John Bolton: On Obama's Iran deal, the choices are bad and worse (MUST READ)
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton writes that no matter what Congress decides to do with President Hussein Obama's sellout to a nuclear-armed Iran,
the only choice left now is a military one. Or a nuclear-armed Iran.
Obama’s mistakes, concessions, and general detachment from Middle
Eastern reality for six and a half years make it impossible to travel in
time back to a theoretical world where sanctions might have derailed
Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.
If Obama can save the Vienna agreement from Congress, he will lift
sanctions for the remainder of his presidency. Alternatively, if his
veto is overridden and U.S. sanctions remain in place, Europe, Russia,
China, and everyone else will nonetheless proceed to implement the deal
on their own. (And given Obama’s propensity not to enforce laws with
which he disagrees, which he is already signaling in this case, U.S.
sanctions will almost certainly prove ineffective.) Either way, it is
naïve to think that a new Republican president in January 2017 will find
any takers internationally to revive sanctions.
However Congress votes, Iran will still be marching inexorably toward
deliverable nuclear weapons.
Deals don’t constrain the mullahs, who see
this capability as critical to the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s very
survival. Not surprisingly, therefore, existing sanctions have slowed
down neither Iran’s nuclear-weapons program nor its support for
international terrorism. General James Clapper, Obama’s director of
national intelligence, testified in 2013 that sanctions had not changed
the ayatollahs’ nuclear efforts, and this assessment stands unmodified
today.
Tehran’s support for such terrorists as Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s
Houthis, and Syria’s Assad regime has, if anything, increased. As for
the sanctions’ economic impact on Iran, Clapper testified that “the
Supreme Leader’s standard is a level of privation that Iran suffered
during the Iran–Iraq war,” a level that Iran was nowhere near in 2013
and is nowhere near today.
In short, to have stopped Tehran’s decades-long quest for nuclear
weapons, global sanctions needed to match the paradigm for successful
coercive economic measures. They had to be sweeping and comprehensive,
swiftly applied and scrupulously adhered to by every major economic
actor, and rigorously enforced by military power. The existing Security
Council sanctions do not even approach these criteria.
...
In recent history, the only sanctions regime to approximate the
ideal paradigm was that imposed on Saddam Hussein in 1990, just days
after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Security Council Resolution 661 provided that
all states “shall prevent . . . the import into their territories of
all commodities and products originating in Iraq or Kuwait” except food,
medicine, and humanitarian supplies.
That is the very definition of
“comprehensive,” and the polar opposite of the congeries of sanctions
imposed on Iran.
Significantly, while Resolution 661 approached the theoretical ideal,
even its sanctions failed to break Saddam’s stranglehold on Kuwait. Had
Washington waited much longer than it did before militarily ousting
Saddam, Kuwait would have been thoroughly looted and despoiled.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, John Bolton
Surprise: Ehud Barak tells biographers Israel canceled plans to attack Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012
Israel's Channel 2 television obtained recordings of former Defense Minister (and Prime Minister and IDF Chief of Staff) Ehud Barak telling biographers that Israel planned to strike Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012... and then called off the strikes because someone in the IDF (Gabi Ashkenazi) or the cabinet (Boogie Yaalon, Yuval Steinitz) objected . You can watch a CNN report about the recordings
here.
Here in Israel, there is outrage over the report. Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman is accusing Barak of
giving away state secrets.
Liberman told Army Radio that he was “more
than surprised” at Barak, and said statements such as those given by the
former minister would ultimately strengthen Iran.
“I think that when moves and discussions that
should have been closely guarded state secrets are discussed by the
press, it relays that you are a talker, that you aren’t serious, that
you’re unreliable,” he said.
“That is why, among other reasons, Iran is
being coddled by the international community, and we have been backed
into a corner… These things should only have been discussed in closed
forums.”
Asked whether he believed Barak was guilty of
revealing state secrets, Liberman responded that he had “no doubt” that
was the case.
And the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is
opening an investigation... into how the tapes got out.
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi (Likud) said on Sunday he intends to investigate whether information divulged by former Defense Minister Ehud Barak regarding a possible Iran strike was properly cleared for publication, and if so, why.
...
Speaking to Israel Radio on Sunday, Hanegbi said such publications do not serve Israel's security interests. When asked if Barak harmed Israel's security, Hanegbi refuse to answer, but said that as the head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee he plans to summon officials from the censor's office and hear their explanation.
Barak spoke of the plans in conversations with his biographers, Dani Dor and Ilan Kfir. Excerpts from the recordings were aired on Israel Channel 2’s weekly news magazine on Friday.
Channel 2 said Barak did not want the material released, but the IDF military censor approved the publication.
Hmmm.
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, censorship, Channel 2, Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Moshe Yaalon, Tzachi Hanegbi, Yuval Steinitz
The Iranian nuke deal isn't about the nukes - it's about Israel
Abe Greenwald is spot-on in pointing out that the
Iranian nuclear sellout isn't really about the nuclear weapons (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
If you think the United States just struck a poor nuclear deal with
Iran, you’re right; but if that’s your key takeaway, you’re missing the
point. Iran’s nuclear program was last on the list of the Obama
administration’s priorities in talking to Tehran. The administration
readily caved on Iran’s nukes because it viewed the matter only as a
timely pretense for achieving other cherished aims. These were: (1)
preventing an Israeli attack on Iran; (2) transforming the United States
into a more forgiving, less imposing power; (3) establishing diplomacy
as a great American good in itself; (4) making Iran into a great
regional power; and (5), ensuring the legacies of the president and
secretary of state as men of vision and peace.
The administration has always viewed
Israel as an intractable troublemaker and the main catalyst for the
region’s woes. An Israeli strike on Iran, especially if supported by the
United States, would have been yet another display of destabilizing
Israeli aggression that put Middle East peace further out of reach.
Barack Obama, therefore, repeatedly warned Israel against attacking
Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu complied, and for his compliance White House
officials taunted him in 2014 as a “chickenshit” whose window of
opportunity had closed. That window is now barred. The Iran deal states
that the U.S. will train Iranians to counter any sabotage attempts on
its nuclear facilities and systems. This is aimed at frustrating Israeli
action.
...
From the administration’s standpoint, the deal was a grand slam. If it
left Iran as an official nuclear power on the perpetual verge of a
breakout, well, that was always the bargaining chip to get everything
else. And with the United States having shown extraordinary cooperation
and forgiveness, the thinking goes, even a nuclear Iran will become a
less bellicose and more collegial member of the community of nations.
What good the deal has already done, the administration believes, will
continue to pay dividends. As is his wont, Obama is now declaring as
much. But by the time his vision is upended by facts, he’ll be out of
office, and we won’t have the luxury of fighting reality with
abstractions.
Greenwald understates the extent to which Obama's anti-Israel obsession drove this deal. As John Podhoretz wrote in his review of Michael Oren's
Ally (which I am currently reading),
for ideological reasons, Obama doesn't like that Israel exists. Period. That anti-Israel obsession led to the Iran nuclear deal more than anything else.
Read it all.
Labels: American diplomacy, American exceptionalism, Barack Hussein Obama, degrading US military capabilities, Iran, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, John Kerry, Obama's legacy
Caspit: At the end of the day, Netanyahu to blame for failure to attack Iran
If I am to believe Ben Caspit, Binyamin Netanyahu was a gutsy soldier and is a yellow-bellied Prime Minister. Caspit looks at
Caroline Glick's confrontation with Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi at the Jerusalem Post conference over the weekend, and argues that the real question is not why Israel did not attack Iran in 2010 (when Dagan was heading the Mossad and Ashkenazi the IDF), but rather
why it did not attack in 2012.
This dialogue in New York, about five years after the fact,
reveals just the tip of the iceberg of what was taking place behind
closed doors during those long, tense months in the conference rooms of
Israel’s top defense leadership. All the heads of the various security
forces were unanimous in their opinion that an Israeli attack on Iran
would be a historic mistake that could result in disaster. At the same
time, however, decisions in Israel are made by the political leadership.
The defense establishment is then expected to carry them out without
hesitation. On the other hand, to follow through with a perilous,
strategically historic move such as attacking Iran, any Israeli prime
minister would want the support of his defense leadership, or at least
the chief of staff.
Netanyahu is an overly cautious prime minister with an
aversion to military adventurism, for reasons of personal
political survival. He knew that if something went wrong with the attack
and it then became public that he gave the order despite the
recommendations of all of the professionals in the security services, it
would be the end of his political career. At first, he invested
enormous energy in trying to convince some of the defense chiefs to
adopt his position. The event reported here occurred when he finally
gave up.
The question that the Israeli right should ask Netanyahu is
why he didn’t attack Iran in the summer of 2012. As far as Netanyahu
was concerned, that summer was seemingly the ultimate moment: The heads
of the security forces had left the IDF and were replaced with a new
crop of generals lacking experience, charisma or influence among the
public. At that time, Netanyahu had a weak and anonymous chief of staff
in the person of Benny Gantz, a novice director of the Mossad with Tamir
Pardo, a new chief of military intelligence and a new director of the
Shin Bet on the way. At the same time, the United States was caught up
in a bitter presidential election, in which President Barack Obama was
fighting for his second term. Netanyahu was seemingly free to act. There
was nothing to prevent him from attacking Iran in July, August or
September 2012, but he hesitated and eventually put his dream aside. At
the time, however, there was no one to interfere in any significant way.
So why didn’t he go through with it? First of all, because Netanyahu was afraid. Second, Barak made a sharp,
last minute U-turn and switched to the opponents’ side. And there must be other reasons.
So why did Netanyahu back down? What are those 'other reasons'? Here are a couple that might have played a role:
1. The 'most pro-Israel administration evah' made very clear that
it would not have Israel's back if Israel attacked Iran. One of the working assumptions to that point was that if Israel went ahead with the attack and found itself endangered in the aftermath, the United States would step in. In August 2012, we were told clearly that was not the case.
Labels: Benny Gantz, Binyamin Netanyahu, Caroline Glick, Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Meir Dagan, Tamir Pardo
Israel's most decorated soldier: Wiping out Iran's nuclear capability would take one night
America's liberal media thought it had a good laugh on Wednesday when Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) said that
wiping out Iran's nuclear capability militarily would be a breeze. But here's the funny thing: Israel's former Defense Minister and most decorated soldier
agrees. Ehud Barak compared an operation to wipe out Iran's nuclear capability to the operation that targeted Osama Bin Laden.
In an interview on CNBC, Barak said the operation would take only “a
fraction of one night” and added that “the Iranians can do nothing about
it, except for attacking Israel.”
“The administration uses the term ‘war,’” Barak said “and people are
thinking that probably it is something like a war on Iraq or a war on
Afghanistan, [but] that’s not the case. Technically speaking, the
Pentagon and the armed forces of America under the backing and probably
directive of the [US] president [could] create an extremely effective
means to destroy the Iranian nuclear military program over a fraction of
one night.”
Barak, who also served as Israel’s defense minister, said that on a
“spectrum between the War on Iraq and the killing of Osama bin Laden it
is much closer to killing Osama bin Laden.”
This “is something that should be understood” Barak added, “the Iranians can do nothing about it, except for attacking Israel.”
Barak’s assessment of what a military intervention against Iran’s
nuclear program might look like followed his advice that Iran should be
given a clear ultimatum to abandon its nuclear project “or else.” He
sharply criticized the White House’s negotiation strategy saying that US
concessions are far more entrenched than Iran’s because as a democracy
the US can’t shift its positions on a whim.
He said, “All of us prefer a solution that might be reached through
negotiations, but in order to negotiate, the other side should
understand and believe… that if they will not come to terms with the
real demands, to put all of the enriched material out of Iran, to close
Fordo, to stop all working on weaponization, on making the preparations
for weapons. If all this is not agreed right now, they face the
alternatives.”
The former prime minister’s comments serve as an indication of how
widespread the criticism of the recently announced framework agreement
is in Israel, spanning across the political spectrum.
Yes, across the political spectrum. You see, Ehud Barak's political party was the Labor party.
Here's the interview. Let's go to the videotape.
Barak was Prime Minister Netanyahu's commander in Sayeret Matkal, Israel's most elite army force. Why doesn't Obama get it? Maybe this is why:
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Tom Cotton
John Bolton on what's next for Israel after the Iranian nuclear deal
Watch John Bolton rip the nuclear agreement that was made with Iran last week.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, P 5+1
Former IDF chief of staff: There never was an order to strike Iran - the IDF nixed it
In an interview to be aired tonight by Israel's Channel 2, former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz tells Ilana Dayan that - contrary to
what was reported on Sunday - there never was an order to strike Iran because
the IDF refused to go along.
The Times of Israel
previewed the Ilana Dayan interview with Lt. Gen.(ret.) Benny Gantz who
was Israeli Chief of Staff until February 16th of this year. Gantz said
there was never an authorization for an Israeli attack on Iran:
“It never reached, ‘OK, take off and fly,'” said Gantz in the
interview, which is set to air Monday night in Israel. But he added:
“I want the to believe they listened and took into consideration what I
have to say.”
Gantz, who retired in February after 38 years of service, also
revealed a dispute between the political leadership, which was moving
toward a military strike, and the IDF, opposed to such a move.
Despite the disagreement, the army would implement such a strike if
ordered to do so by the political leadership, Gantz affirmed.
Gantz’s period as chief of staff was a tumultuous one, as he found
himself shepherding the IDF through the instabilities caused by the Arab
uprisings, the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the
cyclonic civil war in Syria, and the ever deteriorating security
situation along Israel’s northern and southern borders.
But his legacy may be shaped by inaction against Iran’s nuclear
program. The decision to strike was not his to make, but his opposition
to a strike during this period, together with the reported opposition of
several other security chiefs in recent years, may have helped prevent
the political decision to carry it out.
Last year Gantz said that a resolution to the standoff over Iran’s
nuclear program was “preferable without force, but if there’s no choice
then it can [be done] with force.”
He said that Israel “unequivocally” had the capacity to strike Iran’s
nuclear infrastructure, and that “we’ll know how to act when needed.”
If one believes General Gantz over an anonymous source in Kuwait,
then there was never an Israeli attack planned for President Obama to
threaten.
And of course, you all remember
why Gantz was appointed Chief of Staff instead of Yoav Galant, right? I guess he did his job....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Benny Gantz, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran
Report: Israel aborted 2014 mission against Iran because Obama threatened to shoot down planes
A report in a Kuwaiti newspaper that has not been confirmed by any other source claims that President Obama forced Israel to abort a 2014 mission to destroy Iran's nuclear capability by
threatening to shoot down the planes.
Al-Jarida newspaper quoted "well-placed" sources as saying that Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had taken a decision to carry out
airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program after consultations with his
minister of defense Moshe Yaalon and foreign minister Avigdor Liberman
in the presence of top security commanders.
The decision came,
according to al-Jarida, after Israel revealed that the United States and
Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and
were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back.
According
to the report, Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of
deliberations to task the Israeli army's chief of staff Beni Gants to
prepare a qualitative operation against Iran's nuclear program. In
addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could
do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House
because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel's security.
The
sources added that Gants and his commanders prepared the requested plan
and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to
make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets even
carried out experimental flights in Iran's airspace after they managed
to break through radars.
However, an Israeli minister "who has
good ties with the US administration revealed Netanyahu's plans to
Secretary of State John Kerry" and as a result Obama then threatened to
shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.
I would take this one with a grain of salt. Former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz was a
known opponent of striking Iran, at least in 2012.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Benny Gantz, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran
Black pastors slam Congressional Black Caucus plan to boycott Netanyahu
A group of prominent black pastors has
slammed the Congressional Black Caucus for its plan to boycott (I've heard that they actually plan to walk out during the speech) Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.
“The thing to me that makes no sense is why the Congressional Black
Caucus has teamed up with this current administration against Israel,” said Pastor Dexter D. Sanders of the Rock Center for Transformation in Orlando, Florida.
“And yes, black caucus, I’m saying you have gone against Israel when you decide to protest the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from coming and speaking on the behalf of the nation of Israel,” Mr. Sanders said. “That is a slap in the face to the people of Israel,
and not only that, it’s a slap in the face to God. And not only that,
it’s also a slap in the face of all Bible-believing African-American
people in this country.”
The Christian pastors, representing
churches nationwide from California to New York, delivered an often
fiery defense on behalf of the speech at Thursday’s press conference at
the National Press Club, organized by the Center for Urban Renewal and
Education.
...
Pastor Cecil Blye of More Grace Ministries in Louisville, Kentucky,
dismissed suggestions that the House violated protocol by extending the
invitation to weigh in on U.S. negotiations with Iran.
“Charges
from some members of the United States Congress about the breaking of
protocol are no more than a very red herring,” Mr. Blye said. “The
American people need to hear Israel’s voice on this urgent matter now. If one side of the aisle can facilitate this, so be it.”
Critics have accused Mr. Netanyahu of using the speech to boost his party’s chances in the March 10 Israeli election. Some House members have asked Mr. Netanyahu
to delay his speech until after the vote, but many pastors said they
were alarmed by any effort to undermine the prime minister at a time
when Israel faces an existential threat in the form of a potentially nuclear Iran.
“Israel knows and understands Iran
better than the rest of the world. This is not the time to involve
ourselves in petty political maneuvering designed to embarrass our
friend,” said Pastor Stephen Broden of the Fair Park Bible Fellowship in
Dallas.
...
Pastor Carlton Smith of the Antioch Fellowship Assembly in Cleveland
recounted how Jews had stood alongside black Americans in their fight
for civil rights.
“They stood and marched with us in our struggle
then, and we must stand with them in the face of their enemy now,” Mr.
Smith said.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, joint session of Congress, Knesset elections 2015, P 5+1, US-Israel relationship
Obama preemptively attacks Netanyahu, even the NY Times doesn't buy it
The White House on Friday sent an anonymous official to 'brief' reporters with answers to what the President anticipates that Prime Minister Netanyahu will say on Tuesday, but the attack was so transparent that
even the New York Times saw through it (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
But
the American officials speaking Friday avoided directly answering some
questions about important outcomes of the agreement still being
negotiated.
Asked whether the accord would guarantee that Iran would remain at least a year away from being able to produce enough fuel for a single
nuclear weapon, a senior official said that the agreement was still
under negotiation and that it was not yet clear how long the accord
might last. He noted that some “transparency measures” that might
provide insight into the inner workings of Iran’s nuclear activities
might be in effect for an “extended period of time.”
Several news organizations, including The New York Times, reported
this week that Iran’s capacity to produce enriched uranium would be
sharply limited for at least a decade under a phased accord. But Tehran
would be able to build up its capacity again in the last years of an
agreement. That suggested that in those final years of a deal, Iran
could move closer to where it is today — two or three months away from
being able to produce a bomb’s worth of material, rather than the
required year that the administration says is its bottom line for the
first phase of an agreement.
The
officials were also vague about whether, and how quickly, Iran would
have to answer a dozen questions from the International Atomic Energy
Agency about research it is suspected of carrying out on nuclear designs
— what the agency calls the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s
program. The I.A.E.A., the United Nations’ inspection agency, said again
last week that Iran stonewalled inspectors on answering most of its questions, which the Iranians insist are based on fabricated evidence.
...
[T]he
concerns voiced by Mr. Netanyahu are also shared by Saudi Arabia and
other Arab states that are regional rivals of Iran. Mr. Kerry plans to
meet with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other Arab officials over the
next week to try to reassure them about the agreement.
While
the United States has taken the lead in the nuclear talks with the
Iranians, the negotiating partners also include France, Britain,
Germany, Russia and China. European officials have suggested in recent
days that an agreement is closer than the “50-50” assessment by Obama
administration officials.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, joint session of Congress, Knesset elections 2015, New York Times, P 5+1, Saudi Arabia, US-Israel relationship
Why Netanyahu is suddenly standing up and fighting
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
With Prime Minister Netanyahu heading to Washington this week, Caroline Glick looks at why a Prime Minister who kowtowed to Obama for the better part of six years is
suddenly standing up and fighting.
[T]oday Netanyahu, the serial accommodator, is putting everything on
the line. He will not accommodate. He will not be bullied. He will not
be threatened, even as all the powers that have grown used to bringing
him to his knees – the Obama administration, the American Jewish Left,
the Israeli media, and the Labor party grow ever more shrill and
threatening in their attacks against him.
As he has made clear in daily statements, Netanyahu is convinced that we
have reached a juncture in our relations with the Obama administration
where accommodation is no longer possible.
Obama’s one policy that Netanyahu has never acquiesced to either publicly or privately is his policy of accommodating Iran.
Since Obama’s earliest days in office, Netanyahu has warned openly and
behind closed doors that Obama’s plan to forge a nuclear deal with Iran
is dangerous. And as the years have passed, and the lengths Obama is
willing to go to appease Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been left their
marks on the region, Netanyahu’s warnings have grown stronger and more
urgent.
Netanyahu has been clear since his first tenure in office in the 1990s,
that Iran’s nuclear program – as well as its ballistic missile program –
constitutes a threat to Israel’s very existence. He has never wavered
from his position that Israel cannot accept an Iran armed with nuclear
weapons.
Until Obama entered office, and to an ever escalating degree until his
reelection in 2012, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons has
been such an obvious imperative among both Israelis and Americans that
Netanyahu’s forthright rejection of any nuclear deal in which Iran would
be permitted to maintain the components of its nuclear program was
uncontroversial. In some Israeli circles, his trenchant opposition to
Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capabilities was the object of derision,
with critics insisting that he was standing strong on something
uncontroversial while buckling on issues like negotiations with the
Palestinians, where he should have stood strong.
But now we are seeing that far from being an opportunist, Netanyahu is a
leader of historical dimensions. For the past two years, in the
interest of reaching a deal, Obama has enabled Iran to take over Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. For the first time since 1974, due to Obama’s
policies, the Golan Heights is an active front in the war against
Israel, with Iranian military personnel commanding Syrian and Hezbollah
forces along the border.
Iran’s single-minded dedication to its goal of becoming a regional
hegemon and its commitment to its ultimate goal of destroying the US is
being enabled by Obama’s policies of accommodation. An Iran in
possession of a nuclear arsenal is an Iran that can not only destroy
Israel with just one or two warheads. It can make it impossible for
Israel to respond to conventional aggression carried out by terrorist
forces and others operating under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.
Whereas Israel can survive Obama on the Palestinian front by stalling,
waiting him out and placating him where possible, and can even survive
his support for Hamas by making common cause with the Egyptian military
and the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the damage
Obama’s intended deal with Iran will cause Israel will be irreversible.
The moment that Obama grants Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal – and the
terms of the agreement that Obama has offered Iran grant Iran an
unimpeded path to nuclear power – a future US administration will be
hard-pressed to put the genie back in the bottle.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, joint session of Congress, Knesset elections 2015, P 5+1, US-Israel relationship
Why Obama is making such a big deal out of Netanyahu's speech
The reason President Obama has manufactured a crisis in US-Israel relations over Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress has nothing to do with breaches of protocol or interference in Israel's election campaign. According to Elliott Abrams, the national security adviser in the Bush administration, Obama is hoping to
permanently damage American support for Israel.
I well remember how we in the Bush White House
handled the poor personal relations between the president and French
president Jacques Chirac. In 2004-2005 especially, the two men did not
get along (arguing mostly about Iraq and just plain disliking each other
as well) but we wanted to prevent their poor personal chemistry from
damaging bilateral relations. So National Security Advisor Condi Rice in
2004, and then her successor Steve Hadley in 2005, set up a
work-around. The French National Security Advisor Maurice
Gourdault-Montagne traveled to Washington almost every month and came to
the White House. There the French ambassador to the U.S., Jean-David
Levitte, joined him for meetings with key NSC, DOD, and State Department
officials. In 2005, Secretary of State Rice would come over from State
to join Hadley and several of us on the NSC staff, and in the course of a
half-day we would review every issue facing the United States and
France. It was a serious time commitment for the American and French
officials, but that is because we were determined to quarantine bad
personal chemistry and prevent it from infecting the entire
relationship—a goal set by President Bush himself.
Quite obviously, President Obama has no such goal.
Israeli officials have complained to me for several years about the lack
of contacts and communications with the White House. Susan Rice has
determined that her job is to make bilateral relations worse, and has
established no relationship with her Israeli counterpart Yossi Cohen. So
the problem is not just bad chemistry at the top; it is an
administration that has decided to create a tense and negative
relationship from the top down.
One reason, as noted, is the hope that tension with
America can lead to Netanyahu’s defeat in the March 17 election. The
second reason is Iran policy. The administration is desperately seeking a
deal with Iran on terms that until recently were unacceptable to a
broad swath of Democrats as well as Republicans. One after another,
American demands or “red lines” have been abandoned. Clearly the
administration worries that Israeli (not just Netanyahu, but Israeli)
criticisms of the possible Iran nuclear deal might begin to reverberate.
So it has adopted the tactic of personalizing the Israeli critique.
Arguments that are shared across the Israeli political spectrum—that the
likely Iran deal says nothing about Iranian ballistic missile
development, says nothing about Iranian warhead development, does not
require that Iran meet IAEA demands that it account for past warhead
work, allows Iran thousands of centrifuges, will allow Iran to escape
all monitoring and limitations after perhaps ten years—are attributed
solely to Netanyahu and his election campaign. So Democrats are told
they must oppose such arguments, and stiff Netanyahu, lest they
contribute to his reelection. Clever, in a way, but of course completely
misleading. And irresponsible when it comes to the deadly issue of
Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The third Obama administration reason for building
up this crisis is also deadly serious: it is to use the current tension
to harm Israel’s support in the United States permanently. All opinion
polls in the last several years show a partisan edge in support: overall
support for Israel is steady and high, but its composition is changing.
More and more Republicans support Israel, and the gap between
Democratic and Republican support levels is growing. President Obama
acts as if he sees this as a terrific development, one that should be
enlarged as much as possible before he leaves office. That way he would
leave behind not just an Iran deal, but weakened support for Israel on
Iran and everything else. Support for Israel would become less of a
bipartisan matter and more a divisive issue between the two parties. It
is not hard to envision Obama in retirement joining Jimmy Carter as a
frequent critic of Israel, pushing the Democratic party to move away
from its decades of very strong support for the Jewish state.
Read the whole thing. Unfortunately, this makes too much sense.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, joint session of Congress, Knesset elections 2015, P 5+1, US-Israel relationship
Why a bad deal is worse than no deal
Hat Tip for the graphic to
Yair Rosenberg.
Robert Joseph and William Tobey review a
long list of concessions that the United States and the P 5+1 have made to Iran in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. They sum up that list as follows:
The greatest concession in the negotiations has been the
abandonment of the original U.S. goal of preventing Iran from having a
nuclear-weapons capability. This was a consistent and firm position of
the Bush administration. It was also the position of the Obama
administration until November 2013, when it was given up to secure
Iran’s consent to the Joint Plan of Action. Soon after that, Secretary
of State Kerry described the new U.S. goal as taking Iran’s “breakout
time” from two months to six to twelve months — as if we would know when
the clock began, and as if we could do something effective to stop the
breakout within that timeframe. The reality is that we have traded
permanent concessions for temporary restrictions that will leave Iran as
a threshold nuclear state able to build a nuclear weapon whenever it
decides to do so. When the deal ends, Iran can openly go to the brink of
nuclear weapons with the blessing of the international community.
Joseph and Tobey then go on to explain why a bad deal is worse than no deal (something that even President Obama admitted a while back before he started to spin the story).
The Obama administration will almost certainly try to portray its
nuclear deal with Iran as better than no deal, and will accuse those who
oppose the agreement as choosing war over peace. Nothing could be
further from the truth. A bad deal is far worse than no deal. A bad deal
leaves Iran with a nuclear-weapons capability, which would be far more
destabilizing than a return to tough sanctions. A bad deal undermines
the IAEA’s attempts to get to the bottom of Iran’s covert weapons work. A
bad deal undermines the Nonproliferation Treaty, leading to additional
dangers around the world. A bad deal is a step toward conflict and more
nuclear proliferation in a region of vital U.S. interest.
Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability is the
surest way to prevent war and preserve peace. To that end, the
negotiators should return to the table insisting upon limits that will
permanently block Iran’s paths to nuclear weapons and resolve the IAEA’s
concerns about Tehran’s nuclear-weapons work as a condition of an
agreement. The real choice is not between the administration’s deal and
war, but between preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and
capitulation.
Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that the West has thrown in the towel and
given up on stopping Iran.
In his remarks, Netanyahu said that the
greatest challenge Israel faces is “the threat of Iran arming itself
with nuclear weapons with a declared goal of annihilating us.”
“From the agreement that is forming, it
appears that they (world powers) have given up on that commitment (to
thwart Iran) and are accepting that Iran will gradually, within a few
years, develop capabilities to produce material for many nuclear
weapons,” Netanyahu said. “They might accept this but I am not willing
to accept this.”
That's undoubtedly part of what the Prime Minister will tell Congress on Tuesday. And if you sense a veiled threat of military action from Netanyahu, you're probably right.
Riyadh’s only condition is that Israel make
some kind of progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, Channel 2
reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed senior European source.
“The Saudi authorities are completely
coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” the European
official in Brussels said.
...
The report claimed the Saudi authorities had
made their position clear in various unspecified diplomatic discussions
on the matter.
“The Saudis have declared their readiness for
the Israeli Air Force to overfly Saudi air space en route to attack Iran
if an attack is necessary,” the TV report said. All that they ask is
“some kind of progress” on the Palestinian issue.
Being able to use Saudi airspace would allow
Israeli planes a shortcut to reach Iran without having to fly around the
Persian Gulf, taking up precious time and fuel.
According to the dispatch, Israel and Saudi
Arabia also share intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program at a very
intimate level and the Saudis are no less worried by details coming out
of the Geneva talks than Israeli leaders, who have loudly spoken out
against the talks.
That doesn't sound like the Saudis are asking for a whole lot - and if push comes to shove and the 'Palestinians' won't agree to anything (as is usually the case), I would bet that the condition will be dropped.
Wouldn't it be ironic if anti-nuke Leftist Barack Hussein Obama perpetrated a war over Iran's nuclear capability? (I'm specifically not referring to it as a nuclear war, because I believe that Israel will try to stop Iran - with or without US support - before Iran has a nuclear weapons capability).
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, joint session of Congress, P 5+1, Saudi Arabia
Obama's Center for American Progress: An Israeli attack on Iran would solve some problems
This is rich. The Obama-linked Center for American Progress
wants Israel to attack Iran's nuclear program (Hat Tip:
Mike P).
While the CAP paper was addressing the
already-passed Nov. 24 deadline, it is instructive to note CAP’s support
for Israeli military strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities if the
talks had ended in failure.
CAP’s thinking on the issue could give a glimpse into the Obama
administration’s attitudes and future planning if the nuclear talks
collapse after the seven-month extension.
If the talks had failed, the CAP suggested the Obama administration
should prepare “for the greater probability of an Israeli attack on
Iran’s nuclear installations.”
The think tank posited the U.S. “should not necessarily oppose an Israeli strike under certain circumstances.”
Continued the CAP paper: “First, a successful Israeli attack may
allow the United States to avoid difficult decisions about intervening
in Iran’s nuclear program.”
“Second, the current regional situation diminishes the odds of an Israeli attack developing into a wider regional conflict.”
CAP explained the Iranian-backed Hezbollah would find it difficult to
retaliate against Israel since it has been bogged down in Syria
fighting the insurgency targeting Bashar al-Assad’s regime there.
CAP believes Assad himself is “unlikely to divert precious military
resources away from his own survival, even to retaliate on behalf of his
benefactors in Tehran.”
The paper concluded that most probably Iran would be left alone “with a very limited capability to retaliate.”
I've been arguing that here for
years.
PS Anyone else remember where we've seen
Shlomo Brom before.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hezbullah, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, P 5+1
The military option is back on the table
Have to get someone to photoshop Hassan Rohani into this photoshop....
Michael Willner of the JPost reports that Israel is
putting its military option to take out Iran's nuclear weapons back on the table in light of the deal that is being reached in Vienna.
World powers have presented Iran with an accord that would restrict its
nuclear program for roughly ten years and cap its ability to produce
fissile material for a weapon during that time to a minimum nine-month
additional period, from the current three months.
Should Tehran
agree, the deal may rely on Russia to convert Iran's current uranium
stockpile into fuel rods for peaceful use. The proposal would also
include an inspection regime that would attempt to follow the program's
entire supply chain, from the mining of raw material to the syphoning of
that material to various nuclear facilities across Iran.
Israel's
leaders believe the best of a worst-case scenario, should that deal be
reached, is for inspections to go perfectly and for Iran to choose to
abide by the deal for the entire decade-long period.
But "our
intelligence agencies are not perfect," an Israeli official said. "We
did not know for years about Natanz and Qom. And inspection regimes are
certainly not perfect. They weren't in the case in North Korea, and it
isn't the case now – Iran's been giving the IAEA the run around for
years about its past activities."
"What's going to happen with that?" the official continued. "Are they going to sweep that under the rug if there's a deal?"
...
But compounding Israel's fears, the proposal Jerusalem has seen shows
that mass dismantlement of Iran's nuclear infrastructure – including the
destruction, and not the mere warehousing, of its parts – is no longer
on the table in Vienna.
"Iran's not being asked to dismantle the
nuclear infrastructure," the Israeli official said, having seen the
proposal before the weekend. "Right now what they're talking about is
something very different. They're talking about Ayatollah Khamenei
allowing the P5+1 to save face."
...
Yet, more than any single enforcement standard or cap included in the
deal, Israel believes the Achilles' heel of the proposed agreement is
its definitive end date – the sunset clause.
"You've not
dismantled the infrastructure, you've basically tried to put limits that
you think are going to be monitored by inspectors and intelligence,"
said the official, "and then after this period of time, Iran is
basically free to do whatever it wants."
The result is that Israel is once again weighing a military option.
Without an exit ramp, Israel insists its hands will not be tied by an
agreement reached this week, this month or next, should it contain a
clause that ultimately normalizes Iran's home-grown enrichment program.
On
the surface, its leadership dismisses fears that Israel will be
punished or delegitimized if it disrupts an historic, international deal
on the nuclear program with unilateral military action against its
infrastructure.
By framing the deal as fundamentally flawed,
regardless of its enforcement, Israel is telling the world that it will
not wait to see whether inspectors do their jobs as ordered.
"Ten,
fifteen years in the life of a politician is a long time," the Israeli
said, in a vague swipe against the political directors now scrambling in
Vienna. "In the life of a nation, it's nothing."
Hmmm.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, P 5+1
Former CIA director: Only Israel can stop Iran
Former CIA director James Woolsey told a security conference on Monday that Iran does not fear the Obama administration and that therefore only Israel can stop Iran. He also talked about the 'peace process.'
Let's go to the videotape.
More details
here.
Labels: CIA, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, James Woolsey, Middle East peace process
Oh wow! New poll puts Likud-Beiteinu at 46 Knesset seats
A new poll indicates that the options are on the table in Israel for Binyamin Netanyahu, and not for Barack Hussein Obama or the United States. The poll finds Netanyahu's Likud-Beiteinu party would rise to 46 seats from its current 31 in the 120-member Knesset if new elections were to be held today. The reasons for that rise are popular support for what is seen as Netanyahu's
tough stances against the Iranian nuclear program and against the 'Palestinian Authority.'
Regarding Iran, a recent poll shows that Israelis align with Netanyahu in distrusting the current round of Western engagement and talks with Iran, figures that are in line with a November poll finding broad skepticism regarding the then-ongoing Geneva talks.
Some 52.5% support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
position regarding tensions with the U.S. over Iran. A new survey has
found that the majority of Jewish Israelis believes the government’s
hard-line position regarding the Iranian threat is justified and that if
need be, Israel is capable of mounting a unilateral strike on the
Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities.
More than half of those interviewed — 52.5% — said they supported
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position against the U.S. over the
Iranian nuclear negotiations. The prime minister’s policy garnered
support from participants across the political spectrum, and in all age
groups and income brackets, with significant support noted especially in
the religious sector (84.4%). Some 57.6% of those defining themselves
as ultra-Orthodox said the supported Netanyahu’s policy on Iran as well.
Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, a recent poll found overwhelming support for maintaining a security presence along the border with Jordan in the context of a final comprehensive agreement. A report published last
week by the Daily Beast disclosed that the Obama administration has
established something of a lobbying presence inside Israel to “prepare
the Israeli public” to make compromises to the Palestinians. The article
specifically outlined efforts by the administration to mobilize support
for an agreement that would exclude an Israeli security presence from
around the Jordanian border.
Sounds like Obama is enjoying great success.... Heh....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Israeli polls, Jordan Valley, Likud party, Middle East peace process
White House tries to push pro-Israel vote into Hillary 2016 campaign
Apparently, part of the deal to avoid a floor fight at the 2008 Democratic National Convention was that President Obama would do whatever he can to support Hillary Clinton becoming the Democratic nominee in 2016. For once, Obama is keeping his end of the bargain.
In a clear push to help Hillary Clinton's nascent campaign, the Obama administration leaked to the media on Thursday that Clinton suggested
looking into the advantages of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran when she was Secretary of State.
While Clinton did not explicitly endorse the idea, she suggested
that by exploring it, a unilateral Israeli strike could “take care of
the problem for” the US, one senior administration official quoted her
saying, as first reported by Time journalist Michael Crowley.
The
idea was raised at senior-level meeting in 2010 “as one option to
consider,” another US official said. The notion was quickly rejected by
those in the White House.
The year 2010 marked an important
turning point in US President Barack Obama’s policy toward Iran: Its
leaders appeared to reject his outreach efforts and Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu was disinclined to believe that Obama would ever be
prepared to order American military action.
If this ever happened, I find it hard to believe that it was seriously considered. It would be completely out of character for the Obama administration.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, US presidential campaign 2016
