It may be that these opponents believe that the agreement is a done deal that cannot be stopped and that the current U.S. administration will follow through with it no matter what. This approach reflects not realism but ignorance. Obviously the administration wants to follow through with the deal. But the deal is no longer in it hands. It is Khamenei who is throwing a spanner in the works, declaring that he will not implement the agreement that the West believed it concluded on July 14.
In order to get Iran to implement the agreement, the language of the JCPOA will have to be changed and a new Security Council resolution will have to be passed. While in theory this would not be impossible, it would require a new process, entailing, at the very least, a public political debate in the West – one that would reveal Iran’s unreliability as a partner and would cost valuable time. And time is not on the side of the U.S. administration.
*****************
On September 3, 2015, not two months after the July 14 announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Vienna and its celebration at the White House and in Europe, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dropped a bombshell.
In a speech to the Iranian Assembly of Experts, he backtracked from the agreement, demanding a new concession: that the sanctions be “lifted,” not merely “suspended.”[1] If that term is not changed, said Khamenei, there is no agreement. If the West only “suspends” the sanctions, he added, Iran will merely “suspend” its obligations. Giving further credence to his threat, he announced that it is the Iranian Majlis that must discuss and approve the agreement (or not), because it represents the people – when it is well known that the majority of its members oppose it, and Iranian President Hassan Rohani made every effort to prevent such a discussion in the Majlis from taking place.
Adding insult to injury, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Khamenei and head of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research, said on September 19 that the negotiations, concluded and celebrated less than two months previously on July 14, are actually “not over yet.”[2]
Khamenei’s demand to replace “suspension” with “lifting” is not just semantic. It is a fundamental change, because the snapback of sanctions – the major security mechanism for the entire agreement – cannot take place with “lifting,” but only with “suspension.”
Ever since Khamenei dropped this bombshell, the Western media has maintained total silence, as if this were a trivial matter not worthy of mention, let alone analysis.
One might understand this reaction on the part of those who support the deal. Perhaps they are shocked, at a loss, and therefore hope that if they pretend they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Indeed, this is the futile policy regularly adopted by ostriches.
However, one cannot but be astounded by the silence on the part of the opponents of the deal, including – oddly enough – Israel and the U.S. Republicans. One would expect these opponents to pounce on Khamenei’s statement and raise hell over Iran’s infanticide of the two-month-old agreement. One would expect them to bring it to the forefront of a new debate over the deal in any possible forum – in the U.S., the U.N., and the E.U.
But – nothing.
It may be that these opponents believe that the agreement is a done deal that cannot be stopped and that the current U.S. administration will follow through with it no matter what. This approach reflects not realism but ignorance. Obviously the administration wants to follow through with the deal. But the deal is no longer in it hands. It is Khamenei who is throwing a spanner in the works, declaring that he will not implement the agreement that the West believed it concluded on July 14.
In order to get Iran to implement the agreement, the language of the JCPOA will have to be changed and a new Security Council resolution will have to be passed. While in theory this would not be impossible, it would require a new process, entailing, at the very least, a public political debate in the West – one that would reveal Iran’s unreliability as a partner and would cost valuable time. And time is not on the side of the U.S. administration.
Right now, Iran is exposed almost daily as the ally of Russia against the U.S. Three months after the “historic” agreement declared by the White House, Iran continues to seek “Death to America,” and the Iranian foreign minister, the “hero” of the agreement, needs to apologize in Iran for “accidentally” shaking hands with the U.S. president. The truth of the agreement is emerging, and it is not certain that what Iran is now demanding will pass.
Interestingly enough, the White House’s first reaction was to brush off Khamenei’s demand. Iran, said Josh Earnest, should just do what it what it had undertaken to do in the agreement, and stop roiling the waters.[3]
A more sober response followed. There was hope that the meeting set for September 28 between the P5+1 and Iranian foreign ministers, on the margins of the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly, would produce a solution, but this hope was in vain. Iranian President Rohani fled back to Iran, on the pretext of the hajj tragedy in Mecca, and no one in the West knows how to proceed.
The Western media, for its part, is perpetuating its total blackout on the issue, hoping perhaps for a miracle in the secret U.S.-Iran talks, which this administration has been conducting for years. But even a secret U.S. concession will be no solution. Even if it were to offer a secret commitment to remove the sanctions altogether, Khamenei will not be satisfied. He openly challenged the U.S., and he needs its public capitulation. He will celebrate publicly any secret concession. Moreover, any new U.S. concession will prompt Khamenei to make ever more demands.
The most recent developments, and the emergence of Russia as a new-old contender for power vis-à-vis the U.S. in the world, particularly in the Middle East, will only encourage Khamenei to cling to his tried and true ally, Russia. Indeed, this administration has no objection to Russia’s resurgence in the Middle East, but Russia’s blatant anti-U.S. stance in every venue except in the private, honeyed Putin-Obama talks will ultimately lead even the blindest of Democrats to realize that Iran is indeed an enemy of the U.S. – as Iran plainly declares – and that any further concessions to it make no sense.
It seems that the worst nightmare of the supporters of the deal – that Iran will do away with the July 14 agreement – is about to come to pass.
[3] Earnest said: “What we have indicated all along is that once an agreement was reached, as it was back in mid-July, that we would be focused on Iran’s actions and not their words, and that we will be able to tell if Iran follows through on the commitments that they made in the context of these negotiations. And that is what will determine our path forward here. We’ve been crystal clear about the fact that Iran will have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their nuclear program before any sanctions relief is offered – and this is everything from reducing their nuclear uranium stockpile by 98 percent, disconnecting thousands of centrifuges, essentially gutting the core of their heavy-water reactor at Arak, giving the IAEA the information and access they need in order to complete their report about the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. And then we need to see Iran begin to comply with the inspections regime that the IAEA will put in place to verify their compliance with the agreement. And only after those steps and several others have been effectively completed, will Iran begin to receive sanctions relief. The good news is all of this is codified in the agreement that was reached between Iran and the rest of the international community. And that’s what we will be focused on, is their compliance with the agreement.” Whitehouse.gov, September 4, 2015.
“Kirchner went on to say at the U.N. that when Samore was asked to provide the request in writing, all communications immediately ceased and Samore disappeared.” The Obama people knew that what they were doing was wrong, and would be hated by the American people.
“Argentine President: Obama Administration Tried To Convince Us To Give Iran Nuclear Fuel,” by Taylor Tyler, HNGN, September 30, 2015 (thanks to Banafsheh):
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner claimed Monday afternoon at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City that in 2010, the Obama administration tried to convince the Argentinians “to provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear fuel,” reported Mediaite.
Kirchner said that two years into Obama’s first term, his administration sent Gary Samore, former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Argentina to persuade the nation to provide Iran with nuclear fuel, which is a key component of nuclear weapons.
Kirchner’s full remarks are as follows, per the Argentine president’s official website:
“In 2010 we were visited in Argentina by Gary Samore, at that time the White House’s top advisor in nuclear issues. He came to see us in Argentina with a mission, with an objective: under the control of IAEA, the international organization in the field of weapons control and nuclear regulation, Argentina had supplied in the year 1987, during the first democratic government, the nuclear fuel for the reactor known as “Teheran”. Gary Samore had explained to our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Héctor Timerman, that negotiations were underway for the Islamic Republic of Iran to cease with its uranium enrichment activities or to do it to a lesser extent but Iran claimed that it needed to enrich this Teheran nuclear reactor and this was hindering negotiations. They came to ask us, Argentines, to provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear fuel. Rohani was not in office yet. It was Ahmadinejad’s administration and negotiations had already started.”…
Kirchner went on to say at the U.N. that when Samore was asked to provide the request in writing, all communications immediately ceased and Samore disappeared….
(Unfortunately, Obama was “in the game” which led to the nuke “deal” with Iran. There, he was not incompetent; he got what he sought. — DM)
Obama has made a lot of foreign policy mistakes in office, but his capitulation on the Iranian nuclear talks followed by Russia’s move into Syria is impossible to explain away as anything but a stupendous strategic fiasco. Incompetence is too nice a word. Obama was never even in the game.
*********************
It is sometimes said that in negotiations with foreigners, American leaders play checkers, while their wilier opponents play chess. There is perhaps some truth to this, as American leaders sometimes chase short-term political results, a consequence of democratic governance and constantly changing leadership. By contrast, despotic Persians are credited with inventing chess, and in modern times autocratic Russians have been its master, and so it is tempting to say of President Obama’s dealings with those two countries that the analogy holds.
But that is way too charitable. As Vladimir Putin skillfully reasserts Russian power and influence in the Middle East with Islamic Persian Iran as a willing partner, a more apt analogy might be that while the Russians and Iranians move their chessmen, isolating and threatening opposing pieces, Obama is not even at the table, but rather childishly looking on, as he pushes diplomatic dirt around the Middle East sandbox.
For over 150 years, a primary objective of Western diplomatic and military strategy was to keep the Russians out of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. In the 1850s, the British and French went to war in Crimea to protect the Ottomans from Russian predation and to preserve the balance of power. Later, the so-called “Great Game” centered on similar British efforts to frustrate Russian domination of Iran and Afghanistan. A century later, the United States took up the task, offsetting Russian influence in newly socialist Arab dictatorships by backing Israel and more traditional Arab monarchies in the Middle East, while openly and successfully opposing the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan.
Today, one can’t even say there remains any Western strategy regarding Russia. Western Europe has mostly forfeited its military and political influence overseas to support decadent welfare states, even as it is being progressively and deliberately overwhelmed by millions of Islamist migrants. Under Obama, who supports and admires Europe’s demise, the United States has increasingly joined in the decline. The laughable Libyan campaign, “fought” by Europeans while the U.S. led from behind, set an example of pursuing a feckless, feel-good military campaign without regard for consequences or traditional strategic concerns. Obama’s encouragement of the so-called Arab Spring and its Islamist provocateurs almost lost Egypt and did lose Syria, with catastrophic humanitarian and geopolitical results.
Putin is taking advantage of American weakness and inaction. A half-century of successful American effort to keep the Russians out of the Middle East has been forfeit in a few months of breathtaking American diplomatic and military incompetence. Obama’s capitulation in the Iran deal effectively completed the groundwork for the Russian move, Putin having carefully monitored America’s year-long and ineffectual air campaign against ISIS. Putin now claims that Russia’s push into Syria is to redeem the campaign against ISIS with Russian troops fighting with Syria and Hezb’allah. Embarrassed by Putin at the U.N., Obama gave up any pretense of strength, effectively welcoming the Russian “intervention” against ISIS. Unexplained is why a large percentage of Russian anti-ISIS forces are heavily equipped with anti-aircraft weapons, something that even a flaccid NATO command cannot ignore, inasmuch as ISIS have an air force. Those weapons are useful only against NATO or Israeli aircraft.
So lost was Obama before his meeting with Putin at the U.N. that his stated strategy for dealing with the Russian strongman was to ask him what he was doing. From the stiff and awkward body language of the president following the meeting (a painful handshake and awkward smile) it is clear that Putin told Obama at least some of the story, whether Obama liked it or not. Most particularly, his client Bashar Assad will remain in power with Russian backing, regardless of Obama’s view on the matter. But likely Obama had known what he was in for, and just going through the motions. The day before, Secretary of State of State John Kerry responded to a question about how long the U.S. could tolerate the survival of Assad, saying, “… it doesn’t have to be on day one or month one or whatever.” Right, dude, whatever. Between Obama and Kerry, it is now fair to assume that our much muddled and irresolute Syrian policy is “whatever,” which means we just don’t care. We take our toys and go home.
If Obama was hoping, as he and his supporters implied, that the Iranian deal would produce a more moderate, cooperative Iran, Putin and the mullahs are doing all they can to demonstrate how wrong he was. If he was hoping that “international pressure” and the conflict in Ukraine would moderate Putin’s aggressive strategies, he was wrong again. And if he thinks that by quitting, he has left Putin an unwinnable game, the Russian leader aims to prove him wrong again. And since Obama is almost always wrong when it comes to foreign policy, it’s a fool’s errand to bet against Putin.
In chess, before going for the opponent’s king, typical strategy calls for supporting one’s important pieces, while threatening and isolating opposing pieces. The Russians and Iranians are now going about this with a vengeance, without the United States or the West making any noticeably effective counter-moves. Russia is backing and protecting Assad and has closely allied itself with a newly empowered (thanks largely to Obama) Iran. Meanwhile, traditional American allies in the region, Israel, Egypt, and the Arab monarchies are indeed increasingly threatened and isolated. The stage is being set for a Russo-Iranian endgame that could prove disastrous to America’s traditional allies and the West in general.
Some of Obama’s liberal supporters dismiss such analysis as over the top, and insist that Putin’s moves have more to do with domestic politics than a long-term Middle Eastern power play. They point out Putin’s problems at home, and the relative weakness of the Russian military. However, relative Russian weakness means little when moving into a power vacuum created by Obama’s flight from international responsibilities and, to a large extent, reality. And besides, this has been the basic way liberals have sought to excuse Obama whenever he is pushed around by a foreign leader (which is almost always). Putin’s got problems, so he invades Ukraine, threatens the Baltic States, and moves into Syria. The Chinese have problems, so they push naval vessels into American waters and fortify disputed Western Pacific archipelagos. Korea’s got problems, Iran’s got problems, and none of their aggressive actions has anything to do with the dilettante in the White House. It’s all about solving problems at home with international temper tantrums.
Obama has made a lot of foreign policy mistakes in office, but his capitulation on the Iranian nuclear talks followed by Russia’s move into Syria is impossible to explain away as anything but a stupendous strategic fiasco. Incompetence is too nice a word. Obama was never even in the game.
The situation in the Middle East is very complicated these days, particularly when it comes to the ongoing strife in Syria. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani both gave speeches at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that in normal times could have been dismissed as amusing. But in the era of Islamic State, everyone is suddenly trying to appear to be righteous, including Putin and Rouhani.
Putin, for example, believes that Syria’s future must include Bashar Assad, the tyrant who is responsible for the deaths of 250,000 of his own people. As Putin said, “Only Assad is fighting against Islamic State.” Meanwhile, Rouhani declared, “No country should use terrorism to interfere in another country’s affairs.” Let us remember that these were addresses delivered to the world, rather than jokes uttered on a satire program. What a farce.
The sad reality that exists in the Middle East these days is what allowed these two leaders to make such “comical” statements. The growth of Islamic State and the failure of the U.S.-led coalition against it have given Russia and Iran a great opportunity to bolster their international status.
For the Russians, this is a chance to erase memories of their actions in Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. For the Iranians, this provides an opening to deflect attention away from 35 years of exporting terrorism around the globe. Russia and Iran are both fortunate that Islamic State exists.
Putin met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday to tell him that the purpose of Russia’s increased military presence in Syria was to fight Islamic State. He also told Obama that the rebuilding of Syria would require the rebuilding of the Assad regime.
Obama was right on Monday when, in his own address to the U.N. General Assembly, he said that Assad must have no political future in Syria. Unfortunately, there are two small things that contradict Obama’s view of the situation. First, the pre-civil war Syria no longer exists. And second, all reconstruction proposals for Syria include a transition period during which a role for Assad would be necessary. And who knows how many years this transition would take?
Obama may not want Assad in power, but in reality, an Assad regime backed by Russia and Iran is what there is in Syria. Since Obama reiterated on Monday that the U.S. cannot solve global problems by itself, perhaps he should have added how wonderful it is to have Russia and Iran to help him. This is the woeful state of our world today.
Obama’s General Assembly address was his second-last before he leaves the White House in January 2017. In Monday’s speech, he tried to outline what his legacy will be. One must give Obama credit for adhering to his outlook, even after all of the mishaps he has been personally responsible for.
Russia and Iran were the big winners in New York on Monday. Putin, who was ostracized after Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year, is now the world’s great hope in the fight against Islamic State. And Iran is already talking about a “new world order,” thanks to the nuclear deal it signed with world powers in July.
And what does this all mean for Israel? “The Zionist regime is the root of all terrorism,” Rouhani said in his speech on Monday. How hopeful!
What is the solution for all this? Who knows? Perhaps we will get the answer at the U.N. General Assembly in 2016.
President Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday morning was a rambling journey through a fantasy world where his foreign policy hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment came when he tried to tout his Libyan adventure as a success.
There was plenty of tough-guy posturing that intimidated absolutely no one. The Russian and Iranian delegations were especially good at looking bored and unimpressed when he called upon them to do this-or-that because The World supposedly demanded it. Obama hasn’t figured out he’s the only leader at the U.N. eager to sacrifice his nation’s interests to please The World.
Obama made the weird decision to vaguely threaten Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by claiming that The World would not stand idly by and allow it… when that’s exactly what The World, and especially First Citizen of the World Barack Obama, has been doing. He essentially pleaded with Iran to stop supporting terrorist proxies and pursuing its aggressive regional ambitions, and focus on their economy instead. (Of course, in Obama’s vigorous imagination, the U.S. has been enjoying an economic boom under his stewardship, instead of an endless grinding non-recovery and limp, sporadic growth, after Obama’s spending doubled the national debt in a single presidency.)
It was bad enough that the President talked about American troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan as the triumphant conclusion of an effective policy, rather than the hideous blunder that allowed ISIS to create a terror state, al-Qaeda to rise from the ashes, and the Taliban to begin planning its return to power. At the same moment Obama was speaking, the Taliban was conducting a major offensive in Afghanistan, on par with the importance of ISIS taking Mosul in Iraq. Obama’s pitifully small “New Syrian Force” of U.S.-backed rebels just handed a good deal of its American equipment over to al-Qaeda, and no one really knows what became of the unit itself. Their predecessors were destroyed by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria, with less than half a dozen survivors still on the field.
When Obama boasted of the Libyan operation as the successful removal of a tyrant, jaws must have hit the floor around the room. Libya is an unholy disaster, a wasteland of warlords fighting to keep ISIS off their turf. It’s a key gateway for the incredible migratory tide blasting out of Africa and the Middle East and now surging across Europe. And yet, Obama portrays it as [a] laudable example of tyrant removal… while modestly admitting that “our coalition could have, and should have, done more to fill a vacuum left behind.”
Of course he blamed everyone else in the “coalition” for the disaster in Libya. He’s Barack Obama. The day may come when he takes responsibility for something, but today is not that day, and tomorrow isn’t looking good either.
The scary thing about Obama is that he believes so completely in the power of his own rhetoric.
He thinks he can reshape reality with his words. When he scolds the Iranians for their “Death to America!” rhetoric by saying bloodthirsty chants don’t create jobs, he’s asking Iran to live up to the silly talking points he foisted off on the American people to cover the Iranian nuclear deal. He’s commanding Iran to act like the enlightened, responsible nation-state he gambled the future of Israel, America, and much of the Western world on.
The Iranians, on the other hand, see no reason to knock off the “Death to America!” chants, disband their theocracy, and begin spending their days arguing about stimulus bills. Belligerence has gotten them everything so far. They’ve been rewarded for it… by Barack Obama. They’ve got $150 billion in sanctions relief coming their way. They can afford to send a few guys to sit in the U.N. General Assembly with pissy expressions on their faces while Obama rambles on about how geo-political crime does not pay. They know for a fact it pays, quite handsomely. The Iranians are already using their Obama loot to reinforce terror proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and secure Bashar Assad in power.
Ah, yes, Bashar Assad… the dictator Obama still blathers on about removing from power, even as his own diplomatic apparatus gets used to the idea Assad is not going anywhere. The only really good part of Obama’s speech was when he spent five seconds glaring at the Syrian ambassador before launching into his denunciation of barrel bombs and chemical weapons. But you know what? That Syrian ambassador gets paid enough to take a few seconds of hairy eyeball from the ineffectual American president. The Russians are smoothly replacing American influence across the Middle East, in partnership with Iran. The new order is taking shape. Obama isn’t going to reverse that process by telling aggressive, bare-knuckle conquerors they should be ashamed of themselves.
The other dangerous thing about this delusional President is his belief in the “judgment of history.”
He’s constantly hitting on the idea that all of the world’s villains are on the wrong side of history, and will find themselves buried in the sands of time any day now. It’s a dodge, a way of Obama evading responsibility. Bashar Assad is going to remerge from the Wrong Side of History in pretty good shape. ISIS is very comfortable there, as is Iran. Qaddafi didn’t assume room temperature because History caught up with him. Vladimir Putin has a lovely view of Crimea from the wrong side of history. The history of Europe is being reshaped by the tramping of a million “refugee” feet.
In every example, Obama clings to the idea that he can change the world by talking and scoring debate points, while his adversaries seize territory and control the course of events. It’s not as though Obama has some deep-seated reluctance to use deadly force – there have been a lot of deaths by drone strike since he won that Nobel Peace Prize. What Obama lacks is commitment. His foreign policy is all about gestures and distractions. He cooks up half-baked plans that will blow up a terrorist here and there, so he can’t be accused of doing “nothing,” but he won’t do anything that could cost him political capital at home. Even Libya was half-hearted and calculated for minimum risk, which is why the place went to an even deeper Hell after Qaddafi was overthrown.
Obama talks as if he’s taken action against numerous crises, but all he ever did was talk about them. The men of action are stacking up bodies, and raising flags over conquered cities, while this President is writing speeches and trying to win applause from editorial boards. The men of action know that Obama’s promises all have expiration dates, his vows of action always have escape clauses, and no matter how he loves to boast that he heads up the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he’s done everything he can to make it weaker.
President Obama is still clinging to a romantic vision of the “Arab Spring” as a flourishing of democracy, despite all evidence to the contrary. He’s giving the same foreign policy speeches he gave in 2009 because he can’t bear to live in the world he made. He talks about filling vacuums and voids… but those voids are already filled, by hard characters with plans to make the most of the extraordinary opportunity Barack Obama afforded them.
I think we all know what Iran means when it speaks of political free will. In the wake of the adoption of the Iran nuclear deal, conversations about nightmare “what if” scenarios focused on America’s ability to “snap” sanctions against Iran back into place; now, Iran is trying to reframe the conversation about the use of sanctions by arguing that the use of sanctions at all will constitute a greater violation than what the sanctions are meant to punish.
***************************
This week, Iran used its considerable muscle to launch an attack on US efforts to tamper its nuclear program and otherwise belligerent conduct in the Middle East. These efforts took the form of a proposed resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that condemns the use of sanctions against misbehaving nations as a violation of international law and fundamental human rights.
You won’t see the word “sanctions” more than three times in the resolution; instead, the drafters used the phrase “unilateral coercive measures.” From the proposed resolution:
Recognizing the universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated character of all human rights and, in this regard, reaffirming the right to development as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of all human rights,
Expressing its grave concern at the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, development, international relations, trade, investment and cooperation,
Reaffirming that no State may use or encourage the use of any type of measure, including but not limited to economic or political measures, to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind,
Recognizing that unilateral coercive measures in the form of economic sanctions have far-reaching implications for the human rights of the general population of targeted States, disproportionately affecting the poor and the most vulnerable classes,
…
Recalling also article 1, paragraph 2, common to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides that, inter alia, in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence,
1. Calls upon all States to stop adopting, maintaining or implementing unilateral coercive measures not in accordance with international law, international humanitarian law, the Charter of the United Nations and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States, in particular those of a coercive nature with extraterritorial effects, which create obstacles to trade relations among States, thus impeding the full realization of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments, in particular the right of individuals and peoples to development;
The writing goes on to demand that member states ignore calls for sanctions, and condemns the use of such “as tools of political or economic pressure against any country, particularly against developing countries, with a view to preventing these countries from exercising their right to decide, of their own free will, their own political, economic and social systems.”
I think we all know what Iran means when it speaks of political free will. In the wake of the adoption of the Iran nuclear deal, conversations about nightmare “what if” scenarios focused on America’s ability to “snap” sanctions against Iran back into place; now, Iran is trying to reframe the conversation about the use of sanctions by arguing that the use of sanctions at all will constitute a greater violation than what the sanctions are meant to punish.
This isn’t a one-off finger-in-the-air from Iran to the US. The UNHRC is a dysfunctional land of multilingual politicking, and now the most dangerous players are using their influence with the greater UN body to bolster the worst violators at the expense of what should be common sense.
Earlier this year, the UNHRC’s infamous Consultative Group, with Saudi Arabia’s Faisal Trad then serving merely as Vice-President, successfully picked Algerian hardliner Idriss Jazairy — famous for his efforts as a former diplomat to enact a UNHRC “code of conduct” to intimidate independent human rights experts — as the new “Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures.”
Jazairy has already accused the U.S. and Europe of being leading human rights violators due to their use of sanctions against countries like Iran and Zimbabwe.
Indeed, many of the resolutions adopted at each session of the UNHRC are sponsored by Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Algeria, and other non-democracies, and are designed to demonize the West, free market economies, individual rights, or Israel, as part of a strategy to deflect attention from council members who are guilty of subjugating women, trampling religious freedom, persecuting gays, oppressing ethnic minorities and promoting relgious extremism.
The United Nations itself isn’t necessarily an important player in the American political conversation; international law is obscure, and multilateral relationships are [a] complication and confusing at best. However, if this resolution is adopted (and even if it isn’t) I can just about guarantee that the pro-Iran Deal crowd will use it as a weapon against anti-Deal candidates (primary season doesn’t go away just because we’re dealing with something happening in Geneva) currently warning their colleagues against the folly of attempting to deal with a nation that has proven itself more than adept at sidestepping the rules.
In this case, they’ve taken it upon themselves to rewrite them.
The Munich moment is upon us. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif at U.N. headquarters on Saturday | Photo credit: AP
Washington is reaching out to Russia, which is openly helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is working in conjunction with Iran, which in turn supports Hezbollah. Now Europe is prepared to talk to Assad, but what about us, for heaven’s sake?
Two years ago to the day, in September 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry compared Bashar Assad to Adolf Hitler, after the Syrian dictator once again used chemical weapons against his own people. “This is our Munich moment,” Kerry said at the time.
As far as the Americans were concerned, Assad had crossed a line. In those days (more like in those hours, actually), Washington briefly believed that a failure to respond to Assad’s actions would send a dangerous message to Iran regarding its nuclear ambitions.
“Will [Iran] remember that the Assad regime was stopped from those weapons’ current or future use, or will they remember that the world stood aside and created impunity?” Kerry asked at the time. History and retrospect have turned what may have been Kerry’s greatest speech into remarks entirely detached from reality.
The United States did not attack, Assad is still in power, and an ominous nuclear deal has been signed with Iran. It is no wonder that there is a new kind of atmosphere in the region, under American auspices. There are no more good guys and bad guys; everyone is a partner. And thanks to this new reality, Assad now has a renewed license to rule, after having received a license to kill.
Washington is reaching out to Russia, which is openly helping Assad in Syria, who is working in conjunction with Iran, which in turn supports Hezbollah. Europe (Angela Merkel), in the meantime, startled by its refugee crisis, is already prepared to talk with Assad; the same Assad who was compared to Hitler only two years ago. But what about us, for heaven’s sake?
Regretfully, Israel’s biggest fears are now materializing. Instead of being the architects and shaping a new reality in the Middle East, Washington is falling into line with the existing reality. Russia, Syria and Iran are enjoying the consequent vacuum. When the cat is away, the mice will play. Now, all of a sudden, even Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is letting himself go on television, beaming with joy. Aside from the 75 tanks Damascus is giving him, he now sees his two patrons (Damascus and Tehran) become partners with the West, without having to change one bit.
There is no diplomatic vacuum
The latest developments in Syria are not encouraging: Assad’s first target, with Russia’s help, is expected to be the Nusra Front rebel group, which not only threatens Assad but is also a bitter enemy of the Islamic State group. In other words, somewhat paradoxically, Islamic State could initially benefit from the Russian intervention in Syria.
And one final word about Iran’s rapprochement with the international community: We have been told repeatedly that this was only about the nuclear deal, but in reality we can see cooperation between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq and in the war against Islamic State. We can also see American-Iranian dialogue regarding Syria’s future, and on Saturday night we learned of a gigantic deal worth upwards of $21 billion between Iran and Russia. This time I am forced to agree with Secretary Kerry: This really does look like a Munich moment.
The significance of Obama’s deal with Iran from a Jewish perspective is that Obama has basically handed Zionism over to the ayatollahs. In two years or ten years they will decide the fate of the Jewish people, simply because Barack Obama is handing them the car keys.
In the mean time, Israel should solidify its position by declaring its final borders as it plans, and perhaps implement its response to the Iran deal.
********************** Foryears I thought that the only reasonable solution to the ongoing Arab war against the Jews was the two-state solution. A single state solution, we were told, would either undermine Israel as a democratic state or it would undermine Israel as a Jewish state. Israel could be Jewish, democratic, or with boundaries from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, but it could not be all three at once.
Those who insist upon this formulation – and I was one for years – are raising reasonable concerns, but there is one thing that proponents of the two-state solution seem never to take into account: the Arabs do not want it. For almost one hundred years the Palestinian-Arabs have absolutely refused to share the land and tell us on a daily basis that they will never accept Jewish sovereignty on a bit of “historic Palestine.”
There must come a point when we understand that no means no.
There must come a time when we take them at their word. This being the case, Israel must act unilaterally because there is simply no other choice. This should not be considered a burden. It should be considered liberating. Most of my readers will know that Palestinian-Arab dictator Mahmoud Abbas is, yet again, threatening to quit. Well, I hope he does quit and I sincerely hope that after he does so Israel rips up the Oslo accords and henceforth refuses to acknowledge the PA, the PLO, Fatah, and Hamas. It is absolutely pointless in negotiating with, or cooperating with, any of these groups because they are dishonest, utterly corrupt, and filled with the spirit of malice toward the Jewish people.
The Jews in Israel should not have to live with such violent and toxic hatred in their midst, coming from the children of the people who forced into second and third-class non-citizenship for thirteen hundred years. The Jews are no longer dhimmis in that part of the world – and are thus no longer required to ride mules, rather than horses – and the Arabs don’t like it.
Well, I say, too bad.
The Land of Israel is the land of the Jewish people and has been for almost four thousand years, and that includes today’s boundaries of Judea and Samaria. We are willing to share, but no one is going to tell me that Judea is Arab rather than Jewish.
This being the case, I have argued in recent years that Israel should declare its final borders, remove the IDF to behind those borders, and – as we say – toss the keys over the shoulder. I have usually been careful, however, not to advocate for the single-state solution. I am not Israeli and believe that it should entirely be up to the Israelis to make that determination.
I still believe so.
However, I am becoming less and less convinced that a single state that includes Judea and Samaria, and the eastern section of Jerusalem, cannot be both Jewish and democratic. What many on the hard-left would argue is that if Israel were to claim sovereignty over the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria then it is under an obligation to give the entire Arab population in those regions fulls rights to the franchise. They believe, of course, that doing so would threaten the Jewish character of the state, which is precisely what they want to begin with.
But this is false.
What I would recommend, if Israel were to extend its authority onto the entirety of Judea and Samaria, is offering qualified local Arabs a pathway to Israeli citizenship. Qualification would require that any particular family or individual under consideration would have no known violent history toward Jewish people and no known history of incitement of hatred toward Jews or Israel.
Those who are not qualified for citizenship, that is, individuals or families with a history of either violence or incitement to violence would be ejected from the country. This is neither non-democratic, nor illiberal. The Jews are among the most persecuted and oppressed people in the history of the world. The Romans decimated our numbers two thousand years ago and the Europeans and Arabs have kept those numbers artificially low ever since. This being the case it is only common sense, if not basic human decency, for the Jews of Israel to protect their children by removing the threats to them.
This is no more non-democratic than throwing a rapist in prison.
As for the rest of the local Arab population in the annexed Jewish regions I recommend a pathway to full citizenship. Like pretty much everyone else in Israel they would be required, if they wish citizenship, to give two or three years of community service. If after that period the individual has shown himself to be free of malice toward either Jews or Israel then that individual should be offered the franchise.
This broad plan – and, yes, obviously, the “devil would be in the details” – would keep Israel Jewish on traditional Jewish land while remaining a democratic country.
Democracy, it should be noted, is never a perfect system in implementation, nor is it a suicide pact. There are always restrictions, which is why Puerto Ricans are denied the right to vote in US national elections. They are under American sovereignty, but they do not have full rights to American citizenship, yet no one sane is claiming that the United States in a non-democratic country.
Israel is in a very tough spot, however. It has a hostile American president who is about to turn an enemy country, Iran, into a nuclear regional power that will rearrange relationships and alliances throughout the region as the Sunni Arab states race to get their own nuclear weaponry. Zionism is undermined because if Zionism means anything it means that no longer will non-Jews get to determine whether Jewish people live or die.
The significance of Obama’s deal with Iran from a Jewish perspective is that Obama has basically handed Zionism over to the ayatollahs. In two years or ten years they will decide the fate of the Jewish people, simply because Barack Obama is handing them the car keys.
In the mean time, Israel should solidify its position by declaring its final borders as it plans, and perhaps implement its response to the Iran deal.
Retired Gen. and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus testified Tuesday that U.S. progress against the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) terrorist group has been “inadequate.”
“It has been more than a year since the U.S. commenced military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” Petraeus said to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “While there have been significant accomplishments, the progress achieved thus far has been inadequate.
The U.S. has carried out thousands of air strikes against IS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, but the terrorist group shows no signs of retreating.
“In Iraq we have halted and reversed ISIS’s momentum in some areas, but we have seen gains by ISIS in others such as Ramadi,” Petraeus said.
Petraeus said that “some elements of the right strategy” to defeat IS are being utilized by the U.S., but that “several are under-resourced while others are missing.”
Petraeus recommended ramping up U.S. military support for its allies in the area, notably the Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga. He also recommended embedding U.S. advisors behind the front lines in Iraqi brigades, coordinating airstrikes more closely with Iraqi coalition partners, and broadening the rules of engagement to carry out airstrikes against IS targets.
Petraeus stopped short of recommending the deployment of U.S. troops for combat roles before a “viable” force of Iraqi partners was available to hold onto the areas taken back from IS.
Petraeus’s testimony can be added to a litany of bad news about U.S. progress against IS, although the White House had until recently characterized the fight as successful.
Retired Marine Gen. John Allen, who created the anti-IS coalition, will step down in November after struggling with the White House for control of the war, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Last week, Gen. Lloyd Austin, the U.S.’s top commander of Middle East operations, admitted the failure of a program to train and equip moderate rebels to fight IS in Syria.
Hanging over these revelations are serious allegations that senior U.S. officials manipulated intelligence on IS to hide its strength, lending credence to the White House’s narrative that Inherent Resolve was working.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or those of its other editors. — DM)
Iran wants sanctions relief to be lifted, immediately, and not merely suspended. Iran should not get that. If it doesn’t, it may well terminate the “deal” unilaterally. If Iran gets what it wants, the Senate should review the “deal” as a treaty and reject it. Either outcome would be a substantial improvement over the current “deal” and the morass in which it is embedded.
This post is based on a September 21st article at Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) titled “Expected September 28 NY Meeting Between P5+1 Foreign Ministers And Iran Could Signify Reopening Of Nuclear Negotiations To Address Khamenei’s September 3 Threat That If Sanctions Are Not Lifted, But Merely Suspended, There Will Be No Agreement.”
The MEMRI article cites statements by Supreme Leader Khamenei and one of his senior advisers, Ali Akbar Velayat. The latter said, on September 19th, “the nuclear negotiations are not over yet.” Khamenei has said much the same thing.
Khamenei said, in a September 3, 2015 speech to the Assembly of Experts, that he did not accept the terms of the agreement and demanded that the sanctions be immediately lifted rather than merely suspended; otherwise, he said, there would either be no agreement, or Iran too would merely suspend its execution of its obligations under the JCPOA.
. . . .
“Freezing or suspension [of the sanctions] is unacceptable to me… If they suspend [the sanctions], we too will suspend [what is incumbent upon us]. If we are to implement what [is required of us], the sanctions must be [actually] cancelled.
Iran has thus made clear that it will not abide by the nuke “deal” as written; unless it gets the changes it now demands, it will either terminate the deal or violate it. If, as seems likely for the reasons cited in the MEMRI article, the September 28th meeting involves discussion of the deal, it will either be renegotiated or it won’t be.
If the “deal” is not renegotiated, or is renegotiated and Iran does not get what it demands, it may very well terminate the deal. Iran has already received substantial sanctions relief, is already open for business and is already doing lots of it with many more nations than previously. Termination would be a rebuff to the “Great Satan,” would not damage Iran much economically and it could proceed with its “peaceful” nuke program without even farcical nuke self-inspections.
If The Obama administration and others cave and Iran gets what it demands or enough to satisfy it, the “deal” will be very different from what was previously presented to the Congress under the Corker legislation. That legislation purported to eliminate the constitutional requirement of approval of the “deal” by a two-thirds Senate majority before going into effect and permitted it to go into effect unless rejected by half of the membership of both houses; Obama promised to veto such a rejection and put the “deal” into effect. The House has disapproved the “deal” but the Senate has not acted because of Democrat fillibusters, urged by the White House. Under the new “deal,” the ability of the United States to “snap back” sanctions would be vitiated; a possible but very difficult if not impossible to accomplish, “snap back” had been among the reasons cited by many of those who favored the “deal” (often despite its many other flaws) for supporting it.
If a deal eliminating the “snap back” is struck, Obama, et al, may well claim that it’s none of the business of the Congress since, by virtue of the Corker legislation, it has already eliminated its constitutional authority to deal with the JCPOA as a treaty, regardless of any “minor” change.
I hope, but am less than confident, that both houses of the Congress will reject this contention vigorously and repeal the Corker legislation. Whatever benefits or other legitimacy the Corker legislation may once have been thought to have it no longer has. Repeal will probably require use of the “nuclear option” to invoke cloture to end a Democrat filibuster in the Senate. If — as seems likely — Obama vetoes the rejection, the Congress should state that it no longer considers itself bound by the Corker legislation. Next, the Senate should treat the renegotiated “deal” as a treaty, regardless of whether Obama agrees to send it to the Senate, and reject it. It should do so even if, as also seems likely, that requires use of the “nuclear option” to invoke cloture.
Obama has precipitated what may well become a constitutional crisis. If the Congress does its job, Obama will be the loser and America will be the winner — even if it becomes necessary to take out Iran’s nukes militarily.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments