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Everything you need to know about Obama’s Iran deal

July 15, 2015

Everything you need to know about Obama’s Iran deal, Breitbart,  Ben Shapiro, July 14, 2015

ap_barack-obama_ap-photo13-640x427AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool

The deal the Obama administration cut today with the Iranian terrorist regime signals once and for all that the Obama administration considers both the United States and Israel to be the key threats to peace in the world.

Why else would the American president have lifted sanctions and granted the Iranian mullahs decades of American cover in the face of overwhelming evidence they support anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-Sunni terror across the region and the globe?

President Obama’s statements today about the strength of this deal carry no weight, given that he has coordinated with the Iranian regime – which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans over the past few years – in Iraq, has allowed them to prop up Bashar Assad in Syria, has allowed them to continue their subjugation of Lebanon, watched in silence as they flexed their muscle in Yemen, and attempted to cut off weapons shipments to Israel in the midst of its war with Iranian proxy terror group Hamas.

Obama wants Iran to be a regional power, because Obama fears Israel more than he fears Iran. The same day that Obama announced his deal, “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted, “To our neighbours: Do not be deceived by the propaganda of the warmongering Zionist regime. #Iran & its power will translate into your power.”

Obama’s counting on it.

Obama had one motivation in this deal: he believes that any Western attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear development with force is more dangerous and less moral than Iran’s elevated terror support and even its eventual nuclear development.

America and the West, in Obama’s global worldview, are so dangerous that he wouldn’t even make minor requests of Iran, such as releasing American prisoners, if that meant the minute possibility of actual Western action on the horizon. Obama doesn’t care if Iran is lying. To him, that risk is acceptable when compared with the certainty of Western action, no matter how constrained, against Iran.

Obama consistently posed the choice about his nuclear deal as one between diplomacy and war, as though a military strike against Iran would have precipitated World War III. But this deal is far more calibrated to provoke World War III than any targeted strike by Israel, the United States, or anyone else.

The deal pats itself on the back with wording about ensuring that “Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful,” and how the deal will be a “fundamental shift” in the international community’s relationship with Iran. Then it gets to details. And the devil isn’t just in the details; the devils in Iran wrote them.

The deal “will produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance and energy.” Those sanctions end on the first day of the deal: “The UN Security Council resolution will also provide for the termination on Implementation Day of provisions imposed under previous resolutions.” The EU “will terminate all provisions of the EU Regulation.”

Money will now move between “EU persons and entities, including financial institutions, and Iranian persons and entities, including financial institutions.” Banking activities will resume abroad. Full trade will essentially resume. After five years, the arms embargo against Iran will end. After eight years, the missile embargo against Iran will end.

The deal explicitly acknowledges that Iran is gaining benefits no other state would gain under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In terms of its nuclear development, instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, that program is now protected:

Iran will continue to conduct enrichment R&D in a manner that does not accumulate enriched uranium. Iran’s enrichment R&D with uranium for 10 years will only include IR-4, IR-5, IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges as laid out in Annex I, and Iran will not engage in other isotope separation technologies for enrichment of uranium as specified in Annex I. Iran will continue testing IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, and will commence testing of up to 30 IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges after eight and a half years, as detailed in Annex I.

We have no way of knowing what Iran has done additionally, however, since the deal has no provisions forcing them to turn over information about what they’ve already done. There is no baseline.

So who will implement this deal? A “Joint Commission” comprised of the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States and Iran is charged with monitoring all developments under the agreement – meaning that all the signatories, all of whom have an interest in preserving a deal they signed, will be the “objective” monitoring agents.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will monitor and verify Iran’s nuclear program. But not everywhere. Only at key nuclear facilities will the IAEA have access – military sites were not included in the deal in any real way – and even then, the process for access is extraordinarily regulated:

74. Requests for access pursuant to provisions of this JCPOA will be made in good faith, with due observance of the sovereign rights of Iran, and kept to the minimum necessary to effectively implement the verification responsibilities under this JCPOA. In line with normal international safeguards practice, such requests will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities, but will be exclusively for resolving concerns regarding fulfillment of the JCPOA commitments and Iran’s other non-proliferation and safeguards obligations. The following procedures are for the purpose of JCPOA implementation between the E3/EU+3 and Iran and are without prejudice to the safeguards agreement and the Additional Protocol thereto. In implementing this procedure as well as other transparency measures, the IAEA will be requested to take every precaution to protect commercial, technological and industrial secrets as well as other confidential information coming to its knowledge.

75. In furtherance of implementation of the JCPOA, if the IAEA has concerns regarding undeclared nuclear materials or activities, or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA, at locations that have not been declared under the comprehensive safeguards agreement or Additional Protocol, the IAEA will provide Iran the basis for such concerns and request clarification.

76. If Iran’s explanations do not resolve the IAEA’s concerns, the Agency may request access to such locations for the sole reason to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at such locations. The IAEA will provide Iran the reasons for access in writing and will make available relevant
information.

77. Iran may propose to the IAEA alternative means of resolving the IAEA’s concerns that enable the IAEA to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the location in question, which should be given due and prompt consideration.

78. If the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA cannot be verified after the implementation of the alternative arrangements agreed by Iran and the IAEA, or if the two sides are unable to reach satisfactory arrangements to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities or activities inconsistent with the JCPOA at the specified locations within 14 days of the IAEA’s original request for access, Iran, in consultation with the members of the Joint Commission, would resolve the IAEA’s concerns through necessary means
agreed between Iran and the IAEA. In the absence of an agreement, the members of the Joint Commission, by consensus or by a vote of 5 or more of its 8 members, would advise on the necessary means to resolve the IAEA’s concerns. The process of consultation with, and any action by, the members of the Joint Commission would not exceed 7 days, and Iran would implement the necessary means within 3 additional days.

Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry wrote into the deal provisions designed to hamstring Congress and local authorities:

If a law at the state or local level in the United States is preventing the implementation of the sanctions lifting as specified in this JCPOA, the United States will take appropriate steps, taking into account all available authorities, with a view to achieving such implementation. The United States will actively encourage officials at the state or local level to take into account the changes in the U.S. policy reflected in the lifting of sanctions under this JCPOA and to refrain from actions inconsistent with this change in policy.

And if Iran cheats, the United States and EU will have to take the matter to dispute resolution rather than re-implementing sanctions, as Obama has lied:

The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions specified in Annex II that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA, without prejudice to the dispute resolution process provided for under this JCPOA. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions. Iran has stated that it will treat such a re-introduction or re-imposition of the sanctions…

Obama is already moving on this front. While calling for an open conversation on the Iran deal, President Obama has already said he will veto any attempts to curb the deal by Congress. So feel free to chat, gang, so long as you don’t attempt to do anything.

In brief, the agreement trades enormous amounts of cash for Iran’s pinkie swear that they will not develop nuclear weapons now, and the blind hope that Iran’s regime will magically moderate over the next five to ten years – a hope made even more distant by the fact that this deal reinforces the power and strength of the current Iranian regime. The West has no interest in holding Iran to an agreement since, to do so, they would have to repudiate the deal they cut in the first place. Anything short of actual nuclear aggression will draw no response from the West. No wonder Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal a “historic mistake for the world,” explaining:

Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe… One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: ‘Death to America.’ We knew very well that the desire to sign an agreement was stronger than anything, and therefore we did not commit to preventing an agreement.

So here’s what happens next in the region.

Israel Waits. The chances of an Israeli strike on Iran are now somewhere between slim and none. Obama’s deal prevents Israel from taking action without risking sanctions from the European Union and the United States for endangering this sham deal.

Nothing would make Obama happier than to levy sanctions against the Jewish State – and should Israel act in its own interests, undercutting Obama’s Epitaph Achievement, Obama will react harshly. Israel will be busy enough handling all the Iranian proxies on its borders who will now see cash and resources flow to them, all sponsored by the West.

Hezbollah and Hamas Are Strengthened. Terrorist groups across the Middle East rejoice today, knowing that the money Iran just gained through lifting of sanctions will end up restocking their rocket supply. Hezbollah has already destroyed Lebanon as Iran’s arm; Hamas has already taken over Gaza. Both routinely threaten war on Israel, firing ordinance into Israeli territory.

Now they will not only be emboldened – after all, what happens if Israel retaliates against them, Iran threatens to get involved, and the world, seeking to preserve its newfound magical relationship with Iran, puts pressure on Israel? – they will be empowered. Obama just made the next war between Israel and its terrorist neighbors a certainty.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt Go Nuclear. President Obama came into office touting “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Given that Iran is months from a bomb, and that there are no real verification techniques and no real consequences for violation, Iran’s enemies will quickly seek to go nuclear in order to establish a deterrent, not just to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but to their expanded conventional capabilities.

Iran has the largest active military in the Middle East, along with its massive paramilitary terror groups. They’ve built that in the midst of heavy sanctions. With Iran getting active on the borders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, those regimes would be foolhardy not to attempt to develop a nuclear capacity – especially given that Obama has shown there are no detriments to doing so. What’s he going to do, threaten Egypt’s General Al-Sisi? He’s been doing that for years already.

Bashar Assad Stays In Power. Remember the time Obama said Syrian dictator Bashar Assad needed to go? That’s not happening anytime soon, given that Assad is Iran’s tool in Syria. When Obama drew a red line against Syria based on Assad’s use of chemical weapons, he apparently meant that Assad should stay forever, and that his sponsor state should be rewarded with billions of dollars in relieved sanctions. No wonder Assad called the deal a “major turning point” in world history, adding, “We are confident that the Islamic Republic of Iran will support, with greater drive, just causes of nations and work for peace and stability in the region and the world.”

Iraq Splits Permanently Between Iran and ISIS. Supposedly, the United States opposed Shia exclusionary policy against Sunnis in Iraq, and blamed such policy for the breakdown of security there. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has now taken over the southern half of the country; the new Iraqi Prime Minister is an Iranian proxy. Meanwhile, Sunnis, seeking some sort of security against the Iranians and having no secular American-backed regime to rely upon, have been turning in increasing numbers to the barbarians of ISIS. President Obama has made ISIS a permanent feature of the world landscape, and has turned Iraq into an Iranian proxy state, just like Syria and Lebanon.

Iran Will Foray Into Iran [?? — DM], Afghanistan. Iran’s expansionist ambitions have been increased exponentially by this deal. The deal does nothing to demand Iran stop its military activities abroad, of course, which means that their sponsorship of the Houthis in Yemen and terrorist groups in Afghanistan will continue apace. Al Jazeera has even speculated at sectarian unrest in Pakistan.

Obama’s defenders today ask his detractors, “If the deal works, isn’t it a good deal?”

Sure. If the Munich Agreement had worked, it would have been a masterpiece of diplomacy.

But promising a unicorn in a diplomatic negotiation isn’t quite the same thing as delivering one. And delivering billions of dollars, international legitimacy, and a protective shield around a terrorist regime in exchange for that unicorn makes you either a fool or an active perpetuator of that terrorist regime.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
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CNN: Original Obama administration standards for nuclear deal not met

July 14, 2015

CNN: Original Obama administration standards for nuclear deal not met, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, July 15, 2015

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions
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Full text of Obama on Iran deal: ‘Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off’

July 14, 2015

Full text of Obama on Iran deal: ‘Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off,’ The Times of Israel, July 14, 2015

(Obama distorts and obfuscates the “deal.” Please see Joint comprehensive plan of action — text. — DM)

Obama-Iran-Nuclear-Ta_Horo1-e1436884995471-635x357Vice President Joe Biden listens as President Barack Obama delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 14, 2015, after an Iran nuclear deal is reached. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Because of this deal we will for the first time be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities.

Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location — put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s past nuclear research.

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

After two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change, change that makes our country and the world safer and more secure.

This deal is also in line with a tradition of American leadership. It’s now more than 50 years since President Kennedy stood before the American people and said, “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” He was speaking then about the need for discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union, which led to efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons.

In those days, the risk was a catastrophic nuclear war between two superpowers. In our time, the risk is that nuclear weapons will spread to more and more countries, particularly in the Middle East, the most volatile region in our world.

Today, because America negotiated from a position of strength and principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region. Because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon.

This deal meets every single one of the bottom lines that we established when we achieved a framework this spring. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off, and the inspection and transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place. Because of this deal, Iran will not produce the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb.

Because of this deal, Iran will remove two thirds of its installed centrifuges, the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the next decade. Iran will also get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium.

To put that in perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. Because of this deal that stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years.

Because of this deal, Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Arak so that it will not produce weapons grade plutonium and it has agreed to ship the spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the lifetime of the reactor. For at least the next 15 years Iran will not build any new heavy water reactors.

Because of this deal we will for the first time be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines and mills, its conversion facility and its centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities.

This ensures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years.

Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location — put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent. And the IAEA has also reached an agreement with Iran to get access that it needs to complete its investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s past nuclear research.

Finally Iran is permanently prohibited from pursuing a nuclear weapon under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which provided the basis for the international community’s efforts to apply pressure on Iran.

As Iran takes steps to implement this deal, it will receive relief from the sanctions that we put in place because of Iran’s nuclear program, both America’s own sanctions and sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

This relief will be phased in. Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it begins to receive sanctions relief.

And over the course of the next decade, Iran must abide by the deal before additional sanctions are lifted, including five years for restrictions related to arms and eight years for restrictions related to ballistic missiles.

All of this will be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations Security Council resolution. And if Iran violates the deal, all of these sanctions will snap back into place. So there is a very clear incentive for Iran to follow through and there are very real consequences for a violation.

That’s the deal. It has the full backing of the international community. Congress will now have an opportunity to review the details and my administration stands ready to provide extensive briefings on how this will move forward.

As the American people and Congress review the deal it will be important to consider the alternative. Consider what happens in a world without this deal. Without this deal, there is no scenario where the world joins us in sanctioning Iran until it completely dismantles its nuclear program. Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure and the world would not support an effort to permanently sanction Iran into submission.

We put sanctions in place to get a diplomatic resolution and that is what we have done. Without this deal there would be no agreed-upon limitations for the Iranian nuclear program. Iran could produce, operate and test more and more centrifuges. Iran could fuel a reactor capable of producing plutonium for a bomb and we would not have any of the inspections that would allow us to detect a covert nuclear weapons program.

In other words, no deal means no lasting constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. Such a scenario would make it more likely that other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world.

It would also present the United States with fewer and less effective options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

I have been president and commander in chief for over six years now. Time and again I have faced decisions about whether or not to use military force. It’s the greatest decision that any president has to make.

Many times, in multiple countries, I have decided to use force. And I will never hesitate to do so when it is in our national security interest. I strongly believe that our national security interest now depends upon preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which means that, without a diplomatic resolution, neither I nor a future U.S. president would face a decision about whether or not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon or whether to use our military to stop it.

Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East. Moreover, we give nothing up by testing whether or not this problem can be solved peacefully. If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available to any U.S. president in the future.

And I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now, the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program.

For this reason, I believe it would be irresponsible to walk away from this deal. But on such a tough issue, it is important that the American people and the representatives in Congress get a full opportunity to review the deal.

After all, the details matter. And we’ve had some of the finest nuclear scientists in the world working through those details. And we’re dealing with a country — Iran — that has been a sworn adversary of the United States for over 35 years.

So I welcome a robust debate in Congress on this issue and I welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement. But I will remind Congress that you don’t make deals like this with your friends. We negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union when that nation was committed to our destruction and those agreements ultimately made us safer.

I am confident that this deal will meet the national security interests of the United States and our allies. So I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal. We do not have to accept an inevitable spiral into conflict. And we certainly shouldn’t seek it. And precisely because the stakes are so high this is not the time for politics or posturing. Tough talk from Washington does not solve problems. Hard-nosed diplomacy, leadership that has united the world’s major powers offers a more effective way to verify that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Now that doesn’t mean that this deal will resolve all of our differences with Iran. We share the concerns expressed by many of our friends in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf states, about Iran’s support for terrorism and its use of proxies to destabilize the region.

But that is precisely why we are taking this step, because an Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would be far more destabilizing and far more dangerous to our friends and to the world.

Meanwhile we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran’s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program and its human rights violations. We will continue our unprecedented efforts to strengthen Israel’s security, efforts that go beyond what any American administration has done before.

And we will continue the work we began at Camp David, to elevate our partnership with the Gulf States to strengthen their capabilities to counter threats from Iran or terrorist groups like ISIL.

However, I believe that we must continue to test whether or not this region, which has known so much suffering, so much bloodshed, can move in a different direction.

Time and again I have made clear to the Iranian people that we will always be open to engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. Our differences are real and the difficult history between our nations cannot be ignored. But it is possible to change.

The path of violence and rigid ideology, a foreign policy based on threats to attack your neighbors or eradicate Israel, that’s a dead end. A different path, one of tolerance and peaceful resolution of conflict, leads to more integration into the global economy, more engagement with the international community and the ability of the Iranian people to prosper and thrive. This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.

We have come a long way to reach this point: decades of an Iranian nuclear program, many years of sanctions, and many months of intense negotiation.

Today, I want to thank the members of Congress, from both parties, who helped us put in place the sanctions that have proven so effective as well as the other countries who joined us in that effort. I want to thank our negotiating partners — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, as well as the European Union — for our unity in this effort, which showed that the world can do remarkable things when we share a vision of peacefully addressing conflict. We showed what we can do when we do not split apart.

And finally, I want to thank the American negotiating team. We had a team of experts working for several weeks straight on this, including our secretary of energy, Ernie Moniz. And I want to particularly thank John Kerry, our secretary of state, who began his service to this country more than four decades ago when he put on our uniform and went off to war. He is now making this country safer through his commitment to strong, principled American diplomacy.

History shows that America must lead, not just with our might, but with our principles. It shows we are stronger, not when we are alone, but when we bring the world together. Today’s announcement marks one more chapter in this pursuit of a safer and more helpful, more hopeful world.

Thank you. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Peace in our time, Sanctions
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Nowhere, no-time supervision

July 14, 2015

Nowhere, no-time supervision, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, July 14, 2015

(The article was written prior to release of the “Joint comprehensive plan of action.” A link to the text of the plan, with quotes from the part about IAEA inspections, is available here. — DM)

Under the terms of the accord, it seems that IAEA inspectors will ‎have to “coordinate” their visits to suspect Iranian sites, “in consultation between Iran ‎and the world powers.” Worse still, Iran will have the right to deny and challenge U.N. ‎requests to send inspectors to suspicious sites. In these cases, an arbitration board ‎composed of Iran and the powers would decide on the issue. ‎

They call this “managed access,” which is a euphemism for nowhere, no-time ‎inspections.

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

Ahead of the accord reached between the P5+1 and Iran Tuesday, The New York Times reported that it was expected to be a “political agreement,” not a “legally binding treaty.” ‎

Furthermore, Israeli sources said the two sides would “announce understandings” and ‎present a 100-page document, but not “sign” anything. It will take months ‎of additional negotiations to develop the relevant implementation documents.

All of which is meant to obfuscate the details, Israeli officials fear, and cloud the matter ‎enough to confuse or bamboozle Congress. It will also allow the Iranians to (correctly) ‎claim that they never truly “signed away” their nuclear capacities. In the meantime, U.N. ‎and other international mechanisms to lift sanctions on Iran will go into high gear.‎

However, the root corruption of the agreement is that Iran gets to keep its nuclear ‎facilities, and there will be no truly intrusive international supervision of what goes on ‎deep inside them.‎

The accord leaves Iran with all its nuclear development facilities intact, including the ‎Fordo underground center, instead of dismantling them. This allows the Iranians to ‎continue refining their nuclear skills. Even at low levels of enrichment (3.5% and 5%, which are not useful for a bomb) this provides a framework with which Tehran ‎can bypass Western restrictions and hoodwink Western inspectors.‎

After all, Iran has clandestinely crossed every “red line” set by the West over the past ‎‎20 years — putting nuclear plants online, building heavy-water facilities, refining ‎uranium, working on explosive triggers and warheads, and generally breaching all of its ‎obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — and has gotten away with it. It ‎has lied, formally and repeatedly, to the international community about its nuclear ‎efforts.‎

So any deal that scales back sanctions and allows Iran to keep operating its advanced ‎nuclear development facilities even at a low level is a fatal bargain. So warned Simon ‎Henderson of the Washington Institute and Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director ‎general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as long as two years ago. ‎

U.S. President Obama’s response to this was to promise that he would accept nothing ‎less than a Western right to conduct “anywhere, anytime” international inspections of ‎Iran’s most secret nuclear and military facilities. ‎

Indeed, veteran investigators have testified in front of Congress literally dozens of ‎times that anywhere-anytime access is a minimum prerequisite to a verifiable deal. ‎

Alas, Obama has now backed down from that. It’s an American collapse.‎

Under the terms of the accord, it seems that IAEA inspectors will ‎have to “coordinate” their visits to suspect Iranian sites, “in consultation between Iran ‎and the world powers.” Worse still, Iran will have the right to deny and challenge U.N. ‎requests to send inspectors to suspicious sites. In these cases, an arbitration board ‎composed of Iran and the powers would decide on the issue. ‎

They call this “managed access,” which is a euphemism for nowhere, no-time ‎inspections.‎

This means that Iran will continue to play the negotiation game over every Western ‎inspection request. With lawyers and more lawyers, diplomats and more diplomats. Lots of ‎hotels and endless discussions.‎

In other words, Iran will be able to delay and delay access to true military or ‎nuclear sites, just as it has done with the Parchin military base, where it is suspected ‎to have experimented with nuclear weapons production. ‎

Only now, under the accord and after at least three years of requests (and after a ‎major Iranian cleanup effort, documented by Western satellite photos) will Iran finally ‎‎”grant” access to Parchin. Sometime soon.

Yay. What a great victory for Obama and nuclear containment of Iran.‎

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Israel, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions
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Munich for our time

July 14, 2015

Munich for our time, Power Line, Scott Johnson, July 14, 2015

(It’s worse than Munich. At least Chamberlain was working in a context of military weakness; Obama has been operating in a context of military strength, which he has declined to use. — DM)  

The big news of the day is the announcement of the deal with Iran by President Obama and Secretary Kerry. The Washington Post provides the text and video of Obama’s announcement here.

Listening to President Obama this morning, without access to the text of the agreement, I found key concessions made against his previously announced minimum criteria concealed in pleasing formulations presented as great accomplishments. ‘Twas a famous victory.

The deal must be the worst ever entered into by the United States. It is certainly “an historic mistake.” Based in part on Obama’s statement itself and in part on previous news accounts, I think the following summary provided by Omri Ceren provides a useful guide.

(1) The Iranian nuclear program will be placed under international sponsorship for R&D – A few weeks ago the AP leaked parts of an annex confirming that a major power would be working with the Iranians to develop next-generation centrifuge technology at the Fordow underground military enrichment bunker. Technically the work won’t be on nuclear material, but the AP noted that “isotope production uses the same technology as enrichment and can be quickly re-engineered to enriching uranium.” The administration had once promised Congress that Iran would be forced to dismantle its centrifuge program. The Iranians refused, so the administration conceded that the Iranians would be allowed to keep their existing centrifuges. Now the international community will be actively sponsoring the development of Iranian nuclear technology. And since the work will be overseen by a great power, it will be off-limits to the kind of sabotage that has kept the Iranian nuclear program in check until now.

(2) The sanctions regime will be shredded – the AP revealed at the beginning of June that the vast majority of the domestic U.S. sanctions regime will be dismantled. The Lausanne factsheet – which played a key role in dampening Congressional criticism to American concessions – had explicitly stated “U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.” That turns out to have been false. Instead the administration will redefine non-nuclear sanctions as nuclear, so that it can lift them. The Iranians are boasting that sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, NIT Co., the National Iranian Oil Company, and 800 individuals and entities will be lifted. That’s probably exaggerated and a bit confused – CBI sanctions are statutory, and will probably not be getting “lifted” – but the sense is clear enough.

(3) The U.S. collapsed on the arms embargo – Just a week ago General Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking.” Now multiple outlets have confirmed that the embargo on conventional weapons will be lifted no later than five years from now, and that the embargo on ballistic missiles will expire in 8 years. No one in the region is going to wait for those embargoes to expire: they’ll rush to build up their stockpiles in anticipation of the sunset.

(4) The U.S. collapsed on anytime-anywhere inspections – The IAEA will get to request access to sensitive sites, the Iranians will get to say no, and then there will be an arbitration board that includes Iran as a member. This concession is particularly damaging politically and substantively because the administration long ago went all-in on verification. The original goal of the talks was to make the Iranians take physical actions that would prevent them from going nuclear if they wanted to: dismantling centrifuges, shuttering facilities, etc. The Iranians said no to those demands, and the Americans backed off. The fallback position relied 100% on verification: yes the Iranians would be physically able to cheat, the argument went, but the cheating would be detected because of an anytime-anywhere inspection regime. That is not what the Americans are bringing home.

(5) The U.S. collapsed on PMDs – This morning the Iranians and the IAEA signed a roadmap for a process that would see Tehran eventually providing access for the IAEA to clear up its concerns. This roadmap differs in no significant way from previous commitments the Iranians have made to the agency, except now Tehran will have received sanctions relief and stabilized its economy. Administration officials will have to look at lawmakers and nonetheless promise that this time the Iranians will give the IAEA what it needs.

UPDATE: The Islamic Republic of Iran has posted the English text of the deal here. What a relief! “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran UN arms embargo, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Munich, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions
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Goodnight Vienna (11)

July 13, 2015

Goodnight Vienna (11), Power Line,  Scott Johnson, July 13, 2015

Omri Ceren continues his series of reports by email from Vienna:

Good Monday from Vienna, where we’re now into day 17 of the current round of negotiations and yet summer continues to surprise us.

The JPOA is again set to expire at midnight after having been extended a few days ago. Just about everyone is saying that another short-term extension is not being considered. Of course the parties always say that, until they don’t, but this time the comments feel a little bit different. The Europeans could not be more frustrated – they don’t understand why the Americans and the Iranians can’t get their nonsense together – and the Russians and Chinese actually have things they need to take care of. Rouhani was even scheduled to speak on TV today, though the Iranians are now saying he’ll wait until there’s a formal announcement.

The conventional wisdom is that negotiations will wrap up today and a ceremony will be held tomorrow.

As for what the parties are still talking about: Reuters has been saying all week that sanctions remain unresolved, and today the wire piled on with “among the biggest sticking points in the past week has been Iran’s insistence that a United Nations Security Council arms embargo and ban on its ballistic missile program dating from 2006 be lifted immediately… Other problematic issues are access for inspectors to military sites in Iran” [1]. The Associated Press report from this morning also identified those two areas as key disagreements, and added that there are complications due to a new Iranian demand “that any U.N. Security Council resolution approving the nuclear deal be written in a way that stops describing Iran’s nuclear activities as illegal” [2].

As far as the UNSCR gambit goes, it seems like a not-very-sophisticated attempt to craft language that would later be used to undermine the IAEA’s authority to inspect Iranian facilities. The Iranians have successfully pulled off similar tricks throughout the talks: they inserted vague language into Geneva that they interpreted as a right to enrich, and they did the same thing at Lausanne so they could later claim that the arms embargo has to be lifted. U.S. negotiators have proven less than adept in detecting how and when the Iranians are laying traps for them.

As far as the arms embargo goes, there are multiple Iranian motives. The most obvious is that the Iranians are engaged in four hot wars across the region against traditional American allies, and they’re eager to purchase Russian weapons to fight in those wars. David Ignatius to MSNBC this morning: “Israel will see that as a direct threat, as it will arm the people Israel is fighting. The Sunni Arabs, as you said, will see this as a major capitulation by the U.S.” The more subtle reason has to do with how the Iranians conduct their illicit nuclear trade. The Iranians have an interest in weakening international restrictions against arms transfers in in general, because they then use newly-legitimized procurement channels to violate whatever restrictions remain. I’m [linking] below an article published yesterday by Benjamin Weinthal – a Berlin-based fellow for Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) – on how Iran has been violating UNSC nuclear sanctions over the last few months:

While U.S.-led world powers hold talks with Iran in Vienna to curb Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, the Islamic Republic’s spies have been seeking atomic and missile technology in neighboring Germany as recently as last month, according to German intelligence sources… Iran has a long history of illegally obtaining nuclear technology from within Germany and transporting it in ways that circumvent international sanctions. German companies have shown an eagerness to legally tap the Iranian market, though none are accused of abetting illegality in the latest efforts by Iran.

Of course there’s also what ought to be the major diplomatic scandal of the Iranians cheating on nuclear sanctions even as nuclear negotiations continue [reported by Benjamin Weinthal in the linked story]. But the Iranians have been caught cheating throughout the talks: they’ve violated UNSC resolutions in exactly this way and they’ve violated the JPOA by busting through oil caps, testing advanced centrifuges, and failing to convert excess enriched gas into dioxide. In literally every case the Obama administration has found a reason to publicly play Iran’s lawyer by spinning away those violations.

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[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/13/us-iran-nuclear-idUSKCN0PM0CE20150713
[2] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1bfd89dfd94b47b19706949ae2255c02/iran-talks-hit-final-stage-announcement-expected

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions
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Addicted to self-deception

July 13, 2015

Addicted to self-deception, Israel Hayom, Dr. Reuven Berko, July 13, 2015

There is an Arab proverb that says, “What is written on the brow will inevitably be seen by the eye,” meaning that one will inevitably meet one’s destiny.

But the eyes of the West do not see the writing. The negotiators responsible for the talks between Iran and the world powers see the sights and hear the voices, but ignore reality and engage in the wishful thinking of those who sent them to Vienna.

Like failed psychologists, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his team are managing the negotiations with the unquestionably stubborn Iranians as if they were therapy sessions. The Iranians, following the directives of a cynical ayatollah whispering to them from the wings, are deliberately displaying manic personality shifts, up and down, playing the West like a marionette between hope and despair.

The West watches eagerly as Iran continues to develop its missiles and its nuclear program, as the centrifuges constantly whirl throughout this period of intentional procrastination. World leaders hear the threats of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his band of clerics, who shun the deal and preach the destruction of Israel, while declaring that the Iranian nation’s struggle against the “boastful” United States will continue and that there will be no access to the sites where the bomb is being developed. If that is what the leader thinks, then the masses will follow. And indeed, the Iranian media, defense establishment, and the crowds in the streets of Tehran parade their zealous hatred and their anti-Western incitement as they demand that sanctions be lifted while American and Israeli flags go up in flames.

It appears the leaders in the talks are using “denial” and “repression” as psychological tricks to delude themselves, and not, God forbid, as negotiation tactics to achieve the desired deal from the enemy. These masters of self-deception respond to threatening declarations from Iran’s supreme leader that his country will never giver up its nuclear achievements by saying that it is his way of preparing the masses in Iran for the concessions to come. This is like saying that the harsh and radical comments repeatedly made are simply a way to “vent” the feelings of rage in the Iranian public and are a sign “from above” of the concession of the nuclear project.

Those who have eyes in their heads understand that things are not going well. Lifting the sanctions will swell Iran’s purse, which funds global terrorism, particularly in Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, and seeks urgently to import Chinese and Russian weapons. Can the leaders of the negotiations admit that they were mistaken and were led astray by the masters of Iranian diplomacy? Will they be able to take a step back and admit that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to call the deal a disaster? Since we are dealing with deception, it appears that Kerry and his staff are trapped in cognitive dissonance of the same sort as a person who buys a beautiful car and then discovers that he has been deceived and the engine is burned out, yet still takes comfort in the fact that the horn works just fine.

From a psychological perspective, this is the line between the impulse for a collective Shiite suicide mission in the name of Allah and the megalomaniacal desire to control the world at the cost of the lives of everyone who opposes. However, in a Persian bazaar, what you see is what you buy. Iran is declaring, planning and working toward destroying every country in the Middle East — especially Israel — with its nuclear program, and no deal with Kerry will change that. Instead of the simple solution — the complete dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program — the West has become addicted to the process of self-deception and procrastination. At least therapy is discreet.

Categories: Denial, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Israel, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Red Lines, Sanctions, Self deception
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Iran State Media Says Final Nuclear Agreement Meets All Khamenei’s Demands

July 13, 2015

Iran State Media Says Final Nuclear Agreement Meets All Khamenei’s Demands, Algemeiner, July 12, 2015

(Please see also, Back in Tehran… Khamenei adds red lines, Rouhani tries to resign, Jaafari hints at “fait accompli” soon. — DM)

Khamanei-300x271Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo: Screenshot.

The final nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 world powers reportedly set to be announced on Monday complies with all the “red lines” set out by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Iranian semi-official news agency Fars reported citing a “source privy to the talks.”

The deal, to be known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPOA), amounts to “a collection of multiple agreements that all fall within the red lines specified by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,” Fars said.

Khamenei doubled down on his set of demands during a meeting with Iran’s President Rouhani in Tehran on June 23rd, Agence France-Presse reported at the time. His bottom line contradicted a number of positions previously outlined by world powers.

Among the P5+1 concessions, according to the Fars report, is the immediate lifting of sanctions following the signing of the deal and the full removal of the United Nations arms embargo.

“According to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, all sanctions against Iran are terminated and Iran will no more be recognized as a sanctioned nation,” the source cited by Fars said. “The JCPA only envisages a set of temporary restrictions that will be removed after a limited and logical period of time, as stated earlier by the Iranian Supreme Leader.”

“All economic, financial and banking sanctions against Iran will be terminated for good on day one after the endorsement of the deal, again as the Iranian Supreme Leader has demanded.”

The source continued: “Iran will no more be under any arms embargo, and according to a UN Security Council resolution that will be issued on the day when the deal is signed by the seven states, all arms embargoes against Iran will be terminated, while its annex keeps some temporary restrictions on Iran for a limited period.”

“The upcoming UN Security Council resolution – that will call all the previous five resolutions against Iran null and void – will be the last resolution to be issued on Iran’s nuclear program and withdraws Iran’s nuclear dossier from under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. This last resolution will remain valid and will be implemented for a specifically limited period of time and will then automatically end at the end of this period,” the source added, according to Fars. “This is the first time that a nation subject to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter has managed to end its case and stop being subject to this chapter through active diplomacy.”

In terms of Iran’s commitments to the international community, Fars characterized them as a “set of temporary and limited measures that will remain valid for different periods of time.”

Earlier on Sunday, the Associated Press cited unnamed diplomats who said that negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks will announce on Monday that they’ve reached a deal to limit the country’s atomic program in return for sanctions relief.

Later in the day, a source cited by Iranian media rejected the AP report.

The source added that “in case of striking a final deal, the agreement has to be approved by the Iranian parliament in the same manner that it has to be approved by the US Congress,” Fars said.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions
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Israeli deterrence in the eye of the hurricane

July 12, 2015

Israeli deterrence in the eye of the hurricane, Jerusalem Post, Louis Rene Beres, July 12, 2015

ShowImage (1)Map of Middle East. (photo credit:Courtesy)

Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.”
– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

To prevent a nuclear war amid steadily growing regional chaos, especially as Iran will soon be fully nuclear (and the grateful beneficiary of US President Barack Obama’s pretend P5+1 diplomacy), Israel will need suitably complementary conventional and nuclear deterrents.

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Left to themselves, especially as more “normal” hostilities dissolve into a full-blown regional chaos, Israel’s adversaries could drive the Jewish state toward an unconventional war. This fateful endangerment could be produced singly or collaboratively, by deliberate enemy intent or by the “collateral damage” of sectarian strife. Militarily, these Islamic adversaries of Israel, both Sunni and Shi’ite, could be either non-nuclear, or, in the future, nuclear.

They might also include certain wellarmed sub-state or terrorist forces. Already, Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have more usable missiles than all NATO countries combined.

To most effectively deal with such interpenetrating threats – including reasonably expected “synergies” and “force multipliers” – Israel’s leaders will first need to consider some largely-opaque factors. These include: 1) probable effects of regional chaos upon enemy rationality; 2) disruptive implications of impending Palestinian statehood; and 3) re-emergence of a corrosively Cold War-style polarity between Russia and the United States. Apropos of a “Cold War II,” there is already evidence of growing contact between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the world’s two largest oil producers.

In essence, Jerusalem must take all necessary steps to successfully manage an expectedly unprecedented level of adversarial complexity and weaponization. Israel’s leaders, in this connection, must take proper measures to ensure that any conceivable failures of its national deterrent would not spark biological or nuclear forms of regional conflict. To accomplish this indispensable goal, the IDF, inter alia, must continue to plan carefully around the core understanding that nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are inherently interrelated and meaningfully “seamless.”

Sometimes, in strategic matters, seeing requires distance. A nuclear war in the Middle East is not beyond possibility. This is a sensible assessment even if Israel were to remain the only nuclear weapons state in the region.

How is this possible? A bellum atomicum could come to Israel not only as a “bolt from the blue” enemy nuclear attack (either by a state or by a terrorist group), but also as the result, intended or otherwise, of certain uncontrolled military escalations.

Needed prudence in such narratives calls for additional specificity and precision. If particular Arab/Islamic enemy states were to launch conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could then respond, sooner or later, with calculated and more-or-less calibrated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if some of these enemy states were to launch large-scale conventional attacks, Jerusalem’s own still-conventional reprisals could then be met, perhaps even in the not-too-distant future, with enemy nuclear counterstrikes.

How should Israel prepare for such perilous contingencies? More than likely, Israel has already rejected any doctrinal plans for fielding a tactical/theater nuclear force, and for assuming any corollary nuclear war fighting postures. It would follow further from any such well-reasoned rejection that Israel should do whatever is needed to maintain a credible conventional deterrent.

By definition, such a measured threat option could then function reliably across the entire foreseeable spectrum of non-nuclear threats.

Still, any such strategy would need to include an appropriately complementary nuclear deterrent, a distinctly “last resort” option that could display a “counter-value” (counter-city) mission function. Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum: “If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.”

A persuasive Israeli conventional deterrent, at least to the extent that it might prevent a wide range of enemy conventional attacks in the first place, could reduce Israel’s growing risk of escalatory exposure to nuclear war. In the always arcane lexicon of nuclear strategy, a complex language that more-or-less intentionally mirrors the tangled coordinates of atomic war, Israel will need to maintain firm control of “escalation dominance.” Otherwise, the Jewish state could find itself engaged in an elaborate but ultimately lethal pantomime of international bluster and bravado.

The reason for Israel’s obligation to control escalatory processes is conspicuous and unassailable. It is that Jerusalem’s main enemies possess something that Israel can plainly never have: Mass.

At some point, as nineteenth century Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz asserts in On War: “Mass counts.”

Today, this is true even though Israel’s many enemies are in chaotic disarray. Now, amid what Clausewitz had famously called “friction” and the “fog of war,” it could become harder for Israel to determine real and pertinent differences between its allies, and its adversaries.

As an example, Jordan could soon become vulnerable to advancing IS forces.

Acknowledging this new vulnerability, an ironic question will come immediately to mind: Should Israel support the Jordanian monarchy in such a fight? And if so, in what specific and safe operational forms? Similarly ironic questions may need to be raised about Egypt, where the return to military dictatorship in the midst of surrounding Islamist chaos could eventually prove both fragile and transient.

Should President Abdel Fattah Sisi fail to hold things together, the ultimate victors could be not only the country’s own Muslim Brotherhood, but also, in nearby Gaza, Palestinian Hamas. Seemingly, however, Hamas is already being targeted by Islamic State, a potentially remorseless opposition suggesting, inter alia, that the principal impediment to Palestinian statehood is not really Israel, but another Sunni Arab terrorist organization. Of course, it is not entirely out of the question that IS’s Egyptian offshoot, the so-called “Sinai Province of Islamic State,” could sometime decide to cooperate with Hamas – the Islamic Resistance Movement – rather than plan to it.

To further underscore the area’s multiple and cross-cutting axes of conflict, it is now altogether possible that if an IS conquest of Sinai should spread to Gaza, President Sisi might then “invite” the IDF to strike on Egypt’s behalf. Among other concerns, Egypt plainly fears that any prolonged inter-terrorist campaign inside Gaza could lead to a literal breaking down of border fences, and an uncontrolled mass flight of Palestinians into neighboring Sinai.

Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” With such peculiar facts in mind, why should Israel now sustain a conventional deterrent at all? Wouldn’t enemy states, at least those that were consistently rational, steadfastly resist launching any conventional attacks upon Israel, for fear of inciting a nuclear reprisal? Here is a plausible answer: suspecting that Israel would cross the nuclear threshold only in extraordinary circumstances, these national foes could be convinced, rightly or wrongly, that as long as their initial attacks were to remain conventional, Israel’s response would remain reciprocally non-nuclear. By simple extrapolation, this means that the only genuinely effective way for Israel to continually deter large-scale conventional war could be by maintaining visibly capable and secure conventional options.

As for Israel’s principal non-state adversaries, including Shi’ite Hezbollah and Sunni IS, their own belligerent calculations would be detached from any assessments of Israeli nuclear capacity and intent. After all, whatever attacks they might sometime decide to consider launching against the Jewish state, there could never be any decipherable nuclear response.

Nonetheless, these non-state jihadist foes are now arguably more threatening to Israel than most enemy national armies, including the regular armed forces of Israel’s most traditional enemies – Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Some other noteworthy nuances now warrant mention. Any still-rational Arab/ Islamic enemy states considering firststrike attacks against Israel using chemical and/or biological weapons would likely take Israel’s nuclear deterrent more seriously. But a strong conventional capability would still be needed by Israel to deter or to preempt certain less destructive conventional attacks, strikes that could escalate quickly and unpredictably to assorted forms of unconventional war.

If Arab/Islamic enemy states did not perceive any Israeli sense of expanding conventional force weakness, these belligerent countries, now animated by credible expectations of an Israeli unwillingness to escalate to nonconventional weapons, could be more encouraged to attack. The net result here could be: 1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war; 2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional (chemical/biological/ nuclear) war; 3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or 4) defeat of Arab/Islamic enemy states by Israel in an unconventional war.

For Israel, even the presumptively “successful” fourth possibility could prove too costly.

Perceptions are vitally important in all calculations of nuclear deterrence. By continuing to keep every element of its nuclear armaments and doctrine “opaque,” Israel could unwittingly contribute to the injurious impression among its regional enemies that Jerusalem’s nuclear weapons were unusable. Unconvinced of Israel’s willingness to actually employ its nuclear weapons, these enemies could then decide to accept the cost-effectiveness of striking first.

With any such acceptance, Israeli nuclear deterrence will have failed.

If enemy states should turn out to be correct in their calculations, Israel could find itself overrun, and thereby rendered subject to potentially existential harms.

If they had been incorrect, many states in the region, including even Israel, could eventually suffer the assorted consequences of multiple nuclear weapons detonations. Within the directly affected areas, thermal radiation, nuclear radiation and blast damage would then spawn uniquely high levels of death and devastation.

To prevent a nuclear war amid steadily growing regional chaos, especially as Iran will soon be fully nuclear (and the grateful beneficiary of US President Barack Obama’s pretend P5+1 diplomacy), Israel will need suitably complementary conventional and nuclear deterrents. Even now, at the eleventh hour, it will also require a set of residual but still-available preemption options. Under authoritative international law, actually exercising any such last-resort options would not necessarily represent lawlessness or “aggression.”

On the contrary, such strikes could readily meet the long-established and recognizable jurisprudential standards for “anticipatory self-defense.”

Going forward, Israeli nuclear deterrence – reinforced, of course, by ballistic missile defense – must become an increasingly central part of the Jewish state’s overall survival plan. Fulfilling this requirement should in no way suggest any corresponding violations of international law. After all, every state in world politics has an overriding obligation to survive.

International law is not a suicide pact.

Categories: Conventional war, Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Israel, Jordan, Nucler war, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions, Terrorists
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Still too eager for a deal

July 12, 2015

Still too eager for a deal, Israel Hayom, Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi, July 12,2015

(According to an article at the Washington Post, a “deal” is expected today and will be announced tomorrow. — DM)

Russia strengthening its position as an ally and a main weapons supplier to Iran worries the U.S. The 44th president is steadfast on reaching a deal, and even the current dispute won’t prevent him from achieving his dream, even at the price of laying the groundwork for an extremist regional power that would attempt to threaten its strategic environs. There is nothing left to do but hope that the U.S. Senate, which will have 60 days to scrutinize the agreement after it is signed, will meet the challenge it is faced with.

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The fact that the latest deadline for a final nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers is behind us, without smoke billowing over the negotiating room in Vienna, is astonishing. After all, there are no signs indicating that Washington’s eagerness for a successful end to the talks has weakened. In fact, it is the opposite. In recent months, it has become clearer that U.S. President Barack Obama has made a deal with Iran a main goal of his legacy. In his view, a deal with Iran will obfuscate all his failures in the Middle East and herald a new regional agenda, with the new partner from Tehran at its center.

Obama seems steadfast in his belief that a conciliatory, compensatory policy based on a range of trust-building economic steps, will quickly set the regime of ayatollahs on a moderate, pragmatic path. The carrot of economic investment and the cancelation of the rule of sanctions will lay the cornerstone for a strong diplomatic and strategic partnership between Washington and Tehran, central to which will be the Iranian regime’s willingness to take on a key role in containing the Islamic State group. To bring that vision to fruition, the Obama administration is charging ahead toward a final nuclear deal at almost any price, while shutting its eyes and continuing to put the agreement together, the ongoing terrorist activity and widespread subversion emanating from the Iranian capital and spreading out over the entire area.

It’s not only that no link whatsoever between nuclear weapons and conventional and semi-conventional weapons exists in the almost final version of the “Vienna Treaty,” but also that the nuclear core of the nascent deal is spotty and full of holes that will give the Iranian regime a golden opportunity to surge ahead toward a nuclear bomb a decade from now, when all oversight of the regime comes to an end.

In light of that, the fact that the official signing ceremony did not take place on July 9 as expected makes one wonder. The explanation, which is only tangentially related to the nuclear issue, does not at all indicate that the American superpower is coming to its senses at last, but is anchored in the web of U.S.-Russian relations. The last pitfall on the way to a deal is basically about Obama’s relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which center on the Kremlin’s ongoing military activity in the eastern Ukraine and the economic sanctions the West applied to Russia in response. Given this highly charged relationship, the White House has no interest in any step that could even slightly improve Russia’s grim economic situation. This is the connecting thread between the Russian-American axis and the current field of negotiations with Iran.

Russia, which because of the sanctions in place against it desperately needs foreign currency, wants a fast entry into the Iranian weapons market. So, together with China, it is lending its fervent support to Iran’s demands that the deal also lift the embargo against supplying it with conventional weapons, which the U.N. Security Council decreed in 2006. Especially since a deal for Russia to sell Iran S-300 surface-to-air missiles by 2007 has been frozen since 2010. Thus, Russia’s growing economic distress joins the rest of Putin’s geostrategic considerations and is creating an aggressive Russian position in favor of a quick removal of military sanctions from Iran, which in turn encourages Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to dig in their heels.

Russia strengthening its position as an ally and a main weapons supplier to Iran worries the U.S. The 44th president is steadfast on reaching a deal, and even the current dispute won’t prevent him from achieving his dream, even at the price of laying the groundwork for an extremist regional power that would attempt to threaten its strategic environs. There is nothing left to do but hope that the U.S. Senate, which will have 60 days to scrutinize the agreement after it is signed, will meet the challenge it is faced with.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Javad Zarif, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Russia, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
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