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DESPITE ISIS THREAT, WEST CAN’T IGNORE IRAN’S GOALS: NUCLEAR CAPABILITY & MIDDLE EAST HEGEMONY

We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 

 

Contents:

 

Iran’s Golden Summer: Neville Teller, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 31, 2014 — Summer 2014 has apparently been a phenomenal time for Iran and its leadership.                                            

Iran Shenanigans, Obama Capitulation Coming?: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Aug. 28, 2014, 2014— Iran’s leaders seem to have internalized a key lesson: They have nothing to fear from this U.S. president. If they did you wouldn’t see actions like this:

Obama's ISIS Strategy Plays Into Iran's Hands: Fabio Rafael Fiallo, Real Clear World, Sept. 11, 2014— In his May 28 speech at West Point, President Obama emphasized the need of “thinking through the consequences” when engaging in acts of war.

The False Allure of an Iranian Alliance: Benny Avni, New York Post, Sept. 11, 2014 — In President Obama’s speech Wednesday outlining a strategy for a US-led coalition to fight the Islamic State’s “cancer,” Iran went unmentioned. Let’s hope it stays that way.

 

On Topic Links

 

Iran Won't Team With U.S. Against Islamic State: Anne Gearan, Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2014

Iran’s Threats to “Arm the West Bank” Must Be Taken Seriously: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Aug. 27, 2014

No Time to Forget Iran’s Terrorism: Benjamin Weinthal, National Review, Sept. 12, 2014

Iran’s Persecution of the Baha’i Goes Beyond the Grave: Sasha Eskandarian, National Post, Aug. 19, 2014

A Christian Prisoner in Iran: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2014             

 

                                               

IRAN’S GOLDEN SUMMER                                                                                                                 

Neville Teller                                                                                                                     Jerusalem Post, Aug. 31, 2014

 

Summer 2014 has apparently been a phenomenal time for Iran and its leadership. Over the past few months Lady Luck seems to have been rolling both the political and the financial dice Iran’s way. But everything in the garden is not quite as rosy as it appears. The good times started in June 2013, with the election of the self-styled “moderate”, Sayyed Hassan Rouhani as president – a candidate blessed, it goes without saying, by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Also blessed, no doubt, was the deliberate change of tactics from the defiant and confrontational stance adopted by ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during previous attempts by the UN to induce Iran to control its nuclear program. Now all was to be charm and sweet reason – and immediately after his election, Rouhani made haste to agree to start substantive talks with world leaders about Iran’s nuclear intentions.

 

World leaders swallowed the bait. A new Iranian team, led by the president, met the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – US, UK, Russia, China, France – plus Germany) in October 2013.  What followed provided Iran with precisely what it wanted – additional time for its centrifuges to continue spinning. The two teams indeed reached an interim agreement, but it actually permitted Iran to continue enriching uranium. Meanwhile, the negotiators agreed to meet again in January 2014. Four additional months. In January the teams decided that they would reach an agreement by July. Six more months. There was, it goes without saying, no agreement by July, so the P5+1 agreed to extend the deadline until November.  A further four months. And all the time Iran is moving inexorably closer to nuclear military capability. Certain that the Obama administration has discounted any sort of military confrontation aimed at preventing Iran achieving its goal, Iran’s leadership believes that finally the P5+1 will accept a deal allowing it to produce nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat. Every delay, every extra day without a deal, has brought Iran nearer to its desired objective. Veteran US Middle East observer Eric Mandel believes that while the West has been lauding Iran for converting much of its 20% enriched uranium, Iran’s state-of-the-art centrifuges make possession of 20% uranium irrelevant. With its advanced centrifuges, Iran can apparently convert 3% non-enriched uranium to 90% nuclear grade uranium in six to eight weeks. Right now, Mandel asserts, Iran has enough 3% uranium to produce between six to eight nuclear bombs.

 

In return for simply talking, Iran has been rewarded with the progressive lifting of financial sanctions. As part of the November 2013 interim deal, $4.2 billion in oil revenues were allowed to be transferred to Iran. After the July 2014 meeting, with still no agreement on the table, Iran walked away with guarantees of a total of a further $2.8 billion to be paid in six parts – four $500-million and two $400-million installments, in three-week intervals. Few Iranian spokesmen these days are bothering to conceal the fact that the state’s long-term objective is to become the dominant power in the Middle East, and that, in pursuit of that aim, they are determined to achieve military nuclear capability. Arab states across the Middle East have come to regard Iran, and its obvious nuclear ambitions, as the major threat to their régimes.

 

The political and religious elements of Iran’s intentions are inextricably interwoven.  One aspect of the dominance that Iran seeks is the ascendancy of the Shia strand of Islam over the Sunni, for Iran is the pre-eminent power in what has been termed the “Shi’ite Crescent.”  In striving for this dominance, Iran has in the past set itself foursquare against Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Sunni Islam, with Mecca and Medina located within its borders. Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni Gulf régimes under its influence, have been the object of Iranian-inspired plots aimed at destabilizing their governments. But a new player has emerged on the scene, claiming the leadership of all Muslims the world over – the extremist Sunni organization calling itself the Islamic State (ISIS). Its military successes, its rapid advance into northern Iraq and Syria, its ruthless persecution of all who fail to subscribe to its extreme brand of Islam, the recent beheading of an American journalist in front of the television camera, and the large numbers of adherents flocking to its black banner from all over the world – all this has shocked the West into realizing the nature and extent of the threat that the ISIS poses to accepted civilized and democratic standards.

 

With Iran apparently co-operating in the nuclear discussions, influential voices in the West have been urging their governments to forget the fact that Iran is the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism, ignore its past record (and that of its “moderate” president) in this respect, turn a blind eye to its nuclear ambitions, and enter into some sort of alliance with it, aimed at defeating the bloodthirsty ISIS armies. Little account is taken of the likely result of direct Iranian involvement against the ISIS – namely the triumph of President Bashar Assad’s despotic regime in Syria, and the defeat of the democratic forces ranged against him. Moreover the West, unlike most Middle East states, appears to discount the consequences of Iran gaining a nuclear arsenal – namely that their clients, like the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, to say nothing of Assad’s forces in Syria, would also be probable beneficiaries.  In short, the likely result of clutching Iran to our bosom is that we will all get stung.

 

At the moment Iran is riding high internationally. The picture at home, however, is not so rosy. Perennially high inflation, persistent double-digit unemployment, low productivity, rampant corruption, a hostile business environment that actively discourages entrepreneurship, and weak financial institutions, complete a dire economic picture. These underlying weaknesses in Iran’s economy are masked to some degree by sizable oil revenues, but the underlying cause of much of Iran’s domestic problems is the harsh and prolonged stagflation caused by tightening international sanctions. Between 2012 and 2013, for instance, Iran faced 40 percent inflation and an almost 6 percent contraction in GDP. Today, inflation still hovers around 25 percent and GDP is set to contract by another 3 percent by the Persian new year (March 2015). This is why Rouhani’s best efforts are devoted to wooing Western opinion and winning further concessions while, of course, not abandoning for one instant Iran’s intention of becoming a nuclear power as soon as may be.  One can only hope that the P5+1 are alive to the realities of the situation, and in November, realizing the effect that sanctions have had on the Iranian economy, stand firm on their demands for genuinely effective control of Iran’s nuclear program before giving another inch.

 

                                                                                               

Contents
                       

IRAN SHENANIGANS, OBAMA CAPITULATION COMING?          

Jennifer Rubin                                                                                                                 Washington Post, Aug. 28, 2014

 

Iran’s leaders seem to have internalized a key lesson: They have nothing to fear from this U.S. president. If they did you wouldn’t see actions like this:

 

Iran has conducted “mechanical” tests on a new, advanced machine to refine uranium, a senior official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, a disclosure that may annoy Western states pushing Tehran to scale back its nuclear program. Iran’s development of new centrifuges to replace its current breakdown-prone model is watched closely by Western officials. It could allow the Islamic Republic to amass potential atomic bomb material much faster.

 

“Annoy” is an apt description of the sort of reaction these defiant steps provoke from a president whose anger seems to be reserved only for Israel these days. Even more telling was the statement that accompanied the tests: “Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and that it produces low-enriched uranium only to make fuel for a planned network of atomic energy plants. If processed to a high fissile concentration, uranium can be used for nuclear weapons. ‘Manufacturing and production of new centrifuges is our right,’ Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said.” Where in the world would the mullahs have got such an idea? No doubt from the interim agreement the administration signed on to (which also includes a sunset clause promising eventual freedom to do whatever Iran likes free from inspectors and restrictions).

 

Unlike the administration, the Iranian regime understands how to wheel and deal, all the while keeping its eye on its goal of obtaining a nuclear capability. News reports suggest Iran is also “redesigning” its heavy-water plutonium plant at Arak. The regime says this change would produce less nuclear material than it previously did at Arak. Hmm. This smacks of another ploy. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies tells Right Turn: “It is impossible to know from this story whether [Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar] Salehi is talking about a simple design change, a reversible reduction in plutonium production, or a replacement of the metal core that would make it more difficult for the reactor core to hold enough natural uranium fuel to produce a bomb. If the Iranians have agreed to the latter, the White House may try to conclude a partial deal by November 24 where more sanctions relief is trade for concessions on Arak (and, perhaps, some others like turning Fordow into an advanced centrifuge R&D facility).” In either case President Obama would be trading reversible measures for sanctions relief, and betting we will have the ability to tell when Iran reverses its modifications. He says, “This partial deal could then be the basis for another extension to deal with outstanding issues, particularly enrichment capacity. Any such compromise on Arak may also be a sign that a comprehensive deal will be based only on design changes, technical modifications, heightened ‘transparency’ and a short deal duration, where most constraints will disappear in a decade or so.”

 

Dubowitz concludes, “The Obama administration is not committed to shutting down Iran’s potential bomb-making facilities, dismantling key elements of Iran’s military-nuclear program, or putting in place permanent (or at least decades-long) restrictions that prevent this regime from developing a massive, industrial-size nuclear program with a capability for rapid breakout and easier diversion of nuclear materials to clandestine facilities.” There is a word for this approach: Containment. It is the course many suspect Obama was charting from the get-go. It would be North Korea II, but in a more dangerous region of the world and with a regime supporting terrorist groups. It would represent a violation of the president’s own promises to disarm Iran. One wonders what Hillary Clinton would think of such a deal and whether she’d have the nerve to undo it or cite Iran for violations and re-impose sanctions if she were elected president. In any case, for those lawmakers who wanted to give “diplomacy a chance,” such a partial deal would be a rude wake-up call. For the rest of us, it would be confirmation that this president was prepared to risk our own national security, set off a Middle East arms race and allow an existential threat to Israel to arise.                                                                         

                                                                                               

Contents
                       

OBAMA'S ISIS STRATEGY PLAYS INTO IRAN'S HANDS                                  

Fabio Rafael Fiallo                                                                                                       

Real Clear World, Sept. 11, 2014

 

In his May 28 speech at West Point, President Obama emphasized the need of “thinking through the consequences” when engaging in acts of war. That commendable precept, however, doesn’t seem to have been adhered to in the strategy, unveiled in his prime time television address on Sept. 10, destined to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the self-branded “Islamic State” – formerly called ISIS. There was indeed one critical question that should have been tackled, but wasn’t, in that address, namely: how to prevent Iran – and for that matter its Syrian ally, i.e. Assad’s regime – from taking advantage of the fight against ISIS.

This strategic conundrum can hardly be overestimated. ISIS being an enemy of the Iran-Syria axis, its weakening and eventual destruction may play into the hands of that axis unless a corresponding action is taken to preclude such eventuality. True, President Obama announced that the U.S. would broaden its support to moderate Syrian rebels, a move that is expected to thwart the Assad regime. However, given the present balance of forces in the Syrian battlefield, it is unlikely that such support would be enough to prevent the Syrian regime from benefitting from the degrading of ISIS by the U.S. Furthermore, nothing was said in President Obama’s television address about how he intends to proceed so as to avert pro-Iran Shia militias operating in Iraq to strengthen their grip on the Iraqi battlefield as the U.S. rolls over ISIS. Still more worrisome, the possibility exists that Tehran mullahs seize the opportunity given by the current international focus on the ISIS threat and use it to surreptitiously advance in their hardly-hidden intention of weaponizing their nuclear program.

 

Conventional wisdom in the Washington establishment – which President Obama has been receptive and responsive to – tends to feed the mullahs’ expectations. It has indeed become fashionable to call for accommodating the interests of Iran so as to secure that country’s support in the fight against ISIS. Only scattered voices have warned against treating Iran as a partner in this endeavor. And neither in his TV address nor elsewhere has President Obama clearly distanced himself from the current mood in the Washington establishment. Be that as it may, to show leniency toward Iran’s regime would be both superfluous and misleading. Superfluous, because Iran doesn’t need to be wooed to fight ISIS. This Sunni terrorist group represents an existential threat to Shia-ruled Iran. The mullahs, therefore, will do their utmost to combat ISIS anyway, with or without a rapprochement with the U.S. Misleading, because the peril that ISIS represents shouldn’t divert attention away from the fact that the Iran-Syria axis isn’t any less dangerous for international peace and security.

 

All too naturally, Iran’s mullahs sense they are regarded in Washington as indispensable actors in the fight against ISIS and, accordingly, feel that they can afford dragging their heels in the international negotiations on their nuclear program. Thus, as recently as last August, Iran refused UN nuclear inspectors access to the Parchin military base – even though the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, had declared that access to that site was essential for assessing the real nature and intentions of Iran’s nuclear program. The stakes are sky high. As pointed out by Washington Post columnist Zachary A. Goldfarb, whether or not Iran manages to obtain the nuclear weapon will be the defining issue of this administration’s legacy in the realm of foreign policy. This is not to say that the U.S. should tone down the intensity of its attacks against ISIS. What this paper contends is that an effective anti-ISIS strategy must be accompanied by a harsher stance vis-à-vis both Tehran and the Syrian regime.

 

The U.S. can achieve this twofold objective – eliminate ISIS and thwart the Iran-Syria axis – through three mutually-reinforcing means. One is to intensify the pressure on Iran in the negotiations on its nuclear program – reinforcing the sanctions if need be – so as to make it clear to Tehran that the time of prevarication is over. Another is to strike not only ISIS’s installations in Syria but also those of Bashar al Assad. Bluntly put: bomb both ISIS and Assad, as foreign-policy columnist Michael Weiss has convincingly called for. Last but not least, the U.S. could select its military targets and bomb ISIS in the areas where this terrorist group would be fighting against the Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) and the Iraqi army, as well as against strategic sites in Syria (where ISIS command may be retrenched), but leaving the field free for ISIS to turn its guns against Assad’s forces and pro-Iran militias. Said in other words, push ISIS and Assad’s regime to fight against each other. As a matter of fact, pushing enemies to compete against each other is how the Syrian regime has managed to survive. That regime reportedly took the calculated decision to free imprisoned jihadists, and let ISIS forces make some territorial gains, so as to enable them to fight the moderate, West-compatible insurgency. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel-Karim, boastfully pointed out: “When these groups [ISIS and the moderate rebels] clashed, the Syrian government benefited. When you have so many enemies and they clash with each other, you must take advantage of it. You step back, see who is left and finish them off”.  By selecting the target zones of its airstrikes against ISIS installations, the U.S. can successfully play the same cynical game that Assad’s regime has been employing to cling to power.

 

True, Iran is not deprived of countervailing cards. Pro-Iran militia Badr Corps contributed to dislodging ISIS from the strategic town of Amerli and may once again be useful for future U.S.-supported military action against ISIS. But the course of action proposed in this paper wouldn’t prevent pro-Iran militias to continue their combat against ISIS. Quite the contrary, it will force them to do so in order to ensure their own survival. So much for what a coherent, consequences-minded strategy would embody. Regrettably, President Obama’s televised address left unanswered a number of critical questions in this regard.

                                                                               

 

Contents                       

                      

 

THE FALSE ALLURE OF AN IRANIAN ALLIANCE                                              

Benny Avni                                                                                                                     

NewYork Post, Sept. 11, 2014

 

In President Obama’s speech Wednesday outlining a strategy for a US-led coalition to fight the Islamic State’s “cancer,” Iran went unmentioned. Let’s hope it stays that way. The temptation won’t go away. Tehran not only has boots on the ground against ISIS (non-American boots that Obama’s strategy requires), some are clearly hoping it will help turn the tide. Iran may be the enemy of our enemy, but it’d be a mistake to consider it our friend. In the long run, the regime in Tehran remains a greater danger to America and the Mideast than the ISIS jihadis. And any hint of a serious alliance with Iran will drive potential friends into ISIS’ arms. Plus, ISIS hasn’t even learned how to maintain and control much of the sophisticated US-made weaponry it stole from the Iraqi army. Iran, by contrast, is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. Do the math.

 

Still, we are desperate for reliable ground troops. No less than British Prime Minister David Cameron called on Iran recently to “engage with the international community” to combat ISIS…For now, Washington officials vehemently deny any such cooperation. But deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters this week, “I’m certainly not ruling that out.” “We’re open to having the conversation with the Iranians to engaging them, as we do other players in the region, about the threat from ISIL,” Harf said, using the administration’s term for ISIS. Officials also deny any link between the war on ISIS and the endless talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Come on: It’s hard to imagine that potential cooperation in combatting a shared enemy will be totally absent from the nuke discussions that relaunch in New York next week. And, hey, ISIS zealots abhor Shiites as much as they hate us. Iran sees them as a blood enemy, and its fighters have reportedly already engaged ISIS in Iraq. And Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah has long fought ISIS in Syria.

 

So why not cooperate? For starters, there’s the fact that ISIS made its huge gains in Iraq largely because so many Sunni tribes stood aside or hitched their wagons to the jihadis, because Iraq’s then-prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, had been turning the country into a Shiite-dominated Iranian satellite. The Iraqis have now tossed Maliki for the “inclusive government” that Obama demanded. But if Iranians and their allies now enter the Sunni areas to fight ISIS, even more alienated Iraqi Sunnis will join up with the jihadis. It needn’t be that way. By and large, Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis despise the Islamists. That’s how the 2007 US surge in Iraq beat al Qaeda there: Americans got local Sunnis to cooperate against the hated foreign jihadis. Forget about such cooperation now if Iran becomes part of our fight. With the entire Mideast engulfed in a Shiite-Sunni struggle, it would cost us other allies, too. The only Arab state to so far formally announce participation in Obama’s anti-ISIS coalition is the United Arab Emirates. But if Iran joins up, the UAE will rethink – as will Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other major Sunni countries that Secretary of State John Kerry is now urging to join up.

 

And (shhh!) there’s another US ally to consider: Israel. It offends Arab sensibilities to mention it publicly, but Jerusalem is already quietly helping out (as it did in the first and second Iraq wars), passing along much-needed intel about ISIS and other jihadis. America’s ambassador in Tel Aviv, Daniel Shapiro, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that such cooperation will continue. But Israel is much more concerned about Iran than ISIS. Tehran regulary vows to wipe the Jewish State off the map, and it’s building the means to do it. “Both Daesh and Iran are fierce enemies” of Israel, “but Iran remains the top threat,” an Israeli official told me. On Wednesday, Obama sounded like he’s learned a lot from his past errors in the region, especially not to belittle the growing jihadi threat. But if he hasn’t learned to ignore bad advice on Iran, in a few years we’ll have to correct a much more dangerous mistake.

 

On Topic

 

Iran Won't Team With U.S. Against Islamic State: Anne Gearan, Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2014 —Iran has rejected a U.S. appeal to join a global fight against Islamic State militants, the country’s leader said Monday, as Western and Arab diplomats gathered to frame strategies against the terror network that controls large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Iran’s Threats to “Arm the West Bank” Must Be Taken Seriously: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Aug. 27, 2014—Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on August 24 that it had shot down an Israeli reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over its uranium enrichment facilities in Natanz (Esfahan Province). The Guards Corps widely displayed the wreckage in its media outlets.

No Time to Forget Iran’s Terrorism: Benjamin Weinthal, National Review, Sept. 12, 2014 —To confront America’s enemies, the Obama administration needs to relentlessly confront al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the most potent sponsor of state-sponsored terrorism: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran’s Persecution of the Baha’i Goes Beyond the Grave: Sasha Eskandarian, National Post, Aug. 19, 2014—It’s not difficult for me to remember the horrible days of hardship I experienced as a Baha’i teenager, living in Shiraz, Iran, in the early 1980s.

A Christian Prisoner in Iran: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2014—Iran's leaders are preparing for another visit to New York this month for the U.N. General Assembly, but many of their citizens aren't going anywhere as they languish in the regime's prisons for political crimes. 

               

 

 

 

                      

                

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Contents:         

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