Thanks to Barack Obama, it is only a matter of time before Israel feels forced to conduct a massive military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. When that happens, Iran will strike back, and hundreds if not thousands of missiles will rain down on Israel. This exchange will likely spark a major regional war in the Middle East, and that could end up plunging the entire planet into chaos. If Barack Obama was attempting to prevent such a scenario from playing out, he failed miserably.
Personally, I think that the deal that was just made with Iran is absolutely horrible. Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe that it is the greatest piece of diplomacy of all time. But it doesn’t really matter what any of us think. If this deal was going to work, it had to be strong enough to convince Israel that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons has been completely stopped.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sworn that he will never, ever let Iran get a nuclear weapon, and he has pledged to use military force if necessary. So what Barack Obama needed was a deal that would calm Israeli nerves while satisfying the Iranians at the same time. Such a deal may have theoretically been impossible, but that is what it was going to take to prevent war. Instead, Obama has made a deal which has utterly horrified the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even called it “a license to kill“. So now the odds that war will happen have gone way up, but Barack Obama is too busy congratulating himself to notice.
And it isn’t just the Israeli government that has responded very negatively to this deal.
One recent survey found that a staggering 74 percent of Israelis do not believe that this deal will prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon.
A different survey discovered that 47 percent of Israelis would now support a military strike against Iran and only 35 percent of Israelis are currently against one.
Of course the Israeli government would very much prefer not to have to bomb Iran. Before resorting to military action, the Israeli government will certainly try to encourage the U.S. Congress to derail this deal. And we should probably expect to see more covert action against Iran’s nuclear program.
But in the end, those methods will almost certainly not be enough. At that point, the Israeli government will have a decision to make, and I think that the following exchange between Netanyahu and Steve Forbes gives us some insight into what Israeli officials are thinking right now…
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I think if the deal goes through we’re in danger of war, and it might be the worst kind of war we can imagine. Because this deal will open the way for Iran not to get a bomb but many bombs. Within a decade it will be free to enrich uranium on an unlimited basis. And it will be able to make the fissile core for dozens of bombs–indeed, hundreds of bombs–which it can then put on the hundreds of ICBMs it already has.
Under this deal Iran is going to get $100 billion to $300 billion, which it will be able to use to fund its terrorism and its aggression in the region–its aim being to destroy Israel. Given Iran’s history of aggression, I’d say that this double bonanza of a guaranteed pathway to a nuclear arsenal and a jackpot of money to continue its aggression actually makes the danger of war, even nuclear war, a lot greater.
Under this deal Iran is going to get $100 billion to $300 billion, which it will be able to use to fund its terrorism and its aggression in the region–its aim being to destroy Israel. Given Iran’s history of aggression, I’d say that this double bonanza of a guaranteed pathway to a nuclear arsenal and a jackpot of money to continue its aggression actually makes the danger of war, even nuclear war, a lot greater.
SF: You make a very important point. Even if Iran sticks to the deal, which is highly problematical, in a decade it will be a major global nuclear power, and it will have ballistic missiles.
BN: Iran is producing them, and guess what? Within a few years they will be able to reach the Eastern seaboard of the United States. And then every point in the United States. But this deal will also enable Iran to tip those missiles with nuclear weapons, with atomic bombs. And I think it’s a huge mistake to allow the foremost sponsor of terrorism in the world, Iran, to have nuclear weapons, as well as the capacity to give such weapons to its terrorist surrogates. This is a big, big mistake. Not only endangering Israel and the entire Middle East but the entire world, specifically the United States. The mullahs, the dictators in Tehran, they call us the little Satan; they call America the big Satan. You are their ultimate target, and you should not give such a terrorist regime the weapons of mass destruction. Because I think the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. Here you have a militant Islamic state, Iran, arming itself with nuclear weapons and receiving a huge cash bonanza in the bargain. That’s a mistake.
Let there be no misunderstanding – as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is in power the Israeli government will never, ever allow Iran to build nuclear weapons.
This deal that Barack Obama just made with Iran guarantees the Iranians a path to a nuclear weapon, but the Obama administration is apparently hoping that regime change will happen before that time if they are able to kick the can down the road far enough.
But the big mistake that almost everyone in the western world is making when analyzing this deal is that they are assuming that the Iranians will actually keep their promises.
Just like the U.S. government, the Iranians have a very long track record of blatantly lying. And they were caught lying even in the midst of these recent negotiations. The National Council of Resistance of Iran produced evidence that the Iranians were enriching uranium intended for nuclear weapons at a site known as “Lavizan-3” just outside of Tehran. But even after this information came out, the Iranians and the Obama administration just continued with their negotiations as if this facility did not exist.
Not too long from now, I believe that we will see some sort of “trigger event” which will motivate the Israeli government to finally conduct a massive military strike against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel has a history of conducting these kinds of assaults, and the Israeli military has been preparing for just such an attack for a very long time.
Israel has used surprise military force twice to neutralize foreign nuclear programs. In 1981, the Israeli Air Force attacked and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear facilities. Then in 2007, the Israelis attacked and destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility being built with the help of the North Koreans. An attack on Iran’s facilities would be far more complex, and the possible retaliatory blowback could be horrendous. But yet, the Israelis certainly have the capability to do what they need to do, and they’ve been preparing for years for that moment. Given Israel’s historic track record, it is possible Israeli leaders will come to the point of feeling they have no choice but to launch attacks on Iran.
And just because Iran has made a “deal” with us, the American people should not assume that we have now become “friends” with the Iranian government.
In fact, the president of Iran recently led a march through the streets of Tehran during which the crowds were chanting “death to America”…
“Even over the weekend, as Iran continued to receive more and more concessions at the negotiating table, Iranian President Rouhani led a march of hatred in the streets of Tehran in which the masses cried, ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!‘” Netanyahu said, describing Iran’s recent “Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day” in an address to the Knesset Monday.
What a horrible thing to want. Even though I am very pro-Israel, I would never wish death to Iran. The Iranian people work hard, they take care of their families, and most of them want peace.
Unfortunately, Iran is run by a cadre of radical Islamic nutjobs that are obsessed with wiping the nation of Israel off the face of the planet.
For a long time, Israel and Iran have been on a collision course, and now time is running out.
War is coming to the Middle East, and it is going to be absolutely horrifying.
Iran’s defense minister on Monday said Tehran would not allow international inspectors to enter the Islamic Republic’s military sites, in comments that appear at odds with the terms of a landmark nuclear deal struck with world powers last week.
Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan also said the nuclear deal does not limit Iran’s missile development, which he maintained Tehran would “resolutely” pursue.
The comments came on the heels of Iran’s Foreign Ministry saying the UN could not ban Iranian ballistic missile development under the deal and a top military commander rejecting the UN’s adoption of the groundbreaking accord earlier in the day.
Taken together, the comments shed doubt on Tehran’s willingness to keep to some of the concessions agreed to in the pact, which has been touted in the West as the best way to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and was endorsed unanimously in the United Nations Security Council Monday.
Dehghan “underlined that Tehran will not allow any foreigner to discover Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities by inspecting the country’s military sites,” according to a report by the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Dehghan also stressed that Iran’s missile activity was not bound by the nuclear deal, which lifts punishing economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on enrichment and increased access to nuclear sites by atomic inspectors.
“Missile-related issues have never been on agenda of the nuclear talks and the Islamic system will resolutely implement its programs in this field,” Dehghan said in a meeting with defense ministry officials.
The defense minister slammed the US for its “boastful remarks” surrounding the accord, and said Washington lacked insight on Iran.
“The US officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation,” he stated.
Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is barred from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Iran says it has built ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), capable of striking its arch-foe Israel.
Also on Monday, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said the UN resolution adopting the pact was unacceptable and “clearly in contradiction” of the Islamic Republic’s red lines.
“Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic Republic’s red lines, especially in Iran’s military capabilities. We will never accept it,” Jafari told Iranian news agency Tasnim.
There was no immediate reaction from the US or the other five world powers that reached the agreement with Iran in Vienna last week.
The EU said Monday it will explore setting up a new international format to breathe life back into the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, fresh from her role in the Iran nuclear deal, said she was working on an idea for an “international support group.”
“We have invested a lot as the EU” in trying to revive the moribund Middle East peace process, Mogherini said after a meeting of the bloc’s 28 foreign ministers in Brussels.
“The idea of an international support group is one that we will explore in coming weeks. We will come back to it once I have discussed it with regional actors,” she said.
Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister, said the torturous but ultimately successful Iran talks showed that even the toughest problems could be resolved through diplomacy.
Her comments were echoed by the EU foreign ministers who said in a statement that “securing a just and lasting peace will require an increased common international effort.”
“The establishment of an International support group is a possible way to contribute to this end,” it said.
Mogherini will report back to them by September, they added.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said earlier Monday the peace process was “effectively dead” and Europe had to help the two sides find a way out of the impasse.
Last month, Fabius suggested that a new group — “a sort of Quartet-plus” — should be considered.
John Kerry thinks that the Arab states should unite to stand up to Iran: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/inside-the-newsroom/2015/07/21/Full-transcript-of-Al-Arabiya-interview-with-Secretary-of-State-John-Kerry.html
ReplyDeleteNow this is 10 Kings material! Of course, no predictions, but very interesting.
the 10 kings will be an outgrowth from the EU/Med Union though - as it "evolves" - but the 10 kings have to come from the EU
ReplyDelete