Back where they started: Iranian and American negotiators in Geneva this week. Photo: Twitter
Rouhani’s determination to lift the sanctions has worried some analysts, who posit that the Obama Administration may back down on key verification demands in order to boost the regime’s “moderate” faction.
“[W]e are down to just discussions on how to remove sanctions in exchange for a short term enhanced inspection arrangement that cannot possibly be relied upon to discover undeclared facilities,” Ottolenghi said. “Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is trading long term security for a short term diplomatic victory.”
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As nuclear talks between international negotiators and Iranian representatives got underway in Geneva today following two days of direct US-Iranian bilateral negotiations, the Tehran regime again stressed the importance of lifting sanctions against it, leading some analysts to express concern that sanctions relief may be applied even in the absence of a deal that satisfies western powers.
Iranian chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi described the atmosphere at the bilateral negotiations as having “proceeded in a good ambience.” Aragchi stressed that “there were elaborate discussions on all topics, especially sanctions” – the issue that the Iranian regime is most concerned about.
A New York Times report today portrayed the sanctions issue as the dividing line between Iranian conservatives who reject a deal and the putative moderates, led by President Hasan Rouhani, who see a nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions as the price to pay for Iran’s full participation in international affairs.
“Mr. Rouhani came to office this year promising not just to strike a nuclear deal that would lift economic sanctions but to end Iran’s isolation from the world economy and to promote individual freedoms,” The Timesobserved.
Rouhani’s determination to lift the sanctions has worried some analysts, who posit that the Obama Administration may back down on key verification demands in order to boost the regime’s “moderate” faction.
“Iranian officials have a vested interest in presenting the talks as proceeding according to their list of desiderata,” Michael Doran, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the George W. Bush Administration who now works for the Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, told The Algemeiner. “That said, the Obama administration has shown a disturbing tendency to back away from previous red lines, of which forcing Iran to divulge the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program is one of the most important – precisely because it is a prerequisite for effective monitoring.”
Any deal that offered sanctions relief before Iran has satisfied the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) concerns about the military aspects of its nuclear program “is a very bad deal,” Doran said.
Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Algemeinerthat Iran had persuaded the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany –”that neither its missile program nor the possible military dimensions of it nuclear research should be part of a final deal.”
“Instead, we are down to just discussions on how to remove sanctions in exchange for a short term enhanced inspection arrangement that cannot possibly be relied upon to discover undeclared facilities,” Ottolenghi said. “Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is trading long term security for a short term diplomatic victory.”
President Obama’s goal is not so much to fulfill his campaign promise about the nuclear threat as it is to launch a new détente with the Iran. This is a crucial point since it not only makes him more reluctant to stick to Western demands about nuclear issues but makes it impossible for him to contemplate abandoning the negotiations.
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For the first time since the Iran nuclear talks were extended for the second time last month, the United States and its allies will meet again with Tehran’s negotiators in Vienna on Wednesday. To listen to public statements from the Obama administration, the allied team will be there to insist on a deal that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But the same factors that have tilted these negotiations in Iran’s direction throughout the process still seem to be pushing the outcome toward an agreement that will be touted as a desperately needed foreign-policy triumph for the administration. With both the French becoming more vocal about their dissatisfaction with America’s leadership in the talks and the Islamist regime making no secret of their unwillingness to make more concessions, the question facing the negotiators is not so much whether a deal is possible, but whether the U.S. is able to resist the temptation to continue giving ground to the Iranians in order to get a deal at virtually any price.
As the next round of talks begins, observers need to think back to the allies’ position prior to the signing of the interim deal to understand just how far the U.S. has retreated from its current perilous position. In 2012 when he was running for reelection, President Obama vowed during his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney that any deal must end Iran’s nuclear program. The allies were similarly united behind a position that Iran had no right to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel under any circumstances and that its plutonium plant at Arak must be dismantled.
Since then, the U.S. has accepted the notion that Iran has the right to a nuclear program and that its infrastructure will remain largely in place no matter what the terms of an agreement might say. It has also tacitly recognized Iran’s right to enrichment while claiming that the low levels permitted freeze its progress toward a bomb even though everyone knows these restrictions can easily be reversed. The U.S. has also given every indication it will allow Iran to keep its centrifuges as well as showing no sign that it will press Tehran to give up its plutonium option or stop producing ballistic missiles whose only purpose would be to deliver nuclear warheads. Even worse, the administration seems to be giving up any effort to find out just how much progress the Iranians have made toward weaponizing their nuclear project or to force them to admit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to get the answers to this vital question.
Based on the experience of the last year and a half of talking with Obama’s envoys, Iran’s negotiators know they only have to stand their ground and it’s only a matter of time until the Americans give in to their demands one by one until they get terms that will let them become a nuclear threshold power as well as lifting the economic sanctions that continue to cripple Iran’s economy.
That the Iranian people are clamoring for an end to the sanctions is clear. As the New York Timesreported on Friday, anticipation of the collapse of the restrictions is the talk of Tehran. The eagerness of their would-be European trading partners is just as vocal. In theory, this desire to reconnect Iran to the global economy ought to give the U.S. the leverage to make the Iranians give up their nuclear ambitions. On top of that, the collapse of the price of oil should have Iran even more desperate and the position of the allies even stronger.
But the Iranians know whom they are dealing with. As has become increasingly clear in the last year in which the talks went into two overtime periods despite administration promises that the talks would be finite in length, President Obama’s goal is not so much to fulfill his campaign promise about the nuclear threat as it is to launch a new détente with the Iran. This is a crucial point since it not only makes him more reluctant to stick to Western demands about nuclear issues but makes it impossible for him to contemplate abandoning the negotiations. That means that the Iranians know the president isn’t even thinking, as he should be, of ratcheting up the economic pressure with tougher sanctions, or of making the Islamists fear the possibility that the U.S. would ever use force to ensure the threat is eliminated.
Under these conditions the chances of the U.S. negotiating a deal that could actually stop Iran from ever getting a bomb are slim and none. Instead, the only question remains how far the Iranians are willing to press the president to bend to their will in order to let him declare a victory and welcome this terrorist-sponsoring regime moving closer to regional hegemony as well as a nuclear weapon.
Rather than the renewed diplomacy being a signal for congressional critics from both parties of the president’s policy to pipe down, the new talks should encourage them to work harder to pass the sanctions the president claims he doesn’t need. Unless they act, the path to appeasement of Iran seems to be clear.
Yousuf Al-Kuwailit, who writes the editorials of the Saudi government daily Al-Rai, opined in a December 7, 2014 editorial that, despite the tension that has ostensibly prevailed between the U.S. and Iran ever since the Islamic Revolution, in practice there is secret cooperation between them. As part of this cooperation, he said, Iraq has become nothing but an arena for assuring the interests of these two countries, and Iran has been granted freedom of action in Syria and Lebanon.
Referring to the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, he said they were a farce that would end in contracts and deals, and perhaps even an alliance, between the two countries. He therefore called on the Arabs not to regard the U.S. as a reliable ally, and warned that the U.S. may force the Gulf states to reconcile with Iran, to the detriment of their interests.
“The U.S. appointed the Shah as policeman of the Arab Gulf, turned Iran into a base for conflict with the USSR, and provided Iran with up-to-date weaponry and a nuclear reactor. [Iran, for its part] attempted to take advantage of this situation, as it saw itself as a superpower. [Only] the strength of the USSR… prevented Iran from undertaking military adventures outside its own borders. With [the rise to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini, despite everything that happened at the U.S. Embassy [in Tehran in 1980], when dozens of its staffers were taken hostage and [then-U.S. president Jimmy] Carter carried out a reckless and unsuccessful operation [in attempt to free them]… [despite all this] nothing spoiled the U.S.’s relationship with this country, which it considers one of its strategic and economic outposts by virtue of its location and its history. So the farce… about Iran’s nuclear reactors and non-conventional weapons has taken a clear and final direction, in the form of several deals [between the two countries]…
“Cyrus [the Great],[2] who attacked and destroyed the Arabs, is the spiritual father of the Nazi trend that has characterized Iran’s governments, whether secular or religious. Racial supremacism vis-à-vis the Arabs is a popular [Iranian] obsession. It exists and it is eternal, and even if the mullahs don black turbans [indicating that they are] descendants of the Prophet and have Arab roots, they do not really recognize these roots, but do this only in order to market their national policy to us, prior to marketing their religious school of thought [i.e. the Shi’a]. Anyone who thinks that diplomatic arrangements are aimed at anchoring coexistence between the Arabs and the Iranian ‘Aryans’ is disregarding the nature of the historical reasons [for the tension between the two sides] and its deep roots in the [Iranian] public mentality.
“In order to better understand the unfolding of events, [we need to realize that] the U.S. and its allies set out the initial plan to divide the Arab [regions] a long time ago, and that the Sikes-Picot agreement is only the first outcome [of that plan]. [We must also realize] that handing over Iraq [to Iran], and annexing Syria and later Lebanon to it, and the [silent] agreement [between the two countries] that Iran would have a free hand in these countries – all these are only a prelude to more dangerous activity.
“[Accordingly], relying on the U.S. or thinking it a reliable ally without properly understanding the strategic changes and aims, place us in a situation [of self-delusion], because all the historic elements of power see how positions and policies change but interests remain. This principle will be ultimately applied to all the countries that have a relationship with the U.S., whether economic or strategic, because the Arabs are part of a geographic area whose borders are changing, including through the disappearance of the centrally[-ruled] state in favor of states [based on] sect or nationality.
“One simple event in recent days is the Iranian Air Force’s incursion into Iraq to attack ISIS positions, which the U.S. confirmed but Iran denied. At the same time, the U.S. also ignores the incursion of [Iranian] ground troops under the command of [IRGC Qods Forces commander] Qassem Soleymani into Iraq, [which has been taking place] ever since the U.S. first started managing [Iraq’s] affairs… [In fact,] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated that any Iranian military attack on ISIS was positive. This exposes the significant coordination between the two countries, and belies the statements of U.S. military circles denying any cooperation or coordination [with Iran] in the war on ISIS…
“In the era of [former Iraqi prime minister Nouri] Al-Maliki, Iraq become nothing but an arena for assuring the interests of two players: Iran and the U.S. This came about as part of an agreement that began with [head of the occupational authority of Iraq after the 2003 invasion Paul] Bremer, and no Iraqi government will put an end to it, unless the Iraqis [dare to] oppose their homeland’s dependence on another country – something that is difficult and complicated to do.
“Ultimately, even if the talk about the American-Iranian hostility is true, everything points towards new contracts between the two which are likely to turn into alliance. We could possibly see catastrophic days if the U.S. forces the Gulf states to reconcile with Iran, which will end in a way that will not serve our interests. This is an outcome that should not surprise us, if the reality of [U.S.-Gulf] friendship evolves into [U.S.] dictates [to the Gulf states].”
Netanyahu will ask Washington to exercise its veto against the Palestinian motion. But the Obama administration would rather not, since it supports the Palestinians in principle.
Israel may therefore find itself this time ranged against a united US-Russian front on the Palestinian issue, Moscow’s reward for Washington lining up behind its plan for Syria.
Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Dec. 14, that Israel would “rebuff any UN moves to set a timetable for withdrawal from territory.” He said Israel now faced a possible diplomatic offensive “to force upon us” such a withdrawal within two years.
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High expectations based on unconfirmed reports swirled around Arab capitals Sunday, Dec. 14, that US President Barack Obama, in league with Moscow and Tehran, had turned his longstanding anti-Assad policy on its head. He was said to be willing to accept Bashar Assad’s rule and deem the Syrian army the backbone of the coalition force battling the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
If these expectations are borne out by the Obama administration, the Middle East would face another strategic upheaval: The US and Russia would be on the same side, a step toward mending the fences between them after the profound rupture over Ukraine, and the Washington-Tehran rapprochement would be expanded.
The Lebanese Hizballah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah would be vindicated in the key role they played in buttressing President Assad in power.
But for Saudi Arabia and Israel, an Obama turnaround on Assad would be a smack in the face.
The Saudis along with most of the Gulf emirates staked massive monetary and intelligence resources in the revolution to topple the Syrian ruler.
Israel never went all-out in its support for the Syrian uprising, but focused on creating a military buffer zone under rebel rule in southern Syria, in order to keep the hostile Syrian army, Hizballah and elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps fighting for Assad at a distance from its northern borders with Syria and Lebanon.
If Obama goes through with accepting the Assad regime, Israel will have to write off most of its military investment in Syria. In any case, Israel’s intelligence agencies misjudged the Syrian situation from the first; until a year ago, they kept on insisting that Assad’s days were numbered.
DEBKAfile’s Arab sources single out major pointers to the approach of a reversal of Syrian policy in Washington:
1. The resignation of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary last month. Hagel was adamant in advocating Assad’s ouster.
2. No more than one sentence was devoted to the Syrian conflict in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) summit’s resolutions in Doha last week, despite its centrality to inter-Arab affairs: the summit called for “a political solution” of the Syrian issue that would “ensure Syria’s security, stability and territorial integrity.”
Not a word on Assad’s removal from power.
3. DEBKAfile’s Washington and Moscow sources report that the Syrian issue was destined to figure large in the Rome talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Sunday, Dec. 14.
The Kremlin is making US acceptance of its plan for ending the Syrian conflict the condition for joining the US-European line on the Palestinian demand that next week’s UN Security Council session set a two-year deadline for Palestinian statehood within 1967 border. The text calls for Israeli “occupation of Palestinian territory captured in the 1967 war” to end by November 2016.
France, Britain and Germany are in efforts to draft a resolution of their own.
So any deal Kerry and Lavrov are able to finalize for a tradeoff between the Palestinian and Syria issues will be put before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when he meets the US secretary in Rome Monday, Dec. 15.
Netanyahu will ask Washington to exercise its veto against the Palestinian motion. But the Obama administration would rather not, since it supports the Palestinians in principle.
Israel may therefore find itself this time ranged against a united US-Russian front on the Palestinian issue, Moscow’s reward for Washington lining up behind its plan for Syria.
Moscow proposes that the Syrian opposition throw in the towel and both sides accept a truce – especially in the long battle for Aleppo – for the re-convening of the Geneva 2 peace conference in Moscow, with America’s support and participation. Provincial elections would then take place in Syria to bring the Assad government and opposition elements into collaborating in the various ruling institutions.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov spent two days in Damascus last week to work on the details of this blueprint with Bashar Assad, after which he commented tellingly that he was “in contact with our American partners.”
Russian officials then elaborated on their plan before Hizballah and opposition representatives in Turkey.
Even the US Senate bill calling for fresh sanctions against Moscow and the supply of $350 million worth of military aid to Ukraine under the Ukraine Freedom Support Act is unlikely to rock the Kerry-Lavrov Middle East boat.
President Obama is unlikely to affix his signature to the bill and President Vladimir Putin will take it in his stride if he sees progress in reaching an agreement with the United States on Syria.
Even the American threat to station medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe following Moscow’s refusal to endorse the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty failed to cast a cloud over the Kerry-Lavrov encounter.
The two top diplomats have a solid history of progress in forging diplomatic accords on thorny international issues (e.g. Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s chemical weapons).
If they fail this time, Netanyahu’s talks with Kerry will be lighter and smoother. But if a Syria-Palestinian tradeoff is forged between the two powers, Israel may for the first time find itself on a collision course with a joint US-Russian front on the Palestinian issue.
Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Dec. 14, that Israel would “rebuff any UN moves to set a timetable for withdrawal from territory.” He said Israel now faced a possible diplomatic offensive “to force upon us” such a withdrawal within two years.
Therefore, the Israeli air strikes against a shipment of Russian missiles for Syria for Hizballah last Monday, Dec. 8, may be seen as an act of defiance against this nascent big-power partnership. Our sources reveal that Moscow was not alone in demanding “explanations” for Israel’s “aggressive” – so too did Washington.
(Mainstream media reports in the United States, and reports elsewhere reliant upon them, seem to affect perceptions in Israel and elsewhere of Israel, Islam, Iran and the Iran Scam. Here’s a question. To what extent do Israeli media mimic the U.S. mainstream media? — DM)
All the news that fits the desired narrative, and none other, shall be reported by the legitimate “news” media.
On February 11, 2013 Vice President Biden said that he and Obama are “counting on…legitimate news media” to help in their gun control efforts.
He said he knew people would continue to “misrepresent” the positions taken by himself and Obama, but that “legitimate news media” would cover them in a way that’s helpful to the administration.
In this post, I use the term “legitimate ‘news’ media” in the same sense that Biden apparently did.
I have been reading Sharyl Attkisson’s November 2014 book Stonewalled. Its thesis is that favored businesses, Government agencies and politicians set the agenda of the legitimate “news” media, which defer to them in what they report and how they report it.
Since Obama’s 2008 nomination and subsequent election, the legitimate “news” media have embraced Him by reporting (or creating) good news for Him and His administration while ignoring or disparaging any reports that they consider inconsistent with their pro- Obama ideological talking points. In doing so, they have relied excessively on administration spokespersons without verifying, independently, what they have been told.
On December 11th, The Washington Times published an article by Monica Crowley titled How do we protect Barack Obama today? It relates to the ideological perspective of the media as related by a broadcast journalist shortly before the 2012 presidential elections.
When I asked her for an example, she replied, “Every morning, we hold a meeting about how to build that evening’s broadcast. We’ve been doing this for decades. Everybody talks about which stories we’re going to air, what the line-up looks like, and which reporters we’ll have live in the field and which ones will be filing taped pieces. In the past, the left-wing bias was always left unspoken. People just ‘got it,’ because they all thought the same. [Emphasis added.]
“Once Obama pulled ahead of Hillary and certainly once he became president,” she said, “the bias came out of the closet. Now, every morning when we meet to discuss that night’s show, they literally say — out loud — ‘How do we protect Barack Obama today?’” [Emphasis added.]
Shocking? No more shocking than any other common but unpleasant reality. And it is congruent with Ms. Attkisson’s multiple accounts in Stonewalled. Less than half way through her book, I have learned more than I had previously understood about what, how and why the media reported — and did not report — on the green scam, the Benghazi scam, the Fast and Furious scam, the IRS scam and others. It’s disgusting but neither shocking nor surprising.
We have a “free press” in the legitimate “news” media. They are free to lie, to accept officially authorized “news” and to reject as not newsworthy or wrong anything which disputes, or is even merely inconsistent with, the prevailing narrative based on the official line.
Here are two interviews with Ms. Attkisson:
Many viewers and readers of the legitimate “news” media seem to be catching on. Perhaps that explains the decline in their numbers of viewers and readers. Do the legitimate “news” media care? They must, because it impacts their bottom lines. Will they continue their march into oblivion by running ever more bland pap while hoping for change they can believe in? Or will they, eventually, begin to report hard news, regardless of whom it might distress?
Please read Stonewalled. Depending on where you live, it may (or may not) be available at your local public library.
A satellite image of Iran’s Parchin military complex, where IAEA inspectors have been refused access. Photo: Twitter
Amano will have received scant comfort from the comments yesterday of State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki that the public was “just going to have to trust” that Iran wasn’t in violation of the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) agreement, despite a UN report claiming that the regime had violated international sanctions by acquiring materials for its Arak nuclear facility.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has for the first time publicly refused an Iranian offer to inspect a suspected nuclear site at Marivan, an area near the border with Iraq.
In 2012, the IAEA believed that Marivan was the location of high-explosive experiments linked to setting off a nuclear charge. However, those concerns were not borne out and the Agency shifted its attention to Parchin, a military complex south-east of Tehran.
Diplomats have said that Iran first suggested a visit to Marivan instead of Parchin two years ago and the agency has repeatedly refused any tradeoff, AP reported. But Thursday appeared to be the first time it did so publicly, possibly reflecting exasperation with the lack of progress in its probe since its first attempts more than a decade ago.
The probe is separate from newly extended talks between Iran and six world powers meant to reduce Iran’s technical capacity to make nuclear weapons, AP said. However, its failure would throw hopes of a deal at the talks into doubt because the U.S. says an agreement can be reached only if the IAEA is satisfied with the probe and its final results.
The latest dispute with the Iranian regime comes just as IAEA chief Yukiya Amano asked key members of the organization to provide $5.7 million in extra funding. Amano said the extra cash is needed if the IAEA is to continue monitoring a preliminary deal that temporarily restrains Iran’s nuclear programs as negotiators work on a longer-term agreement. Both the UK and the US have agreed to assist, Reuters reported, quoting Laura Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA, saying “We would like to announce our intent to make an additional extra-budgetary contribution.”
In an interview with CNN last month, Amano stated that “Iran is not fully cooperating with the Agency to clarify the information that may have military aspects.”
The IAEA chief added, “Another problem is that Iran is not allowing us to implement a more powerful verification tool which is called an ‘Additional Protocol.’ Agreement was not reached.”
Amano will have received scant comfort from the comments yesterday of State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki that the public was “just going to have to trust” that Iran wasn’t in violation of the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) agreement, despite a UN report claiming that the regime had violated international sanctions by acquiring materials for its Arak nuclear facility.
After the failure of negotiators to reach an agreement on the nuclear program by last November 24, new talks have been scheduled in Geneva next week. Those discussions on December 17 will be preceded by two days of bilateral talks between the US and Iran, the official Iranian Mehr News Agency reported.
Obama does not want Americans to be free — to think for ourselves, to have our First and Second Amendment and other constitutional rights or to reject any aspect of His radical transformation of our country and others into nations of which He, in His twisted way, can be proud. Part II of this multipart series deals with Obama’s foreign policy.
When el Presidente Chávez took office in 1999, he began only slowly to implement his “reforms.” To a casual observer, few changes were apparent in Venezuela between 1997 when my wife and I first arrived and late 2001 when we left, probably never to return. We had a few concerns about the future of the country under Chávez but they were low on our list of reasons not to buy land and build our home in the state of Merida, up in the Andes. Mainly, we wanted to continue sailing and Merida is inconveniently far from an ocean.
Chávez’ initiatives increased dramatically in number and in magnitude only when he was well into his seemingly endless terms in office. Maybe he had heard the story of the frog put into a pleasantly warm but slowly heating pot of water. The frog failed to realize until too late that he was being boiled for dinner. By then the frog had become unable to jump out of the pot.
President Obama, flush with victory and perhaps not having heard the frog story, turned up the heat quickly at first. As a result, starting in January of last year, President Obama’s dinner was delayed by an uncooperative House of Representatives. The frog survived for a while longer. If reelected and given a compliant Congress, he seems likely to turn up the heat. We are the frog.
The situation has worsened since I wrote that article in January of 2012, not the least in Obama’s foreign policies. His then already rapid pace has accelerated and the consequences of His actions have become more “transformational.” In no particular order, He has done His utmost to enhance racial divisions, to conduct His own “war on women,” to engorge the welfare state, to import many illegal aliens, to punish His enemies and reward His friends and to conceal His intentions and actions and otherwise to deceive the public. He has also continued to militarize Federal, State and local law enforcement entities and others well beyond their legitimate needs to the detriment of those who obey the law. His transformational depredations have also infested His foreign policies and actions. In particular, He has tried to punish His, rather than America’s, enemies and to reward His, rather than America’s, friends. Despite all of this He remains — although decreasingly — popular with His admirers.
The United States has slashed its defense budget to historic lows. It sends the message abroad that friendship with America brings few rewards while hostility toward the U.S. has even fewer consequences. The bedrock American relationships with staunch allies such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and Israel are fading. Instead, we court new belligerents that don’t like the United States, such as Turkey and Iran. ]Emphasis added.]
Radical Islam is spreading in the same sort of way that postwar communism once swamped postcolonial Asia, Africa and Latin America. But this time there are only weak responses from the democratic, free-market West. Westerners despair over which is worse — theocratic Iran, the Islamic State or Bashar Assad’s Syria — and seem paralyzed over where exactly the violence will spread next and when it will reach them. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the late 1930s, it was pathetic that countries with strong militaries such as France and Britain appeased fascist leader Benito Mussolini and allowed his far weaker Italian forces to do as they pleased by invading Ethiopia. Similarly, Iranian negotiators are attempting to dictate terms of a weak Iran to a strong United States in talks about Iran’s supposedly inherent right to produce weapons-grade uranium — a process that Iran had earlier bragged would lead to the production of a bomb. [Emphasis added.]
The ancient ingredients of war are all on the horizon. An old postwar order crumbles amid American indifference. Hopes for true democracy in post-Soviet Russia, newly capitalist China or ascendant Turkey long ago were dashed. Tribalism, fundamentalism and terrorism are the norms in the Middle East as the nation-state disappears. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
What is scary in these unstable times is that a powerful United States either thinks that it is weak or believes that its past oversight of the postwar order was either wrong or too costly — or that after Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, America is no longer a force for positive change. [Emphasis added.]
A large war is looming, one that will be far more costly than the preventative vigilance that might have stopped it.
Islam
Islam is on the march for greater power and against other religions, including Christianity and Judaism. In the Islamic view, Allah is the only true God and Mohamed is His messenger. According to Wikipedia,
Islam teaches that everyone is Muslim at birth[30][31] because every child that is born has a natural inclination to goodness and to worship the one true God alone. . . . [Emphasis added.]
Muhammad commanded: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.
In some but not all cases, it may be possible to escape death by paying, in perpetuity, substantial fines which many simply cannot afford.
Here is a video of Ayan Hirsi Ali‘s September 15, 2014 remarks at a Yale Buckley Foundation symposium. They deal with the clash of civilizations. If you want to skip the introductory formalities, go directly to 03:45. Her remarks begin at 10:33.
Obama, like Ayan Hirsi Ali, was raised as a Muslim child. As she matured and began to think for herself, she found the realities of Islam increasingly hateful. Obama continues to find Islam good and to consider it the “religion of peace. Why?
At a dinner in Washington, Biden attempted to correct her perspective on relationship between the Islamic State and Islam, saying, “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she pushed back, Biden said, “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam…” [Emphasis added.]
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”
Consistently, Obama’s “solution” and that of many other multiculturalists: declare the Islamic State, et al, (but not Islam itself, of course) non-Islamic.
Why Uruguay? It’s one of several South American countries run by Marxist terrorists.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former Marxist terrorist, already offered to take in Syrian refugees and a number of the freed Gitmo Jihadists are Syrians who trained under the future leader of what would become ISIS. If they stay on in Uruguay, they can try to finish the job of killing the Syrian refugees resettled there. If they don’t, they can just join ISIS and kill Christian and Yazidi refugees back in Syria.
It’s a win-win situation for ISIS and Marxist terrorists; less so for their victims.
Most of the Guantanamo detainees freed by Obama were rated as presenting a high risk to America and our allies. They include a bomb maker, a trained suicide bomber, a document forger and a terrorist who had received training in everything up to RPGs and mortars.
Outgoing Uruguayan President José Mujica has made clear that Uruguay would not hold or restrict the six Guantanamo detainees who were recently resettled in his country.
“The first day that they want to leave, they can leave,” said Mujica in a Spanish-language interview with state television TNU. [Emphasis added.]
Please see also this article at The Long War Journal for additional information on the released terrorists. It also observes that
In its final recommendations, issued in January 2010, President Obama’s Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended that all six be transferred “to a country outside the United States that will implement appropriate security measures.” [Emphasis added.]
Right. Was it an humanitarian gesture from Obama? An early Christmas present for the Islamic state and related peace loving Islamic terrorists?
Iran and Nukes
The Israel versus Iran context provides glaring examples of Obama’s predilection for punishing His, rather than America’s, enemies while rewarding His, rather than America’s, friends. As I observed here, Iran is well known as a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism. It is also remarkable for its failure to provide even the most basic human rights.
It has been reported that Iran executed more than four hundred people during the first half of 2014. That’s more than two per day.
Despite Iran’s state anti-Semitism, the recent arrest of U.S. journalists, and the continued oppression of women, the Obama administration has been attempting a rapprochement with the Iranian regime. Fending off Iran hawks in Congress and the D.C. punditocracy, the administration has argued for a policy of constructive engagement, pursuing diplomacy over military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The execution of two gay men, while it may not be surprising, certainly doesn’t make that “engagement” any easier.
Iran’s abysmal human rights record and support for Islamic terrorism appear to be of little if any relevance to Obama and the P5+1 negotiators as they pursue a deal with Iran. As noted here, Iran is already at least a nascent nuclear power and, due to Obama’s twisted world view and His desire for a legacy consistent with it, the P5+1 nuclear negotiations gave, and will likely continue to give, Iran substantial advantages. Iran continues to use those advantages, as P5+1 continues to give Iran all that it demands while receiving little if anything in return. The recent seven month extension highlights this strategy.
[W]hat is clear is that the Islamic Republic, particularly the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have gained considerable amount of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic advantages from this offer by the Obama administration. The Supreme Leader’s strategies to buy time, regain full recovery in the economy, pursue his regional hegemonic and ideological ambitions, and reinitiate his government’s nuclear program have been fulfilled. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[T]he extension of nuclear talks offered to the Islamic Republic is not going to alter Iran’s stand on its nuclear program. Iran will continue holding the position that their demands for the following issues to be met: maintaining a specific number (tens of thousands of) fast-spinning centrifuge machines, Tehran should have the capacity to produce nuclear fuel in the future, and maintain specific level of enriching uranium. In the next few months, the Islamic Republic is not going to give up its capacity to produce plutonium which can be utilized for weapons at its heavy water reactor in the city of Arak. Iran is less likely to provide more evidence proving that it did not carry out secret tests on the development of atomic weapons in Parchin or other military complexes. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic continues to deny the IAEA access to sensitive military site which are suspected to be used for nuclear activities. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
After the extension of the nuclear talks, President Rouhani pointed out on state television that “I promise the Iranian nation that those centrifuges will never stop working.” The extension not only will not alter the Islamic Republic’s position on its nuclear program, but will give the ruling clerics the opportunity to be further empowered, making them more determined to pursue their regional hegemonic ambitions. [Emphasis added.]
Alireza Forghani, a former provincial governor (and pro-nuclear radical) who now serves as strategist at a think tank aligned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in his blog that Iran is pursuing a tactic of “elongation” in the talks, which “never are supposed to be brought to a successful conclusion.” He backs a policy of nuclear weapons being the Islamic Republic’s “definite right” and looks forward to a time when the United States faces “a nuclear Iran who not only has nuclear power, but also is equipped with nuclear weapons.” [Emphasis added.]
In a previous post headlined “Iran Needs a War,” Forghani cautioned that “American politicians should know that their next war with the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the war which guarantees Iranian Muslims survival, will be an utter destruction.” He also denounced “the childish behavior of Obama” regarding the negotiations and said that “nuclear weapons capabilities are essential in order to prevent U.S. freedom of action” and that Iran needed the capability to mount a “rapid response at the level of the atom bomb.” [ Emphasis added.]
The Obama administration is trying to portray the failure to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran as just part of the ebb and flow of the diplomatic process. But the signals coming from Tehran indicate that arms control negotiations are just another tool in Iran’s drive to achieve nuclear capability. [Emphasis added.]
Iran contends that the Obama Administration continues to lie about Iranian concessions, which Iran denies having made. Due to the overall credibility deficit of the Obama administration, I consider Iran more credible on the matter.
Iran over the weekend pushed back against key claims made by the administration to lawmakers and the press about further concessions agreed to by Iran following the last round of talk in Vienna regarding the country’s contested nuclear program.
In talking points disseminated to congressional offices since the extension in talks was announced, the administration has claimed that the terms of the agreement—which will prolong talks through July 2015—included “significant concessions” by Tehran, according to the Associated Press. [Emphasis added.]
However, Iran says that this is a lie and that no new concessions have been agreed upon.
Islam and Israel
Islam, the Religion of Peace Death and Subjugation, is not the root of all evil, but it engages in and promotes far more than its fair share of the worst types. Obama assists it in its depredations. Here’s a video of a Muslim preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem speaking with great warmth heat about Jews.
The words of that “preacher-teacher,” as Ayan Hirsi Ali would probably characterize him, and those of like-minded Islamists, have gained many devout followers among Palestinians. According to this article,
An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion poll released Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP).
. . . .
The poll found 86 percent of respondents believe the Al-Aqsa mosque is in “grave danger” from Israel. It said 80 percent supported individual attacks by Arabs who have stabbed Israelis or rammed cars into crowded train stations. [Emphasis added.]
Islamists have been regularly clashing with Israeli police on the Temple Mount and escalated a campaign of harassment against Jewish visitors, who are already under severe restrictions due to Muslim pressure. The violence reached a peak with the recent attempted murder of prominent Jewish Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick.
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has blamed Israel for the ongoing tensions in Jerusalem.
The Iranian regime has launched a nationwide social media campaign called, “We Love Fighting Israel,” which encourages Iranian children, teens, and Internet users to photograph themselves alongside messages of hate for the Jewish state.
. . . .
Thousands of Iranians are reported to have already joined the electronic movement following comments by Khamenei’s outlining Iran’s goal of destroying the Jewish state.
“Our people love fighting against the Zionists and the Islamic Republic has proved this as well,” [Supreme Leader] Khamenei was quoted as saying in a recent speech by the country’s state-run media. “By Allah’s Favor and Grace, we have passed through the barrier of denominational discord.” [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
. . . .
The anti-Israel campaign now “has gone viral on the web,” according to Iran’s state-controlled Mehr News Agency, “getting more and more boost from individuals who post photos reading similar sentences, [and] sharing the #Fightingthezionists hash tag.”
In 1975, after repeated attempts to kick Israel out of the U.N., the General Assembly succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Arab countries and determined that Zionism is racism. The decision was the cornerstone of the institutionalized factory of discrimination against Israel at the United Nations. The U.N. waited 16 long years before retracting its “Zionism is racism” decision. The protocols have been updated, but even with no official reminder, the stain remains on the walls of the general assembly hall and the stench is still in the U.N.’s corridors today. [Emphasis added.]
Of the 193 states that belong to the U.N., only 87 are democracies — less than half. The countries that are taking advantage of the democratic process at the United Nations are the same ones that suppress any spark of democracy within their borders. Although the U.N. uses a parliamentary mechanism, many of the hands raised to vote are the hands of brutal dictators. [Emphasis added.]
The U.N. has gone from being a stage for courageous statecraft to a theater of the absurd: The General Assembly allows wild Palestinian incitement, the Security Council has Venezuela and Malaysia managing peacekeeping forces, and then there is the Human Rights Council, in which the guardians of humanity are regimes without a shred of humanity, regimes that invent blood libels against Israel while in Syria, a tyrant slaughters hundreds of thousands of his own people. [Emphasis added.]
The UN created a unique organization, UNRWA, to handle refugees from Palestine/Israel while every other global refugee is managed in an under-funded, undermanned separate agency. The UN compounds the abuse by only allowing descendants of UNRWA to receive aid, while denying descendants of the rest of the world’s refugees any support.
. . . .
The UN only condemned the nationalist movement of Israelis as “racism” while ignoring nationalism of other countries
The UN censured Israel when the Israeli Prime Minister visited the holiest spot for Jews during regular visiting hours, but didn’t say a word while some countries were slaughtering thousands of people.
Unlike the UN believer in the cartoon, Obama remains unwilling to learn about the bases of, let alone to consider, other perceptions.
A senior official of the United Nation Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), also known to some as the United Nations Rocket Warehousing Agency), recently called for a boycott of the Jerusalem Post for publishing an editorial
by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid that called for an audit of all allocated funds to UNRWA and the dismissal of its Hamas-affiliated employees. (“Proud Palestinians must lead the fight to reform UNRWA,” Dec. 1, 2014.)
And Obama often relies on the U.N. to tell Him how and where to “lead.”
For Obama and European leaders, Israel is reducible to the peace process. And the Israeli left depends on the support of foreign governments for its network of foreign funded non-profit organizations. The Israeli left can’t let go of its exploding version of ObamaCare [the peace process] because the left is becoming a foreign organization with limited domestic support. Its electorate isn’t in Israel; it’s in Brussels. [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
The Israeli left is short on ideas, both foreign and domestic, and its last remaining card is Obama.
Escalating a crisis in relations has been the traditional way for US administrations to force Israeli governments out of office. Bill Clinton did it to Netanyahu and as Israeli elections appear on the horizon Obama would love to do it all over again.
There’s only one problem.
The United States is popular in Israel, but Obama isn’t. Obama’s spats with Netanyahu ended up making the Israeli leader more popular. The plan was for Obama to gaslight Israelis by maintaining a positive image in Israel while lashing out at the Jewish State so that the blame would fall on Netanyahu. [Emphasis added.]
Obama considers Prime Minister Netanyahu the principal impediment to realization of His fantasy of Palestinian peace through creation of a Palestinian state. “Peace” with the Palestinians will not bring peace to Israel — aside from Islamic peace through death. Yet it seems that Obama is meddling in Israeli politics to get Prime Minister Netanyahu removed from office. Obama recently met with Netanyahu’s Israeli opponents:
The White House is still working on a detailed plan of action, but has lost no time in setting up appointments for the president to receive heads of the parties sworn to overthrow Netanyahu – among others, ex-minister Lapid, opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog of Labor and Tzipi Livni (The Movement), who was fired this week as Justice Minister along with Lapid. [Emphasis added.]
They will be accorded attractive photo-ops with Obama and joint communiqués designed to signify to the Israeli voter that the US president would favor their election to the future government and the country as a whole would gain tangibly from a different government to the incumbent one. [Emphasis added.]
This White House campaign would be accompanied by leaks from Washington for putting Netanyahu and his policies in a derogatory light. Messages to this effect were transmitted to a number of serving political figures as an incentive to jump the Likud-led ship to opposition ranks. The US administration has begun hinting that it may emulate the Europeans by turning the screws on Israel as punishment for the prime minister’s signature policy of developing West Bank and Jerusalem development construction. [Emphasis added.]
Conclusions
Should we, who claim to be civilized and therefore to support democracy with freedom — including freedom of religion but not freedom to engage in genocidal religious wars — respect and emphasize with the Islamic views of the “preacher-teacher” in the video embedded above and of Iran’s Supreme Leader that the Jews who infest the Earth must be hated and killed? Does Hillary Clinton’s sympathy and empathy meme apply only to our enemies? Does she consider the preacher-teacher, the Supreme Leader and their ilk to be our friends or enemies?
Rather than be troubled by the nature of Islam, Obama heartily approves of it. As far as the Middle East is concerned, He is troubled principally by Israel’s refusal to commit national suicide by bowing to His every demand which, in His apparent view, should bring peace to the entire region. If Israel fails to do as He demands, it must suffer the fate of a rabid dog so that its infection cannot spread.
Obama has been a disaster as a world leader and, when He has actually tried to lead He has done so, often in conjunction with the U.N., to deprive many of their freedoms while enhancing the abilities of others, particularly devotees of Islam, to trash even more of those freedoms. If, as seems increasingly likely, the P5+1 negotiations as eventually concluded permit Iran to get (or keep) nukes and the means to use them, the world will be a much less safe place for all.
If Obama succeeds, Iran will see to it that Israel is not the only nation to suffer the consequences of His actions.
[T]he State Department never conducts lessons-learned exercises to determine why previous episodes of diplomacy have failed.
Kerry is like a gambler who has lost everything, but figures if only he is given one more round at the craps table, he can win big. American national security, however, is nothing with which to gamble. Especially when a gambler is desperate, the house will always win. In this case, however, the house is not Washington, but rather Tehran.
**********
As Jonathan Tobin notes, Colum Lynch’s Foreign Policy bombshell report about Iran’s covert efforts to buy equipment for its Arak plant, a facility which could produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb, raises questions about the logic of the Obama administration, and the recent comments by both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry with regard to the wisdom of extending nuclear talks with Iran.
If Lynch’s report is true—and it appears very much to be so—then there are two possibilities as to what happened vis-à-vis American diplomacy. The first is that Iranian diplomats were always insincere in pursuit of a nuclear resolution, and lied outright to Kerry, Undersecretary Wendy Sherman, Clinton, Biden-aide Jake Sullivan, and other officials who have championed the drive for nuclear talks with the current Iranian administration. That possibility is troubling enough, but the second scenario is as troubling, and that is that Iranian diplomats were perfectly sincere, but that the regime simply couldn’t care less what its diplomats said and pursued its own goals irrespective of any commitments they made.
A key theme of my recent book exploring the history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes (of which Iran is the marquee example) is that the State Department never conducts lessons-learned exercises to determine why previous episodes of diplomacy have failed. One example they might consider is the pre-Iraq War negotiations with Iran: Immediately prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, National Security Council official Zalmay Khalilzad along with Ambassador Ryan Crocker met with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s UN ambassador (and its current foreign minister) in secret talks in Geneva. Almost simultaneously, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Both talks solicited the same Iranian pledge: Iranian officials would not interfere with coalition forces in Iraq, and Iran would not insert its own personnel or militias into Iraq.
In hindsight, the Iranians there, too, lied. Soon after Saddam’s fall, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infiltrated 2,000 fighters, militiamen, and Qods Force personnel into Iraq replete with radio transmitters, money, pamphlets, and supplies. The source for that statement? Iranian journalists. Those most enthusiastic for rapprochement, however, are now placing their hopes in the same Mr. Zarif, the man who a decade ago either lied shamelessly or bluffed about the power he did have to control the behavior of the IRGC and influence the supreme leader. Then again, there is a reason why, before he became vice president, Joe Biden was Tehran’s favorite senator.
Kerry is like a gambler who has lost everything, but figures if only he is given one more round at the craps table, he can win big. American national security, however, is nothing with which to gamble. Especially when a gambler is desperate, the house will always win. In this case, however, the house is not Washington, but rather Tehran.
(Is either the Obama Administration or Iran to be believed? Or are both just continuing to “Gruberize” their “stupid” audiences?– DM)
Iran’s heavy water nuclear facility is backdropped by mountains near the central city of Arak, Iran / AP
The Obama administration is misleading lawmakers and the public about purported concessions made by Iran in the latest round of nuclear talks, top Iranian officials insisted over the weekend, renewing a year-old debate about the administration’s transparency regarding the fragile negotiations.
Iran over the weekend pushed back against key claims made by the administration to lawmakers and the press about further concessions agreed to by Iran following the last round of talk in Vienna regarding the country’s contested nuclear program.
In talking points disseminated to congressional offices since the extension in talks was announced, the administration has claimed that the terms of the agreement—which will prolong talks through July 2015—included “significant concessions” by Tehran, according to the Associated Press.
However, Iran says that this is a lie and that no new concessions have been agreed upon.
The confusion over what was exactly agreed upon between the sides is likely to impact an ongoing political dispute between Congress and the White House over whether continued diplomacy is enabling the Islamic Republic to advance its nuclear program.
The conflict also harkens back to similar disagreements regarding the November 2013 interim nuclear agreement struck in Geneva.
Iran, at that time, also accused the White House of lying about the deal after several statements by the administration were later rebuffed by Iran’s negotiating team. The administration was ultimately forced to walk back these statements.
In the latest round of talks, Iran is said to have promised to permit surprise inspections of its nuclear sites and to eradicate portions of its uranium stockpiles, according to terms of the deal being presented by the White House to lawmakers.
The State Department claimed to the Washington Free Beacon that “additional steps” had been agreed upon in the talks.
“There are additional steps Iran has agreed to take in order to provide further proof of the peaceful nature of its nuclear program,” a State Department official told the Free Beacon when asked about the terms of the extension. “These include increased access on centrifuge production, more conversion of oxide into fuel, curbs on work on certain enrichment technologies, and curbs on certain forms of [research and development].”
However, Iranian officials maintain that none of this is true.
The conflicting accounts raise new questions about what exactly was agreed upon under the extension, the details of which are being closely guarded by the White House and are only accessible to those with classified security clearance.
In response to the AP’s initial report about the White House’s claims, a top Iranian official said that no further concessions have been agreed to by Iran.
“The conditions for extending the nuclear negotiations to July 1, 2015, were like the conditions reining the extension of the previous deadlines and no new undertaking has been added to it,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI,), told the country’s state-run media over the weekend.
Other Iranian officials also rejected the terms of the deal as presented to Congress by the White House.
“A source close to the Tehran-powers negotiations said that ‘this is not true at all and the trend of R&D on enrichment is moving along its natural track at the AEOI,’” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), a leading advocate of imposing greater sanctions on Tehran, called the conflicting statements from the United States and Iran “deeply troubling.”
“It’s deeply troubling that the United States and Iran cannot even publicly agree on what it is that they privately agreed to in the November 24th extension of the nuclear talks,” Kirk told the Free Beacon.
“None of this bodes well for the administration’s chances of getting a good Iran deal that can survive in the 114th Congress, let alone after Obama’s term ends,” Kirk said.
Sources working closely on the Iran issue speculated that the administration might be exaggerating the terms in order to appease hawkish members of Congress who are seeking to impose greater sanctions on Tehran, a policy the White House objects to.
“The administration desperately needs to convince Congress that Iran’s uranium and plutonium programs are actually frozen, which isn’t true, and so they could very well be lying about these new concessions,” said a foreign policy analyst involved in the public debate over the extension.
“The problem is that there’s no way to tell. White House officials have no credibility left, because they’ve been caught outright lying to lawmakers and journalists about imaginary Iranian concessions before,” the source said. “No one would be surprised if they did it again.”
A State Department official did not respond to further questions about Iran’s most recent claims that the administration is misleading lawmakers about the extension.
A similar fight between Iran and the White House erupted in 2013, when Tehran accused the White House of lying about the terms of the deal as presented to reporters in a fact sheet.
The White House originally announced that Iran “has committed to no further advances of its activities” on the Arak heavy water reactor, which potentially provides Iran with a plutonium path to the bomb.
That claim was walked back just days later by the State Department after a top Iranian official declared that Iran would continue bolstering its plutonium producing facility at Arak.
In addition to discrepancies over Iran’s work at Arak, the administration also was forced at the time to admit that the nuclear deal did not put an end to Iran’s controversial ballistic missiles program.
Iranian officials were quick to publicly lash out at the White House for lying about the interim deal, which is still in effect as talks continue through next year.
“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in the days following the 2013 interim agreement.
US Vice President Joe Biden (L) meets with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Beylerbeyi Palace in Istanbul, Nov. 22, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls US “impertinent” on Syria, says West likes seeing Muslim children die; Israel considers extension of Iran nuclear talks as better than a bad deal.
*********************
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Nov. 26 that he is “against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands” coming from “12,000 kilometers away” (7,456 miles), his latest not-so-veiled rebuke of US policy toward Syria.
Erdogan’s outburst came four days after US Vice President Joe Biden departed Turkey. Biden, the latest in a seemingly endless stream of senior US official visitors to Ankara, spoke of the “depth” of the US-Turkish relationship and how the United States “needs” Turkey. The US vice president praised Turkey’s turnaround, for now, in its ties with Iraq, as reported this week by Semih Idiz, and Turkey’s handling of close to 1.6 million Syrian refugees (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number at approximately 1.1 million).
Despite the predictable deadening public platitudes, Biden’s visit, like those of other senior US officials, was a flop for the anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition. Erdogan prefers to hold his support against IS as ransom for a US-backed buffer or no-fly zone inside Syria. Not that the Turkish president, or others hawking such a plan, present any “day after” strategies for Syria; explain how a buffer zone or “doubling down” on the Syrian opposition would do anything more than prolong the war and wreck what remains of the Syrian state; lay out how the United States can avoid another Libya or another Iraq (that is, a failed state or a prolonged occupation) if it pursues regime change in Syria; identify where a post-transition stabilization force may come from given the limitations of Syrian rebel forces; or explain why the jihadists would not gain the upper hand in a divided post-Assad Syria with such a weak and fragmented opposition.
Turkey’s unwillingness to combat IS and other terrorist groups stands in contrast with US allies Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain, as well as Iran, all of whom have concerns about US policy but are nonetheless engaged in combat operations against terrorists in Syria and Iraq.
Bruce Riedel explains how Saudi Arabia, which uncovered an IS-linked cell operating in the kingdom this week, is struggling with managing the threat from IS and its regional rivalry with Iran, but is nonetheless playing a leading role in the anti-IS coalition. Hossein Mousavian points out that among the “ground forces” combating IS, besides US-supported Syrian rebel forces, are the Iraqi and Syrian armies and Hezbollah, which are all backed by Iran. According to Mousavian, Tehran could be ready to do more if a nuclear deal is reached. Ali Hashem reports this week on Hezbollah’s role in Iraq, and Ali Mamouri chronicles the higher profile role that Iran Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani is playing with Iraqi forces battling IS. Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani, whose forces are also on the frontlines of the battle against IS, praised Iran’s role, saying in August that “Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition” to confront the IS advance toward Erbil. Syrian government warplanes bombed Raqqa, an IS stronghold, on Nov. 25, although the United States accused Syria of killing many civilians in the process. US-led coalition forces also conducted airstrikes against IS forces in Raqqa this week.
Erdogan appears to be the odd man out in the coalition, compared with the actions of the other regional powers, and his policies and statements should raise broader questions about the direction of Turkish foreign policy, including what it means for Turkey’s membership bid in the EU and its role in NATO. Idiz writes that Erdogan appears to be turning his back on Turkey’s EU membership bid. On Nov. 28, the eve of Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey, Erdogan offered the following about Western countries: “Believe me, they don’t like us,” AFP reported him as saying. “They look like friends, but they want us dead — they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?”
The United States might soon tire of the all-pain, no-gain appeals to Turkey and simply ask Erdogan to pick a side in the US war against terrorists, making clear, as US President Barack Obama recently said, that the United States is not planning to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at this time. Turkey is a critical US ally that must play a constructive role in Syria and the region, but the trends are becoming alarming. The United States, for its part, does not “need” Turkish bases to train anti-IS or anti-Assad rebels, does not “need” Turkish troops in Syria, and certainly does not “need” a buffer or no-fly zone, unless Washington is longing for a quagmire. What the coalition “needs” is for Turkey to crack down, hard, on the terrorist transit, trade and financial networks operating through Turkey into Syria, which have contributed to the rise of these groups over the past three years. Turkey’s intensified efforts at border security and counterterrorism cooperation would be a major contribution to the coalition. It does not seem to be an unreasonable ask, even if Ankara disagrees with the US approach to Assad.
As this column wrote on Nov. 16, it is the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran, and the potential for regional cooperation with Iran, that is the key to a settlement of many of the region’s problems, including a political settlement in Syria and whether Assad stays or goes: “US interests in both defeating IS and securing a political settlement to end the Syria war depend on Iran’s good offices in Damascus. The United States cannot deal with Assad, but Iran can. Iran, like Washington’s regional allies, has a high tolerance for the spilling of Syrian blood. If the United States wants to deal Iran out in Syria, especially in the context of a bid to oust Assad, then Iran’s card will be to make the awful situation in Syria go from bad to worse. Iran is not necessarily immovable on Assad’s survival. Iran’s four-point plan for Syria includes a decentralization of power away from the Syrian presidency. Iranian officials privately signal that Assad may not be untouchable, under the right conditions, but such conversations — if they are to bear fruit — can only occur with Iran in a spirit of collaboration, not confrontation. Otherwise, Iran will simply hunker down, and the war will go on.”
Israel OK with extension of Iran nuclear talks
The seven-month extension of the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran has sparked reactions across the region. Laura Rozen reports from Vienna that progress was made as the Nov. 24 deadline approached but observers are still divided on whether this can be turned into a finished deal in the upcoming months.
Ben Caspit writes of the furious diplomatic effort by Israel to fend off what it would consider a bad deal: “Israel has invested enormous amounts of energy in this. Over the past few months, and especially in the last few weeks, Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz, who has coordinated these efforts, has become a ‘frequent flyer,’ plowing through the relevant capitals right and left. And Steinitz wasn’t alone in this. Senior Israeli intelligence officials also made frequent trips abroad to present their colleagues in different relevant capitals with intelligence documents, intelligence per se, and plenty of new information obtained by the Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies about the dangers inherent in that ‘bad agreement.’
“As the deadline approached this week, Steinitz intensified his activities, making two more quick visits, to London and to Paris, and meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Steinitz’s message, backed as always with intelligence reports, expert assessments and various analyses: ‘The agreement under discussion is a terrible agreement. It leaves room for huge potential breaches, which means that it is propped up on weak foundations. If those gaps are not sealed, it would be preferable to avoid reaching any agreement whatsoever than to sign the current one.’”
Retired Israel Defense Forces Gen. Michael Herzog writes that Israel views the extension of the talks as the least of all possible evils, “The truth is that Israel’s ability to influence the relationship between Iran and the West has reduced considerably. The credibility of its military option (which still exists) has decreased in the eyes of the United States and Iran, and its tense relationship with US President Barack Obama’s administration makes it difficult to engage in open dialogue between the two country’s top leaders. At this stage, as long as Iran is not hurtling toward the critical nuclear threshold, all that is left for Israel to do is to maintain the hope that Iran will continue to be intransigent, and that the US Congress will continue to play tough.”
Back where they started: Iranian and American negotiators in Geneva this week. Photo: Twitter
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