WarSclerotic

Unfortunately, several events that have taken place over the past week tend to point in the opposite direction, which is that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is increasingly siding with the hard liners seeking to sideline the moderate forces headed by President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister Mohammad Zarif. Contrary to the administration’s expectations, crackdowns and arrests of political activists have increased since the signing of the accord. What makes this latest crackdown particularly significant and worrisome is that some of those who have been detained either have dual citizenship, or have been in exile and returned home, having received assurances they would not be harmed. Most of them are in Teheran’s notorious Evin prison. However, at least one of them is being held at an even worse place, the Kharizak detention center, which is a concentration camp for political prisoners, notorious for torture.

These arrests are a signal that Iran is confident that the West will continue to appease it irrespective of what it does. This does not augur well for the future of the Vienna Accord.

The arrest of Washington Post journalist Jason Razaian (who holds both US and Iranian citizenship) was both a test and a warning sign. Arresting a US citizen who is an accredited journalist for one of the world’s leading newspapers is not something the cautious and canny Iranians would do lightly. It was a test of American resolve, which Obama by not insisting on his immediate and unconditional release as a precondition for continuing negotiations, flunked.

Since there is no reason to assume that the Iranians will suddenly begin respecting Obama’s resolve and backbone, there is every reason to assume they will start cheating as soon as they can. They have an incentive to start cheating as soon as possible, since they can assume that whoever succeeds Obama in the Oval Office, he or she will be less appeasing towards them.

The tailwind the Ayatollahs have gotten ever since the signing of the accord with every country running to Teheran to negotiate lucrative deals and sell it the up to date armaments it lacks has no doubt given Khamenei confidence that Iran can cheat with impunity, at least for the remainder of Obama’s term. Once again, the world has proven Lenin right when he said, “the Western world will fight among themselves who will profit from selling us the rope from which we shall eventually hang them.”

This means we need to understand what Iran’s cheating options are. Earlier this week, Avner Golov, a researcher at the INSS, TAU’s (Tel Aviv University) highly respected Center for Strategic Studies, published a position paper dealing with Iran’s options for continuing its efforts to become a nuclear power and how it is likely to pursue them. He takes it for granted that Iran will cheat or try to since there are no credible deterrents left on the table.

According to Golov, Iran faces a choice between the shortest and fastest route to the bomb or the safest one. He believes that Iran will opt for the latter, what he calls the “creeping or crawling bomb strategy.” Having learned from the experience of countries that tried to take the shortest and fastest route such as Iraq and North Korea that this is a relatively high-risk path, the Iranians will choose a longer more risk averse route. This road is paved with creeping incremental violations of the accord until they reach a point where they can break out in a relatively short timeframe, reducing the amount of time they are at a higher risk of being caught.

This strategy involves clandestine nuclear activities in parallel with the declared activities, designed to shorten the distance from the nuclear brink. The aim is to covertly line up as many duck as possible without being caught. The moment the decision to shoot is given, everything is ready to go and the final breakout to the bomb will be as short and quick as possible, minimizing the risk of being caught with their hands in the cookie jar before actually having eaten one, which in this case means before they have a bomb with which to threaten Israel, the region and the world.

The holes in the agreement, especially the ones than enable Iran to remove soil from Parchin and other sites before IAEA inspections, make this kind of cheating relatively low risk. Obama in effect has told the kid with a proven propensity for cheating he can take the exam whenever he wants, even if there is no proctor in the room.

The Iranians can also be fairly confident that the sanctions snapback clause will prove to be unenforceable, given the current rush to Teheran to cut deals. They can also be fairly confident that the international community will gradually divert intelligence assets to other areas, especially if and when a new crisis emerges, putting Iran on a back burner.

According to Golov, the bad news doesn’t end here. The agreement loses much of its teeth with age. This opens a third option to Iran. For the first decade, it may decide to play by the rules, and then go for break and take the shortest path to the bomb.

Another major inadequacy of the Vienna Accord is the fact it does not cover the issue of Iran’s ICBM program. This means Iran is free to continue developing its ICBM program. A bomb without the means to deliver it makes a country more of a target than a nuclear power. By being able to openly continue its missile development program, it can have a delivery vehicle ready and waiting for a warhead when the order to assemble it is given.

Israel’s options

Obama accused Israel of being the only country against the agreement. He conveniently neglected to mention that Israel is the only country the Iranian regime repeatedly threatens to wipe off the map.

This agreement is as much about Israel as it is about Iran. Obama crossed the red line dividing legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies from anti-Semitic incitement when he said that only Israel opposed the accord and that if it ended up being torpedoed in the Senate, war would follow.

The subtext of what he said is very clear. When he says only Israel wants to sabotage the accord and that the only alternative to the accord is war, he is really questioning American Jews’ loyalty to the US, implying that they put Israel’s interests first and want to drag America into an Israeli war.

Hitler crudely fanned anti-Semitism by openly accused the Jews of instigating war. Obama, a far more intelligent and sophisticated character is slyly insinuating it, hoping the mere threat of a potential anti-Semitic backlash will frighten enough of the Jewish community into not throwing its weight behind efforts to block the accord.

Even if this tactic does not cause an increase in anti-Semitism in the US, it will facilitate the transforming of Israel from a bi-partisan issue into merely another controversial political issue, with Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other. Whatever the outcome, Israel and American Jewry will find themselves in a lose-lose situation.

The most important thing is what Obama neglected to say, namely that Israel is not only the only country to oppose the agreement; it the only country which has repeatedly been threatened by Iran with destruction. This being the case, Israel should despite the risks involved continue its efforts to derail the agreement in the Senate. It has a reasonable chance of mustering the 60 votes needed to override a filibuster and have the Senate reject the agreement. The chances of getting enough Democrats to cross the floor and override a presidential veto are slim. However, such a situation would give the next president the moral authority required for taking the highly unusual step of openly repudiating an agreement signed by his or her predecessor.

Full disclosure

I feel in light of what I’ve written and the harsh things I’ve said about President Obama that my audience deserves full disclosure of my overall political opinions, as I believe they are germane in determining what conclusions the readers will reach regarding this article.

I am on record as being totally opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on almost every issue. I have never voted for the man and never intend to. I believe his hard line pro-annexationist policies are a disaster for Israel. I think he was reckless and irresponsible when he decided to unprecedentedly interfere in US politics during the 2012 elections and again when he addressed the Congress during the recent Israeli election campaign. His actions have materially helped Obama erode Israel’s standing as a bi-partisan issue above politics. Even worse, he backed the wrong horse, even though it did not take a genius to figure out long before November 2012 that Romney was an unelectable candidate.

Nevertheless, I believe he is right regarding Iran. It is probably the only issue he is right on. I do not agree with how he has handled the situation and the tactics he resorted to, which backfired and ended up making a bad situation even worse as far as Israel is concerned. I do agree with him that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.
This is the reason I believe Obama is wrong. It is precisely because Iran poses such a threat to Israel that this agreement all but guarantees Israel will be left with no choice but to launch a preemptive strike against Iran before it can exploit its many holes and inadequacies to become a nuclear power.

Until now, I’ve tended to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt and have regarded his many mistakes as the results of a lack of knowledge and understanding of the region and not of a personal animus he has with Israel, its leader or Jews. His recent statement has changed that. The subtext of what he said leaves no room for doubt.