AS P5+1, IRAN NEGOTIATE: YEMEN COLLAPSES, IRAN SEEKS NUCLEAR WEAPONS & M.E. HEGEMONY

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Contents:

Reverse Course: Jerusalem Post, Mar. 29, 2015 — An Iranian formerly loyal to the Islamic Republic’s ruling mullah regime provided the latest sign that the P5+1 nations (the US, the UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany) are headed for a bad deal.

Obama’s Race to Chaos:  Michael Goodwin, New York Post, Mar. 28, 2015— If you’re confused about the Saudi Arabia-led air attacks against Islamist rebels in Yemen and can’t tell one group of head-choppers in Iraq and Syria from another, don’t despair. All you need is imagination.

Managing Obama’s War Against Israel: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 26, 2015— On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Municipality announced it is shelving plans to build 1,500 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood. Officials gave no explanation for its sudden move. But none was needed.

To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran: John Bolton, Algemeiner, Mar. 29, 2015 — For years, experts worried that the Middle East would face an uncontrollable nuclear-arms race if Iran ever acquired weapons capability.

On Topic Links

Obama’s Mideast Realignment: Max Boot, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 25, 2015

Why the Chaos in Yemen Could Force Obama to Take a Harder Line with Iran: Greg Jaffe & Missy Ryan, Washington Post, Mar. 28, 2015

Obama’s Doomsday Plan for Israel – A Terrifying Possibility: Jack Engelhard, Arutz Sheva, Mar. 29, 2015

The Method to Obama’s Middle East Mess: Ross Douthat, New York Times, Mar. 28, 2015

Here’s Why Obama Panders to Iran, Throws Israel Under the Bus: Edward Morrissey, Fiscal Times, Mar. 26, 2015

REVERSE COURSE                                                                                         

Jerusalem Post, Mar. 29, 2015

An Iranian formerly loyal to the Islamic Republic’s ruling mullah regime provided the latest sign that the P5+1 nations (the US, the UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany) are headed for a bad deal. “The US negotiating team is mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal,” said Amir Hossein Motaghi, who managed public relations for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his 2013 election campaign. Motaghi is now seeking political asylum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Motaghi’s move is reminiscent of the Cold War era, when Soviets craving freedom from their repressive regime would regularly defect to the West when given the chance. His statement might have been politically motivated – either to endear himself to skeptics opposed to the deal or to convince hard-liners in Iran that the deal is good for the Islamic Republic.  But even experts carefully following the negotiations who spoke to The Jerusalem Post tend to agree in principle with Motaghi. Dr. Emily Landau, head of the arms control program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that while Motaghi’s formulation is a bit extreme, it is nevertheless true that the US is “making concessions to a degree that will leave the agreement a very, very poor one.”

What concerns Landau and others – such as Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency – is not just the number and quality of the centrifuges that Iran will be allowed to operate under the materializing agreement or the amount of enriched uranium the Iranians will be permitted to possess. Rather, what is truly worrying, as the US-led negotiators seem intent on signing a framework agreement by March 31, is that Iran continues to lie about its nuclear program, as it engages in terrorism not just in countries in the region – such as Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Syria – but also in far-flung cities such as Caracas, Buenos Aires and Burgas.

Since the end of 2011, when the IAEA published findings that pointed to the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programs, the Islamic Republic has refused to fully answer all but one of a dozen IAEA queries, including repeated requests to give IAEA access to Parchin, which is suspected of being an installation where research and development of nuclear weapons is conducted. Yet, the US and the other P5+1 nations have allowed the Iranians to continue to lie about their nuclear program in every possible public forum and claim that it has always been solely for peaceful purposes and will continue to be in the future. Not only has US Secretary of State John Kerry refrained from aggressively confronting the Iranian stonewalling tactics against the IAEA, he has actually made his own contribution to the Iranian narrative. “If [Iran’s nuclear program] is peaceful, let’s get it done,” Kerry said earlier this month, as though this were a possibility. “And let’s hope that in the next days that will be possible.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington is willing to forgo requiring Iran to answer questions from the IAEA on its past nuclear work immediately upon reaching a deal. And the P5+1 has chosen to live in a fantasy world of its own making not just with regard to Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program. It has also chosen to ignore Iran’s involvement in the destabilization of the region, from Damascus and Beirut to Sanaa and Baghdad, and in terrorism and drug trafficking in Central and South America. The Obama administration is averse to confronting the Iranians, fearing that doing so would anger them and endanger negotiations. But choosing delusions over reality has led to more anarchy, with longtime US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt – doubting American resolve to stop the Islamic Republic – choosing to operate on their own.

We are witnessing the beginning of a war in Yemen between Sunni states and Iran, and we may also be on the verge of a Sunni-Shi’ite nuclear arms race as well. In Riyadh, Cairo and Istanbul, Sunni political leaders – already threatened by nuclear-free Iran’s expansionism – will not stand by idly as Iran’s influence is augmented by a nuclear weapons umbrella. The P5+1 must awaken from their self-induced delusion. The French are already showing signs of life. The Yemen fiasco provides a perfect opportunity for a reassessment. Iran cannot be allowed to continue to deceive the world about its nuclear program as it sows violence and instability throughout the region. The March 31 deadline has not yet arrived. There is still time to reverse course.                                                 

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OBAMA’S RACE TO CHAOS      

Michael Goodwin                                                                                                         

New York Post, Mar. 28, 2015

If you’re confused about the Saudi Arabia-led air attacks against Islamist rebels in Yemen and can’t tell one group of head-choppers in Iraq and Syria from another, don’t despair. All you need is imagination. Close your eyes and imagine that those countries and terrorists have nuclear weapons. Imagine their barbarism going nuclear as they blow up cities, wipe out ethnic and religious groups and turn the region into cinders. Now open your eyes and realize you’ve seen the future, thanks to President Obama’s policies. It is a future that will be defined by Obama’s Wars. Yes, plural.

I’ve written frequently about the likelihood of a dystopian “Mad Max” scenario if Iran gets nukes. My thinking is guided by a belief among American military and intelligence officials that a nuclear exchange would take place in the Mideast within five years of Iran getting the bomb. To judge from events, the future is arriving ahead of schedule. The fact that a top Saudi official wouldn’t answer a question about the kingdom’s plan to get nukes is an answer in itself. Proliferation in the world’s hottest spot was guaranteed once Obama abdicated American leadership, a decision that led our adversaries to conclude we would not stop them and our allies to conclude we would not protect them.

A future where it would be every nation for itself was trouble enough, but something far worse is unfolding now. Obama’s courtship of Iran and his willingness to let it go nuclear is speeding up the race to chaos. Iran wants it both ways — nukes and a free hand to impose its Islamic Revolution throughout the region. Against all good sense and the lessons of history, Obama is saying yes and yes. Sightings of the Revolutionary Guard leader, Maj. Gen. Qasem Suleimani, leading Iranian-sponsored militias against the Islamic State in Iraq has spread alarm throughout the region. The fears reached a fever pitch when Iranian-allied Houthi rebels took over Yemen, chasing out our soldiers and allies with chants of “Death to America, death to Israel.” Iran long held designs on a Shia Crescent and control over Arab lands, which helps explain why Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others counted themselves as our allies. They are furious as they watch Iran get a nuclear pass from Obama and a green light to expand its power.

The nuclear program will have the United Nations’ stamp of approval, as will Iranian control of four Arab capitals — Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and now Sanaa, Yemen. Indeed, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry suggest Iran even could be an ally in the fight against the Islamic State and al Qaeda. Already there has been coordination there, leading critics to say America is acting as the Iranian air force. Israel, of course, sees the pattern as insane and a threat because Iran has threatened to wipe it off the face of the Earth. In retaliation for complaining about the nuke deal, Obama denounces our ally and threatens to “re-evaluate” our support for the Jewish state. But Israel is not alone, with our Sunni Arab allies also viewing Iran as their mortal enemy. Sen. John McCain quoted one of those Arab leaders as concluding, “We believe it is more dangerous to be a friend of America’s than an enemy.”

These are unprecedented developments, veering so far from the norm and happening so fast that consequences are piling up faster than they can be comprehended. Alliances built over decades are shattered in a relative flash, inviting aggression and endless conflict. The toxic brew of Islamic fanaticism and nuclear proliferation could ignite a world conflagration. These are grim thoughts, expressed because it is impossible to imagine any other outcome of Iran’s rise. It remains the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and supports Hezbollah and Hamas and now the Houthis in Yemen. As for Iranian influence in Iraq, one analyst is calling Suleimani, the Revolutionary Guard commander, Iraq’s new “viceroy.”

Remember, too, Iran muscle and munitions are keeping Bashar Assad still standing in Syria. The wholesale death and destruction there — an estimated 200,000 people killed and millions displaced within the country and out of it — could be a prototype of its new empire. While there are many dark and complex forces in play and blame to spread around, the most important catalyst of the violent disorder has been the reversal of America’s policies. Under Obama, we have switched sides, an abomination that ensures a legacy of infamy.

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MANAGING OBAMA’S WAR AGAINST ISRAEL 

Caroline Glick                                                                                                              

Jerusalem Post, Mar. 26, 2015

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Municipality announced it is shelving plans to build 1,500 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood. Officials gave no explanation for its sudden move. But none was needed. Obviously the construction of apartments for Jews in Jerusalem was blocked in the hopes of appeasing US President Barack Obama. But is there any reason to believe he can be appeased? Today the White House is issuing condemnations of Israel faster than the UN. To determine how to handle what is happening, we need to understand the nature of what is happening.

First we need to understand that the administration’s hostility has little to do with Israel’s actions. As Max Boot explained Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, the administration’s animosity toward Israel is a function of Obama’s twin strategic aims, both evident since he entered office: realigning US policy in the Middle East toward Iran and away from its traditional allies Israel and the Sunni Arab states, and ending the US’s strategic alliance with Israel. Over the past six years we have seen how Obama has consistently, but gradually, taken steps to advance these two goals. Toward Iran, he has demonstrated an unflappable determination to accommodate the terrorism supporting, nuclear proliferating, human rights repressing and empire building mullahs.

Beginning last November, as the deadline for nuclear talks between the US and its partners and Tehran approached, Obama’s attempts to accommodate Tehran escalated steeply. Obama has thrown caution to the winds in a last-ditch effort to convince Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei to sign a deal with him. Last month the administration published a top secret report on Israel’s nuclear installations. Last week, Obama’s director of national intelligence James Clapper published an annual terrorism threat assessment that failed to mention either Iran or Hezbollah as threats. And this week, the administration accused Israel of spying on its talks with Iran in order to tell members of Congress the details of the nuclear deal that Obama and his advisers have been trying to hide from them.

In the regional context, the administration has had nothing to say in the face of Iran’s takeover of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden this week. With its Houthi-proxy now in charge of the strategic waterway, and with its own control over the Straits of Hormuz, Iran is poised to exercise naval control over the two choke points of access to Arab oil. The administration is assisting Iranian Shi’ite proxies in their battle to defeat Islamic State forces in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. It has said nothing about the Shi’ite massacres of Sunnis that come under their control.

Parallel to its endless patience for Tehran, the Obama administration has been treating Israel with bristling and ever-escalating hostility. This hostility has been manifested among other things through strategic leaks of highly classified information, implementing an arms embargo on weapons exports to Israel in time of war, ending a 40-year agreement to provide Israel with fuel in times of emergency, blaming Israel for the absence of peace, expressing tolerance and understanding for Palestinian terrorism, providing indirect support for Europe’s economic war against Israel, and providing indirect support for the BDS movement by constantly accusing Israel of ill intentions and dishonesty.

Then there is the UN. Since he first entered office, Obama has been threatening to withhold support for Israel at the UN. To date, the administration has vetoed one anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council and convinced the Palestinians not to submit another one for a vote. In the months that preceded these actions, the administration exploited Israel’s vulnerability to extort massive concessions to the Palestinians. Obama forced Benjamin Netanyahu to announce his support for Palestinian statehood in September 2009. He used the UN threat to coerce Netanyahu to agree to negotiations based on the 1949 armistice lines, to deny Jews their property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to release scores of terrorist murderers from prison.

Following the nationalist camp’s victory in last week’s election, Obama brought to a head the crisis in relations he instigated. He has done so for two reasons. First, next week is the deadline for signing a nuclear agreement with Iran. Obama views Netanyahu as the prospective deal’s most articulate and effective opponent. As Obama sees it, Netanyahu threatens his nuclear diplomacy with Iran because he has a unique ability to communicate his concerns about the deal to US lawmakers and the American people, and mobilize them to join him in opposing Obama’s actions. The letters sent by 47 senators to the Iranian regime explaining the constitutional limitations on presidential power to conclude treaties without Senate approval, like the letter to Obama from 367 House members expressing grave and urgent concerns about the substance of the deal he seeks to conclude, are evidence of Netanyahu’s success.

The second reason Obama has gone to war against Israel is because he views the results of last week’s election as an opportunity to market his anti-Israel and pro-Iranian positions to the American public. If Netanyahu can convince Americans to oppose Obama on Iran, Obama believes that by accusing Netanyahu of destroying chances for peace and calling him a racist, Obama will be able to win sufficient public support for his anti-Israel policies to intimidate pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers into accepting his pro-Iranian policies.

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

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TO STOP IRAN’S BOMB, BOMB IRAN                                                                                                          

John Bolton                                               

Algemeiner, Mar. 29, 2015

For years, experts worried that the Middle East would face an uncontrollable nuclear-arms race if Iran ever acquired weapons capability. Given the region’s political, religious and ethnic conflicts, the logic is straightforward. As in other nuclear proliferation cases like India, Pakistan and North Korea, America and the West were guilty of inattention when they should have been vigilant. But failing to act in the past is no excuse for making the same mistakes now. All presidents enter office facing the cumulative effects of their predecessors’ decisions. But each is responsible for what happens on his watch. President Obama’s approach on Iran has brought a bad situation to the brink of catastrophe.

In theory, comprehensive international sanctions, rigorously enforced and universally adhered to, might have broken the back of Iran’s nuclear program. But the sanctions imposed have not met those criteria. Naturally, Tehran wants to be free of them, but the president’s own director of National Intelligence testified in 2014 that they had not stopped Iran’s progressing its nuclear program. There is now widespread acknowledgment that the rosy 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which judged that Iran’s weapons program was halted in 2003, was an embarrassment, little more than wishful thinking.

Even absent palpable proof, like a nuclear test, Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear weapons has long been evident. Now the arms race has begun: Neighboring countries are moving forward, driven by fears that Mr. Obama’s diplomacy is fostering a nuclear Iran. Saudi Arabia, keystone of the oil-producing monarchies, has long been expected to move first. No way would the Sunni Saudis allow the Shiite Persians to outpace them in the quest for dominance within Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitical hegemony. Because of reports of early Saudi funding, analysts have long believed that Saudi Arabia has an option to obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan, allowing it to become a nuclear-weapons state overnight. Egypt and Turkey, both with imperial legacies and modern aspirations, and similarly distrustful of Tehran, would be right behind. Ironically perhaps, Israel’s nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.

Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions. Saudi, Egyptian and Turkish interests are complex and conflicting, but faced with Iran’s threat, all have concluded that nuclear weapons are essential. The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said recently, “whatever comes out of these talks, we will want the same.” He added, “if Iran has the ability to enrich uranium to whatever level, it’s not just Saudi Arabia that’s going to ask for that.” Obviously, the Saudis, Turkey and Egypt will not be issuing news releases trumpeting their intentions. But the evidence is accumulating that they have quickened their pace toward developing weapons.

Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with South Korea, China, France and Argentina, aiming to build a total of 16 reactors by 2030. The Saudis also just hosted meetings with the leaders of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey; nuclear matters were almost certainly on the agenda. Pakistan could quickly supply nuclear weapons or technology to Egypt, Turkey and others. Or, for the right price, North Korea might sell behind the backs of its Iranian friends. The Obama administration’s increasingly frantic efforts to reach agreement with Iran have spurred demands for ever-greater concessions from Washington. Successive administrations, Democratic and Republican, worked hard, with varying success, to forestall or terminate efforts to acquire nuclear weapons by states as diverse as South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. Even where civilian nuclear reactors were tolerated, access to the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle was typically avoided. Everyone involved understood why.

This gold standard is now everywhere in jeopardy because the president’s policy is empowering Iran. Whether diplomacy and sanctions would ever have worked against the hard-liners running Iran is unlikely. But abandoning the red line on weapons-grade fuel drawn originally by the Europeans in 2003, and by the United Nations Security Council in several resolutions, has alarmed the Middle East and effectively handed a permit to Iran’s nuclear weapons establishment. The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.

Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.

Mr. Obama’s fascination with an Iranian nuclear deal always had an air of unreality. But by ignoring the strategic implications of such diplomacy, these talks have triggered a potential wave of nuclear programs. The president’s biggest legacy could be a thoroughly nuclear-weaponized Middle East.

Contents

On Topic

Obama’s Mideast Realignment: Max Boot, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 25, 2015 —His new doctrine: Downgrade ties to Israel and the Saudis while letting Iran fill the vacuum left by U.S. retreat.

Why the Chaos in Yemen Could Force Obama to Take a Harder Line with Iran: Greg Jaffe & Missy Ryan, Washington Post, Mar. 28, 2015 —President Obama has for years stuck to a strategy aimed at keeping the United States from getting pulled into a big regional war between Iran and America’s traditional Arab allies.

Obama’s Doomsday Plan for Israel – A Terrifying Possibility: Jack Engelhard, Arutz Sheva, Mar. 29, 2015 —Israel and the United States need to get ready to thwart a terrible surprise.

The Method to Obama’s Middle East Mess: Ross Douthat, New York Times, Mar. 28, 2015 —Let’s recap the state of America’s commitments in the Middle East.

Here’s Why Obama Panders to Iran, Throws Israel Under the Bus: Edward Morrissey, Fiscal Times, Mar. 26, 2015—When the chant “Death to America” goes out in Tehran, it should remind us of the nature of Barack Obama’s diplomatic partners in Iran.

Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research/ L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme, www.isranet.org

Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284 ; ber@isranet.wpsitie.com