiite government to recruit enough allies among Iraq's Sunni population to fight against the jihadists. Indeed, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant would not have been able to mount its lightning surge across Iraq had it not been for the substantial support it has received from local Sunni tribes who in turn receive substantial support and guidance from sponsors in the Persian Gulf. Our attention thus turns to the Saudi royals sitting quietly in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia Stirs the Pot
This has not been a good year for the Saudis. A Persian-American rapprochement is a living nightmare for the Sunni kingdom, as is the prospect of the United States becoming more self-sufficient in energy production. Saudi Arabia has little means to directly sabotage U.S.-Iranian negotiations. In fact, as we anticipated, the Saudis have had to swallow a bitter pill and open up their own dialogue with Iran. But the Saudis are also not without options to make life more difficult for Iran, and if Riyadh is going to be forced into a negotiation with Tehran, it will try to enter talks on its own terms.
Syria and Lebanon always make for useful proxy battlegrounds, though a Sunni rebellion has little chance of actually toppling the Iranian-backed regime in Damascus, and Lebanon is too fragmented for any one regional player to claim a decisive advantage. The contest has thus shifted back to Mesopotamia, where Iran cannot afford to see its Shiite gains slip and where Saudi Arabia -- both the government and private citizens -- has maintained strong ties with many of the Sunni tribes in Anbar and Mosul provinces that have facilitated the Sunni uprising. There is no love lost between the Saudis and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. In fact, the Saudis have branded it a terrorist organization and have even uncovered cells of the group on Saudi soil plotting against the kingdom.
But the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is also not the only group participating in the current offensive. Former Baathist fighters from the Naqshabandiyya Way along with Jaish al-Mujahideen and Jaish Ansar al-Sunnah are also playing a substantial role in the fighting. Most of the Sunni militias and the growing number of Awakening Council (Sunni fighters recruited by the United States to battle al Qaeda in Iraq) defectors joining these militias coordinate directly with the Majlis Thuwar al Anbar (Anbar insurgents' council), which in turn coordinates with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant on a selective basis. Saudi Arabia's acting intelligence chief, Yousef bin Ali al Idrisis, is believed to be in direct communication with the Majlis Thuwar al Anbar, affording Riyadh the opportunity to influence the shape of the battlefield -- and thereby to aggravate Iran in a highly sensitive spot.
As a bonus for Saudi Arabia, even as the Sunni uprising is largely confined to Iraq's Sunni belt and thus unlikely to seriously upset Iraq's production and exports from the Shiite south, the price of Brent crude has climbed to $113 a barrel for the first time this year. Saudi Arabia is not the only one that welcomes this bump in the price of oil; Russia is quite pleased with the outcome in Iraq as well.
Revisiting a Mysterious Meeting in Sochi
Just days before the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-led offensive in Iraq, a quiet meeting took place at Russian President Vladimir Putin's vacation spot in Sochi on June 3. Putin invited Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to see him and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who cut short an engagement in Moscow to get there on time. Details on the meeting are scarce. Our attempt to obtain information about the gathering from Russian and Saudi contacts resulted in scripted and strangely identical responses that claimed that Saudi Arabia and Russia were discussing a power-sharing resolution for Syria. The state-owned Saudi Press Agency then reported June 10 that Lavrov and al-Faisal had a follow-up phone conversation to discuss a Syrian settlement. Syria may well have been on the agenda, and Russia has an interest in protecting its influence in Damascus through a deal that keeps Syrian President Bashar al Assad in power, but we suspect there was more to these engagements.
Both Saudi Arabia and Russia share two key interests: undermining the U.S.-Iranian negotiating track and ensuring oil prices remain at a comfortable level, i.e., above $100 a barrel. There is little either can do to keep Iran and the United States from negotiating a settlement. In fact, the jihadist threat in Iraq creates another layer of cooperation between Iran and the United States. That said, Washington is now facing another major Middle Eastern maelstrom at the same time it has been anxiously trying to prove to itself and everyone else that the United States has bigger issues to deal with in other parts of the world, namely, in Russia's backyard. Moreover, the United States and Turkey are not of one mind on how to manage Iraq at a time when Washington needs Ankara's cooperation against Russia. If an Iraq-sized distraction buys Moscow time to manage its own periphery with limited U.S. interference, all the better for Putin. Meanwhile, if Saudi Arabia can weaken Iran and test U.S.-Iranian cooperation, it might well be worth the risk for Riyadh to try -- at least for the time being.
A Lesson from History
Whether by mere coincidence, strategic design or a blend of the two, there are as many winners as there are losers in the Iraq game. Russia knows this game well. The United States, the heir to the Sykes-Picot map, will be forced to learn it fast.
When the French and British were colluding over the post-Ottoman map in 1916, czarist Russia quietly acquiesced as Paris and London divided up the territories. Just a year later, in 1917, the Soviets threw a strategic spanner into the Western agenda by publishing the Sykes-Picot agreement, planting the seeds for Arab insurrection and thus ensuring that Europe's imperialist rule over the Middle East would be anything but easy. The U.S. administration recognizes the trap that has been laid. But more mindful of the region's history this time around, Washington will likely leave it to the regional players to absorb most of the risk.
Editor's Note: Writing in George Friedman's stead this week is Reva Bhalla, vice president of Global Analysis.
1a) The Pace of Obama's Disasters
Bergdahl one week. Then Ukraine. Now Iraq. What could be next?
Was it only 10 months ago that President Obama capitulated on Syria? And eight months ago that we learned he had no idea the U.S. eavesdropped on Angela Merkel ? And seven months ago that his administration struck its disastrous interim nuclear deal with Tehran? And four months ago that Chuck Hagel announced that the United States Army would be cut to numbers not seen since the 1930s? And three months ago that Russia seized Crimea? And two months ago that John Kerry's Israeli-Palestinian peace effort sputtered into the void? And last month that Mr. Obama announced a timetable for total withdrawal from Afghanistan—a strategy whose predictable effects can now be seen in Iraq?
Even the Bergdahl deal of yesterweek is starting to feel like ancient history. Like geese, Americans are being forced to swallow foreign-policy fiascoes at a rate faster than we can possibly chew, much less digest.
Consider the liver.
Iraqi captives await their fate at the hands of ISIS, June 14, 2014. AFP/Getty Images
On Thursday, Russian tanks rolled across the border into eastern Ukraine. On Saturday, Russian separatists downed a Ukrainian transport jet, murdering 49 people. On Monday, Moscow stopped delivering gas to Kiev. All this is part of the Kremlin's ongoing stealth invasion and subjugation of its neighbor. And all of this barely made the news. John Kerryphoned Moscow to express his "strong concern." Concern, mind you, not condemnation.
If the president of the United States had any thoughts on the subject, he kept them to himself. His weekly radio address was devoted to wishing America's dads a happy Father's Day.
Also last week, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria seized Mosul. Then ISIS took Tikrit. Then it was Tal Afar. Mass executions of Shiites in each place. The administration is taking its time deciding what, if any, aid it will provide the government in Baghdad. But it is exploring the possibility of using Iraq's distress as an opportunity to open avenues of cooperation with Tehran.
So because the administration has a theological objection to using military force in Iraq to prevent it from being overrun by al Qaeda or dissolving into potentially genocidal civil war, it will now work with Tehran, a designated state sponsor of terrorism for 30 years and a regime that continues to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Bashar Assad in Syria, to help "stabilize" Iraq. At least the White House has ruled out military cooperation with Iran. But give it time.
Here, then, is the cravenness that now passes for cleverness in this administration: Make friends with a terrorist regime to deal with a terrorist organization. Deliver Iraq's Arab Shiites into the hands of their Persian coreligionists, who will waste no time turning southern Iraq into a satrapy modeled on present-day Lebanon.
Deal brusquely with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki —who, for all his manifest shortcomings as a leader nonetheless wishes to be our ally—and obsequiously with an Iranian regime that spent the better part of the last decade killing American soldiers. Further alienate panicky allies in Riyadh and Jerusalem for the sake of ingratiating ourselves with the mullahs.
Hand those mullahs some additional strategic leverage as they head into the next (supposedly final) round of nuclear negotiations.
"We are, I am afraid, drifting in a state of semi-animation, towards the rapids." Those where the words of Hugh Dalton, Clement Attlee's chancellor of the exchequer, describing the state of Britain in the winter of 1947, on the eve of the end of Empire.
Back then, the U.K. had spent a quarter of its national treasure fighting World War II. It was still spending 19% of its GDP on its military budget. The coldest winter in its history had frozen the country's stocks of coal, causing electricity blackouts and putting two million people out of work.
The U.S. faces no such crises today. Mr. Obama blew more money on his stimulus plan in 2009 than we had spent up until then on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Defense spending in the U.S. amounts to 4% of GDP. Our economy is sluggish, but it isn't crumbling.
Yet when it comes to leadership, we have our very own Clement Attlee at the top, eager to subtract the burdens of international responsibility so he can get on with the only thing that really animates him, which is building social democracy at home. Actually, that's unfair to Attlee, who could count on a powerful ally to pick up England's dropped reins, rescue Europe, stop the Soviets. Mr. Obama's method is to ignore a crisis for as long as possible, give a speech, impose a sanction, and switch the subject to climate change or income inequality.
America's retreat needn't end in tragedy, and even the Obama presidency is a survivable event. But the strategic blunders and international disasters are accumulating at an unsustainable pace. This is what the real post-American world looks like.
2) Brains of older people are slow because they know so much. People do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information stored in their brains, scientists believe. Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive becomes more full, so humans also take longer to access information, it has been suggested.
Researchers say this slowing down is not the same as cognitive decline. The human brain works slower in old age, said Dr. Michael Ramscar, but only because we have stored more information over time. The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more, but just may not be able to access the information..
Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for. It is NOT a memory problem, it is nature's way of making older people do more exercise.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Iran and the stairway to heaven
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM
Published — Saturday 28 July 2012
1971, a band called Led Zeppelin released a song named Stairway to heaven. But, I don’t think it crossed the Led Zeppelin’s mind that someone would take the song literally. The Iranian leadership did. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the Iranian leadership sent hundreds of thousands of very young boys as human bombs against the Iraqis and thousands of them died in the process. Each young boy was given a key and would put it around his neck and was told that these keys are blessed and would take him to heaven when he dies as a martyr. So, the Iranians really believed there were stairs to heaven. At that time we understood how desperate they were in their war with Iraq. But, the question is, if the Iranian religious mullahs and government officials believed that these keys can actually take you through a stairway to heaven, then why no government official or religious mullahs ever sent his young son to the war front to be a martyr and take the stairways to heaven? Why only boys from poor villages?
To be frank, the Iranian people are very hard working people, have many intelligent minds and have one of the richest cultures in the world. Iran could have been one of the leading countries in the area with plenty of natural resources. Iran is a leading country in oil and gas reserve with many other natural resources. I have written articles about Iran both in Arabic and English and I had many close friends from Iran when I was in college in New York and they were very nice and compassionate, but they are led by the wrong government. Before the Iranian revolution, Iran was ahead of the Southeast Asian countries including India and China. They Iranian oil was an advantage over India and China. After the revolution, many top educated military generals and industrial entrepreneurs were executed, they were accused of being enemies of God. And Iran lost hundreds of thousands of lives in outside conflicts and inside struggles.
The Iranian revolution didn’t only hurt the Iranians. The revolution extended its revolutionary ideology to places like Lebanon and turned it from a modern country with very high tolerance for all segments of the society to a country ruled by gangs such as Hezbollah which dragged Lebanon into chaos. And, then had very strong influence on Syria’s politics and isolated Syria from the rest of the world.
The Arab Gulf states saw their share of Iranian interferences on many occasions and for many years. Iranians tried to stir up trouble in Bahrain and continue to declare that Bahrain is part of Iran. Bahrain was and still is the most tolerant country in the Middle East with democratic Parliament. But, Iran for known and unknown reasons wants to see chaos in Bahrain.
The Arab Gulf states saw their share of Iranian interferences on many occasions and for many years. Iranians tried to stir up trouble in Bahrain and continue to declare that Bahrain is part of Iran. Bahrain was and still is the most tolerant country in the Middle East with democratic Parliament. But, Iran for known and unknown reasons wants to see chaos in Bahrain.
From the day the Iranian mullahs held power, they have been trying to drag Saudi Arabia into conflicts. They have tried to attack Saudi Arabia by air in 1984 and the Saudis shot down 2 of their fighter jets. In 1987, they have tried to disrupt the Haj in Makkah and failed. Recently, about two years ago, Saudi Arabia was engaged in small- scale war with the Houthis from Yemen who are trained and financed by Iran and the Saudis won without any difficulties. And last month, there were minor clashes in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia between some security forces and young Shiite men and it was the latest in Iran’s effort to stir trouble in the region, even though the Shiites are living in harmony in the Kingdom. The Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia enjoys much better life than the Iranians in Iran. I have very close friends who are Shiite and they are holding very top positions both in the government and the private sectors. Many of my Shiite friends from childhood held positions in the military. Some of them were one star generals and one star admiral of the Saudi armed services. Many of the top executives in Saudi Aramco and other big companies are Shiite. The medical staffs in many government and private hospitals are Shiite. There are thousands of Shiite students who are on full scholarship in the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques program and are enrolled in the best colleges in the US and many other countries. In the past we never heard the words Sunni or Shiite in Saudi Arabia, we are Saudi citizens only, but things has changed at 09:33 a.m. on Feb. 1, 1979... This was the time and date when an Air France Boeing 747 landed at Tehran’s airport. The plane was carrying Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution in Iran became a reality...
And we all know the rest of the story.
3a) President Ahmadinejad: Iran Doesn’t Need Enemies – Al-Mulhim
The challenge to Saudi Arabia, the United States and their partners in the Arab Gulf states has been well recorded in many articles, interviews and special reports by SUSRIS.com. Last month Dr. Anthony Cordesman provided an update to his many analyses of the threat posed by Iran to its Gulf neighbors in an online resource called “The Iran Primer,” published by the United States Institute of Peace, and noted:
“Saudi Arabia and the United States may not share the same political system and culture, but they do share broad strategic interests. Both countries must now deal with Iran in context of the arc of political instability that extends from Pakistan to Morocco—and is of critical importance to Gulf stability, Gulf oil exports, and security of the global economy. For both countries, this arc presents new sources of competition with Iran that plays out in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and other key countries in the region.”
Another perspective on the challenge from Iran was provided by SUSRISblog regular contributing writer Abdulateef Al-Mulhim in an op-ed originally published in Arab News. We are pleased to provide his op-ed here for your consideration and thank him for sharing it with you.
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Iran doesn’t need an enemy to survive
Abdulateef Al-Mulhim
Abdulateef Al-Mulhim
Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, Commodore, Royal Saudi Navy (Retired)
Just days before Dec. 9, 1997, every Iranian government official’s heart was beating faster than normal including that of the newly elected President Mohammad Khatami.
It was a critical time as Iran was preparing to host the Eight Islamic Summit Conference. There was an urgent need for Saudi Arabia to be present. Without Saudi Arabia, the summit will fail.
The Iranian president was relieved. The success of the summit was guaranteed by an announcement from Riyadh that Crown Prince Abdullah would be attending the summit on behalf of King Fahd.
The summit was held between December 9 to 11, 1997. The Iranians were jubilant that the summit was successful. Everyone in the summit knew that it was Riyadh that made the difference. President Khatami was a real reformist and wanted to brighten the image of Iran in the world arena. During his time he knew it was better for the Gulf region and the world to build bridges of trust with Iran.
Things changed on Aug. 3, 2005 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected the president.
This is an appeal from a humble Saudi citizen to President Ahmadinejad. I hope he would listen to this voice from the western shores of the Gulf.
I learned about Iran when I studied geography in my elementary school in Saudi Arabia. People said only the best things about Iran. It was the 1960s when Iran was a very respected country. Not only respected but advanced in technology, agriculture and medicine compared to other countries in the region. When I was 10 years old, I really dreamed of visiting Iran, because I was seeing only rich Saudi families go to Iran for tourism and believe it or not for world-class medical treatments. Iranian doctors were the best in the region. There was a daily flight (some 45 minutes) from Dhahran Airport to Shiraz, Iran. When these Saudis came back from Iran, they brought with them the best rugs in the world, the best pistachio and the best handmade kitchenware. I will not mention Iranian caviar; I had no word for it at that time.
Mr. President, this is what a 10-year-old boy thought of Iran in the 1960s. So, no one is after Iran or no Saudi wants to see Iran hurt. Iran is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of history, heritage, manpower, raw materials and tourist attractions. Iran should concentrate on the good of its own people rather than recruit foreign hands to praise Iran in Lebanon, Iraq or Bahrain. Why spend money that Iranian people need? No country can fight the whole world. Iran and the Arab Gulf states are neighbors and have common interests. Conflicts are an obstacle on the path of progress. Iran should spend time and money to win back the thousands of intelligent Iranian men and women in California instead of making masses of enemies in the region. Iran should win back the Iranian businessmen and women living in London instead of hiring fighters in Lebanon. The most educated Iranians are outside Iran. Why do Iranians enjoy threatening the Saudi Embassy in Tehran?
We understand Iran’s energy needs. We know that the Iranian oil production is facing difficulties because of the embargo on modern oil production technology. A lot of countries need clean and cheap nuclear energy, but there is no need to have your nuclear facilities as a threat to the region. Iran has to display to the outside world its industrial capabilities and not its military might. The Soviet Union was able to make nuclear bombs, but failed to make enough light bulbs to light up the streets. North Korea was able to build a state-of-the art nuclear arsenal, but their people are starving to death. Iraq’s Saddam spent billions of dollars to fight the world and you know the rest of the story. Iran is a great country that doesn’t need an invisible enemy to survive. You can’t teach your youths that America is the great Satan when their dream is to meet Seinfeld and Tom Cruise.
Mr. President, your people, not the Bahrainis, need your attention. The Gulf states are the most successful and prosperous in the region and your people are learning from these successes. Iranians are present in every Gulf country, and you, Mr. President, are hurting Iranians more than you are hurting the countries that host them. Wars never solved any problems. Hasn’t Iran learned anything from its eight-year war with Iraq? In this war, I lost Iranian classmates who I studied with in the US.
Mr. President, if we can’t change the wind, then at least let us adjust the sails.
— Abdulateef Al-Mulhim is commodore (Retd.), Royal Saudi Navy. He can be contacted at: almulhimnavy@hotmail.com
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If, as is now being reported, the U.S. and Iran are planning to work together to contain the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the consequences for the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy are incalculable. Given the stakes involved in the sweep through Iraq being conducted by the radical Sunni Islamists, it is clear that the Obama administration must do more than wring its hands with the president once again playing Hamlet as an international crisis gets out of control. Iran is even more heavily invested in the survival of the Shiite majority government in Baghdad, so it is likely that it will be only too happy to coordinate with the U.S.–though the ayatollahs may be about to discover that Barack Obama is a much better person to have as an adversary than as an ally. But even if the U.S. proves to be too fearful of being drawn back into a war that the president has constantly boasted of having “ended” to be of much use in Iraq, the Iranians still have a lot to gain from cooperation on this front.
As our Michael Rubin observed earlier today, past efforts at U.S.-Iran coordination in Iraq did not exactly work to the benefit of the Americans—or the Iraqis. The example he cited of what happened when Iranian auxiliaries become entrenched—as was the case in Lebanon—is very much to the point. Any hopes that the free Iraq that thousands of Americans died to create—and which seemed well within reach when George W. Bush left the presidency after his victorious surge—can be salvaged seem utterly lost. But there is another, potentially bigger problem that stems from this decision to work with Tehran that is being forgotten amid the justified concerns about the collapse of Iraq: Iran’s nuclear program.
Though the Iranians don’t wish to see the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad fall, this crisis couldn’t have come at a better time for them. After months of stonewalling the Obama administration’s efforts to craft another nuclear deal that would at least look like the West was doing something to stop Tehran’s weapons program, Iran’s leverage over Washington and its European allies has just increased exponentially.
There is plenty of blame to go around here. Critics of the U.S. invasion of Iraq are right when they point out that Iran was immeasurably strengthened by the fall of Saddam Hussein as well as by the diversion of attention from their terrorism and nuclear program. It must also be acknowledged that President Obama’s haste in fleeing from Iraq led directly to the successful revival of the Sunni insurgency.
The administration’s zeal for a deal that would end the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been no secret since it concluded an interim pact last November that tacitly recognized Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and started the unraveling of the economic sanctions that had taken years to enact and enforce. The Iraqi crisis not only strengthens Tehran’s already strong bargaining position in the continuing P5+1 talks; it also gives President Obama one more reason to seek to appease Iran rather than pressure it to make concessions on outstanding issues such as its ballistic missile program or its nuclear military research.
Earlier this year the president demonstrated that he could sell even an embarrassingly weak deal with Iran to the country by branding its critics as warmongers when they tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to pass new sanctions legislation. But if he can claim that Iran is helping out in Iraq, it will be that much easier for him to stifle criticism of the next nuclear pact even if all it does is to make it a little bit harder for Tehran to “break out” and obtain a weapon after the deal is signed. Even worse, it may provide an excuse for the administration to backtrack from his 2012 promise that he would never countenance a policy of “containment” of a nuclear Iran. Since Iran’s conduct in Iraq will be portrayed as evidence of its rationality and willingness to be part of the international community, its potential to create a nuclear arsenal will likely also be dismissed as regrettable but no great threat to U.S. security.
But any such assumption would be a tragic mistake.
If Washington were to make the leap from irresolute diplomacy to a policy shift that treated the nuclear issue as a sidebar to the more important question of Iraq, the result would make an already unstable Middle East even more dangerous for the U.S. and its allies. While the prospect of letting either parts or the entirety of Iraq fall into the hands of al-Qaeda-allied Islamists is a grim one, American acceptance of Iran’s nuclear dreams would be an even greater calamity. As President Obama has already repeatedly stated, Iranian nuclear weapons would be “a game changer” that would plunge the region into further conflict and instability even if the “rational” rulers of Tehran never used one. Iran’s network of state-sponsored international terrorists would gain a nuclear umbrella. Moderate Arab states would, at best, be endangered and would look to obtain their own nuclear option. The already remote chances of Middle East peace would be finished.
The president’s defenders may claim that he is capable of working with the ayatollahs in Iraq without abandoning his pledges never to accept an Iranian nuke. There is also no question that the administration must act expeditiously in Iraq and some coordination or at least communication about the struggle with Iran is necessary. But given that the entire thrust of U.S. diplomacy in the last year has been focused not so much on a nuclear compromise as on an effort to foster a new détente with the Islamist regime, it is difficult to imagine how the events of the last week will do anything but diminish his already flagging determination to stop Iran.
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