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Empowering Iran

April 24, 2015

Empowering Iran, Weekly Standard, Lee Smith, May 4, 2015 (print date)

Obama’s foreign policy legacy will be to have tied America’s fortunes to an imperial and nuclear Iran governed by an ambitious and ruthless anti-American regime.

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Last week, the Obama administration urged Saudi Arabia to halt its air campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have wrested control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The White House’s professed concern was that Riyadh’s Operation Decisive Storm was killing too many civilians. Unfortunately, that’s hardly surprising since Iranian proxies, like Hezbollah and Hamas, typically stash their missiles and rockets in civilian areas. Presumably, the Houthis have read from the same playbook. The effect of the administration’s diplomatic efforts, then, was to protect Iranian arms in Yemen. And this, in turn, the administration no doubt believes, protects Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

Houthi rallyHouthis rally against Saudi Arabia, April 1. Newscom

In public, Obama is eager to show that the United States still stands by its traditional allies, like Riyadh. But behind the scenes, it’s clear that the White House’s real priority is partnering with Iran. Sure, the White House dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Arabian Sea, but this was not to stop Iran from shipping arms to the Houthis. As Obama himself explained, America’s blue-water Navy was present to ensure freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf. The notion that the White House really intended to interdict Iranian arms shipments beggars belief. For more than four years Obama has done nothing to stop Bashar al-Assad from killing nearly a quarter of a million people in Syria, lest he endanger his nuclear agreement with Iran. With a deal so close, Obama is certainly not going to risk what he sees as the capstone of his foreign policy legacy by disarming Iranian allies in Yemen.

The problem is that by protecting his nuclear agreement with Iran, the president has protected and empowered the Islamic Republic. Tehran may boast of controlling four Arab capitals, but the reality is that its regional position is a house of cards. Pull out one of those Arab capitals, or the nuclear program, and Iran’s burgeoning empire quickly collapses. It’s Obama who is propping it up.

It’s interesting to imagine how these last six years might have gone for the Islamic Republic had the White House not been so determined to have a nuclear deal. Perhaps the Tehran regime would have been toppled when the Green Movement took to the streets in June 2009 to protest a fraudulent election if the American government had decided to back the opposition early, openly, and resourcefully. Perhaps another administration would at least have seen that uprising as an opportunity to gain leverage over the Iranian regime. Not Obama. He wanted a nuclear deal with the existing regime.

Another White House might have backed the Syrian rebels in order to bring down Assad. Indeed, a good portion of Obama’s cabinet counseled as much. To topple Tehran’s key Arab ally would have been the biggest strategic setback to Iran in 20 years, said Gen. James Mattis. Obama chose to leave Assad alone, and even ignored his own red line against the use of chemical weapons. Instead of the airstrikes he threatened on Syrian regime targets, Obama made a deal to ostensibly remove the chemical weapons that Assad is still employing.

As Assad’s position became weaker, Hezbollah entered the Syrian war to prop him up. The Iranian-backed militia was stretched thin between Syria and Lebanon, but the Obama administration helped the terrorist organization cover its flank by sharing intelligence to keep Sunni car bombs out of Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut. Another administration might have understood this as an opportunity to weaken Iran’s position in Damascus and Beirut, but not Obama. He had his eyes on the prize.

In sum, over the last six years, almost all of Iran’s advances in the region, including its move into Iraq to fill the vacuum in Baghdad after the American withdrawal from that country, has taken place with either the overt or tacit assistance of Obama. The White House brags about it. Israel might have attacked Iranian nuclear facilities, as one administration official told the press, but we deterred Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from striking. If the Iranians strut with confidence these days, that’s because they understand who has their back.

The nuclear deal, as the president has explained, means that within a little more than a decade, Iran’s breakout time will be down to zero—which is a nice way of saying the clerical regime will have the bomb. The likely result is that the agreement will ensure Iran’s regional position long after Obama’s presidency is around to safeguard it. It will strengthen the hand of the hardliners. It is not Rouhani or Zarif or other so-called moderates who hold the nuclear file, but Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. And in the future, American policymakers will have a vital interest in ensuring there are no internal regime fights over who controls the bomb.

In other words, Obama’s foreign policy legacy will be to have tied America’s fortunes to an imperial and nuclear Iran governed by an ambitious and ruthless anti-American regime.

Categories: Arab nations, Department of Defense, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Gulf states, Houthi, Ideology, Iran, Iran in Yemen, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Syria, Terrorism, Theocracy, Yemen
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Progressives at the Poker Table

April 24, 2015

Progressives at the Poker Table, Mishpacha Magazine, Jonathan Rosenblum, via Jewish Media Resources, April 24, 2015

A comparison of the progressive approach to the threat of climate warming and that of a nuclear-armed Iran offers interesting insights into the progressive mind.

Let’s start with climate warming, which according to the best measures, inconveniently stopped about 18 years ago. First, what is the magnitude of the threat? The most alarmist predictions of future catastrophe are based on computer-generated climate models that have been consistently refuted by events of the real world. According to the alarmists, there would be fifty million refugees from global warming by 2010. Never happened.

Those models are based on a variety of assumptions about “feedback mechanisms” generated by increased CO2 in the atmosphere trapping more heat. NASA satellite date from 2000-2011 showed far more heat escaping the earth’s atmosphere than predicted by the computer models, according to study in the peer-reviewed journal Remote Sensing.

Nor is clear to what extent the global warming of the 20th century was generated by anthropogenic forces – i.e., increased CO2 emissions. Many leading climate scientists now think that solar activity — about which we can do nothing — may be a larger contributor to temperature variation than carbon emissions. That would be consistent with the wide fluctuations between warm and cold periods over the last millennium, even prior to the onset of the Industrial Resolution.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research, which involves 600 universities and national labs and 8,000 scientists, have shown that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that grow and seed clouds. And clouds trap heat in the atmosphere. The magnitude of cosmic rays emitted by the sun depends on variations in the sun’s magnetic field.

Finally, that which the alarmists consider an unmitigated disaster — higher levels of CO2in the atmosphere may have many beneficial effects. A 2012 statement signed by 16 distinguished scientists from universities like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and the Hebrew University, pointed out that CO2 is “not a pollutant,” but rather a “key component of the biosphere’s life cycle.” Higher concentrations of CO2 spur plant growth.

In sum, the threat, if any, is one for the indeterminate future, of unknown magnitude and causation, and may not even be subject to ameliorative action. Yet climate alarmists propose a Global Green Carbon Treaty of such cost and intrusiveness that Yale’s Walter Russell Mead compares it to the 1928 Kellogg-Brand Pact outlawing war for sheer folly. He describes GGCT as less a treaty and more a constitution for world government regulating all economic production in every country on earth. That constitution would be for a “global welfare state with trillions of dollars ultimately sent by the taxpayers of rich countries to governments (however feckless, inept, corrupt or tyrannical) to poor ones.”

These proposals are put forward seemingly oblivious to the economic cost or loss of liberty involved. In his 2001 book The Skeptical Environmentalist, Danish statistician Bjorn Lonborg calculated that enforcement alone of the Kyoto Treaty would cost $150,000 billion a year, money which could save tens of thousands of lives annually.

The above-mentioned statement of the 16 scientists cited the work of Yale economist William Nordhaus, whos showed that the highest benefit-to-cost ratio would be achieved via a policy of fifty years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. The least developed countries would benefit most by being able to share some of the advantages of material well-being — i.e., health and life expectancy — with the more developed world.

NOW TO THE OTHER SIDE of the comparison. Even President Obama admits that under the unsigned understanding reached at Lausanne, Iran will have zero breakout time to a nuclear weapon thirteen years from now. (Today, he puts the breakout time at three months.)

That fact alone creates a world with as many tripwires leading to war as Europe on the eve of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in August 1914. Only this time the weapons of choice will be nuclear.

The proposed agreement with Iran means the end of nuclear non-proliferation. If the world’s leading rogue state and sponsor of terrorism can have its nuclear weapons program effectively endorsed by the members of the U.N. Security Council, every other nation that was dissuaded in the past by international pressure from expanding its civilian nuclear program to include enrichment to weapons level – e.g., South Korea, Brazil – will reconsider.

The most rapid nuclear proliferation will take place in the world’s most volatile region, the Middle East, in which the millennial hatred of Sunnis and Shiites still burns hot. Saudis have made it clear that they will purchase nuclear weapons off-the-shelf from Pakistan, as per a prior agreement, to counter Iran’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons. Egypt and Turkey will almost certainly follow suit.

An already aggressive Iran would become vastly more so with the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues from the lifting of sanctions and the ability to provide a nuclear umbrella for its regional proxies. As a consequence, the Middle East would become all the more volatile.

The nations most likely to acquire nuclear arms and unstable, which increases the possibility of terrorist groups acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran has long eyed the “holy cities” of Mecca and Medina, and is already stirring up the Shiite population in Saudi Arabia’s eastern, oil-producing provinces and in Yemen on its southern border. Egypt cannot feed its population.

And Iran might find it useful to supply some of its non-state allies, like Hezbollah or Hamas, with dirty nuclear weapons that do not require missiles to deliver. Non-state actors are far harder to deter or hold accountable.

A nuclear Iran should terrify not only Israel, which it has repeatedly threatened to obliterate. Iranian leaders have publicly speculated for years about the grim calculus of a nuclear exchange with Israel: one bomb wipes out Israel; Israeli retaliation still leaves us with tens of millions survivors. Former CIA Director James Woolsey and Peter Fry, a member of the congressional EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) Commission, stress the vulnerability of the United States. The recent “understanding” (the terms of which are unknown and perhaps unknowable given the wide divergence between American and Iranian descriptions of what has been concluded) makes no reference to any limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program, on which it works closely with North Korea.

Iran may soon possess long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States or the capacity to launch a nuclear-armed satellite above the United States. Even one nuclear weapon detonated above the United States could potentially knock out much of the national power grid. The congressional EMP Commission estimated that a nationwide blackout lasting one year from such an EMP attack could result in the deaths of nine out of ten Americans, with ISIS-like gangs ruling the streets.

Nor are traditional doctrines of nuclear deterrence relevant to the Middle East, in general, and Shiite Iran, in particular. Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz ask in their devastating critique of the recent agreement how will traditional doctrines of deterrence based on stable state actors “translate into a region where sponsorship of non-state proxies is common, the state structure is under assault, and death on behalf of jihad is a kind of fulfillment?”

As the dean of Middle East scholars Bernard Lewis has pointed out, for Shiite fanatics awaiting the return of the “hidden Imam,” after a cataclysmic event, the destruction of nuclear war might be an inducement rather than a deterrent.

WHAT DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA offer as the response to this description of a nuclear tinderbox waiting to be lit? Pure fantasy.

He and Secretary of State Kerry have made repeated references to a fatwa of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini against the use of nuclear weapons, which does not exist and certainly is credited by none of Iran’s enemies.

And he speaks hopefully of a newly mellowed Iran after the conclusion of an agreement. What is it about the Supreme Leader’s repeated chants of “Death to America” and insistence that current negotiations have nothing to do with reconciliation that the President can’t hear?

One option that the President has completely excluded is an air campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and cut of the “head of snake,” as Woolsey once described the Revolutionary Guard to me. Obama has repeatedly accused the opponents of the Lausanne understanding as being advocates of war.

Clearly, then, all the tough talk about “all options are on the table,” “a bad deal is worse than no deal [followed by military attack],” “I will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” had the same truth content as “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

Yet no one doubts that the United States has the capability to destroy Iran’s enrichment infrastructure. (If Russia goes through with the delivery of advanced anti-aircraft batteries, as a consequence of the Lausanne understanding, the task will be complicated.) And there will be consequences that cannot be fully known in advance. Iran has terrorist sleeper cells around the world. But it also has lots of assets, besides its nuclear infrastructure, which would be subject to further attacks if it unleashes those cells.

Whatever the Iranian response, the price to be paid will certainly be less than consigning all humanity to live in a world perpetually poised on the cusp of nuclear war.

SO WHY in the case of global warming are progressives willing to incur unbearable costs to combat a future threat of unknown magnitude and immediacy, and against which their solutions may well prove futile, while with respect to the easily identified and imminent danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, they write off from the start a clear and known remedy?

For progressives the solution of worldwide government, run by the executive decree of “the best and the brightest,” is not a cost too great to be contemplated, but rather the fulfillment of the progressive dream. But they will never countenance military action, even to save millions of lives down the road. Churchill’s dictum, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” remains foreign to them.

Categories: Climate change, EMP attack, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Kerry, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Progressives, Rouhani, Sanctions, Terrorism, Theocracy
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Take Them At Their Word: Iran Might Destroy Us | Bill Whittle

April 9, 2015

Take Them At Their Word: Iran Might Destroy Us | Bill Whittle via You Tube, April 9, 2015

 

Categories: Arabs, Bill Whittle, Chamberlain, Churchill, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Gulf states, History, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Munich, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Peace in our time, Shiite, Sunni
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Humor?| Obama to Israel: I have your back

April 8, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are either mine or those of my guest author. They do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

The Most Revereddd Mohamed Allah-scimitar

The Most Revereddd Mohamed Allah-scimitar

This is a post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-scimitar, President Obama’s chief foreign policy adviser on Islamic relations with Christians and Jews. But first, some related observations:

Iran continues to reject as lies Obama’s statements about the April 2nd P5+1 nuke “deal,” and states that it “could build bomb today” but won’t because of Ayatollah Khamenei’s (non-existent) fatwa. Understandably, Israel is becoming increasingly concerned about her future existence. Obama’s claims that He has her back and that she therefore need not worry about anyone (else) who tries to “mess with Israel.” His assurances have provided scant comfort.

Cartoon_Israel_BB_KnifeInBack

Here’s are the comforting(?) words of the Most Reverend Mohamed Allah-scimitar.

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Lord Obama has Israel’s back almost to the same extent that He has the Obama Nation’s back and will protect her if necessary. For Israel to maintain, and even improve, her weapons minimizing destruction (WMDs) is an unacceptable insult to Him and to all for which He stands.

ObamaWillStandWithMuslims (2)

Obama salute

During Israel’s “Protective Edge” war against peaceful Palestinians in Gaza, Israel shamelessly shifted the odds disproportionately in her own favor by using the Iron Dome to thwart efforts to destroy her major cities. She provided not even one Iron Dome to the Palestinians! Since that time, she has improved the Iron Dome and developed other WMDs less dependent upon lengthy trajectory tracking of missiles and perhaps even mortar rounds. Racist to the core, she has no regard for social justice, equality and the sad plight she has imposed on the Palestinians. Indeed, they are forced to rely on funds (“tens of millions of dollars”) from Iran to help rebuild Tunnels for Peace (TFP) and resupply their stocks of Missiles for Peace (MFP).

Now that Israel claims that peaceful Iranian nuclear weapons are an existential threat, she is doubtless looking for — and probably finding — ways to escape their consequences as well. Doing so is risible because Lord Obama has explained patiently — even as He would to a backward child — that it is unnecessary. He has her back, as He always had and always will.

Nobody except Obama had dare mess with Israel! Not even Netanyahu! Hence, there is no need for Iran to recognize Israel’s speciously claimed right to continue to exist, which would require fundamental changes in Iran. For Israel to insist on it is a fundamental misjudgment.

Lord Obama is able and willing to act, if necessary, to demonstrate the firmness of His resolve. Indeed, it has already been rumored that He may dispatch His own beloved mother in law from her happy home in the White House to live with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Occupied Palestine. If so, she will be accompanied by a suitable contingent of unarmed Organizing for Action volunteers. Recognizing, however, that more may be required, Lord Obama has been negotiating with Iran to provide the unjustly impoverished Palestinians not only free electrical power but also medically useful radioactive isotopes as well as others for other peaceful purposes. Despite the petty squabbles between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, Iran will treat them equally.

Israel should and will cease to exist but, with Lord Obama in the picture, Iran should not be a concern.

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There is no P5+1 “deal” and it seems unlikely that there ever will be, no matter how many contortions Obama and Kerry attempt. A deal like the one described in Obama’s talking points would be bad enough. However, Iran has rejected His talking points, has stated that it could build nukes now if it so desired and that the only impediment is a (non-existent) fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader. The Iranian foreign minister has been quoted as saying that

Iran will begin using its latest generation IR-8 centrifuges as soon as its nuclear deal with the world powers goes into effect, Iran’s foreign minister and nuclear chief told members of parliament on Tuesday, according to Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency. [Emphasis added.]

If accurate, the report makes a mockery of the world powers’ much-hailed framework agreement with Iran, since such a move clearly breaches the US-published terms of the deal, and would dramatically accelerate Iran’s potential progress to the bomb.

Iran’s military sites are, of course, off limits to inspections according to Iran’s Defense Minister. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader continues to lead “death to America” chants and Iranian television continues to entertain its viewers with simulations of nuclear attacks on Israel.

 

More recently,

[T]he Islamic Republic has announced a new documentary film which will celebrate the life of Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. It’s bad enough lionizing a master terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the description of the film is even more telling: The film Commander will depict Iran’s and Soleimani’s strategic approach to destroy not only the Islamic State but also “the Zionist regime.” Importantly, the article describing the film was published after agreement on a nuclear framework between the P5+1 and Iran. [Emphasis added.]

Categories: centrifuges, Diplomacy, Fatwa, Foreign policy, Hamas, Humor, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Jews, Mad Mullahs, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Supreme Leader, Terrorists, Theocracy, Two state solution
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‘Messing’ with Israel

April 7, 2015

‘Messing’ with Israel, Israel Hayom, Elliott Abrams, April 7, 2015

(“If you like your country you can keep it.” Even if Obama’s phrasings were not ambiguous, and they are, he could not be trusted. Moreover, since Obama’s talking points about the “once in a lifetime deal” and those of his Iranian counterparts are very different, there is no way of knowing now whether there will be a deal, whether the U.S. Congress will block it, or what it will be. — DM)

In his lengthy interview with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, President Obama makes many statements about Israel’s security and how the proposed deal with Iran enhances it. These words from the interview are key:

“I have to respect the fears that the Israeli people have,” he added, “and I understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is expressing the deep-rooted concerns that a lot of the Israeli population feel about this, but what I can say to them is: Number one, this is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, and number two, what we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.”

What does “messes with Israel” mean? No one has the slightest idea. The president unfortunately uses this kind of diction too often, dumbing down his rhetoric for some reason and leaving listeners confused. Today, Iran is sending arms and money to Hamas in Gaza, and has done so for years. Is that “messing with Israel?” Iran has tried to blow up several Israeli embassies, repeating the successful attack it made on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992. Fortunately Israel has foiled the more recent plots, but is attempting to bomb Israeli embassies “messing with Israel?” Iranian Revolutionary Guards, along with Hezbollah troops, are in southern Syria now near the Golan. Is that “messing with Israel?” And what does the president mean by “America will be there?” With arms? With bandages? With the diplomatic protection his administration is now considering removing at the United Nations?

Later in the interview, the president says this:

“Now, what you might hear from Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, which I respect, is the notion, ‘Look, Israel is more vulnerable. We don’t have the luxury of testing these propositions the way you do,’ and I completely understand that. And further, I completely understand Israel’s belief that given the tragic history of the Jewish people, they can’t be dependent solely on us for their own security. But what I would say to them is that not only am I absolutely committed to making sure that they maintain their qualitative military edge, and that they can deter any potential future attacks, but what I’m willing to do is to make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them. And that, I think, should be … sufficient to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see whether or not we can at least take the nuclear issue off the table.”

This is not much help. For one thing, the president says “attacked by any state,” presumably leaving out Hamas and Hezbollah, and for that matter the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. One has to assume he means “attacked by Iran,” but what does “we would stand by them” mean? It doesn’t add much to “America will be there.” There will be no conventional war between Israel and any Arab state in the foreseeable future, so Hezbollah is the most likely problem and is presumably excluded from the president’s formulation. What Israel worries about today is a nuclear attack by Iran or a terrorist group like Hezbollah to which Iran has given the bomb. No doubt that qualifies as “messing with Israel,” but were that to occur what exactly would “America will be there” and “stand by them” mean? Take in refugees from the destroyed State of Israel after the nuclear attack on it? The president’s language about “commitment” suggests that he may envision a formal defense commitment by the United States to Israel. Israel has not wanted such a treaty because it has always said it wants to defend itself, not have Americans dying to defend it. That position has served the U.S.-Israel relationship well for 67 years. Should it really be changed now, and would that really help Israel? What would the value of such a commitment be? To ask the question another way, are not Poles and Estonians wondering right now about the value of their membership in NATO, if Mr. Putin “messes” with them?

There were other problems in the interview, such as this language:

“There has to be the ability for me to disagree with a policy on settlements, for example, without being viewed as … opposing Israel. There has to be a way for Prime Minister Netanyahu to disagree with me on policy without being viewed as anti-Democrat, and I think the right way to do it is to recognize that as many commonalities as we have, there are going to be strategic differences. And I think that it is important for each side to respect the debate that takes place in the other country and not try to work just with one side. … But this has been as hard as anything I do because of the deep affinities that I feel for the Israeli people and for the Jewish people. It’s been a hard period.”

“You take it personally?” Friedman asked.

“It has been personally difficult for me to hear … expressions that somehow … this administration has not done everything it could to look out for Israel’s interest — and the suggestion that when we have very serious policy differences, that that’s not in the context of a deep and abiding friendship and concern and understanding of the threats that the Jewish people have faced historically and continue to face.”

“Respect the debate?” “Personally difficult?” This is the White House whose high officials called the prime minister of Israel a “chickens—” and a “coward,” in interviews meant to be published — not off the record. And the officials who said those things remain in place; no effort was ever made to identify and discipline them.

But the deeper problem is that the reassurances the president is offering to Israel … are simply not reassuring. Iran is already, right now, while under sanctions that are badly hurting its economy, spending vast amounts of money and effort to “mess with Israel.” This administration’s reaction has been to seek a nuclear deal that will give Iran more economic resources to dedicate to its hatred and violence against Israel, but will in no way whatsoever limit Iran’s conventional weapons and its support for terrorism.

Several times in this interview the president went out of his way to suggest that he fully understands Israel’s security problems, but the full text suggests that he does not — because he believes that his statements that “if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there” and would “stand by them” actually solve any of those problems. Time alone undermines the value of those statements, because he will not be president in 22 months. The words he used are sufficiently vague to undermine their value as well. It is hard to believe that many Israelis will be reassured by the interview, especially if they read the Iranian press and see what, in their own interviews, Iranian officials are claiming they got out of the new nuclear agreement.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran, Iran military, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Kerry, Mad Mullahs, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Theocracy
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Can and should Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities?

April 5, 2015

Can and should Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities? Dan Miller’s Blog, April 5, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)

It has been suggested that Israel should seriously consider destroying Iranian nuclear facilities, but Israeli officials obviously haven’t said, and won’t say, if, how or when she might.

Iran fenced in

Speaking to Arutz Sheva Friday, Professor Efraim Inbar, who heads the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said the deal had realized Israel’s worst fears by leaving Iran’s nuclear program essentially intact.

The Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has been granted “legitimacy” by the agreement, which still allowed it to continue enriching uranium and to maintain a reactor capable of producing enriched plutonium, he said. “And that’s what worries Israel, that they (Iran) will be able within a short time frame to reach a nuclear bomb.”

“I hold the view that the only way to stop Iran in its journey to a nuclear bomb is through military means,” Inbar maintained, suggesting that “Israel needs to seriously consider striking a number of important nuclear facilities” to head off the threat.

On March 28, former U.S. Ambassador Bolton said that it should be done.

The P5+1 nuclear “deal,” proudly announced by President Obama on April 2nd, is a sham. There is no “deal,” and public announcements by Iran and Obama cast it in very different lights. According to Iran, all sanctions will be lifted immediately when an agreement is reached on or before June 30th. According to Obama, sanctions relief will be gradual and based on Iran’s compliance with invasive inspections and other conditions. Even National Public Radio (NPR) has pointed out differences. NPR observed that, according to Iran,

all sanctions relief – U.N., EU and U.S. – would be immediate. It was unequivocal. It stated that Iran under the deal was free to pursue industrial scale enrichment to fuel its own reactors – unequivocal. It stated that Iran was unhindered in its ability to conduct centrifuge R&D.

Iran has also emphasized that its intention to destroy Israel is non-negotiable, and the Obama Administration has rejected any efforts to make Iran recognize Israel’s right to exist, on the ground that

“This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday night, according to Fox News. “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.” [Emphasis added.]

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable.

Iran is very unlikely to retreat from its perception of the “deal,” Obama is very likely to retreat in Iran’s favor, and Israel is very unlikely to retreat from its perceptions about Iran, the “deal” or Israel’s right to exist.

What should Israel do?

In Martin Archer’s novel Islamic War, which I reviewed here, Israel dispatched elderly, large and substantially refurbished remove controlled aircraft, full of high explosives, from Somalia to half dozen nuclear facilities operated by hostile nations. They flew circuitous routes at varying altitudes to avoid detection until it was too late to stop them. Over a period of weeks, they crashed into and destroyed their targets, amid speculation about who had done it and why. Israel was not suspected. Would that have been possible then? Now? I don’t know.

It has been reported that Saudi Arabia has given Israel clearance to use her airspace for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Fox News reports that US Defense sources claim the Saudis are conducting tests on their air defense systems after giving Israel permission to to enter a narrow corridor to shorten the distance to attack Iran.

The testing would make sure that Saudi jets don’t get scrambled when Israel entered Saudi airspace. Once the IAF planes complete their mission and exit Saudi airspace, Saudi defenses would go back online again. [Emphasis added.]

Might Saudi Arabia, Egypt and perhaps other Gulf States go beyond not interfering with an Israeli attack to provide air support and other help? They seem to be as displeased with the “deal” as Israel is.

Assuming that Israel is not overly concerned about being identified as the attacker and is willing to act alone, she might:

Detonate one or more high-altitude atomic bombs to emit sufficient electromagnetic pulses (EMP) to fry all above-ground Iranian electronics. That would substantially disable Iranian above-ground command and control facilities as well as other communications, hence diminishing (but not eliminating) the possibility of counter-strikes by Iran and/or its proxies. Perhaps she has other, non-nuclear, means of generating EMPs; she hasn’t said.

Immediately thereafter, drop whatever suitable bombs she may have on all Iranian military and nuclear facilities. Does Israel have bunker-buster bombs? Probably not of U.S. manufacture, but that does not mean that she has not developed her own. It would be surprising if she had not.

Obama and other “leaders of the free world” would complain and the U.N. would emit fits of angry censures. However, that happens with great frequency in any event, and would be an insufficient reason for Israel to commit national suicide through inaction against Iran.

I am no “military expert” and would appreciate any comments on the suggestions I have made as well as any other suggestions anyone might care to offer.

Categories: Diplomacy, Egypt, Foreign policy, Free world, Gulf states, Iran, Iran / Israel War, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, John Bolton, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, State Department
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Arabs Blast “Obama’s Deal” With Iran

April 4, 2015

Arabs Blast “Obama’s Deal” With Iran, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, April 4, 2015

“This is a dangerous agreement…[It ]provides Iran with what it needs most to pursue its wars and expansionism against the Arabs: funds.” —Salah al-Mukhtar, Ammon News”

“Iran has tried to intervene in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and it is seeing that it’s not paying any price…There is also a feeling in Tehran that the U.S. is avoiding a military confrontation with the Iranians.”– Hassan al-Barari, Al-Sharq

The deal means that the international community has accepted Iran as a nuclear power.” — Hani ala-Jamal, al-Wafd

Many Arabs have expressed deep concern over the nuclear deal that was reached last week between Iran and the world powers, including the US.

Arab leaders and heads of state were polite enough not to voice public criticism of the agreement when President Barack Obama phoned them to inform them about it. But this has not stopped Arab politicians, political analysts and columnists reflecting government thinking in the Arab world from lashing out at what they describe as “Obama’s bad and dangerous deal with Iran.”

The Arabs, especially those living in the Gulf, see the framework agreement as a sign of US “weakness” and a green light to Iran for Iran to pursue its “expansionist” scheme in the Arab world.

“Some Arab countries are opposed to the nuclear deal because it poses a threat to their interests,” said the Egyptian daily Al-Wafd in an article entitled, “Politicians: (President Barack) Obama’s deal with Iran threatens Arab world.” http://www.alwafd.org/838527

The newspaper quoted Hani al-Jamal, an Egyptian political and regional researcher, as saying that the deal means that the international community has accepted Iran as a nuclear power. He predicted that the framework agreement would put Iran and some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt on a course of collision.

Al-Jamal advised the Arab countries to form a “Sunni NATO” that would guarantee Pakistan’s status as a nuclear power Arab ally in face of the “Iranian and Israeli threat.”

Jihad Odeh, an Egyptian professor of political science, said that Obama’s “achievements are designed to dismantle the Arab world. Obama wants to make historic achievements before the end of his term in office by destroying Al-Qaeda, seeking rapprochement with Cuba and reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran.”

http://www.alwafd.org/838527

Although Saudi Arabia, which is currently waging war on Iranian-backed Houthi militiamen in Yemen, “welcomed” the nuclear agreement, it has privately expressed concern over the deal.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/public-saudi-welcome-for-iran-nuclear-deal-but-unease-remains-1.1485119

Similarly, several Gulf countries that initially welcomed the agreement are beginning to voce concern over its repercussions on the region. For the past several months, the Arabs have been warning against Iran’s ongoing effort to take control over their countries.

“The US surely does not want to see a more powerful Iranian hegemony in the region, but at the same time, it does not appear to mind some kind of Iranian influence in the region,” said Nasser Ahmed Bin Gaith, a United Arab Emirates researcher. “Iran has been seeking to reclaim its previous role as the region’s police.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/saudi-arabia-israel-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal-150401061906177.html

Bin Gaith said that it was clear that a Western recognition of Iranian regional influence would come at the expense of the Gulf countries.

“The Gulf states should build strategic partnerships with the regional powers of Pakistan and Turkey, who share the Gulf nations’ fears of Iranian ambitions in the region,” he added.

Echoing widespread fear among Arabs of Iran’s territorial ambitions in the Middle East, political analyst Hassan al-Barari wrote in Qatar’s daily Al-Sharq against the policy of appeasement toward Tehran.

“Iran has tried to intervene in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and it is seeing that it’s not paying any price; on the contrary, there are attempts by the big powers to reach understandings with Iran,” al-Barari pointed out. There is also a feeling in Tehran that the US is avoiding a military confrontation with the Iranians and their proxies. The Gulf countries have learned from the lessons of the past in various areas. The policy of appeasement has only led to wars. Any kind of appeasement with Iran will only lead it to ask for more and probably meddle in the internal affairs of the Arab countries and increase its arrogance.”

http://www.al-sharq.com/news/details/324014#.VR7KLjuUevV

Even Jordanians have joined the chorus of Arabs expressing fear over Iran’s growing threat to the Arab world, especially in wake of the nuclear deal with the US and the big powers.

Salah al-Mukhtar, a Jordanian columnist, wrote an article entitled, “Oh Arabs wake up, your enemy is Iran,” in which he accused the US of facilitating Tehran’s wars against the Arab countries.

http://www.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleno=225764

Describing Iran as “Eastern Israel,” al-Mukhtar said that the most dangerous aspect of the framework agreement is that allows Iran to continue with its “destructive wars” against the Arabs. “This is a dangerous agreement, particularly for Saudi Arabia and the opposition forces in Iraq and Syria,” the Jordanian columnist cautioned. This agreement provides Iran with what it needs most to pursue its wars and expansionism against the Arabs: funds. Lifting the sanctions is America’s way of backing the dangerous and direct wars against Arabs; the lifting of the sanctions also provides the Iranians with the funds needed to push with their Persian advancement. The US wants to drain Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf countries in preparation for dividing them.”

Lebanon’s English language The Daily Star newspaper also voiced skepticism over the nuclear deal. “For all the talk of this deal contributing to making the world safer, if Obama is truly concerned with his legacy, especially in the Middle East, he must now work with Iran to encourage it to become a regular member of the international community once again, and not a country which sponsors conflict, whether directly or via proxies, across the region,” the paper editorialized. “Otherwise, this deal could just leave Iran emboldened in its expansionist designs.”

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Editorial/2015/Apr-03/293201-a-deal-or-legacy.ashx

In addition to the Arabs, Iranian opposition figures have also come out against the nuclear deal.

Maryam Rajavi, an Iranian politician and President of the National Council of Resistance, commented that the a “statement of generalities, without spiritual leader Khamenie’s signature and official approval, does not block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb nor prevent its intrinsic deception.

“Continuing talks with religious fascism in Iran – as part of a policy of appeasement – will not secure the region and world from the threat of nuclear proliferation,” Rajavi warned. “Complying with UN Security Council resolutions is the only way to block the mullahs from obtaining nuclear weapons. Leniency and unwarranted concessions by the P5+1 to the least trustworthy regime in the world today only grants it more time and further aggravates the dangers it poses to the Iranian people, to the region and to the wider world.”

http://irannewsupdate.com/news/nuclear/2047-iran-maryam-rajavi-fearful-mullahs-reluctantly-take-one-more-step-backward-toward-drinking-the-chalice-of-nuclear-poison.html

Categories: Arab nations, Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Gulf states, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamism, Israel, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Syria, Yemen
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Cartoons of the day

April 4, 2015

Cartoon of the day via Freedom is just another word, April 4, 2015

Obama gets a great deal with Iran

Obama Iran selfie

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Humor, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Mad Mullahs, Nukes, Obama, P5+1
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COLUMN ONE: The diplomatic track to war

April 3, 2015

COLUMN ONE: The diplomatic track to war, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, April 4, 2015

Iran negotiationsIran negotiations. (photo credit:REUTERS)

No one trusts Washington when Obama claims that he is committed to the security of Israel and the US’s Sunni allies in the region.

Iran is far more powerful than the PLO. But the Americans apparently believe they are immune from the consequences of their leaders’ policies. This is not the case for Israel or for our neighbors. We lack the luxury of ignoring the fact that Obama’s disastrous diplomacy has brought war upon us. Deal or no deal, we are again about to be forced to pay a price to maintain our freedom.

********************

Through their nuclear diplomacy, Obama and his comrades started the countdown to war.

The world powers assembled at Lausanne, Switzerland, with the representatives of the Islamic Republic may or may not reach a framework deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But succeed or fail, the disaster that their negotiations have unleashed is already unfolding. The damage they have caused is irreversible.

US President Barack Obama, his advisers and media cheerleaders have long presented his nuclear diplomacy with the Iran as the only way to avoid war. Obama and his supporters have castigated as warmongers those who oppose his policy of nuclear appeasement with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.

But the opposite is the case. Had their view carried the day, war could have been averted.

Through their nuclear diplomacy, Obama and his comrades started the countdown to war.

In recent weeks we have watched the collapse of the allied powers’ negotiating positions.

They have conceded every position that might have placed a significant obstacle in Iran’s path to developing a nuclear arsenal.

They accepted Iran’s refusal to come clean on the military dimensions of its past nuclear work and so ensured that to the extent UN nuclear inspectors are able to access Iran’s nuclear installations, those inspections will not provide anything approaching a full picture of its nuclear status. By the same token, they bowed before Iran’s demand that inspectors be barred from all installations Iran defines as “military” and so enabled the ayatollahs to prevent the world from knowing anything worth knowing about its nuclear activities.

On the basis of Iran’s agreement to ship its stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, the US accepted Iran’s demand that it be allowed to maintain and operate more than 6,000 centrifuges.

But when on Monday Iran went back on its word and refused to ship its uranium to Russia, the US didn’t respond by saying Iran couldn’t keep spinning 6,000 centrifuges. The US made excuses for Iran.

The US delegation willingly acceded to Iran’s demand that it be allowed to continue operating its fortified, underground enrichment facility at Fordow. In so doing, the US minimized the effectiveness of a future limited air campaign aimed at significantly reducing Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

With this broad range of great power concessions already in its pocket, the question of whether or not a deal is reached has become a secondary concern. The US and its negotiating partners have agreed to a set of understanding with the Iranians. Whether these understandings become a formal agreement or not is irrelevant because the understandings are already being implemented.

True, the US has not yet agreed to Iran’s demand for an immediate revocation of the economic sanctions now standing against it. But the notion that sanctions alone can pressure Iran into making nuclear concessions has been destroyed by Obama’s nuclear diplomacy in which the major concessions have all been made by the US.

No sanctions legislation that Congress may pass in the coming months will be able to force a change in Iran’s behavior if they are not accompanied by other coercive measures undertaken by the executive branch.

There is nothing new in this reality. For a regime with no qualms about repressing its society, economic sanctions are not an insurmountable challenge. But it is possible that if sanctions were implemented as part of a comprehensive plan to use limited coercive means to block Iran’s nuclear advance, they could have effectively blocked Iran’s progress to nuclear capabilities while preventing war. Such a comprehensive strategy could have included a proxy campaign to destabilize the regime by supporting regime opponents in their quest to overthrow the mullahs. It could have involved air strikes or sabotage of nuclear installations and strategic regime facilities like Revolutionary Guards command and control bases and ballistic missile storage facilities. It could have involved diplomatic isolation of Iran.

Moreover, if sanctions were combined with a stringent policy of blocking Iran’s regional expansion by supporting Iraqi sovereignty, supporting the now deposed government of Yemen and making a concerted effort to weaken Hezbollah and overthrow the Iranian-backed regime in Syria, then the US would have developed a strong deterrent position that would likely have convinced Iran that its interest was best served by curbing its imperialist enthusiasm and setting aside its nuclear ambitions.

In other words, a combination of these steps could have prevented war and prevented a nuclear Iran. But today, the US-led capitulation to Iran has pulled the rug out from any such comprehensive strategy. The administration has no credibility. No one trusts Obama to follow through on his declared commitment to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

No one trusts Washington when Obama claims that he is committed to the security of Israel and the US’s Sunni allies in the region.

And so we are now facing the unfolding disaster that Obama has wrought. The disaster is that deal or no deal, the US has just given the Iranians a green light to behave as if they have already built their nuclear umbrella. And they are in fact behaving in this manner.

They may not have a functional arsenal, but they act as though they do, and rightly so, because the US and its partners have just removed all significant obstacles from their path to nuclear capabilities. The Iranians know it. Their proxies know it. Their enemies know it.

As a consequence, all the regional implications of a nuclear armed Iran are already being played out. The surrounding Arab states led by Saudi Arabia are pursuing nuclear weapons. The path to a Middle East where every major and some minor actors have nuclear arsenals is before us.

Iran is working to expand its regional presence as if it were a nuclear state already. It is brazenly using its Yemeni Houthi proxy to gain maritime control over the Bab al-Mandab, which together with Iran’s control over the Straits of Hormuz completes its maritime control over shipping throughout the Middle East.

Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Eritrea, and their global trading partners will be faced with the fact that their primary maritime shipping route to Asia is controlled by Iran.

With its regional aggression now enjoying the indirect support of its nuclear negotiating partners led by the US, Iran has little to fear from the pan-Arab attempt to dislodge the Houthis from Aden and the Bab al-Mandab. If the Arabs succeed, Iran can regroup and launch a new offensive knowing it will face no repercussions for its aggression and imperialist endeavors.

Then of course there are Iran’s terror proxies.

Hezbollah, whose forces now operate openly in Syria and Lebanon, is reportedly active as well in Iraq and Yemen. These forces behave with a brazenness the likes of which we have never seen.

Hamas too believes that its nuclear-capable Iranian state sponsor ensures that regardless of its combat losses, it will be able to maintain its regime in Gaza and continue using its territory as a launching ground for assaults against Israel and Egypt.

Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq have reportedly carried out heinous massacres of Sunnis who have fallen under their control and faced no international condemnation for their war crimes, operating as they are under Iran’s protection and sponsorship. And the Houthis, of course, just overthrew a Western-backed government that actively assisted the US and its allies in their campaign against al-Qaida.

For their proxies’ aggression, Iran has been rewarded with effective Western acceptance of its steps toward regional domination and nuclear armament.

Hezbollah’s activities represent an acute and strategic danger to Israel. Not only does Hezbollah now possess precision guided missiles that are capable of taking out strategic installations throughout the country, its arsenal of 100,000 missiles can cause a civilian disaster.

Hezbollah forces have been fighting in varied combat situations continuously for the past three years. Their combat capabilities are incomparably greater than those they fielded in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. There is every reason to believe that these Hezbollah fighters, now perched along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, can make good their threat to attack and hold fixed targets including border communities.

While Israel faces threats unlike any we have faced in recent decades that all emanate from Western-backed Iranian aggression and expansionism carried out under a Western-sanctioned Iranian nuclear umbrella, Israel is not alone in this reality. The unrolling disaster also threatens the moderate Sunni states including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The now regional war in Yemen is but the first act of the regional war at our doorstep.

There are many reasons this war is now inevitable.

Every state threatened by Iran has been watching the Western collapse in Switzerland.

They have been watching the Iranian advance on the ground. And today all of them are wondering the same thing: When and what should we strike to minimize the threats we are facing.

Everyone recognizes that the situation is only going to get worse. With each passing week, Iran’s power and brazenness will only increase.

Everyone understands this. And this week they learned that with Washington heading the committee welcoming Iran’s regional hegemony and nuclear capabilities, no outside power will stand up to Iran’s rise. The future of every state in the region hangs in the balance. And so, it can be expected that everyone is now working out a means to preempt and prevent a greater disaster.

These preemptive actions will no doubt include three categories of operations: striking Hezbollah’s missile arsenal; striking the Iranian Navy to limit its ability to project its force in the Bab al-Mandab; and conducting limited military operations to destroy a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear installations.

Friday is the eve of Passover. Thirteen years ago, Palestinian terrorists brought home the message of the Exodus when they blew up the Seder at Netanya’s Park Hotel, killing 30, wounding 140, and forcing Israel into war. The message of the Passover Haggada is that there are no shortcuts to freedom. To gain and keep it, you have to be willing to fight for it.

That war was caused by Israel’s embrace of the notion that you can bring peace through concessions that empower an enemy sworn to your destruction. The price of that delusion was thousands of lives lost and families destroyed.

Iran is far more powerful than the PLO. But the Americans apparently believe they are immune from the consequences of their leaders’ policies. This is not the case for Israel or for our neighbors. We lack the luxury of ignoring the fact that Obama’s disastrous diplomacy has brought war upon us. Deal or no deal, we are again about to be forced to pay a price to maintain our freedom.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Free world, Funding terrorism, Hezbollah, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Israel, Javad Zarif, Kerry, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Sanctions, Shiite crescent, Supreme Leader, Terrorism
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Obama blinked, Iran didn’t

April 3, 2015

Obama blinked, Iran didn’t, Legal Insurrection, , April 3, 2015

Iran celebrates

Well that “Framework” negotiation was fun.

For the Iranians, who got a great deal at least as far as a Framework goes.

As this WaPo editorial points out, the Obama administration gave up on key parameters:

THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.

That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years.

In his speech after the announcement, Obama took care not only to repeat the false rhetorical device of the only choice being between this deal and war, he blamed that choice on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. David Horvitz at The Times of Israel writes, Defeatist Obama’s deal with the devil:

Extolling the virtues of his deal with Iran on Thursday, President Barack Obama made a false and extremely nasty assertion: “It’s no secret,” he claimed, incorrectly, “that the Israeli prime minister and I don’t agree about whether the United States should move forward with a peaceful resolution to the Iranian issue.”

It is indeed no secret that Obama and Netanyahu don’t agree on how to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. It is emphatically not the case, however, that Israel’s prime minister opposes “a peaceful resolution to the Iranian issue.” It is emphatically not the case, despite Obama’s insinuation, that Israel’s leader regards military intervention as the only means to thwart Iran.

Netanyahu has not been saying no to diplomacy. His endlessly stated contention is not that war is the only alternative to the deal so delightedly hailed by Obama as “the most effective way to ensure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.” Rather, in Netanyahu’s insistent opinion, what is needed is simply a different, far more potent deal.

 

Why throw Netanyahu under the bus again? There are plenty of people, including Democrats in Congress, who don’t view this deal as the only non-war choice.

Netanyahu issued the following statement after the announcement of the Framework deal:

Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
April 3, 2015

I just came from a meeting of the Israeli cabinet. We discussed the proposed framework for a deal with Iran.

The cabinet is united in strongly opposing the proposed deal.
This deal would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world and would threaten the very survival of the State of Israel.

The deal would not shut down a single nuclear facility in Iran, would not destroy a single centrifuge in Iran and will not stop R&D on Iran’s advanced centrifuges.

On the contrary. The deal would legitimize Iran’s illegal nuclear program. It would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure. A vast nuclear infrastructure remains in place.

The deal would lift sanctions almost immediately and this at the very time that Iran is stepping up its aggression and terror in the region and beyond the region.

In a few years, the deal would remove the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, enabling Iran to have a massive enrichment capacity that it could use to produce many nuclear bombs within a matter of months.

The deal would greatly bolster Iran’s economy. It would give Iran thereby tremendous means to propel its aggression and terrorism throughout the Middle East.

Such a deal does not block Iran’s path to the bomb.

Such a deal paves Iran’s path to the bomb.

And it might very well spark a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East and it would greatly increase the risks of terrible war.

Now, some say that the only alternative to this bad deal is war.

That’s not true.

There is a third alternative – standing firm, increasing the pressure on Iran until a good deal is achieved.

And finally let me say one more thing.

Iran is a regime that openly calls for Israel’s destruction and openly and actively works towards that end.

Just two days ago, in the midst of the negotiations in Lausanne, the commander of the Basij security forces in Iran said this: “The destruction of Israel is non-negotiable.”

Well, I want to make clear to all. The survival of Israel is non-negotiable.

Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period.

In addition, Israel demands that any final agreement with Iran will include a clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Thank you.

Meanwhile, the Mullah regime crowed at how they got what they wanted (see also tweets in yesterday’s post):

Twitter-Rhouani-Iran-Deal-Centrifuges-spin
Twitter-Bill-Hemmer-Rhouani-Iran-Deal-Enrichment
Twitter-Fars-News-Agency-Iran-Deal-Rouhani

Seems to me the Mullahs know something we don’t.

And Iranians took to the streets to celebrate:

 

There was a better deal to be had. The sanctions were hurting. Obama blinked, the Iranians didn’t.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Islamism, Israel, Kerry, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Netanyahu, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Theocracy, U.S. Congress, Zarif
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