Friedman Bombs on Iran

Iraq, Syria and Iran

Thomas L. Friedman in “If I Were an Israeli Looking at the Iran Deal” states in dealing with war, Israel’s stance is “No enemy will ever out-crazy us into leaving this region.”  However well-intentioned the sentiment, it’s wrongheaded. Retaliatory attacks against terrorists who have embedded themselves into civilian areas because they rule those civilians is not crazy.  Attacking embedded terrorists may not be pretty but it’s not crazy. In fact, Israel was criticized by no less than the US for going to too much trouble to warn civilians under the care of the enemy of impeding Israeli attacks -- even as rockets rained down on Israeli civilians.  If psychotic is crazy than the Ayatollahs who forge and support policies targeting innocent civilians are pretty crazy but Thomas Friedman wrote:

And Iran’s ayatollahs have long demonstrated they are not suicidal. [Meaning rational and not crazy. –MD] As the Israeli strategists Shai Feldman and Ariel Levite wrote recently in National Interest: “It is noteworthy that during its thirty-six-year history the Islamic Republic [of Iran] never gambled its survival as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein did three times”

The National Interest piece had some problems too but this idea that we can deduce something positive by Iran not going into direct war with a stronger enemy is not one, we might as well decide someone is not an alcoholic because they call a cab rather than drive off fish tailing and intoxicated. What Iran does do is tear a few pages from the Stalinist-Leninist playbook and support “revolution” in states it can destabilize and then use them as proxies for further violence and having at least some control in the local government as a fifth column -- this has been successful in Syria, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen.  If one can deduce anything by its absence then let’s deduce since Iran has no one and no force it needs to deter with nuclear missiles the purpose of nuclear missiles is aggressive. I know of no US soldier having a case of survivor’s guilt because Israel took out the Iraqi ability to develop nukes by bombing the Osirak nuclear power plant in 1981, Israel wanted to survive and lucky us.  So, if I am going to trust survival instincts, I will trust Israel’s over Iran and frankly the US should pay real attention Israel’s instincts. How much less would Syrians hate WMDs if the one’s being dropped on Syrian Civilians by Assad forces were tactical nukes rather than chemical weapons? One could argue they’d have no feeling on the matter. Israel destroyed that capacity with an operation 2007. A lot more people have directly benefitted from Israel’s survival instincts than Iran’s.  Frankly, being more rational than Saddam Hussein is really lowest bar possible for rationality, he will go down in history as the symbol of an  out of touch tyrant.

Friedman also shoehorns the PA into the issue:

If I were Israel’s prime minister, I’d start by admitting that my country faces two existential threats: One, external, is an Iranian bomb and the other, internal, is the failure to separate from the West Bank Palestinians into two states, leaving only a one-state solution where Israel would end up governing so many Palestinians it could no longer be a Jewish democracy.

I understand Friedman is for the formation of a Palestinian state within (at least) the West Bank but asking the Prime Minister to admit failure is silly and biased. The failure of the Palestinians to have a state within the West Bank was their allergy to the Jewish right to a state, their allergy in talking to Netanyahu, their allergy in recognizing the Israeli capital while surfing on the European and US diplomatic aversion to Netanyahu. The Palestinians under their present leadership are incapable of compromise much less making peace and the world community rather than pressuring the Palestinians to negotiate has given the Palestinians unilateral leverage at the UN that must find the time to fail before new negotiations are possible. We could replace Netanyahu with Shimon Peres and there would be no difference in the results. Friedman is absurd to link these two issues but he’s not alone in using the Palestinian-Arab – Israeli conflict as a mantra at Israel’s expense but he’s supposed to be a leading thinker at the New York Times. He is reaching into his quiver than making a point that addresses the Iranian nuclear issue.  The unfortunate message I get from is Thomas Friedman might come to some other conclusion on the Iranian bomb if Israel had capitulated to the Palestinians, why else mention the Palestinians, particularly the PA which has not had Iranian support?

More importantly, Thomas Friedman in is haste to check off his pro-PA state shopping list has overlooked some important tyrannies directly relevant to Tehran. First and foremost is that most Shia outside of Iraq live under some form of religious tyranny and are also frequently becoming the targets of ISIS. Want to pressure allies into finding a way to deflate Iranian expansionism by dealing with a real problem then find a way to guarantee Shia rights without starting civil wars. The second issue is the Kurds, if we really want to help isolate both Iran and do great harm to ISIS, a healthy Kurdistan could help. In contrast to the PA, the Kurds are pragmatic and flexible in their approach to statehood, it reminds me of the Israelis or whatever the Israelis were calling themselves prior to 1948.

At least Friedman isn’t accusing the Jewish Lobby of having control of the US foreign Policy:

And I’d recognize that if my lobbyists in Washington actually succeeded in getting Congress to scrap this deal, the result wouldn’t be a better deal. It would be no deal, so Iran would remain three months from a bomb — and with no intrusive inspectors, with collapsing sanctions and Israel, not Iran, diplomatically isolated.

I stand corrected, he’s not saying the “Jewish Lobby” with absolute power but one that lacks absolute control US foreign policy, just pretty darn close to having that power.  Inspectors in Iran are a genuine advantage but the collapsing sanctions was caused by the US pushing this deal and Israel was already diplomatically isolated without any Iran deal.

So what’s left of deterrent is inspectors that can be kicked out anytime Iran improves its long range capacity and sanctions are not coming back even if they come back on paper. Everyone calls this an agreement but nothing has been agreed to, Iran believes it should be causing war and killing civilians, Iran should have nukes and the rest of the world gets in the way. The US has decided to trade sanctions for Iran not going nuclear right now.  This deal will not undo anything done by EU against Israel diplomatically or in trade over the last couple of years, this deal will not roll back UN recognition of the PA as a state nor will it revert the US back to the Bush understandings of a final status agreement regarding settlements, this deal will not in anyway relieve Israel’s isolation or help it with any problem. Nor will the deal keep Iran diplomatically isolated, expect ghormeh sabzi to be served from Tashkent to Ankara with a chicken or vegetarian version in New Delhi. In fact, unless Thomas Friedman knows something the rest of the world doesn’t, the US doesn’t have any idea of how to deal with a sanctions free Iran other than hoping trade will be the ties to bind and civilize Iran. History has proven when a country is ruled by a Supreme Leader threatening war, giving them what they want with easily broken agreements is how to defang them. Without real answers and real strategy, Congress would be right and obligated to vote against this agreement. Whatever credibility we lose with the Ayatollah or the other Supreme leader we will gain back from our Middle Eastern Allies who are losing faith in us.

Then Thomas Friedman makes a sober statement:

So rather than fighting with President Obama, as prime minister I’d be telling him Israel will support this deal but it wants the U.S. to increase what really matters — its deterrence capability — by having Congress authorize this and any future president to use any means necessary to destroy any Iranian attempt to build a bomb. I don’t trust U.N. inspectors; I trust deterrence.

Israel does need the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program but the US can’t rely on that because Israel is too small to train for it and it can’t necessarily fly through Turkey or Saudi Arabia even though the Saudis look like they would allow, the Saudi disposition could change quickly. The question for Israel is if Iran gets a nuclear missile (not just a bomb) then Israel will have to nuke Iran, that’s how nuclear war works. For the US to be credible for any of our allies in the Middle East the administration must develop a containment strategy that pushes Iran and its proxies out of the Middle East and forces Iran’s clerics to justify their rule with domestic tranquility rather expansion as a power into the region. The administration needs to drop the canard of snap back sanctions and plainly state the US will militarily target nuclear installations and Iran’s capacity to manufacture missiles if it breaks the agreement. The result of Iran reneging on the agreement is that the US and its allies will be worse off than prior to the agreement, therefore the US must balance that reality by guaranteeing Iran too will be worse off.  If can’t have a shared principle with Iran then let’s get them to agree on what consequences of breaking the “agreement” will be.

Thomas Friedman ties up the agreement with an administration style canard:

Unfortunately, Israel has a prime minister whose strategy is to reject the Iran deal without any credible Plan B and to downplay the internal threat without any credible Plan A.

The sanction against Iran is Plan B, Plan A was to have a series of small wars against Iranian forces in the Middle East while either bringing about the collapse of the government or direct allied invasion, something no one had the stomach for even prior to the gulf wars. Now the alternative plan should be to contain Iran with force while pushing into Iran the region peacefully with trade and the administration needs to show us why that will be successful.