Reality, nuclear deal with Iran and why I vacillate

There are two truths about any contract that are true here; a contract must be good for both parties and if a contract must be read and quoted throughout the life of the contract than it is not worth signing because a contract is an agreement rather than a rules of war. President Obama is triangulating the US, Israel and even Iran into a deal that is seemingly unassailable not because there are not plenty of things terribly wrong with it but because the negotiations themselves have destroyed our most important tool against Iranian expansionism – sanctions.  We are trading an Iran declaring it is a nuclear power by virtue of it exploding a nuclear bomb in its soil by freeing up its economy so that it can improve its middle class, improve its weapons systems and export terror. A good contract is a reference point for a dispute with both sides sometimes violating the letter but not the spirit of an agreement. This contract will be the work of two antagonists attempting to milk the most out its terms at each other’s expense and so we may have a contract but no agreement. Cold War agreements at least had MAD as a mutual interest but that is missing here. Tehran wants trade and a nuclear tipped missile, Washington wants an Iran that is an ally of the US if not a friend to fight ISIS, politically restrained by trade with rivals such as the US and Turkey but relatively defanged.

Will the deal prevent Iran from getting the bomb? No, nothing can prevent a nation from creating a nuclear device if it wishes to have one, especially not a country as large and sophisticated as Iran. North Korea was able to do it and they can’t feed themselves.

Will the deal at least delay Iran from getting the bomb? Maybe, it’s a big country and they could find facilities to develop a nuke but they have given up on centrifuges so they would have to purchase plutonium which is possible depending on whether Russian shipments are inspected. Iran has announced the purchase of two new power plants and one has to presume more in the future, we may have a lot of busy inspectors and a lot of trails to follow just to make sure Iran is not producing a nuclear weapon. However, just having a bomb is one thing but delivering it on a missile that can go a long distance is further away, the Iranians have a Shahab 3 but they plan for a Shahab 5 which will be much larger. So while the bomb may seem delayed the missile is not only not delayed but will be easier to produce quickly thanks to the lifting of sanctions. So have we delayed a bomb for longer than they were prepared to wait for the right missile to carry it, probably we have failed. The reality of Iranian missile development makes a sham of the nuclear agreement more than any other point of failure.  

Will ending the sanctions bring Iran back into the brotherhood of nations? They have a “Supreme Leader” and “Supreme Leader” is a euphemism for a Pol Pot, Hitler, Jim Jones and supporting such leaders is like going on a date with Bill Cosby but bringing our own ludes, handing them to him when the drinks arrive, covering our eyes and playfully counting to ten. Iran like Cosby may be able to put on a fine show of being decent family guy when doing so brings in a lot of money but Iran is going to keep exporting terror and destabilizing nations because that’s what they believe their purpose in life is and by “they” I just mean the Ayatollah who is the only opinion that matters in Iran because he is the “Supreme Leader.” So, no.

Are our allies on board with the agreement?  Yes but there signs of a lack of enthusiasm. Jacques Audibert, a senior advisor to President Hollande, suggests Congress turning down the deal will put the US in a stronger negotiating position down the road by contradicting the idea that sanctions will implode because we don’t allow bank transaction with non-compliant groups is too great a risk and claims that Iran would come back to the negotiating table weaker than before. This is an amazing statement and at minimum suggests deep ambivalence of the current deal by an important European ally, perhaps the EU.  With no obvious interest in fighting the agreement beyond security, cold feet in Paris is both surprising and worth considering.  Nonetheless, I think we would lose China, Russia and possibly India on the sanctions and they might see enough incentive to find ways around the dollar for practical as much as long term political reasons.

Should we support the Iran deal? Specific problems include the fact sanctions disappear but current terrorist activities are not only not diminished but will increase under this agreement, Iran’s ability to purchase and export weapons systems to terrorist organizations will increase, Iran’s missile development program is not only not diminished but will increase under this agreement, Iran’s ability to create a nuke is diminished but could easily go underground for years. If found, Iran has 24 days to clean up a clandestine site and the slowing down of the nuclear development may not actually slow down the deployment of a nuclear warhead to deliver the nuke with. I have been vacillating greatly on supporting the agreement. My support is for two basic reasons; sanctions were not preventing Iran from expanding its influence or from exporting terrorism for which we relied on sanctions rather than containment to effect positively. Delaying breakout time is good for the US and our allies even if it does not affect nuclear missile production which seems to my eyes to be several years away, although an intelligence analyst would know far better.  Supporting the agreement because we have already lost everything we have to lose makes sense unless we believe a single French Presidential advisor,  we will have lost the international support for sanctions and they are not coming with a snap or even a loud whistle. We can impose unilateral sanctions but that still leaves Iran far better off than before negotiations. The reason to support a deal comes with a necessary understanding, the US must now directly or by supporting its allies confront Iran’s proxies and drive them out of existence in a containment policy for Iran. We have to make this change regardless if we sign, so we might as well sign since the damage to us is already done. We need to make our congressmen aware that an aggressive containment policy is required until either Iran frees itself or it renounces terror outside its borders.  The fact is sanctions were not preventing Iran from destabilizing the region but the problem is the agreement does not replace the sanctions with anything and that is what we must demand of congress and the president. We need to have consequences for Iran exporting terror and consequences for Iran violating the nuclear agreement in place.

One of the unspoken causes of the second part of the Iraq war initiated by George W. Bush was the fraying of the sanctions regime. Russia and France were even found to have been attempting to secure oil deals with Iraq in a post sanctions environment so a nuclear agreement may really put off a hot war with a nation far stronger than Iraq if only due to the number of willing bodies that could be thrown at US forces inside Iran.  We won the war but lost the peace and the support of many of our allies on the UN. President Obama has offered us a genuine alternative to Iraq but is an alternative to Iraq relevant and as it a good alternative? An Iran that exports more terror and instability is not good and is worse than or at least as bad as an Iran that breaks up and finds itself in a state of civil war.

Losing the opportunity to have international inspectors inside Iran alongside the cost to US prestige and trust if we don’t approve the deal could leave us in the position of needing to attack Iran immediately, possibly with nuclear weapons as we would not have the support of any of our allies. The damage to us happened in the negotiations, there’s no point in treating the nuclear agreement as something valuable except as leverage to make the price of signing an aggressive containment strategy against Iran which pushes it out of Middle Eastern side of the Persian Gulf and the Levant. The sanctions were the result of our unwillingness to directly confront Iran and its proxies now that the sanctions are effectively gone we must move to contain Iran. The eventual nuclear break out will hopefully mean less if Iran is contained within its borders and has no ability to export terror or if we are lucky the regime will finally implode before they can build a nuclear tipped missile. Let’s call our congressmen and let them know the minimum price of the agreement is aggressive containment and the price of an Iranian breach is an attack on their facilities and destroying their ability to produce weapons systems but even so congressional approval should not be political, Congress should be certain this is a good deal. I have been vacillating but I can’t support the deal for a few reasons; the US has no post signing stance on Iran to guide us as sanctions disappear, Iran shows no good will toward the agreement which means in practice they are against making it unworkable and I am ultimately uncertain this agreement on its best day is good for the US other than very real benefit of bolstering the prestige and credibility of the administration that negotiated it.  While the negotiations have laid bare our short comings in depending on sanctions to deter Iran, the agreement does not appear to leave the US in a stronger position to deal with Iran other than to possibly delay its nuclear breakout to a point in time where it can load nuclear weapons onto missiles, so I cannot support this agreement in its current form. 

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog.

The new KKK is radical Islam

Radical Islam is the 21st century version of the KKK, the sooner we understand that, understand what radical Islamic revolution seeks to protect, the sooner we can begin eradicating it through liberating minds and people. In terms of its scope, it’s genocidal tendencies Radical Islam is comparable to Nazism, the Comrade Rouge or the Houthis but in terms of political agenda is really a successor to the KKK. Like the KKK, radical Islam seeks to preserve a way of life at the expense and domination of other groups. In the case Wahabbist variation it is the “protection” by domination of Sunni Arab against minorities such as the Shia, The Druze, Copts, Berbers, Circassians, Jews, Kurds, Yazidi, Assyrians, Syria, Mehari, Arameans, Baha’i, Mandeans, and others who exist as religious groups, ethnic groups, ethno-religious groups and many of whom live as a majority in substantial territory dominated by Sunni ethnocentric groups.

The KKK was a terrorist group that formed after the South lost the civil war as a response to the freeing of slaves and desire to maintain a form of tyranny over the “other.” Like Islamic radicals they believed in their own superiority and the superiority of their “civilization” and furthermore they believed themselves to be moralistic “Knights” in the cause of their religion and that such a cause could be used to justify the targeting and murder of innocent civilians in the name of both religion and race.

We can see this in the policies and behavior that have informed both the Wahabbist Sunni movements, Iranian Shia and so called Islamist movements occurring in the various nations such as Egypt, Turkey and Jordan, the Pan Arab movements of the 20th century and the Pan Islamic movements that seem to have currency today.  While American racism in the post-civil war period did directly aspire to move beyond US borders, it was informed by Manifest Destiny which is very similar to Arab/Islamic claim on the Middle East and other nations as well as justification for both ethnic suppression, genocide and terrorism. Add to this fire the particularly bloody nature of a Balkanization a process that began in post Ottoman Europe but continues in Central Asia and the Middle East today and stoked by European colonialism in The Middle East, Communist Empires in the Balkans and Central Asia and Military led democracy and strong man rule to perpetuate and support racism.  While the Klan still exists, the Klan era was approximately a 100 years starting as a purely Southern Movement during reconstruction and becoming a national movement in the 1920s and marginalized by the end of the 1970s. However, the only indigenous movements in the Middle East have primarily been Jews in Israel, Kurds in Iran, Iran, Turkey and Syria and Shia/Sunni conflicts. Everyone else has found that propaganda against their ethnic identity, ethnic cleansing and genocide, linguistic domination and often systematic discrimination at home has either kept ethnic people too fearful, isolated or currying favor with strong man groups such as awful Assad Dynasty.

The good ole boys club of radical Islam and Islamism are pretty similar to the good ole boys of the American South which includes demanding women be modest, men claiming they are the protectors of women, men and women must not have relationships outside their groups and if they then they should be punished, murdered and or raped for doing so and similarly the women of outside ethnic religious groups are both considered dirty, immoral but can be violently used as sexual objects. Rape seems to be the primary attraction for many in joining ISIS.

Critical differences between American Terrorism via the KKK and Islamic and ethno-Islamic terrorism which is the success of ethnic cleansing where dominant Muslim and Arab groups have frequently been successful at ethnic cleansings since the end of World War II. The influence of the Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Hussein, the Nazi influence in Iran   (Which convinced Persia to itself themselves Aryan or Iran!) and on Bathism in Syria and Iraq as well as on former Syrian groups such the Palestinians and Jordanians and finally Egypt. The influence is twofold, one is the idea of ethnocentric spheres, so there is an “Arab World”, an (Pan) Arab State, “Arab lands” but there is also either or communist fascistic dictatorship as modeled by both Hitler and Stalin but in either case the appeal is ethnocentric and or religious. The Bath party in Iraq could at various times be said to be communist but the cult of personality and the pronounced racism were clearly fascist.  Middle Eastern States were able to force their domination by Linguistic oppression by propagandizing Christians into believing they are Arab and forcing them to the neglect their own languages and history often while ethnically cleaning them. The Islamic State has taken this further by pairing forced conversion with slavery and genocide but the idea is deeply rooted in Wahhabism and 20th century expressions of racism, a circumference of land must be held by single group (In this case the group if nominally Islamic but Arab is implied) and competition must literally be wiped out yet these same policies brought the House of Saud to power during the first world war.  The same inspiration for “The Arab League” which is the supposed body of states that represent the Middle East with its Arabs despite the Copts, Berbers, Jews, Kurds and many, many other groups that live there.

Genocide and ethnic cleaning is not new.  The genocidal attacks on Armenians by the Ottomans (during the Ottoman’s Turkish Nationalism phase or Young Turk movement) is the start but the 1929 Massacres. One could argue this had started with the Ottoman Conquest of Palestine with the 1517 attacks against Jews. Certainly the 1838 attack by Druze and Muslims on Safed for three days (by this time Jews were the majority in Jerusalem) and also during this time the Aleppo Massacre of 1850, the Druze Maronite Massacre of 1860, Huaran Massacre against Druze in in 1909 as well as the Armenian Genocide of 1915 all demonstrate why the KKK and Nazi movements would easily find a home amongst Sunnis and Shia.  What is being preserved by all this murder? Entitlement, privilege, superiority and land. The natural question is why is there Islamic terrorism in the West? Besides Spain (formerly Andalusia) and Sicily there are no claims to Western European land but there is no lack of terrorism in France and Italy. The reason is primarily local, prejudice justifies tyranny at home. 

While racism may be compatible with both Islamic radicalism and strong man rule in the Middle East, while ethnocentrism and patriarchy remain deeply relevant to many people, the long term way forward is the confrontation and  devaluation of racist beliefs by nations, NGOs and world organization that too frequently either support ethnocentrism or believe it is a necessary evil. 

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog.

Target in Syria is more ethnic tension

The Tribune’s editorial, “Eye on the target in Syria” explained well the complexity of alliances in fighting ISIS in Syria but overlooked the fact that Assad and Iran are both not only fighting ISIS when not fighting insurgents but offering pointing out cooperation against ISIS as an inducement for both keeping Assad in power and an inducement for the nuclear agreement or the US temptation to get Iran’s assistance. The editorial also overlooks just how much the Kurds have suffered under Iran, under Assad, under Saddam Hussein who gave the Kurds the unique claim of being targeted on the basis of ethnicity with WMDs.  Turkey faces terror problems from the PKK but they had been negotiating with the PKK until the recent elections when the Kurds refused to give Erdogan a needed majority to enact constitution changes to make Erdogan an autocratic ruler. This is the same Turkish government that has turned a blind eye to anti-Shia ISIS inside their borders and considers Hamas a legitimate political party. As we are not sending ground troops into Syria, I wish the editorial board spent more time explaining why the savings on jet fuel that using Incirlik air base gets us is worth harming the Kurds and perhaps enabling the rise of a Sunni Islamist regime in Syria.  Couldn’t we just bomb from where we were, wouldn’t a peaceful Kurdish state be a great buffer for all the nations concerned about Iran and Syria long term? If Turkey wants to fight the PKK in Turkey, that is their right but they should apply that standard to their foreign policy and if they want to justify their right to rule over Kurdish parts of Turkey then sometimes they need to make choices that are in the collective interest of the Kurds. The US should be able to afford the jet fuel to make good long-term choices in Syria. 

Superman Goes to Kenya

 It’s Tish'a B'Av and the President Obama has a wonderful Kal El moment where he returns to his Krypton saying, ‘look they made me President.’ Superman is the embodiment of assimilation and the hope that joining the American melting pot makes for something special and here we have the US President partly of Kenyan descent, leader of the free world, champion of politically spun truth  -- the American way, telling Kenya to progress by giving up political corruption and prejudice. What a beautiful message, it’s my hope if he can get Kenya to progress on those two amazing ideals we could try them out here in Chicago. So what in the name of great Caesar’s ghost are we doing with Turkey? Did we really agree that in order to have them help fight ISIS we would let them carve up Syria to prevent Kurdish independence? Turkey has a great society, they are great people but prejudice against the Kurds is as real as PKK terrorism against Turkey. The Israelis are not the only ones who should wonder if Tish'a B'Av is a tough season who are going to have to swallow hard to deal with an agreement with Iran to print money to make rockets and maybe a nuke, Kurds are going to have a slog as well stuck between ISIS and Turkey.

Turkey wants to carve into Syria safe zones where Turkey can deposit Syrian refugees, in all fairness Turkey has taken on more Syrian refugees than anyone, but it so happens those safe zones will be places to prevent a Kurdish State in Syria which will prevent Turkey’s Kurdish areas from joining. Some people might think it is coincidental that the AK party which had taken the initiative to negotiate peace with the PKK suddenly interested in fighting them when the Kurdish HDP party shows up to the elections costing the AKP important votes.  Turkey can pretend it stands against terror and is pro-democratic but it supports the Muslim Brotherhood over democracy, it can claim it fights terrorism but it supports Hamas and the Mavi Marmara had terrorists embedded with civilians on board and whatever the Israelis did wrong on that day the AKP support of terrorism doesn’t go away. If Turkey can support terrorism on principle, it can talk to the PKK too and treat them like a political party as much as Hamas is a political party. I have no love for the PKK, I don’t really think Turkey should tolerate them inside Turkey but it is hypocritical for Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu not to call for the release of their “Yasser” Abdullah Ocalan even if he like Davatoglu look like B movie villains. To avoid hypocrisy the AKP should be providing a “Kurdish Authority” within Turkey to the PKK. Turkey and Israel are making similar mistakes, Turkey is spending its right to govern the Kurds by attacking them inside and outside Turkey just as Israel is doing next to nothing to defend Syrian Druze. If Turkey was helping Kurds realize their dream of an independent state, maybe they wouldn’t want or need to the Kurdish lands that are in Turkey, maybe Turkey could get some guarantees regarding Turkmens in Iraq from Kurds but instead they spend their right to sovereignty over Kurds by attacking essential Kurdish interests. Ironically, Turkey which minimally treated ISIS with benign neglect due to its pro-Sunni radicalism is now getting burned by ISIS  on the Turkish border. Turkey doesn’t need any incentive to cooperate with NATO than what is already being provided by ISIS, there is no reason for the US to sign on to an anti-Kurdish agenda which is both outside of our interests and immoral since Kurds are being persecuted everywhere they don’t have at least autonomy. The Kurds are a people who have been targeted by WMD based on their ethnicity; we don’t need to feed Syrian Kurds to Turkey. If building a better Nation works out for Kenya by eliminating corruption and prejudice like the President suggests and it works in Chicago maybe we could try it in the Middle East or at least apply to American Foreign Policy.  The idea that the US would aid Turkey in the occupation and destruction of the Kurds, especially when the Kurds are so effective at fighting ISIS also undermines the US relationship with Israel and human rights in general. We need the President that gave a great speech in Kenya to clean up this American made mess in the Middle East, someone who won’t abandon viable peoples to religious tyrannies and ethnic prejudices.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog.

Iran May Occupy Our Time But We Can't Occupy Iran

“Gene Lyons: Plenty of time to go to war with Iran” is supportive of the Iranian deal or the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” but there are some assumptions he states that give a false impression of Iran and the threat it continues to pose. The President is quoted as saying, “…we could knock out their [Iranian] military with speed and dispatch…” which is false, Iran is too large a nation with too large an army to easily or speedily invade or control for long. Iran is interested in trade to fund its territorial ambitions and placate their oppressed public while it develops a missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead. Mr. Lyons correctly states, “This deal isn’t the end. But it’s an excellent beginning…” yet Iran’s delay of going nuclear may more symbolically important based on its missile program. Iranian desire to expand its influence through proxy war and invasion is immediate and must be stymied with a containment policy that pushes Iran out of Arab Gulf states and the Levant because peace in our time is never enough, we must consider the future.  The US needs to clear about what it can do to combat Iran and take the right military and political policies to ensure Iran can no longer be a terror state long term. The nuclear agreement must be treated soberly; it is only as good as our next actions.

Betting with Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria usually cuts to the bone of an issue but missed with “Obama’s critics are the real gamblers on Iran.” Negotiations leave us worse than before, we either find Iranian clandestine programs fast enough to end the agreement or find Iran is honest but the latter is unlikely. Iran needs to fit a nuclear warhead into a future Shahab 5 rocket, the purpose of the Iranian space program is to develop such rocketry.

The time to build a bomb may be small but the time to miniaturize it and stick into a missile means we may be delaying Iran less than is advertised. Trading a brittle, Isolated Iran for a potent state with a population even more likely to equate terrorism with patriotism solves nothing.

When Fareed suggests Congress killing the agreement means sanctions fail is correct but he fails to point out the eddy US Foreign Policy is in as a result. With no definitive US direction against Iranian terror betrays allies and leaves the US ability to oppose Iran more fragile.

Tehran is freer to project power in the Middle East. The Oval Office and the Congress must sideline Iran by making an actual success rather than a political success of this agreement. An aggressive containment strategy that removes Iran from the Arab Nations as its goal will improve the Middle East. 

Allow the formation of Kurdistan on Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian lands but not Turkish in exchange for Ankara’s support which is better than Turkey bombing the positions of the Kurdish militias most effective against ISIS.

Kurds would become a buffer against Tehran, an ally against ISIS while our friends are supporting the US. An Iran which cannot expand but is rich might choose to grow a middle class in peace. If the treaty is violated, the US should target all nuclear sites, Iranian missile production and stockpiles of rockets and missiles: leaving Iran worse off than prior to negotiating the treaty.

Missing vision from the President means not passing the agreement would lead to an eventual all-out war in the Middle East and passing would likely mean an all-out war in the Middle East further down the road.  We need more vision from the President.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog

What is the fallout from the US Iran agreement going to be?

The US administration managed to make an agreement with Iran on restricting nuclear arms development but seems to have nuked its own policies on Iran without replacing them. Assuming the agreement is passed by congress and agreed to by the Ayatollah who appears to have grown skittish of both the agreement and his entrenched conservative military, the result will be an Iran no longer on the brink of popular revolt and economic pain. Iran will be able to spread revolution and terror throughout the Middle East but with more mature Russian and Chinese weapons systems. There are two reasons why the Iran agreement has rankled our allies so greatly. The US has traded future Iranian nuclear weapons for more numerous and more sophisticated conventional weapons in the near term by ending sanctions.  We’ll never entirely get back sanctions once they are gone and we have only delayed the Iranian nuclear program rather than killed it. How much have we delayed the Iranian nuclear weapons program is tied to whether they violate the agreement and how good they are at violating the agreement. The other problem for our allies is that we have no longer have a policy on Iran as an exporter of revolution and terror to replace sanctions with.  Iran’s homicidal exports have been the most immediate problem the world has with Iran, especially since the Arab Spring. Is the administration hoping Iran will fight ISIS? Do we want them taking over the Shia parts of Iraq or does the world need an Arab Shia center of gravity alongside the Persian one? If Iran gets more aggressive in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq will the US push back at all or do we believe they are the lesser evil compared to ISIS? Can’t we fight both?

Unless the Ayatollah chooses not to sign onto the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” President Obama needs a policy to deal with an Iran that is expanding conventionally even as we guard against Iran clandestinely developing nukes that will fit in a future Shahab missile.  This President and the next President ought to have a policy to roll Iran back into Iran which means actively supporting or directly acting against Iranian and their allies’ forces in Syria, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Additionally, our policy on sustained violations of the treaty or its unilateral termination by Iran must be the near automatic use of force against both Iranian nuclear facilities, Iranian missile silos and factories that produce rockets and missiles. While we must cobble together whatever sanctions we could when Iran violates the treaty we do so knowing China, India and Russia are not likely to sign back on.  The consequences of Iran violating the treaty must be they will be worse off than they are now in terms of nuclear development, nuclear delivery systems and places outside of Iran to launch from. The upside is that an economically sounder Iran that is unable to export revolution and terror might just have to hitch its wagon to expanding its middle class and begin the process of political reform to accommodate the political needs of an expanding middle class. So far, we’ve heard little of any policy adjustments from the White House much less a vision and the end result of that could be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and several hot wars where the US and our allies are facing Iran that is far stronger and accomplished militarily than the one we see today. 

Even Abbas is Tired of Himself

The Jerusalem Post is passing on a report from Israel’s “Channel 1” that Abbas is planning to retire within two months due to fatigue.  This explains the sudden placement of Saeb Erekat as secretary general of the PLO.  Many people will be skeptical of the announcement, assuming Mahmoud Abbas has done nothing and can’t be fatigued and are incredulous of replacing him with someone who could do something.  Yet one of the most tiring things a person can do is nothing because fatigue begets more fatigue, anyone who has had to lay in a hospital bed knows there are few things as exhausting as getting rest. Saeb Erekat is the perfect man to replace Abbas as he too will do nothing. Without a popular revolution to install a go getter, nothing will change. There is no chance the PA will manage finances better, make peace with Israel or even come up with a reasonable list of demands for peace. There is one difference, while Abbas frequently sat on his hands, Erekat is always quick to point fingers in any of the three directions that are away from the PA but he may now find someone else to do that for him. Those who fear the loss of Abbas statuesque leadership need not worry, change will not come, it may be a year before Abbas and Erekat notice anything is different. Still I will miss Abbas’ three great facial expressions of stoic, thinking about re-tiling the bathroom and possum.

Abbas briefly hosting the Tonight Show

When Mahmoud Abbas took over the PA there was a lot of hope for him, despite being even more extreme than Arafat in his contempt for Jews there was hope embracing responsibility would forge him into a peace maker, the same hope held out for Arafat but taking action was never really an Abbas thing. What he was great at was inaction and sometimes that paid off. Under his rule, the PA stopped having elections but it also killed innocent civilians a lot less, attacks on Israel dramatically dropped and corruption receded though never to Abbas’ detriment. Still, when you look back at all the things Abbas wanted to do as a younger man versus the things he actually did I think it is safe to say we are all better off he was a do nothing kind of leader.  Naturally this retirement is timed around the Iran deal, the Obama administration’s encore act for the Middle East will be “progress” on Israeli-Arab conflict and it will help a lot if there is someone in charge who can at least sound like he’s self-righteous and Saeb Erekat can imitate a man with a point like few can. In the meantime, I for one am glad Abbas can find even more time to take it easy but he should at least move his legs once an hour to avoid blood clots.

UPDATE: President Abbas upon realizing the sheer amount of work it would take to replace him is now denying reports that he would leave the office of PA President to retire. 

                                                                                                                      

As Syria Burns, Hezbollah Spreads

Matthew Levitt’s Foreign Affairs article, “Waking Up the Neighbors: How Regional Intervention is Transforming Hezbollah” describes how the Shiite terror organization as expanded its command structure to be a regional organization rather that a free radical inside the Lebanese government. The very serious problem is that Hezbollah could become an Iranian Satellite State breaking off parts of Lebanon and Syria for its formation leaving no opportunity for the Arab Shia religion to have free expression in either place and imperiling both Lebanon and Israel made all the worse should Iran become a nuclear power. The US and our allies have never had much of a policy to deal with Iran, Hezbollah and now ISIS but the reality is once Hezbollah became a source of both suicide bombers and hospitals in the eighties they had metastasized into a in operable tumor during the Lebanese civil war. To see this Iranian cancer spread into the lymph nodes that is Syrian Middle East will be a similar disaster for Syrians as the rise of Assad regime was but an even larger problem regionally. It is time for the US and our allies to make strategic choices in how it eliminates Al Qaeda, Iranian proxies and ISIS from the Middle East. The world can no longer tolerate a squeaky wheel approach to foreign policy or to the use of military force nor should we give our enemies the luxury of choosing the time and place of battle at both expense of civilian lives and our own blood and treasure.

President Obama recently suggested during a BBC interview that Iran will fund Hezbollah with or without sanctions because doing so doesn’t hurt the Iranian budget. However, Hezbollah has reported shortages of funds caused by sanctions to the sanctions hurt enough to effect Hezbollah even if that was merely an affected problem for Iranian domestic consumption and it ignores the fact that Hezbollah’s adventurism is going to make it much more expensive. If Israel, the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL do what it was supposed to do years ago and break down and then disarm the terror group the costs to maintain could sky rocket in terms of both blood and treasure for the Iranians. What cannot be tolerated is an expanding Hezbollah bolstered by a nuclear Iran in ten years. The Iranian sponsored terror group must be bled out of terrorism and out of existence as a group, while it would be easy to point out that Iran saves a lot of blood and treasure by using Hezbollah instead of its own forces, the loss of Hezbollah by Iran would be an enormous cost in treasure, blood, prestige and politics. More importantly, a Middle East without Hezbollah that is actively defeating Al Qaeda and ISIS would be that much a better place. One of the problem frequently overlooked by analysts is that Sunni terrorism is often a competitive reaction to Shia terrorism. Removing the thorn of Hezbollah would help dry up support for Sunni terror as much as effectively removing a terror network by force would discourage recruitment. 

Incirlik in play

The US and NATO can use the Incirlik airbase is a great turn of events for Turkey and the US fight against ISIS. One can have mixed feelings when a government which supports the terrorism and violence against civilians that Hamas perpetuates is also the victim of terrorist violence like Turkey has been with the suicide bombing in Suruc. Letting the US use Incirlik is a deft move on Turkey’s part because it shows their domestic population that the government is doing something without actually having to lift a finger, it squeezes the Kurds politically as the move reinforces Turkey as an ally of the US and a member of NATO which means the Kurds have less wiggle room to oppose Ankara in Turkey or Syria.

One can only hope this change of policy is part of a larger shift where Turkey sees the value of opposing terrorists and terrorism rather than supporting some and turning a blind eye to others. The question of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Renfield like Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is whether they can evolve from an anti-Semitic, Muslim Brotherhood wannabe party into a party that is both a genuine reflection of Turkish Muslim values and the values of a secular state as applied to foreign policy. Without that, allowing the US allies use of Incirlik is merely a tactical move that won’t end well for any of the parties involved. The world needs a Muslim but secular democracy adjacent to the Middle East or in it to side with the just cause of other Middle Eastern States to resist terrorism, racism and sectarianism alongside its western allies. Incirlik is a great airbase tactically for NATO but a real ally is more important and it remains to be seen that the AKP that runs Turkey can yet rise to the challenge. 

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog

Tehranical Tweaks Congress Should Demand Before Voting!

 

One of the biggest problems with the nuclear agreement with Iran is that congress should approve the agreement because the agreement does accomplish a lot if it is obeyed and the US did put its credibility behind it. If we lose credibility now we only enable a more free ranging Iran nuclear program than before negotiations.

Two missile size problems are the 24 day delay in inspecting suspect sites and the end of sanctions together make the West seeming helpless against Iran gaining a nuclear weapon should it choose to break agreement or sneak around it as it is expected to do. A nuclear Iran won’t be as lovely as North Korea’s nuclear program since Iran will be using nukes to defend territorial gains at the expense of other nations instead of just asking for money and attention as North Korea does.

Sadly, the agreement is just good enough that the US loss of credibility is a greater consequence than Iran maybe having a deliverable nuke in ten years while expanding its reach into the Middle East and Africa since the regime might not last another ten years, it could reform and so we find other ways to make it stop killing innocent civilians in the name of God.

There are two things congress should demand, even to the point of holding the agreement hostage, which will help alleviate two of the problems related to this treaty. While there is nothing we can do guarantee Iran won’t get a nuclear weapon based on this treaty, there are two issues we can deal with. The fact that we negotiated at all means we have injured if not ended the sanctions regime therefore congress should demand if Iran doesn’t sign the treaty or if it has demonstrated that it is not honoring the treaty the US will immediately ratchet up sanctions by not allowing transactions in US banks for any party doing business with Iran and destroying all know nuclear sites by the US or with the US assisting our allies.

 We must move beyond “all options are on the table” and put Iran on notice. If we improve the carrot let us also improve the stick. Iran has been on a tear on how it will continue to oppose the US and promote terror let the US reply with how it will stop Iran.

Stopping Iran is one of the purposes of the sanctions, without sanctions Iran is free and will have ready cash to pay for killing US soldiers Iraq and innocent civilians the world over. To address this, Congress should demand that the President commit to a containment strategy of Iran which means containing Iran to Iran and getting it out of anywhere else. Iran must be removed as an actor in the Levantine and Gulf states, the US ought to commit to taking whatever actions are required which would mean either assisting our allies or using US forces to remove Iran and its proxy forces out of other nations or in the case of Lebanon – forcibly disarming them.

While there could be no guarantee the White House would follow through on such an agreement with congress or that future administrations would also choose to do so -- such a policy would put Tehran on notice there will be no free for all terrorism after the agreement is enacted and support our allies who are nervously staring down a Shahab missile silo. 

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog

Signs Iran Might Not Sign

Rouhani has been defending the nuclear agreement saying it is deal the Iranian people want, the negotiating team represented Iran’s finest minds but what the President of the Emperor’s clothes has stopped saying is that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei managed the negotiations and that the results represented his wishes. This is major change from Rouhani’s triumphal announcement when the negotiations were completed that the Supreme Leader provided "intelligent guidance and perpetual and explicit support to the negotiating team.”  Khamenei, “truly undertook much heavier responsibility in this regard [in the negotiations]…"   Khamenei’s reply is that the text needs to be studies as though he were unaware of what it said. The Ayatollah may well have pulled a feather out of Arafat-Abbas hat and decided rather than negotiate in good faith make happy noises while the opposing party undermines their own positions with concessions. So the biggest beard in Tehran wants conservative establishment to evaluate the deal and thereby provide the Ayatollah a box of verbal hand grenades he throw at the agreement. The negotiation process may well have mortally wounded sanctions and that is all Iran ever really wanted.

Iran has already promised its attitude to supporting terrorism will not change and this is hardly unexpected but more interestingly the leader sees a need to placate his conservative base. Like so many dictatorships in the region, the military has become the engine of everything with its fingers in every means of production and they literally bank of Iran spreading revolution abroad. The military being large fish in a small pond at home is cash, any kind of normalization will hurt the military right where they can least handle it, in revolutionary pocket books of the elites.

It is important that the eminently literate Ayatollah, the religious head of state who managed the negotiations has decided conservatives must scrutinize the agreement. The Supreme Leader can jail or have murdered all those who disagree with him so either he wants conservatives to feel included anyhow, is preparing to purge one side of the other or even more likely is removing the pin feathers from the Rouhani led government and getting ready to give it some serious setbacks.  Nonetheless, Iran be justifying not signing the agreement.

The Ayatollah may have simply decided it is time to dump the Rouhani led “government” because anything else gained from negotiations will represent diminishing returns for Iran which wants nuclear tipped Shahab five missiles and thinks it can produce them in under ten years. To that the US must answer such bad faith with combination of renewed sanctions in Iran, an aggressive containment strategy that removes Iran from Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza but also results in strikes on the Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program. If President Obama is prepared to act divisively should Iran either not sign or violate the nuclear agreement then Obama would leave behind the finest legacy since Theodore Roosevelt as Obama can claim it is fine to carry a big carrot and a big stick.  More importantly, taking on Iran’s military complex directly after being misled during negotiations would restore our allies’ confidence in the United States and set back Iran more than the actual agreement would have.

Use Nuclear Umbrella Against Reign of Khamenei

Nuclear treaty violator led by a “Supreme Leader," North Korea looks at South Korea the way a diabetic might look at a chocolate fountain which is to say it may look tasty but it is too much. The only purpose of the North Korean nuclear program is to frustrate the US on behalf of China which the Insulin that props up North Korea.  By contrast, Iran and its "Supreme Leader" are both ravenous in their appetites and clever in how Iran exports revolution and terror more than the terror state exports troops but it is doing both and it will do more of both now that economic sanctions are going to be lifted and eventually it will defend its actions with the threat of a nuclear weapon.

One thing the US could do is have a formal agreement with Israel to launch nuclear weapons against any nation that attacks the other. So in theory if the US were to be attacked nuclear weapons then Israel could retaliate and vice versa. This would be a dramatic change to Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity but such a commitment from the US would mean any nuclear attack from Iran would result in the destruction of Iran.  However, such agreements could get out of control pretty quickly as Iran could sign a similar agreement with Russia and China but if the congress is able to hold the nuclear agreement hostage long enough, perhaps China and Russia could be convinced to sign exclusive agreements with Israel. Establishing a real consequence for the expected violations of the treaty and Iran becoming a nuclear terror state, coupled with an aggressive containment strategy that rolls Iran out of the Middle East entirely and Iran might find it has nothing better to do than grow a middle class which will want among other things religious and political freedom and that could be a good deal.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog

A Deal But No Bargain

Assuming the science holds up and the restrictions placed on Iran seem sufficient, if we rush past the existential question of “Can a nuclear agreement ever work when a terror state would like to have arsenal of them?”  The agreement may not be so bad in how it restricts Iran but there are some terrible flaws that need to be compensated for. When President Obama first ran for office he poorly expressed a willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions and I thought that’s right, you talk to your enemies but Hillary Clinton chided Barack Obama as being naive and she was also correct but nearly all people running for president are naïve on foreign policy. George H. Bush was the last president who was prepared to wade in international waters, everyone since has had to learn to swim on the job. So here we are today and with a nuclear agreement during the second half of the Presidents second term, so how did we make out?

The President in defense of the agreement is demanding alternatives from his critics, stressing sanctions would fall apart if we back out now but whose fault is that? The sanctions were not in terrible danger before the negotiations and the most stinging parts of them come from the US. Did we get a better deal than sanctions? Sort of, we could have bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, we even have bombs that could penetrate the most dug in facilities and that may be better than this deal except that it is possible that Iran will now join the world community as a more responsible country, perhaps as an ally against ISIS, which us what the administration appears to have prostrated itself for. Yet I find it hard to believe the world’s foremost exporter of terror is going to suddenly change without a revolution and Ayatollah Khamenei has said as much but one would expect him to appeal to hardliners and yet there is no reason not to take him at his word. If we accept the idea that Iran was about to go nuclear, this agreement is better than a nuclear Iran tomorrow but there is a big difference between exploding a nuclear device in a controlled environment and having one you can put into a Shahab missile. The miniaturization required could take some time, perhaps ten years. So let’s assume Iran needs some years to shoe horn fat man or even little boy into a Korean designed missile, how does Iran want to spend those years? It may want a treasure bath with the freedom to export terror without sanctions to impede and that is what they got and the US may have gained far less than we think we have. There may not even be a significant delay in acquiring nuclear missiles and now Iran has eliminated the purpose of those missiles which is the impediments to the projection of force into the Middle East.  The whole point of developing a nuclear weapon for them was never defensive, they’ve never known a predator that could invade and take over, not on their worst day and we know this as a fact because Iraq did invade on their worst day after the revolution and Iraq failed.

There are two significant draw backs to the agreement, one is that Sanctions are destroyed during the agreement as the EU, US and UN cannot pass resolutions against Iran that affect commerce and all existing resolutions will be phased out. Even US states cannot impose restrictions on Iran. Since many resolutions were passed to prevent Iran from exporting terror, this is a body blow against the Middle East which suffers significantly from Iranian terrorism.  The other failure is the often mentioned 24 days to inspect provision, it’s true that inspections for non-listed facilities can be held up for up to 24 days.  One can’t do much in 24 days except remove the evidence but considering a facility may be hidden for year, maybe several years and then Iran gets 24 days to clear the place out the 24 day delay means it is impossible to prevent Iran from cheating on the agreement and in fact the 24 day loophole is really a path on how to cheat acceptably. A delay of access for more than a week would essentially mean Iran is in breach and we would have to use the remaining time to shore up support for “snap back” sanctions. So a 24 day loophole may seem reasonable but a few bouts getting access on the 24^th day and our allies will get tired of the Chicken Little routine. The truth is “sanctions” will never return without an actual termination of the agreement and even this a full return is doubtful. Russia, China and India will not agree to imposing sanctions again and perhaps the EU won’t agree as well.

The Iran we had before this agreement was brittle, strained, corrupt and deeply unpopular and ripe for collapse, the one we have now may wind up being a nuclear tipped adversary that is living large and causing misery in the Middle East. Despite that, the Kurds of Iran are ready to break away which would create a nice buffer zone between Iran and much of the Middle East.  In ten years a lot could change, there could be a new Ayatollah, this new Ayatollah might be a cross between Gandhi and Pope Francis and Iran decides to head down a path of peace and reform. The gamble is this agreement might make that path easier to take if we just engage the dragon in a dialog but Iran sees itself as a the protector of the Shia and the Shia being the natural leaders of a Pan-Islamic movement and as such not much will change without the regime changing.   Frankly, the Shia have real grievances with no other apparatus but Iran to represent them since Gulf States view the Shia only as a threat and Iraq has neither the polity, the will or the credibility to step outside of Iran’s shadow.

So we have an agreement that will seemingly delay Iran having a nuclear bomb but they can still develop missiles to deliver a bomb with, and they can export any weapons system the want and we can’t sanction them as they try to be the hegemon in the Middle East. As the biggest exporter of terror, the US and its allies are directly threatened by Iran. While the treaty means we don’t have to bomb nukes out of mountains, it may mean the US and Iran will come to blows in Iraq and elsewhere. People mention Iran could be an ally against ISIS but the Kurds are a better ally and we get a better middle east if they are ascendant than if Iran is -- although PKK do need to renounce terror once and for all.  The President may have committed the next president to military action in the Middle East.  Essentially by taking Nuclear weapons and the US ability to use economics against Iran we have limited ourselves to reacting to terror and they may be events over the next ten year by Iran that the US cannot ignore. We can’t sign the agreement and forget about it like we did with North Korea, we will need a full blown containment strategy against Iran which means either getting frisky with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shia militias or supporting those who do it for us. If we can’t Iran out of exporting terror, they will have to be rolled back into their borders because now we can’t afford to have places like Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen to places to be hosting a nuclear bombs or even conventional missiles.

Congress needs to extract a lot to agree to the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, we need a containment strategy focused on Iran, we need to protect our allies from Iran and we will need to diplomatically support the military and security decisions of our allies at least until Iran’s proxy forces are no more.  If we don’t we will find terror on our doorstep, it will be because our allies succeed against both Iran and ISIS. How well and successfully we deal with Iran going forward both diplomatically and militarily will decide if this was a good deal after all but make no mistake we have traded our disincentive for Iran not kill innocent civilians with conventional weapons for not developing nuclear weapons for the next ten years. World peace is going to depend on how we make up for that shortfall and Barack Obama has ironically left the US in a position where it may have to commit US forces to fight Iran or its proxies directly making the cost us and the region much higher than sanctions or even the cost of cleaning up a collapsed Iran.

Erdogan: Turkish for hypocrisy

1st photo, Erdogan on left. 2nd photo, Demitas in center in blue jacket

President Erdogan has accused the Kurdish People’s Party or HDP of being an extension of the People’s Workers Party or PKK. Such an accusation wouldn’t make the HDP so different from Sein Fein – the Irish extension of IRA terrorist group that was eventually able to sign onto a successful peace agreement in Ireland. Whether the accusation is true or not is hard to say and even if it had some element of truth to it, Erdogan’s accusation follows on the heels of HDP leader, Selahattin Demirtas, calling for the PKK to disarm. It’s quite possible that either or both politicians are disingenuous and are merely staking out positions while a coalition government is being formed but why should President Erdogan care if the HDP is the political extension of a terrorist organization? 

When Erdogan supports Hamas and he doesn’t just support them he drinks the lemonade. Hamas makes little secret that their policy is to target innocent civilians for murder and to run Gaza as a giant human shield and yet Erdogan believes they a legitimate political party. Forget the HDP, why doesn’t Erdogan just embrace the PKK? The PKK are not firing Qassam rockets into civilian areas of Turkey and even if they were why Erdogan would care as that is why legitimate political parties do in his opinion. 

One could argue that it’s because Erdogan care’s about the territorial integrity of Turkey and the PKK and other parts of Kurdistan could break away and form their own republic but Erdogan supports the Northern Republic of Cyprus and he supports forming states on Israeli land so why does he care if the PKK and more importantly the Kurds realize their dream of being free and free of Turkey. Rather than hate the PKK, shouldn’t he be offering them Turkish held lands? Of course Turkey did try to make peace with Cyprus and Greece didn’t go along but why didn’t Turkey just pull out, sure Greek Cyprus didn’t make peace but unlike Hamas they don’t make war either. Just go. 

Demirtas’ crime here is that he wants the HDP and by extension the Kurds in Turkey to be patriotic citizens that do not bear arms against the state and if the PKK are running the HDP show then this either means there is a split between the HDP and the PKK or the HDP is representing the desires and intentions of the PKK. What’s not for Erdogan to fall in love with? It’s not like the President is against the treaty with the terrorist state of Iran and is determined not to trade with Iran on principle. So why push away the HDP away the HDP when the President of Turkey is more than willing to support terrorism in Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood with its’ very spotty record and Turkey has been accused of colluding with ISIS just to hurt the Kurds. If Erdogan has a criticism for the HDP and PKK it should be they are not terrorist enough anymore to be respected and in fact that is his message to the PKK whether he realizes it or not.  What could possibly be the downside of a message like that?

President Erdogan would be wise to embrace Demirtas rather than keep making the case for the Kurds to break away from Turkey. Erdogan and Demirtas ought to have a political marriage and for their exchange of vows the both of them could renounce terror.  

 Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog