Iranian FM Javad Zarif (R) at press conference announcing nuclear deal Reuters
[M]any countries – most notably Israel’s immediate neighbors – would be supportive of such a strike, and were waiting for Israel to neutralize the threat posed to them by a nuclear-capable Iranian regime.
“In practice no one wants to see a nuclear Iran; all of them are playing the gameso that Israel can pulls the chestnuts out of the fire.
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Israel should “seriously consider” a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the aftermath of the “framework deal” announced between Tehran and western powers Thursday, a leader defense and security expert said.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva Friday, Professor Efraim Inbar, who heads the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said the deal had realized Israel’s worst fears by leaving Iran’s nuclear program essentially intact.
The Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has been granted “legitimacy” by the agreement, which still allowed it to continue enriching uranium and to maintain a reactor capable of producing enriched plutonium, he said. “And that’s what worries Israel, that they (Iran) will be able within a short time frame to reach a nuclear bomb.”
“I hold the view that the only way to stop Iran in its journey to a nuclear bomb is through military means,” Inbar maintained, suggesting that “Israel needs to seriously consider striking a number of important nuclear facilities” to head off the threat.
Inbar went further, stating that Israel had made a serious mistake in not taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities until now. Now that the deal – however bad – was struck, a military strike would be far more difficult, he posited.
Nevertheless, practically-speaking Israel was left with little choice short of accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.
“As long as there was no deal it was easier for Israel to strike. They should have carried out a strike two years ago,” he said. “This is not an easy decision but it’s what needed to be done.”
Despite that fact, many countries – most notably Israel’s immediate neighbors – would be supportive of such a strike, and were waiting for Israel to neutralize the threat posed to them by a nuclear-capable Iranian regime.
“In practice no one wants to see a nuclear Iran; all of them are playing the game so that Israel can pulls the chestnuts out of the fire.
“I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal it will make our country, our allies and our world safer,” Obama asserted, insisting that despite criticisms the agreement would effectively cut off any options for Iran to build a nuclear bomb.
But despite Obama’s claim that there was “no daylight” between the US’s commitment to Israel’s security and the framework deal, Israeli officials heavily criticized it as an “historic mistake“.
“If an agreement is reached on the basis of this framework, it is an historic mistake which will make the world far more dangerous,” said the officials, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity.
“It is a bad framework which will lead to a bad and dangerous agreement. The framework gives international legitimacy to Iran’s nuclear program, the only aim of which is to produce a nuclear bomb,” they added.
In Congress as well – where legislators on both sides of the aisle have expressed serious concerns over the pending deal – House Speaker John Boehner branded the agreement “an alarming departure” from the president’s own declared goals. Nevertheless, legislators have given the White House a three-month reprieve on a bill to level harsher sanctions against Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is due to address the deal directly at a press conference Friday, after holding top-level talks withsecurity officials.
Column: President Obama’s stories haven’t held up before. How is the Iran deal any different?
AP
What the president and Secretary of State John Kerry unveiled Thursday was another fancy, another fairy-tale, another fable about what might happen in an ideal world where enemies and allies share common interests and objectives, autocratic and theocratic regimes adhere to compacts, and moral sincerity is more important than results. Best be skeptical—these so-called triumphs of Obama’s diplomacy have a way of falling to pieces like ancient parchment. And keep in mind this rule: When the president enters the Rose Garden, run for cover.
But I’m not counting on it. The president has a terrible record of initial public pronouncements on national security. He has a habit of confidently stating things that turn out not to be true. Three times in the last four years he has appeared in the Rose Garden and made assertions that were later proven to be false. He and his national security team have again and again described a world that does not correspond to reality. No reason to assume these concessions to Iran will be any different.
The U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked on September 11, 2012. Four Americans were killed, including our ambassador. Obama delivered remarks on the attack in the Rose Garden the following day. “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation,” he said. What he didn’t say was that the killings in Benghazi specifically were a “terrorist attack” or “terrorism.” On 60 Minutes,when asked if he believed Benghazi was a “terrorist attack,” the president replied, “It’s too early to know how this came about.” On September 14, neither the president nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called what had happened a terrorist attack. On September 15, Obama referred to Benghazi as a “tragic attack.” On September 16, Susan Rice, then U.N. ambassador, called it a “spontaneous attack.”
By September 24, when Obama recorded a campaign interview with The View, he again refused to say Benghazi was an attack by terrorists. “We’re still doing an investigation,” he told Joy Behar. It was not until two days later that administration officials began referring to Benghazi as a terrorist attack—something the Libyan government had been saying since September 13.
The story originally put out by the White House, that Benghazi was the result of spontaneous anger at an Internet video offensive to Muslim extremists, fell apart in a matter of days. Yet the White House persisted in its false description of reality, declining to confirm what was widely accepted as a premeditated terrorist assault on a U.S. compound, and chose to ascribe responsibility for the events in question to anti-Islamic bias. The evidencecontinues to mount that Ansar al-Sharia, the Qaeda affiliate in lawless Libya, was behind the events of September 11, 2012, not the stupid video.
In August 2013 President Obama announced in the Rose Garden that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had crossed the “red line” by gassing his own people. “Now, after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets,” the president said. Then he punted the issue to Congress. But no action against Syrian regime targets was ever taken, because the president reversed himself and accepted a Russian proposal to ship Assad’s WMD out of Syria. “This initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies,” Obama said in a September 10, 2013, televised address. Almost two years later, Assad is dropping barrel bombs filled with chlorine gas on civilians. Success.
Last May, President Obama again walked purposefully to a lectern in the Rose Garden, and informed the world that he had released five Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held prisoner by the Islamic militia for almost half a decade. “Right now,” the president said, “our top priority is making sure that Bowe gets the care and support that he needs and that he can be reunited with his family as soon as possible.”
The Government Accountability Office concluded that the Obama administration’s actions were illegal. Bergdahl himself was kept isolated as the Army reviewed the circumstances of his capture by the enemy. Completed in the fall of 2014, the report by Brigadier General Kenneth Dahl still has not been released to the public.
Three stories that collapsed under the weight of the evidence, three instances of the White House doggedly sticking to its policy line despite everything. This president’s resistance to events in the actual world of space and time is more than ideology, however. It’s also good politics: By refusing to concede the facts of the case, Obama is able to hold his base and stay on offense against his true adversaries: Republicans, conservatives, and Bibi Netanyahu.
And now we have the Iran story. Iran, the president says, will reduce its centrifuges, dilute its enriched uranium, open its nuclear sites to inspectors, and turn its fortified underground reactor into a “research” facility in exchange for sanctions relief. The only alternatives, Obama goes on, are bombing Iran or ending negotiations and re-imposing sanctions. “If, in fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu is looking for the most effective way to ensure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, this is the best option. And I believe our nuclear experts can confirm that.”
Sure they can. Though I believe other nuclear experts, such as Charles Duelfer, can also confirm that this agreement has major holes, such as the spotty effectiveness of inspections and the failure to get Iran to disclose fully the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. And there’s always the tricky issue of sanctions relief: The United States says the process of lifting sanctions will be gradual and contingent on Iranian compliance, but Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif says it will beimmediate.
What the president and Secretary of State John Kerry unveiled Thursday was another fancy, another fairy-tale, another fable about what might happen in an ideal world where enemies and allies share common interests and objectives, autocratic and theocratic regimes adhere to compacts, and moral sincerity is more important than results. Best be skeptical—these so-called triumphs of Obama’s diplomacy have a way of falling to pieces like ancient parchment. And keep in mind this rule: When the president enters the Rose Garden, run for cover.
(When will Iran say what and to whom about Obama’s new “framework?” Will Iran cloud the results of the negotiations as cleverly as did Obama? — DM)
If you look at what happened today between the U.S. and Iran through the lens of domestic American politics, Barack Obama has made a very clever play here—because what might be called “the agreement of the framework of the possibility of a potential deal” gives him new leverage in his ongoing battle with the Senate to limit its ability to play a role in the most critical foreign-policy matter of the decade.
The “framework” codifies the Obama administration’s cave-ins but casts them as thrilling reductions in Iran’s capacities rather than what they are—a pie-in-the-sky effort to use inspections as the means by which the West can “manage” the speed with which Iran becomes a nuclear power.
Obama’s tone of triumph this afternoon was mixed with sharp reminders that the deal is actually not yet done—and that is entirely the point of this exercise from a domestic standpoint. the triumph signals his troops and apologists that the time has come for them to stand with him, praise the deal sheet and pretend it’s a deal, declare it historic, and generally act as though the world has been delivered from a dreadful confrontation by Obama and Kerry.
But since the deal is not yet done, it could still be derailed. And that is where Obama’s truly Machiavellian play here comes in: He may have found a way to put the Senate in a box and keep Democrats from melting away from him on Iran and voting not only for legislation he doesn’t want but also to override the veto he has promised.
The Senate has two provisions at the ready with which it could go ahead any time. One, called Kirk-Menendez, imposes new sanctions on Iran. Obama promised a veto of this bill should it pass, and after today, one ought to presume that it’s dead.
The other, Corker-Menendez, requires the administration to submit any deal to the Senate within 60 days of its signing. This is a key provision because, of course, what the Iranians want—and what they said today they got—was the lifting of all sanctions. The president, in his statement, vowed to lift the “nuclear” sanctions (there are others involving human rights) if the Iranians comply by the terms of the deal.
Existing sanctions legislation features waivers the president can arguably use to do that. But those sanctions were put into place specifically to make it incredibly painful for Iran to retain any nuclear-weapons capability—not as a means of acceding to Iran’s retention of a nuclear capability.
For this reason, and for the reason that the president is essentially negotiating an arms-control treaty with Iran, the Senate should approve any final deal. Obama disagrees and claims this is merely a nuclear-agreement, not a treaty, and therefore Congress has no role.
That’s a very nervy argument. It is not only disrespectful of the Senate but it misrepresents the nature of what’s being negotiated. And that’s why it’s an argument it appeared the president would lose—that senators would not only vote for Corker-Menendez but would override his veto of it.
Which is why the deal-that’s-not-yet-a-deal works in his favor. Talks are now to continue until the end of June. Obama can and will argue to Democrats that they owe it to him, to their base, and to their governing ideology to give him all the room he needs to get to June 30.
Of course, if the legislation does not pass by June 30 and Obama signs a final deal, the game is up; the Senate can’t retroactively insist in July he bring it to them for a vote.
Will there be a deal by June 30? Maybe, maybe not; maybe they’ll finish, maybe they won’t; maybe the Iranians will say they didn’t agree to this or that and blow up the whole thing; who knows. Probably the total collapse, after all this, would bring the Kirk-Menendez sanctions back to life. Which is why there will never be a total collapse—because these talks can simply go on….
(Hitler did tell the truth occasionally, in Mein Kampf for example. It was generally ignored until too late. “Death to America and Israel” are spouted by the Iranian Supreme Leader at every opportunity. Obama, et al, ignore it. Will Israel be Obama’s Czechoslovakia? And then what?– DM)
Our dishonor in Lausanne, as with Munich, may avoid a confrontation in the present, but our shame will guarantee a war in the near future.
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Once again our leaders are needlessly appeasing a hostile state that shows them nothing but contempt.
The Western capitulation to Adolf Hitler in the 1938 Munich Agreement is cited as classic appeasement that destroyed Czechoslovakia, backfired on France and Britain, and led to World War II. All of that is true.
But there was much more that caused the Munich debacle than simple Western naiveté. The full tragedy of that ill-fated agreement should warn us on the eve of the Obama’s administration’s gullible agreement with Iran on nuclear proliferation. Fable one is the idea that most people saw right through the Munich folly. True, Europeans knew that Hitler had never once told the truth and was already murdering German citizens who were Jews, Communists, or homosexuals. But Europeans did not care all that much.
Instead, the Western world was ecstatic over the agreement. After the carnage of World War I, Europeans would do anything to avoid even a small confrontation — even if such appeasement all but ensured a far greater bloodbath than the one that began in 1914.
Another myth was that Hitler’s Wehrmacht was strong and the democracies were weak. In fact, the combined French and British militaries were far larger than Hitler’s. French Char tanks and British Spitfire fighters were as good as, or superior to, their German counterparts.
Czechoslovakia had formidable defenses and an impressive arms industry. Poland and perhaps even the Soviet Union were ready to join a coalition to stop Hitler from dissolving the Czech state.
It is also untrue that the Third Reich was united. Many of Hitler’s top generals did not want war. Yet each time Hitler successfully called the Allies’ bluff — in the Rhineland or with the annexation of Austria — the credibility of his doubters sank while his own reckless risk-taking became even more popular.
Munich was hardly a compassionate agreement. In callous fashion it immediately doomed millions of Czechs and put Poland on the target list of the Third Reich.
Munich was directly tied to the vanity of Neville Chamberlain. In the first few weeks after Munich, Chamberlain basked in adulation, posing as the humane savior of Western civilization. In contrast, loud skeptic Winston Churchill was dismissed by the media and public as an old warmonger.
Hitler failed to appreciate the magnanimity and concessions of the French and British. He later called his Munich diplomatic partners “worms.” Hitler said of the obsequious Chamberlain, “I’ll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers.”
The current negotiations with the Iranians in Lausanne, Switzerland, have all the hallmarks of the Munich negotiations.
Most Westerners accept that the Iranian government funds terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It has all but taken over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Yet the idea of stronger sanctions, blockades, or even force to stop Iranian efforts to get a bomb are considered scarier than Iran getting a bomb that it just possibly might not threaten to use.
The U.S. and its NATO partners are far stronger than Iran in every imaginable measure of military and economic strength. The Iranian economy is struggling, its government is corrupt, and its conventional military is obsolete. Iran’s only chance of gaining strength is to show both its own population and the world at large that stronger Western powers backed down in fear of its threats and recklessness.
Iran is not united. It is a mishmash nation in which over a third of the population is not Persian. Millions of protestors hit the streets in 2009. An Iranian journalist covering the talks defected in Switzerland — and said that U.S. officials at the talks are there mainly to speak on behalf of Iran.
By reaching an agreement with Iran, John Kerry and Barack Obama hope to salvage some sort of legacy — in the vain fashion of Chamberlain — out of a heretofore failed foreign policy.
There are more Munich parallels. The Iranian agreement will force rich Sunni nations to get their own bombs to ensure a nuclear Middle East standoff. A deal with Iran shows callous disagreed for our close ally Israel, which is serially threatened by Iran’s mullahs. The United States is distant from Iran. But our allies in the Middle East and Europe are within its missile range.
Supporters of the Obama administration deride skeptics such as Democratic senator Robert Menendez and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as if they were doubting old Churchills.
Finally, the Iranians, like Hitler, have only contempt for the administration that has treated them so fawningly. During the negotiations in Switzerland, the Iranians blew up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. Their supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, did his usual “death to America” shtick before adoring crowds. Our dishonor in Lausanne, as with Munich, may avoid a confrontation in the present, but our shame will guarantee a war in the near future.
Tehran is not averse to negotiating ad infinitum – so long as the talks go their way.
So the real gridlock centered on finding a procedure that fitted the US delegation’s instructions to get some sort of a deal signed, and the Iranian group’s directive to sign nothing that could be seen as an accord. So who will give ground first?
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It is hard to make out exactly what the seven exhausted foreign ministers of the world powers and Iran were actually talking about in Lausanne this week – especially in the last two days, when the negotiations overran their March 31 deadline for a framework nuclear accord.
The highly-colored reports from the Swiss hotel up until Thursday, April 2, bespoke a mighty battle between the American negotiators led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and the Iranian group, headed by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, over four key points still at issue between them: the pace of sanctions relief, research and development projects, international inspections – including snap visits to any nuclear facilities they demanded, and, finally, the quantity of low-enriched uranium Iran may retain after the bulk of its stockpile is shipped overseas.
The drama was heightened by the sight of the American delegation marching into a tent set up in the hotel yard “to defeat eavesdropping” for a video conference with President Barack Obama in the White House. Kerry wanted to know whether to carry on the never-ending negotiations, which were looking more and more farcical as the hours ticked by without closure, or quit. This would be tantamount to the failure of the entire structure of nuclear diplomacy.
Obama directed the delegation to carry on talking with the Iranians and disregard the missed deadline as though nothing had changed.
The Secretary of State earlier appeared in an upper hotel window gazing out in the distance. Was he seeing a solution of the impasse visible to no one else?
The French Foreign Minister, Lauren Fabius, fed up with the game playing out between the Americans and the Iranians, left more than once for home. He returned Thursday saying: “We are a few meters from the finishing line, but it’s always the last meters that are the most difficult. We will try and cross them. It’s not done yet.”
Zarif told reporters: “Our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure. They have tested the other one; it is high time to test this one.”
Those words carried two messages: One that the Iranians were serious when they reiterated in the past weeks that a framework accord for ending the current phase of negotiations was unacceptable, and insisted on the talks carrying straight through to a comprehensive deal by June 30.
The Iranian foreign minister’s second message was a negation of “pressure” – i.e., sanctions, in obedience to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s directive to the delegation to reject the incremental easing of international sanctions and press Tehran’s demand for immediate relief.
That directive was laid down by the ayatollah on February 18, when he determined that “an agreement would be arrived at not in two stages but in one stage to be completed by the end of June 2015 and the agreement would include the removal of all sanctions on Iran.”
The writing was on the wall for all the parties to see. The current deadline crisis could have been avoided by understanding that there was no way the Iranian delegation would ever disobey the supreme leader’s dictates.
Tehran is not averse to negotiating ad infinitum – so long as the talks go their way.
So the real gridlock centered on finding a procedure that fitted the US delegation’s instructions to get some sort of a deal signed, and the Iranian group’s directive to sign nothing that could be seen as an accord. So who will give ground first?
(The views expressed in this article are not necessarily mine or those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Today, April fool’s day first, Obama was abducted by aliens from Venus who were concerned about His warlike stance toward the peaceful Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mars is the god of war, Venus is the goddess of peace. Aliens from Mars had been slightly disturbed that Obama’s efforts to give Iran nuclear weapons might fail, but had seen that her status as a nuclear power was inevitable and hence did nothing. Aliens from Venus were equally pleased with the prospects of Iranian nuclear weapons but were very concerned that Obama, by failing adequately to praise Iranian attempts to extend its hegemony over the entire Middle East and beyond, had retarded those praiseworthy efforts on behalf of true Islamic peace. Hence, they secretly abducted Him this morning as He deplaned from Air Force One following an off-the-books trip to His spiritual birth place in Manchuria.
Since Obama’s abduction and remedial training required only a few minutes He was not missed, even by His dear soul mate, Valerie Jarrett. Ms. Jarrett was, therefore, pleasantly surprised when Obama called a press conference in the Rose Garden to make an announcement, following a splendid rendition of Hail to the Chief:
Fellow world citizens, I have finally awakened from my slumbers to realize that Iran is the only country in the world capable of bringing true peace through submission in accord with the word of Allah, may His Holy name be forever praised by all. Israel claims to desire peace, but only through war. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other misbegotten specs of excrement on the face of our dear planet — now in peril of imminent death due to climate change to which their vile oil has contributed massively — have dared even to challenge Iran’s peaceful pursuits of peace throughout the Middle East in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
Henceforth, it will be My supreme duty as your Commander in Chief to promote and otherwise to assist Iran in her glorious efforts for peace. I know in my heart that that’s the principal reason that you, My people, elected Me as your very own Supreme Leader. Accordingly, I pledge that My efforts will be unstintingly directed to the end that you desire.
May Allah bless Iran, Damn America, Israel and all other enemies of true peace, and give a blessed day to you all, inshallah.
Iran’s leaders, due to their extensive relations with the aliens who had abducted Obama, were not at all surprised but pretended that they were. Supreme Leader Khamenei personally accepted Supreme Leader Obama’s gracious words by saying that Obama had finally managed to tame the Great Satan and promised to do everything within his power to help, inshallah. He also commented favorably on Secretary Kerry’s use of “inshallah” in rebutting suggestions by defeatists that the P5+1 negotiations would collapse without giving Iran nuclear weapons.
Even those who had previously viewed Obama as weak and indecisive will now be forced to see Him as He truly is, a towering beacon of strength and light to a world beset with tribulation, turmoil and darkness. His legacy as the Greatest Peace Maker, Ever, is assured, inshallah.
Three years ago, film-goers were treated to “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” which critic Kenneth Turan called a “pleasant fantasy” about the Middle East. Today, of course, Yemen is the hub of a bloody conflict, one which U.S. President Barack Obama persists in viewing with equal unreality.
Most obviously: Yemen is not, as the administration has touted, a “success” brought about by its “smart diplomacy.” Most importantly: Iran has a plan. Yemen is a vital component.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees that. So does Saudi King Salman (and no, I will not dwell on the pun). His foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, last week called Iran “an aggressive state that is intervening and operating forces in the Arab world.” Iran’s nuclear weapons program, he added, represents “a threat to the Gulf and the entire world.”
A quick tour of the neighborhood: Much of Syria is already an Iranian satrapy. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist foreign legion, is the most powerful force in Lebanon. Iranian military advisors and Iranian-backed Shia militias increasingly call the shots in Iraq. And now Iran is aggressively supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Over the weekend, a Houthi spokesman directly threatened the Saudis. “When we decide to invade,” he said, “we won’t stop in the city of Mecca, but will continue on to Riyadh to topple the government institutions.” While that invasion may not be imminent, Iran’s strategy and objectives are now apparent.
Iran has begun what Netanyahu called a “pincer movement.” To the east of Saudi Arabia is the Persian Gulf, in and around which is the world’s largest repository of known oil and gas reserves — vital to the international economy. The Gulf’s only outlet to open waters is the 24-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz. More than a third of the petroleum traded by sea passes through this strait which Iran’s rulers have for years referred to as their “territorial waters.” On a number of occasions, U.S. ships in the strait have been harassed by Iranian vessels.
To the west of Saudi Arabia is the Red Sea. Iranian domination of Yemen would mean control of Bab-el-Mandeb, the “Gateway of Tears.” This 20-mile-wide strait separates Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula from Djibouti and Africa. Whoever controls Bab-el-Mandeb also controls marine traffic in and out of the Red Sea which has, at its northern end, Egypt’s Suez Canal.
Control of these two waterways would give Iran an economic choke hold on Europe and Asia. With Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen already under Iranian domination, other Arab nations would soon come under severe pressure to accept the suzerainty — and perhaps the hegemony — of what could legitimately be called a new Persian empire.
What about al-Qaida and the Islamic State group? The Arab nations might decide their interests are best served by supporting them (beyond the clandestine support that may have been provided in the past) so long as they continue to fight against, rather than collaborate with, Iranian imperialism. Even so, Iran’s rulers are doubtless confident that, over time, they will defeat their Sunni jihadi rivals — with Americans continuing to assist the effort.
It’s an ambitious plan. Nothing would do more to bolster it than for America and Europe to lift economic sanctions and end their opposition to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That appears to be where the delayed and drawn-out talks are heading.
Consider: On November 24, 2013, when negotiations with Iran produced a Joint Plan of Action, Obama announced: “We have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program.” The interim agreement, Secretary of State John Kerry added, will ensure that Iran “cannot build a nuclear weapon.”
Last week, however, Kerry implicitly acknowledged how wrong that earlier appraisal has been. “So this is not a choice, as some think it is, between the Iran of long ago and the Iran of today,” he said. “It’s not a choice between this moment and getting them to give up their entire nuclear program, as some think. It’s not going to happen.”
Over the weekend, Amir Hossein Motaghi, an Iranian public relations aide, defected to the West. According to the Telegraph (U.K.), he revealed that American diplomats have been carrying Iran’s water. “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal,” he said in an interview.
Summing up the current state of affairs, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency — a position from which he was forced to resign in 2014 because his analyses contradicted the Obama administration’s rosy narratives — told Fox’s Chris Wallace that “Iran is clearly on the march,” in response to which the White House has adopted a policy of “willful ignorance,” and that the only way to limit the damage now is to “stop all engines on this nuclear deal.”
It is unlikely that Obama and his envoys will give up their pleasant fantasies about the Islamic Republic of Iran. On the contrary, “smart diplomacy” may soon include awarding both economic and nuclear weapons to jihadi revolutionaries vowing to annihilate America’s allies and, in time, bring “Death to America!” as well. So if Iran’s supreme leader does become a 21st century emperor, he’ll have the United States to thank — and may do so in creative ways.
Those members of Congress who see this situation clearly need to speak out loudly and push back powerfully. That’s harder for Democrats than for Republicans — I get that. But if they can’t do their jobs now, they might just as well go fishing.
(It’s like awaiting with trepidation the birth of a horribly mutated and probably stillborn baby, as the attending physicians proclaim their skill, patience and good intentions. — DM)
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
North Korea has ample nukes and wants money. Iran wants (and may already have) nukes, has money and will have more as sanctions are ended. The two rogue nations have long had a symbiotic relationship and it has not diminished. Yet “our” P5+1 negotiators, under the leadership of Obama’s minions, ignore that inconvenient problem as well as Iran’s missile development, “possible” nuclear weaponization and increasing regional hegemony.
The main thing that puzzles me is why we continue to focus on Iran’s uranium enrichment. Is Iran (again) playing us for suckers? North Korea is fully capable of enriching uranium for Iran (or for anyone else) and would doubtless be happy to enrich as much as may be desired in exchange for the hard currency freely available to Iran if it were only to cease its own enrichment. North Korea needs the money and is not likely very particular about its sources. Just as our sanctions have not impacted Iran’s enrichment capabilities significantly, neither have they impacted those of North Korea. Perhaps we may awaken before it’s too late and notice Iran playing its Korean hole card in our high-stakes poker game.
We have not awakened and the problem has worsened since 2013.
Soure: American in North Korea
In 2014, I summarized several earlier articles in one titled The Iran scam continues. There, I pointed out that the English language version of the interim P5+1 deal and the White House summary generally ignore “undisclosed” — but known — Iranian sites for missile and warhead development and the work done there– despite warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency. I also noted the Iran – North Korea nexus. Again, the situation has become worse since then. As the magic date of March 31, 2015 arrives, Iran is still demanding – and likely will get — more and more concessions.
“The Iranians are again outplaying the Americans,” said one source in Europe familiar with the negotiations. “They know they’ll have to give up certain things eventually. So they’re digging in their heels on issues that mean everything and preparing to give ground on relatively minor issues—but not yet, and not until they see how much more the Americans are willing to give.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“Iran has successfully dragged the administration toward their positions to attain massive concessions, and, sensing that kind of weakness, they are seeking to press their advantage to gain further ground on critical points,” according to the source, who added that on the sanctions relief front, Iran is seeking a rollback “without dismantling anything.” [Emphasis added.]
What might Iran be willing to give up in order to get additional important concessions? How about stuff that North Korea will be pleased to do in exchange for a share of the extra funds Iran will have as sanctions are eliminated?
The unfinished North Korean-designed reactor that was destroyed by Israeli planes on Sept. 6, 2007, at Deir al-Zour in Syria was in all likelihood an Iranian project, perhaps one meant to serve as a backup site for Iran’s own nuclear plants. We draw this conclusion because of the timing and the close connection between the two regimes: Deir al-Zour was started around the time Iran’s nuclear facilities were disclosed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002, and the relationship between Shiite-ruled Syria and Shiite Iran has been exceptionally tight since Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000. We also know — because Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president and majordomo of the political clergy, proudly tells us in his multivolume autobiography — that sensitive Iranian-North Korean military cooperation began in 1989. Rafsanjani’s commentary leaves little doubt that the Iranian-North Korean nexus revolved around two items: ballistic missiles and nuclear-weapons technology. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
The Iranian-North Korean contacts intensify in 1992, the year that Rafsanjani, with Rouhani at his side, launches a policy of commercial engagement with the Europeans. On Jan. 30, Rafsanjani receives intelligence minister Ali Fallahian and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the ministry’s director of foreign espionage, to discuss “procurement channels for sensitive commodities.” On Feb. 8, Rafsanjani writes, “The North Koreans want oil, but have nothing to give in return but the special commodity. We, too, are inclined to solve their problem.” Rafsanjani orders defense minister Akbar Torkan to organize a task force to analyze the risks and benefits of receiving the “special commodity.” This task force recommends that the president accept the “risk of procuring the commodities in question.” Rafsanjani adds that “I discussed [this] with the Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] in more general terms and it was decided to take action based on the [task force’s] review.” [Emphasis added.]
It’s most unlikely that the “special commodity” and the technical know-how surrounding it have anything to do with ballistic missiles; Rafsanjani expresses anxiety that the “special commodity” could be intercepted by the United States, but doesn’t share this worry about missile procurement. In a March 9, 1992, journal entry, the cleric gloats about the U.S. Navy having tracked a North Korean ship bound for Syria but not two ships destined for Iran. Two days later, when the “special commodity” is unloaded, he writes: “The Americans were really embarrassed.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Odds are good that North Korea helped to jump-start Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. If so, how long did this nefarious partnership continue?
Rouhani was Rafsanjani’s alter ego. He’s undoubtedly the right man to answer all of the PMD questions that the IAEA keeps asking and the Obama administration keeps avoiding. [Emphasis added.]
As noted at the Daily Beast article,
In October 2012, Iran began stationing personnel at a military base in North Korea, in a mountainous area close to the Chinese border. The Iranians, from the Ministry of Defense and associated firms, reportedly are working on both missiles and nuclear weapons. Ahmed Vahidi, Tehran’s minister of defense at the time, denied sending people to the North, but the unconfirmed dispatches make sense in light of the two states announcing a technical cooperation pact the preceding month.
. . . .
[N]o inspections of Iranian sites will solve a fundamental issue: As can be seen from the North Korean base housing Tehran’s weapons specialists, Iran is only one part of a nuclear weapons effort spanning the Asian continent. North Korea, now the world’s proliferation superstar, is a participant. China, once the mastermind, may still be a co-conspirator. Inspections inside the borders of Iran, therefore, will not give the international community the assurance it needs.
The cross-border nuclear trade is substantial enough to be called a “program.” Larry Niksch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., estimates that the North’s proceeds from this trade with Iran are “between $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion annually.” A portion of this amount is related to missiles and miscellaneous items, the rest derived from building Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. [Emphasis added.]
Iran has bought a lot with its money. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, thought to be Tehran’s chief nuclear scientist, was almost certainly in North Korea at Punggye-ri in February 2013 to witness Pyongyang’s third atomic test. Reports put Iranian technicians on hand at the site for the first two detonations as well.
The North Koreans have also sold Iran material for bomb cores, perhaps even weapons-grade uranium. The Telegraph reported that in 2002 a barrel of North Korean uranium cracked open and contaminated the tarmac of the new Tehran airport.
. . . .
Even if Iran today were to agree to adhere to the Additional Protocol, it could still continue developing its bomb in North Korea, conducting research there or buying North Korean technology and plans. And as North Korean centrifuges spin in both known and hidden locations, the Kim regime will have a bigger stock of uranium to sell to the Iranians for their warheads. With the removal of sanctions, as the P5+1 is contemplating, Iran will have the cash to accelerate the building of its nuclear arsenal.
So while the international community inspects Iranian facilities pursuant to a framework deal, the Iranians could be busy assembling the components for a bomb elsewhere. In other words, they will be one day away from a bomb—the flight time from Pyongyang to Tehran—not one year as American and other policymakers hope. [Emphasis added.]
Why does the Obama administration persistently avoid raising the Iran – North Korea nexus? Perhaps doing so would scuttle the “negotiations” and thereby Obama’s dreams about His legacy. Perhaps Obama is keen for Iran to have, and be in a position to use, nukes to enhance its hegemony over the Middle East and to displace Israel as well as regional Arab allies in the Gulf states. Since Israel is unwilling to commit suicide in present circumstances by agreeing to a two state solution with Palestinians — intent upon and capable of causing her destruction — that may well be His only way to bring to fruition His desire for Middle east “peace” through submission and “social justice.”
to transform the Middle East with social justice
Conclusions
The Iran – North Korea nexus, regardless of its importance, was not considered (or was considered but deemed too intractable to approach) when the framework for the P5+1 negotiations was decided and it will not be considered now. That’s bad and dangerous. If a deal with Iran evolves from the current mess, Obama will gloat about His legacy and the Mad Mullahs will gloat about having put one over on the weak and declining free world. That’s frustrating but otherwise of little consequence.
Because of the Iran – North Korea nexus, Iran would need little time to repair any damage Israel and/or her Arab allies might do to Iran’s existing or future nuclear infrastructure. What can and should be done? I wish I knew. Perhaps Iran’s borders could be sealed adequately to keep North Korean stuff out, but that would require an expensive long term commitment. Perhaps others will think of something better. I hope so.
Iranian FM Javad Zarif (R) at press conference announcing nuclear deal Reuters
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