GENEVA ACCORD CONTRADICTIONS AS IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROCEEDS, TEHERAN IS NEITHER THE SOVIET UNION NOR A U.S. ALLY–AND ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR DETERRENT IS NON-NEGOTIABLE

Don’t Let Up on Iran: Michael Kassen & Lee Rosenberg, New York Times, Feb. 21, 2014— Like all Americans, we strongly hope that the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts lead to the peaceful dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

A Misleading Cold War Analogy: Elliott Abrams, Weekly Standard, Feb. 17, 2014 — The Israeli debate over Iran’s nuclear program is, perhaps oddly, not yet heated.

Is Obama Looking to Ally With Iran?: Michael Barone, New York Post, Feb. 10, 2014— Is President Obama trying to shift alliances in the Middle East away from traditional allies and toward Iran?

A Survival Imperative – Israel's Nuclear Weapons and Strategy: Louis René Beres, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 26, 2014 — Each year, like clockwork, Israel's enemies advance high-sounding proposals for a nuclear-weapons free-zone in the Middle East.

On Topic Links

In Iran We Trust?: Gabriel Schoenfeld, Weekly Standard, Feb. 10, 2014

Iran Offers New Pledges on Nuclear Transparency: Laurence Norman, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 9, 2014

Iran's Nuclear Buildup and American Irrelevance: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Feb. 22, 2014
Of Mullahs and Lawyers: Andrew Southam & Ted R. Bromund, Weekly Standard, Feb. 24, 2014

Negotiating With Ourselves: Reuel Marc Gerecht, Weekly Standard, Feb. 3, 2014

DON’T LET UP ON IRAN                                                              

Michael Kassen & Lee Rosenberg                                                     

New York Times, Feb. 21, 2014

Like all Americans, we strongly hope that the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts lead to the peaceful dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. To achieve this key national security goal, we support a policy that complements the current negotiations with a range of congressional actions that threaten greater economic and diplomatic pressure on the Iranian government. Some opponents of such a policy crudely characterize its proponents as warmongers, and fret that Tehran will walk away from the table. But the critics have it backward.

The approach we outline offers the best chance to avoid military conflict with Iran. In fact, diplomacy that is not backed by the threat of clear consequences poses the greatest threat to negotiations — and increases prospects for war — because it tells the Iranians they have nothing to lose by embracing an uncompromising position. Successful negotiations between adversaries rest on the confluence of interests and goals. Iran came to the negotiating table because it sought the abrogation of sanctions; we came to the table to reach an agreement that, in the words of President Obama, would “make it impossible” for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Our message to Tehran should be clear: It will not achieve its objectives unless it satisfies ours.

Unfortunately, Iran’s leaders are acting as if they have not received that message. In recent weeks, the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has declared that his government will not dismantle a single centrifuge. Tehran also went beyond words by testing long-range ballistic missiles that could reach American military bases in the Middle East, as well as our ally Israel. It has even dispatched warships to sail close to the maritime borders of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean. We also know the Iranians have worked to deceive us in previous rounds of negotiations. In 2003, when Mr. Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Tehran issued a declaration that it was suspending uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities. Last year, as he ran for president, Mr. Rouhani even boasted that Iran had flouted the agreement.

Offering inducements is not enough. Diplomacy must be backed by a clear choice for the Iranian government: Either it dismantles its nuclear program so that it lacks a pathway to weapons capability or it faces greater economic sanctions and international isolation. Without this clarity, no one can be surprised if Iran rejects diplomatic overtures. The partial recovery of Iran’s economy in recent weeks, thanks to the relaxation of sanctions, in tandem with its continuing advanced research and development of centrifuges, highlights our concerns. If Iran can achieve such progress without dismantling any part of its nuclear program, why should it make concessions?

We strongly believe that the assertion by Congress of its historic role in foreign policy can, in fact, complement and enhance the administration’s efforts by forcing Iran to recognize the stark implications of intransigence. The president should welcome such congressional initiatives, which would actually strengthen, not weaken, the hand of his administration in forthcoming negotiations. Thus we urge Congress to outline for Iran the acceptable terms of a final accord. This must include, at a minimum, the dismantling of its nuclear program, so that Iran has neither a uranium nor a plutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon. Second, Congress should exercise oversight to ensure that Tehran understands that our existing core sanctions architecture will remain in place for the full duration of the negotiations. Third, Congress must oversee continual implementation of the interim agreement: We cannot permit Iran to violate trust again by advancing its nuclear program even as it joins negotiations. Finally, we support the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, sponsored by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and by Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois. This bill would present Iran with a menu of consequences, including new sanctions — if, and only if, the talks fail. Earlier this month, we agreed with Mr. Menendez on delaying a vote in the Senate, but we remain committed to the bill’s passage.

Historically, presidents have resisted congressional involvement that would affect or constrain their diplomatic efforts. Over the past two decades, however, both Republican and Democratic administrations have opposed Iran sanctions legislation only to embrace it later as their own. At this moment, we must not allow Iran to dictate the appropriate role of Congress. As long as Mr. Rouhani can brazenly declare that he will not dismantle a single centrifuge as part of a final agreement, the United States Congress should proclaim that Iran will pay a steep price for its recklessness. America’s elected representatives are not the problem; the unelected theocrats of Iran are. Next week, more than 14,000 Americans from all walks of life will carry this bipartisan message to Capitol Hill as part of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference. We support the president’s diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. We also believe the best chance for success in this purpose lies with continued congressional pressure on Iran throughout the negotiations.

[Michael Kassen is the president, and Lee Rosenberg is the chairman of the board, of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.]

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A MISLEADING COLD WAR ANALOGY                         

Elliott Abrams

Weekly Standard, Feb. 17, 2014

The Israeli debate over Iran’s nuclear program is, perhaps oddly, not yet heated. For now, the action is with the Americans: Israelis watch the negotiations nervously and without confidence, but there is little sense of impending doom—or impending war. Opinion polls show that Israelis think Iran is building toward a weapon, not toward a “capability,” and they pay attention to Iran’s continuing acts of aggression (in Syria, for example), its support for terrorism, and the constant statements from Iran’s leaders about eliminating Israel from the map. So why no panic? Perhaps Israel’s experiences with war and terror, facing Arab armies and more recently Hezbollah and Hamas, have immunized it from a panicked response. Perhaps there is faith in the Israel Defense Forces’ ability to stop Iran if the need arises. Or perhaps Israelis expect that in the end America will act to stop Iran from getting a bomb. But during a recent visit I found another explanation as well—one that is more disturbing. Talking with members of what I’d call the “security establishment,” I found the occasional appearance of wishful thinking built around imagined Cold War analogies. That the Obama administration appears to harbor precisely the same hopes is no cause for comfort.

Here’s the theory: Once upon a time the United States and the Soviet Union almost came to war, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there were decades of deep and belligerent hostility. But over time, with the growing desire among Russians for economic improvement and the good things of life and the weakening of the Communist ideology among the ruling elites, that hostility eroded. Diplomatic relations were opened between Moscow and Washington, class warfare on a global scale was replaced by “peaceful coexistence,” a hot line was established, summits proliferated, and relations got into a groove of peaceful competition and occasional cooperation. The Soviet Union became a status quo power with which America could do business. So we waited, and watched while their economy rotted and their system became unreformable, the rulers lost faith in it, and finally it fell. Without a shot being fired, as Mrs. Thatcher once said.

So, the theory continues, that’s what we need to seek with Iran. Perhaps we are at an early stage; perhaps the religious elites, at any rate, haven’t lost their fervor. But they’ve lost popular support, lost the youth and the businessmen, and have realized they need a compromise. They are willing to slow down their nuclear program. Now they are led by “moderates” like Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, who recognize the need for change. Time will erode their system just as it did the Soviet system, so is a war really necessary and unavoidable? Sure, if they leap toward a bomb, if they misjudge us, we’ll have to act or you Americans will. But in Cold War terms maybe it isn’t 1962 and the missile crisis and DEFCON 2; maybe it’s the 1970s or 1980s, and maybe there’s only a decade or so to go. So maybe we just wait. That Israelis should entertain such a theory is natural, considering the price they might pay for an attack on Iran. And while rehearsing this approach they always repeat that if at some point they see Iran jumping for the bomb, they will have to bomb Iran. Still, what is striking is how this theory—whether expounded by Israelis or by Obama administration supporters—misunderstands the Cold War and its lessons.

First, it has to be said that Mrs. Thatcher’s wonderful line about Reagan winning the Cold War “without firing a shot” is false. Throughout the Cold War we fired shots. The greatest number of American casualties came in Korea and Vietnam, but on many other battlegrounds our soldiers and CIA agents, and our proxy forces, killed and died. Containment was not a series of speeches but a military strategy designed to impose costs on the Soviets and to constrain their behavior. Moreover, defeat on those foreign battlefields weakened the USSR and its alliance system—and perhaps more importantly weakened the party’s hold at home. There is no better example of this than the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. For we understood that the way a tyranny keeps power is by tyrannizing, which defeat lessens its ability to do. It shows the populace that the rulers are not invincible, have been beaten, and may be beaten again…                                                                                     

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –ed.]           

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IS OBAMA LOOKING TO ALLY WITH IRAN?                                  

Michael Barone                                                   

New York Post, Feb. 10, 2014 

Is President Obama trying to shift alliances in the Middle East away from traditional allies and toward Iran? Robert Kaplan, author and geopolitical analyst for the Stratfor consulting firm, thinks so. In a realclearworld.com article, Kaplan argues that the Obama administration sees the recently elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “as a potential Deng Xiaoping, someone from within the ideological solidarity system who can, measure-by-stealthy-measure, lead his country away from ideology and toward internal reform.” Such a development, he goes on, is “something that could, in turn, result in an understanding with the West.”

That of course isn’t what the president and Secretary of State John Kerry say they’re up to. They say they’re trying to get Iran to agree to stop its nuclear-weapons development. No talk of a new alliance. But Kaplan’s view provides a more convincing explanation of what they’ve actually been doing. It helps explain why Obama and Kerry remain equable in the face of Iranian officials’ public statements that they have not given up their nuclear program. It also helps explain their adamant opposition to the sanctions bill supported by 59 senators and a large majority in the House. That bill would apply enhanced sanctions if and only if the administration did not achieve its stated goals at the end of the six-month negotiating period agreed to in November and that took effect, after resolution of “technical” issues, in January.

Obama spokesmen say the sanctions legislation might torpedo the negotiations and even lead to war. The Iranians, brought to the table by sanctions, will walk out if more sanctions are threatened. That makes little sense. Particularly because in his State of the Union message Obama said that he would be the first to insist on more sanctions if negotiations failed. Why oppose legislation that would make his own threat more credible? It would make sense, however, if Obama is trying to construct, in Kaplan’s words, “a concert of powers that would include America, Iran, Russia and Europe,” all opposed to Sunni al Qaeda terrorists.

Kaplan compares Obama and Kerry on Iran with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on China, attempting to reconcile with a long-shunned adversary based on shared common interests. But there are significant differences between Nixon and Kissinger’s opening to China and what Kaplan says Obama and Kerry are doing today. The first is that Nixon and Kissinger waited until they had strong concrete evidence that China’s leaders had interests consistent with America’s. As a candidate, Nixon wrote a 1967 Foreign Affairs article saying “we cannot simply afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations.” But he called that a long-run goal, dependent on China “accepting the basic rules of international civility.” In office, Nixon and Kissinger listened to Chinese officials’ denunciations of the Soviets and Soviet diplomats’ alarm over China. But only after they observed a Soviet arms buildup and armed clashes on the China-Soviet border did they actively pursue communications with China through intermediaries. Iran’s mullah regime has been sponsoring armed attacks on Americans for 35 years. Its assaults on al Qaeda-type terrorists have been limited, so far as the record shows, to a bit of help in Afghanistan a decade ago.

The second difference between Iran now and China then is that Obama and Kerry, in Kaplan’s account, place much stock in Rouhani as a change agent who will modify the character of a regime hostile to the United States for 35 years. Previous administrations have seen earlier Iranian presidents as change agents too. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his book “Duty” notes that every president since Jimmy Carter has tried to reach out to Iranian leaders “and every one of them has failed to elicit any meaningful response.” The reason is that the firmly anti-American supreme leaders, Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, hold the real power, not the occasional smiling front-man president.

Nixon and Kissinger did not rely on some internal reformer to turn China around. Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms started four years after Nixon resigned, and his name does not appear in Kissinger’s memoir “The White House Years.” The Nixon-Kissinger opening did not rely on regime change — Kissinger’s account portrays them as puzzled by internal Chinese politics — but on a demonstrated common interest in cabining in the Soviet Union. Do Obama and Kerry really believe that we share such a common interest with the mullahs’ Iran?

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A SURVIVAL IMPERATIVE –                                                               ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND STRATEGY             

Louis René Beres                                                                          Jerusalem Post, Feb. 26, 2014  

Each year, like clockwork, Israel's enemies advance high-sounding proposals for a nuclear-weapons free-zone in the Middle East. Although, at first hearing, such "Geneva" proposals sound eminently fair and reasonable, in fact, they point to meticulously calculated reconfigurations of regional power that would endanger only Israel. Incontestably, once bereft of its nuclear forces, whether newly-disclosed or still in the metaphoric "basement," the Jewish State would be left entirely to the tender mercies of its most refractory adversaries. Whether singly or in some combination, these determined foes would then emerge with substantially greater destructive capacities than Israel.

From the very beginning, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, had understood the absurdity of seeking to protect a beleaguered state smaller than America's Lake Michigan with ordinary conventional forces. Fully exploiting the new state's unique intellectual power, some dramatic force equalizer would be needed, figured Ben-Gurion. This equalizer, of course, would quickly become the Israeli Bomb. To be sure, even now, the credibility of Israel's  nuclear deterrent could still be enhanced further, that is, if certain incremental steps were taken to end the longstanding policy of "deliberate ambiguity." But more about such steps in a moment.

Today, with Iran’s effectively unopposed nuclearization, and also the consequent Saudi and Egyptian inclinations toward "going nuclear" themselves, an  eventual nuclear war, or even a “bolt-from-the-blue” nuclear attack, cannot simply be ruled out. This means, among other things, that strategic planners in Tel-Aviv will need to continually augment operational strategies of nuclear deterrence with apt kinds of diplomacy, ballistic missile defense, and also certain plausibly alternative forms of preemption. This last option could take the form of nuanced cyber-attacks, or even selective regime-change interventions that would fall short of outright war. Jurisprudentially, any or all of these alternative kinds of preemption could be considered as legitimate expressions of “anticipatory self-defense.” International law, after all, is never a suicide pact. In law, no country is ever obligated to sit back, and wait passively to be attacked. This argument can be found as far back as the Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy),  and has been an integral part of customary international law since the classic case of The Caroline in 1837.

There is a related issue for Israel, one that military planners would properly designate under the heading of "synergies." This issue concerns the ongoing question of Palestinian statehood. As US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State proceed with their particular interpretation of the Middle East Peace Process, an independent state of Palestine will sometime be carved out of the still-living body of Israel. This 23rd Arab state could unhesitatingly become an optimal platform for future war and terror against Israel. Ironically, any such development could create corollary security threats to the much larger United States. President Obama still seeks “a world free of nuclear weapons.” Significantly, the worst-case existential threat posed by a Palestinian state would require some antecedent forms of Israeli nuclear disarmament, precisely the forms associated with unceasing calls for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free-Zone. And once an enemy state and its allies believed that Israel had been bent sufficiently to "nonproliferation" demands,  adversarial military strategies could progress more-or-less seamlessly, from terror to war, and from attrition to annihilation. Any ill-considered Israeli moves toward denuclearization could remove that tiny country’s last critical barrier to national survival. This would be the case even if all of Israel's national adversaries were somehow to remain non-nuclear themselves. As Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780 – 1831) argued in his classic text, On War, there can readily come a time when "mass counts."

Israel's unilateral nuclear disarmament is improbable, but it is not inconceivable. Certain of the country's leading academic strategists continue to openly make this sort of disingenuous argument. I have debated them myself on the pages of Harvard University’s authoritative journal, International Security. For many well-intentioned observers, it is difficult to imagine nuclear weapons as anything other than inherently evil. Nonetheless, there are identifiable circumstances wherein a particular state's possession of such weapons may be all that protects it from war or genocide. Because such weapons may effectively deter international aggression, at least in those cases where the prospective aggressor remains rational, their possession could also protect neighboring states, both friends and foes, from war-related, or even nuclear-inflicted, harms.

President Obama, not all members of the Nuclear Club need be a security menace. Some may offer a distinct and clear benefit to world peace and security. This point should already be obvious to everyone who can remember the Cold War. Should Israel be deprived of its alleged nuclear forces for any reason, the Jewish State could become vulnerable to overwhelming attacks from certain enemy states. Although such existential vulnerabilities might be prevented, in principle, by instituting parallel forms of chemical/biological weapons disarmament among these foes, such steps would never actually be taken. Verification of compliance in these matters is exceedingly difficult, and such verification would become even more problematic wherever several enemy states would be involved. President  Obama misunderstands. Nuclear weapons are not the problem per se.  In the Middle East, the core problem remains a far-reaching and unreconstructed Jihadist commitment to "excise the Jewish cancer." This commitment is more-or-less common to both adversarial Sunni Arab nations, and to Shiite Iran.

The western democracies  should finally understand that the Road Map to Peace in the Middle East is little more than a pragmatic enemy expedient. In essence, it represents a nicely-phrased cartographic stratagem that is designed to weaken Israel, in "stages," ultimately to the breaking point, a position where it can no longer endure…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –ed.]                      

In Iran We Trust?: Gabriel Schoenfeld, Weekly Standard, Feb. 10, 2014 —President Obama is rushing to implement the six-month interim agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran that went into effect last week.

Iran Offers New Pledges on Nuclear Transparency: Laurence Norman, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 9, 2014 —Iran agreed to seven measures meant to shine increased light on its nuclear activities, including one that addresses Western concerns the work had a military dimension.

Iran's Nuclear Buildup and American Irrelevance: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Feb. 22, 2014 —The Menendez-Kirk "Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013" (S. 1881) threatens the Iranian regime with additional sanctions and appears to be the only way to counter the Obama administration's flaccidity vis-à-vis Tehran.
Of Mullahs and Lawyers: Andrew Southam & Ted R. Bromund, Weekly Standard, Feb. 24, 2014 —In a recently leaked private phone call, an EU foreign policy official, Helga Schmid, grumbled to the EU’s ambassador to Kiev that it was “very annoying” that the United States had criticized the EU for being “too soft” to impose sanctions on Ukraine.

Negotiating With Ourselves: Reuel Marc Gerecht, Weekly Standard, Feb. 3, 2014 —Analyzing the Islamic Republic isn’t a guessing game—at least it shouldn’t be.