Israel’s First Project With Trump: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2016 — Israeli officials are thrilled with the national security team that US President-elect Donald Trump is assembling. And they are right to be.
The Iran Deal Is Doomed: Lee Smith, Weekly Standard, Nov. 20, 2016 — Will President-elect Donald Trump crash the Iran deal on day one, as he said on the campaign trail?
The EU Cozies with Iran at Its Peril: Behnam Ben Taleblu, World Affairs, Nov. 23, 2016 — Since last summer’s nuclear deal, Iran has been pushing a full court press to be treated as a legitimate member of the international community.
Iran’s Prisoner of the Revolution: Editorial, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 4, 2016 — An Iranian revolutionary court on Sunday sentenced Ahmad Montazeri to 21 years in prison on a range of national-security charges.
Iran Seals Deal With Boeing to Buy 80 Planes Worth $16.6B: Nasser Karimi and Adam Schreck, Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2016
Netanyahu Tells 60 Minutes How Trump Can Undo Iran Deal: Valerie Locke, Breaking Israel News, Dec. 12, 2016
Keith Ellison’s Life as NIAC Cheerleader: Armin Rosen, Tablet, Dec 6, 2016
Popular Iranian Theme Park Encourages Young Boys to Fire Plastic Bullets at Effigies of Netanyahu: Becca Noy, Jerusalem Online, Dec. 9, 2016
ISRAEL’S FIRST PROJECT WITH TRUMP
Caroline Glick
Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2016
Israeli officials are thrilled with the national security team that US President-elect Donald Trump is assembling. And they are right to be. The question now is how Israel should respond to the opportunity it presents us with.
The one issue that brings together all of the top officials Trump has named so far to his national security team is Iran. Gen. (ret.) John Kelly, whom Trump appointed Wednesday to serve as his secretary of homeland security, warned about Iran’s infiltration of the US from Mexico and about Iran’s growing presence in Central and South America when he served as commander of the US’s Southern Command.
Gen. (ret.) James Mattis, Trump’s pick to serve as defense secretary, and Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, whom he has tapped to serve as his national security adviser, were both fired by outgoing President Barack Obama for their opposition to his nuclear diplomacy with Iran.
During his video address before the Saban Forum last weekend, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that he looks forward to discussing Obama’s nuclear Iran nuclear deal with Trump after his inauguration next month. Given that Netanyahu views the Iranian regime’s nuclear program – which the nuclear deal guaranteed would be operational in 14 years at most – as the most serious strategic threat facing Israel, it makes sense that he wishes to discuss the issue first.
But Netanyahu may be better advised to first address the conventional threat Iran poses to Israel, the US and the rest of the region in the aftermath of the nuclear deal. There are two reasons to start with Iran’s conventional threat, rather than its nuclear program. First, Trump’s generals are reportedly more concerned about the strategic threat posed by Iran’s regional rise than by its nuclear program – at least in the immediate term.
Israel has a critical interest in aligning its priorities with those of the incoming Trump administration. The new administration presents Israel with the first chance it has had in 50 years to reshape its alliance with the US on firmer footing than it has stood on to date. The more Israel is able to develop joint strategies with the US for dealing with common threats, the firmer its alliance with the US and the stronger its regional posture will become.
The second reason it makes sense for Israel to begin its strategic discussions with the Trump administration by addressing Iran’s growing regional posture is because Iran’s hegemonic rise is a strategic threat to Israel. And at present, Israel lacks a strategy for dealing with it. Our leaders today still describe Hezbollah with the same terms they used to describe it a decade ago during the Second Lebanon War. They discuss Hezbollah’s massive missile and rocket arsenal. With 150,000 projectiles pointed at Israel, in a way it makes sense that Israel does this.
Just this week Israel reinforced the sense that Hezbollah is more or less the same organization it was 10 years ago when – according to Syrian and Hezbollah reports – on Tuesday Israel bombed Syrian military installations outside Damascus. Following the alleged bombing, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told EU ambassadors that Israel is committed to preventing Hezbollah from transferring advanced weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, from Syria to Lebanon. The underlying message is that having those weapons in Syria is not viewed as a direct threat to Israel.
Statements like Liberman’s also send the message that other than the prospect of weapons of mass destruction or precision missiles being stockpiled in Lebanon, Israel isn’t particularly concerned about what is happening in Lebanon. These statements are unhelpful because they obfuscate the fact that Hezbollah is not the guerrilla organization it was a decade ago. Hezbollah has changed in four basic ways since the last war. First, Hezbollah is no longer coy about the fact that it is an Iranian, rather than Lebanese, organization.
Since Iran’s Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1983, the Iranians and Hezbollah terrorists alike have insisted that Hezbollah is an independent organization that simply enjoys warm relations with Iran. But today, with Hezbollah forming the backbone of Iran’s operations in Syria, and increasingly prominent in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither side cares if the true nature of their relationship is recognized. For instance, recently Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah bragged, “We’re open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets are from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
What our enemies’ new openness tells us is that Israel must cease discussing Hezbollah and Iran as separate entities. Israel’s next war in Lebanon will not be with Hezbollah, or even with Lebanon. It will be with Iran. This is not a semantic distinction. It is a strategic one. Making it will have a positive impact on how both Israel and the rest of the world understand the regional strategic reality facing Israel, the US and the rest of the nations of the Middle East.
The second way that Hezbollah is different today is that it is no longer a guerrilla force. It is a regular army with a guerrilla arm and a regional presence. Its arsenal is as deep as Iran’s arsenal. And at present at least, it operates under the protection of the Russian Air Force and air defense systems. Hezbollah has deployed at least a thousand fighters to Iraq where they are fighting alongside Iranian forces and Shi’ite militia, which Hezbollah trains. Recent photographs of a Hezbollah column around Mosul showed that in addition to its advanced missiles, Hezbollah also fields an armored corps. Its armored platforms include M1A1 Abrams tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers.
The footage from Iraq, along with footage from the military parade Hezbollah held last month in Syria, where its forces also showed off their M-113s, makes clear that Hezbollah’s US platform- based maneuver force is not an aberration. The significance of Hezbollah’s vastly expanded capabilities is clear. Nasrallah’s claims in recent years that in the next war his forces will stage a ground invasion of the Galilee and seek to seize Israeli border towns was not idle talk. Even worse, the open collaboration between Russia and Iran-Hezbollah in Syria, and their recent victories in Aleppo, mean that there is no reason for Israel to assume that Hezbollah will only attack from Lebanon. There is a growing likelihood that Hezbollah will make its move from Syrian territory.
The third major change from 2006 is that like Iran, Hezbollah today is much richer than it was before Obama concluded the nuclear deal with the ayatollahs last year. The deal, which canceled economic and trade sanctions on Iran, has given the mullahs a massive infusion of cash. Shortly after the sanctions were canceled, the Iranians announced that they were increasing their military budget by 90%. Since Hezbollah officially received $200 million per year before sanctions were canceled, the budget increase means that Hezbollah is now receiving some $400m. per year from Iran…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Lee Smith
Weekly Standard, Nov. 20, 2016
Will President-elect Donald Trump crash the Iran deal on day one, as he said on the campaign trail? If so, Barack Obama's signature foreign policy initiative, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will melt into air. Obama allies and Iran deal supporters at home and abroad are already showing their anxiety.
The president-elect shouldn't tear up the agreement, argues the National Iranian American Council, a key voice in the administration's deal-promoting echo chamber. NIAC's Reza Marashi and Trita Parsi wrote last week that it's "in the interest of the United States to build on the Iran nuclear deal to resolve remaining tensions with Iran and help stabilize the Middle East." The Europeans are also concerned. Last week, EU foreign ministers issued a statement from Brussels. "The upholding of commitments by all sides is a necessary condition to continue rebuilding trust and allow for continued, steady and gradual improvement in relations between the European Union, its member States and Iran."
As we argued in these pages last week, the Iran deal is likely to collapse under its own weight if the incoming administration merely enforces its terms—something the Obama team has conspicuously failed to do. Instead, the Obama White House has bribed Iran, drummed up business for the regime, kept Congress from imposing nonnuclear sanctions, and excused Iranian violations. If the Trump White House simply stops propping up what the president-elect has called the "worst deal ever negotiated," the Iranians are likely to walk.
What worries the deal's supporters is that the new commander in chief will take an even more aggressive posture and undo with his own hands what he has called a "lopsided" agreement. Some argue that's undesirable, and others impossible. Senator Bob Corker, for instance, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggests that Trump should take a more tempered approach. "I don't think he will tear it up, and I don't think that's the way to start," said Corker, rumored to be in the running for secretary of state. "I think what he should do is build consensus with these other countries that [Iran is] definitely violating the agreement."
Indeed, Iran is violating the agreement. Last week, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, noted that Iran had again exceeded its limit of heavy water (used to produce plutonium for nuclear warheads). Certainly the new president should seek to work with the deal's signatories and other allies to build consensus on Iran. However, renegotiating the JCPOA—with a less than helpful Russia and China at the table, never mind Iran itself—involves risks. What if the world's most famous negotiator can't get a better agreement than his predecessor? It would lend weight to the Obama administration's contention that the deal it secured with Iran was the best to be had. Worse, it leaves the new president with egg on his face and someone else's deal in his pocket.
Trump is thus cornered, say Iran deal supporters; he has no choice but to abide by the agreement. The JCPOA is a "multilateral accord," the European Union's head of international affairs, Federica Mogherini, said last week. The JCPOA, she said, was "not concluded with one country or government but was approved by a resolution of the U.N. Security Council, and there is no possibility that it can be changed by a single government." Actually, that's not true. There is very little to stop the Trump White House from toppling the JCPOA. The United States can reimpose its own nuclear-related sanctions, and more important it can reimpose multilateral sanctions—unilaterally. The means are outlined in Article 37 of the JCPOA and in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which explain how the snapback measures work.
The instrument was designed to take advantage of the United States' veto power at the U.N. Security Council, while sidelining the veto wielded by Iran's two closest allies among the deal's signatories, China and Russia. Let's say Iran is found to be not in compliance with the JCPOA (and it is not, as the IAEA found last week). Any of the signatories can notify the Security Council, at which point the Security Council has 30 days to address the issue. If the concerns are not satisfied, a resolution comes before the Security Council to continue suspending nuclear sanctions on Iran. This is where the power of the veto comes into play—the United States would use its veto power to strike down the measure, at which point all multilateral sanctions would be reimposed. At that stage, Iran almost certainly walks out of the deal.
Iran deal supporters are likely to argue that the Trump White House cannot avail itself of this measure, even though the unilateral trigger on the "snapback" mechanism was how the administration sold the deal to some of its critics. The explanation for why Trump can't use it is likely to be as bizarre and ad hoc as nearly everything that's come out of the Obama administration's Iran echo chamber. But here's the thing—the advocates of the deal, like NIAC and other Obama surrogates, were powerful only because they were plugged into the White House for the last eight years. The "echo chamber" was just a well-funded fiction-writing workshop—as long as it was directed by the president of the United States, it produced what Obama deputy Ben Rhodes calls "narrative." Once cut off from the White House, the echo chamber will simply spin fairy tales that bear no relationship to reality.
Untangling the Obama administration's many myths will be among the multitude of tasks facing the incoming Trump White House. It can start with the simple expedient of enforcing the Iran deal, at which point it will die a quick death.
THE EU COZIES WITH IRAN AT ITS PERIL
Behnam Ben Taleblu
World Affairs, Nov. 23, 2016
Since last summer’s nuclear deal, Iran has been pushing a full court press to be treated as a legitimate member of the international community. Its behavior suggests otherwise. Since the accord, Tehran has stepped up support to the Assad regime in Syria, persisted in testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, and continued human rights abuses within its borders. Nevertheless, on October 25, the European Parliament passed a resolution affirming its desire to normalize political and economic ties with Iran. Effectively, Tehran would be poised to reap dividends of closer ties without changing its conduct.
The resolution does contain language critical of Iran for its rights abuses and brazen anti-Semitism—thus drawing the ire of Iran’s hardliners. But it is more of a fig leaf to cover the EU’s true motives: ending the sanctions firewall and the taboo of ties with Tehran. The EU’s imports from Iran dipped considerably in 2012 when it implemented an oil embargo on the Islamic Republic. Pursuant to the nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA—Europe will remove some of the most dangerous Iranian actors from its sanctions lists by 2023 or earlier. Worse, some sanctions, like those on Iran’s premier terror-financing institution Bank Saderat, have slipped well in advance of that deadline.
According to the EU Parliament resolution, Brussels seeks “a dialogue of the four Cs’”—namely talks that are comprehensive, cooperative, critical, and constructive. Similarly, an April 2016 EU Parliament report called for “strategic and structured dialogue” with Iran. On its face, this attempt to broaden the range of issues on the table with Tehran is commendable. In actuality, it is tantamount to falling back on an already-failed policy. In the 1990s, Europe embraced several forms of this policy to no avail. Each time, it was given a different moniker—ranging from “critical dialogue” to “comprehensive dialogue”—but its lackluster results in changing Iranian behavior at home and abroad speaks for itself.
In a display of wishful thinking, European proponents of this allegedly new policy insist they can build on the nuclear deal to change Iranian behavior. By flooding Tehran with cash, the JCPOA merely provides the regime with more resources with which to pursue its destabilizing regional ambitions. European defenders of normalization with Iran maintain that the accord “was a huge prize for peace and stability in a troubled region.” But this ignores the fact that Tehran is already intricately involved in a number of regional conflicts. Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and various Shiite proxies and militias are fighting in battlefields across the region at Tehran’s behest. At home, business interests connected to or controlled by the IRGC stand to gain the most from the deal. Europe would be bolstering those whom it should be weakening.
A similar challenge exists with respect to Iranian airlines, which are set to service new destinations in the aftermath of the nuclear deal. The US Treasury designated Mahan Air in 2011 for its support for terrorism, with specific reference to its role in the Syrian theater. Recently, reports emerged that Mahan has grown its operations in Europe—where it remains unsanctioned—as well as the Caucasus. Tehran’s penchant to illicitly procure material for its missile program has also continued unabated. According to Germany’s intelligence services, Iranian attempts to acquire “proliferation-sensitive” technologies reached “a quantitatively high level” in 2015. Normalization with Tehran would require ignoring these disturbing trends.
As the global business community eyes Tehran, Europe should not squander this opportunity to meaningfully alter Iran’s policies. Before rushing back to regain its place as the Islamic Republic’s largest trading partner, the EU must recognize that unless it demands changes to Iranian behavior upfront, Iran will retain the upper hand in any post-deal negotiations. European advocates of the nuclear deal insist that it would shore up security and stability in an uncertain world. Now is their chance to put their money where their mouth is.
IRAN’S PRISONER OF THE REVOLUTION
Editorial
Wall Street Journal, Dec. 4, 2016
An Iranian revolutionary court on Sunday sentenced Ahmad Montazeri to 21 years in prison on a range of national-security charges. The 60-year-old cleric will serve a mere six years by Iranian justice standards, owing to his age and his family’s special status in Iranian revolutionary history. But his sentence is a reminder that the regime remains as brutal as ever, even as it reaps the economic benefits of its nuclear deal with the West.
Mr. Montazeri’s crime was to release tapes that capture his father, the Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, denouncing the regime’s repression during its first decade in power. The elder Montazeri, who died in 2009, was one of the regime’s founders with Ayatollah Khomeini. Tapped to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader, Montazeri grew increasingly disillusioned with the theocracy he had established. The final break came in 1988 when the regime executed thousands of leftists and supporters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group. The MEK had helped Khomeini topple the Shah in 1979. But after the revolution the new supreme leader set out to consolidate power and liquidate his erstwhile allies.
Montazeri denounced the executions at the time, accusing senior security apparatchiks in the 1988 recording of committing the “biggest crime in the Islamic Republic, for which the history will condemn us.” He added: “Beware of 50 years from now, when people will pass judgment on the leader [Khomeini] and will say he was a bloodthirsty, brutal and murderous leader.” For his dissent, Montazeri was sidelined and has spent much of the rest of his life under house arrest. Among the men he addressed in the tape was Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who is now Justice Minister in the “moderate” government that negotiated the nuclear deal.
Confronted with the recording this summer, Mr. Pourmohammadi said, “We take pride in executing God’s commandment with respect to the hypocrites,” using the regime’s epithet for the MEK. This episode about the nature of the Tehran regime is worth keeping in mind as Donald Trump becomes the seventh U.S. President to confront the Iranian threat.
Iran Seals Deal With Boeing to Buy 80 Planes Worth $16.6B: Nasser Karimi and Adam Schreck, Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2016 —Iran’s flag carrier finalized a major deal with U.S. plane maker Boeing Co. to buy $16.6 billion worth of passenger planes Sunday in one of the most tangible benefits yet for the Islamic Republic from last year’s landmark nuclear agreement.
Netanyahu Tells 60 Minutes How Trump Can Undo Iran Deal: Valerie Locke, Breaking Israel News, Dec. 12, 2016 —In an interview with 60 Minutes aired Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he plans to ask President-elect Donald Trump to dismantle the P5+1 Iranian nuclear deal when he enters office and revealed that he has several suggestions on how it can be done.
Keith Ellison’s Life as NIAC Cheerleader: Armin Rosen, Tablet, Dec 6, 2016—July of 2009 was not the most obvious time to argue against sanctioning Iran. In June, the regime violently suppressed a widespread protest movement that emerged in response to the alleged rigging of the country’s presidential election.
Popular Iranian Theme Park Encourages Young Boys to Fire Plastic Bullets at Effigies of Netanyahu: Becca Noy, Jerusalem Online, Dec. 9, 2016—The Iranian government held a celebratory opening ceremony for a new amusement park for children. However, this park is not a typical children’s park. At Iran’s City of Games for Revolutionary Children, young Iranians learn how to become revolutionists and fight enemy countries.
