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1938 and 2015: Only the Names Are Different: Dennis Prager, Mozuud, Aug., 2015 — We say that evil is dark. But this metaphor is imprecise. Evil is actually intensely bright, so painfully bright that people look away from it. Many even deny its existence.
Ten New Reasons to Worry About the Iran Deal: David Harris, Times of Israel, Aug. 21, 2015— Since the P5+1 deal with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—was announced on July 14, there has been much discussion and debate about it, with lots more undoubtedly to come.
Hastening War: Lee Smith, Weekly Standard, Aug. 17, 2015 — War, President Obama says, is the only alternative to his deal with Iran.
What If Tehran Turns Down the Nuclear Deal?: Daniel Pipes, Washington Times, Aug. 20, 2015 — Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject Barack Obama's Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention.
Iran Allowed to Inspect its Own Nuclear Site Under Secret Deal With UN Agency: Document: George Jahn, National Post, Aug. 19, 2015
The Latest Iran Revelation is Utterly Humiliating: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Aug. 19, 2015
Liberal Jews Afraid to Oppose Iran Deal: Vic Rosenthal, Jewish Press, Aug. 23, 2015
Two More D Congressmen Against Nuclear Iran Deal (And Nadler For): Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press, Aug. 23, 2015
1938 AND 2015: ONLY THE NAMES ARE DIFFERENT
Dennis Prager
Mozuud, Aug. 2015
We say that evil is dark. But this metaphor is imprecise. Evil is actually intensely bright, so painfully bright that people look away from it. Many even deny its existence. Why? Because once people acknowledge evil's existence, they know they have to confront it. And most people prefer not to confront evil.
That is what led to World War II. Many in the West denied the darkness of Nazism. They looked the other way when that evil could have been stopped and then appeased it as it became stronger. We are re-living 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He left believing Hitler's promises of peace in exchange for Germany being allowed to annex large parts of Czechoslovakia. Upon returning to England, Chamberlain announced, "Peace for our time."
The American and European negotiations with Iran have so precisely mirrored 1938 that you have to wonder how anyone could not see it. The Nazi regime's great hatred was Jews. Iran's great hatred is the Jewish state. The Nazis' greatest aim was to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Iran's greatest aim is to exterminate the Jewish state. Nazi Germany hated the West and its freedoms. The Islamic Republic of Iran hates the West and its freedoms. Germany sought to dominate Europe. Iran seeks to dominate the Middle East and the Muslim world.
And exactly as Britain and France appeased Nazi Germany, the same two countries along with the United States have chosen to appease Iran. Today, people mock Chamberlain. But just change the names, and you realize that we are living through a repetition of Munich. Substitute the Islamic Republic of Iran for Nazi Germany, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for Hitler, Barack Obama and John Kerry for Chamberlain, Israel for Czechoslovakia and for Europe's Jews, and the increasingly unsafe world of 2015 for the increasingly unsafe world of 1938.
Please follow the link so that you can sign our petition that protests this fake deal. It will not bring "peace in our time."
TEN NEW REASONS TO WORRY ABOUT THE IRAN DEAL
David Harris
Times of Israel, Aug. 21, 2015
Since the P5+1 deal with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—was announced on July 14, there has been much discussion and debate about it, with lots more undoubtedly to come. No less important, however, are a number of revealing developments that give a glimpse of what may well lie ahead. We ignore or downplay them at our peril.
First, the Associated Press (AP) reported that it saw a copy of a draft agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran, which has now been made publicly available. According to two anonymous officials, the text does not differ from the final confidential deal between Iran and the IAEA regarding Parchin, the site of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program. Startlingly, according to the document, IAEA officials will rely on Iran’s own experts to take a limited number of environmental samples, videos, and photographs for review by the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog. Moreover, the IAEA would only be granted a single visit to the site “as a courtesy” by Tehran.
If accurate—and the United States has not disputed the AP dispatch to date—this is nothing short of stunning. It is the equivalent of putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. How could we possibly trust Iran, with its history of deception and deceit, to be in the driver’s seat in trying to ascertain the possible military dimensions of Iran’s own nuclear program over the years?
Second, the ink on the deal was barely dry and German Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economy Sigmar Gabriel was already headed to Tehran with a business delegation. They could hardly wait to start talks on new commercial opportunities, lest they be beaten to the Iranian capital by other export-seeking nations. The German official did ask Iran to stop calling for Israel’s destruction, but when the Iranians rebuffed the request, that didn’t present an impediment to the talks. In fact, just one day before the visit, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described Israel as a “terrorist, baby-killer government.”
Third, not to be outdone, Laurent Fabius traveled to Tehran, the first French Foreign Minister to do so in 12 years. He told his interlocutors that France would be back in September with a large business delegation of “around a hundred” leaders in the automobile, farming, and environment industries.
Fourth, Switzerland didn’t even wait for the actual implementation of the deal before announcing that it was unilaterally dropping its own sanctions against Iran, including in the all-important banking sector. In an upside-down understanding of the JCPOA’s logic of lifting sanctions only after Tehran complies with the agreement, the Swiss government asserted: “Should implementation of the agreement fail, the Federal Council reserves the right to reintroduce the lifted measures.”
Fifth, according to media reports, China announced the prospect of a billion-dollar deal to sell Tehran 24 advanced jet fighters for the air force in exchange for access to Iran’s largest oil field.
Sixth, Russia indicated that it would now go forward in selling as many as four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran, which would, of course, significantly bolster Iran’s air defense capabilities against any outside force. And speaking of Russia, despite denials from the Kremlin, it played host to the head of the Iranian Al Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, even though he remains on a UN list of individuals banned from such travel, at least for a few more years. Washington protested the trip, but to no avail.
Seventh, Iran has just produced a new film with an arresting title – “Preparation of the Complete Destruction of Israel by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Islamic Revolution in Iran.” And the calls for “Death to America” are undiminished, including those chanted loudly at a rally addressed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei just days after the JCPOA was signed.
Eighth, despite the transparently political efforts of some media outlets to describe the opposition to the Iran deal as limited to the Israeli government and some American Jews, the reality is quite different: a bipartisan majority of both Houses of Congress is on record in opposing the deal presented on July 14; Israeli political leaders across the political spectrum, and not just in the current government coalition, are against the agreement; and a majority of the American people, according to several reputable polls, neither support the deal nor believe Iran can be trusted to fulfill its obligations.
Ninth, the debate has turned quite ugly, as illustrated by the reaction to Senator Charles Schumer’s decision, after more than three weeks of study and consultation, to oppose the Iran agreement. Rather than engage him on the serious issues under discussion, some supporters of the Iran deal, including the editors at the Daily Kos, have instead chosen to accuse him of “dual loyalty,” as if an American Jew could not question the deal unless somehow motivated by an “Israel-first” mindset.
And tenth, if the devil is in the details, the unfolding drama of the conflict between Iran and the United States about what was, and was not, agreed to in the July 14 deal continues to play out. To illustrate, while Washington insists the agreement did not confer on Iran the right to enrich uranium, the Iranian government says precisely the opposite—that its right to enrich has now been recognized. These are by no means minor differences.
As the national debate continues in the coming weeks, these developments and their implications ought to be addressed. Turning a blind eye, as some supporters might wish, while repeating the mantra that “the only alternative to this deal is war,” just won’t wash.
Lee Smith
Weekly Standard, Aug. 17, 2015
War, President Obama says, is the only alternative to his deal with Iran. But if the president’s overriding goal is to avoid bloody conflict, why is he arming the Middle East for a shootout that may lead to Armageddon?
The Iran nuclear deal lifts the U.N. arms embargo and ensures a huge cash windfall to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which will fund its imperial wars across the Middle East. As a result, the other side is girding its loins for combat, too. Saudi Arabia is almost certain to go shopping for a nuclear weapon, now that the path is clear for Iran to get a nuke. But, of more immediate concern, the White House has been selling conventional weapons systems to the Sunni Arab states at record levels.
It’s worth remembering that Obama believes these same Gulf Cooperation Council states—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, etc.—that have spent billions on U.S. weapons are also the most threatened from within. The Gulf Arabs’ real strategic threat, Obama says, is not Iran but their own disenfranchised populations. In other words, the president is arming states he believes are fundamentally unstable, regimes that might not be long for this world. He wouldn’t give MANPADs to the Syrian rebels because shoulder-held missile systems might wind up in the wrong hands. But apparently it’s okay to bestow F-15s on countries whose masses feed the ranks of ISIS.
The Middle East never fails to disappoint. Many believed that the silver lining in the Iran nuclear deal would be improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, thanks to a shared concern over a nuclearized Islamic Republic. Israel and Saudi Arabia would perhaps coordinate on regional defense and fighting the deal in Washington. Nope. As Obama noted in his speech at American University last week, the government of Israel is the one country that says the deal is rotten (as does the American public, by a 2-1 ratio, in recent polls). Whatever they may think privately, the Gulf states will not stand alongside Israel to oppose the deal.
According to a senior Israeli official, the Saudis think they can’t afford a fight with the White House, even though Obama has less than a year and a half left in office. The way the Saudis see it, the Israelis can have a public argument with the president because it’s family, and after Obama everything will go back to normal. The Saudis have a point—they have never enjoyed the popular American support that Israel counts on. Riyadh’s ability to influence American policymakers is based on the oil it sells, the money it spreads around, and the weapons it buys. The arrangement has been good for the stability of global markets and American industry. It was also good for regional security insofar as it was the United States that, regardless of how many arms the Saudis bought, was ultimately responsible for keeping the Persian Gulf safe.
The other key component to managing regional security, of course, is that the United States also protected the Saudis from themselves. Riyadh never wanted a nuclear weapon until now not just because it knew Israel wasn’t going to level Mecca and Medina. The Saudis understood that the Americans were 100 percent with them, so they didn’t have to do things, like acquire a bomb, that might well complicate Saudi Arabia’s interminable succession crises. Once you remove the United States from regional security, the Saudis are more apt to shoot themselves in the foot—and they have plenty of guns to do it with.
But that’s not how Obama sees it. He wants the Arabs to grow up and learn how to take care of themselves. That is a fine instinct for a parent, but it is hardly a foreign policy principle. You can’t change the nature of your allies without risking the interests that they embody.
Obama’s view of Persian Gulf security is based on the twin-pillars policy that Great Britain formulated shortly before it vacated the Middle East. In order to cover its retreat, London wanted to establish a balance of power in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That’s what Obama wants—a geopolitical “equilibrium,” as he’s put it, that will stabilize the region while the United States retreats.
The twin-pillars policy may have been attractive as an academic theory, but there was no balance of power after the Brits left—the United States simply filled the vacuum. It was only because of the American presence that there was any stability in the Gulf. For instance, when the order of the region was threatened after Saddam invaded Kuwait and contemplated a run at Saudi Arabia, Washington had to land troops to restore order.
Not any more, says Obama. It’s better for America, and the Middle East, if the U.S. footprint is minimized. The Saudis and others in the Gulf are terrified, because they never believed in the twin-pillars fantasy. Their assessment is that Iran will fill the vacuum left by Obama. Don’t be worried, says the president. The Iranians are far from getting the nuclear bomb—and besides, we’re going to sell you tons of weapons to protect yourself.
If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be funny—liberal president arms Middle Eastern regimes dominated by religious obscurantists. But it is dangerous, not just for American allies, like Israel and Jordan, likely to get caught in the crossfire, but for global security. The conflict Obama thinks he is balancing with the Iran nuclear deal looks more likely to widen throughout the region, spreading from Iraq and Syria to include the Gulf, the eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa. It may soon reach the capitals of Europe, where Sunni and Shiite fighters will seek to avenge their grievances with the West and with each other. It is not difficult to imagine it touching down on our shores as well. War is not the alternative to Obama’s Iran deal but its likeliest consequence.
WHAT IF TEHRAN TURNS DOWN THE NUCLEAR DEAL?
Daniel Pipes
Washington Times, Aug. 20, 2015
Whether congressional Democrats accept or reject Barack Obama's Iran deal has great importance and is rightly the focus of international attention. But there's another debate taking place over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that may be even more critical: the one in Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country's decision maker, just might reject the laboriously worked-out agreement that he helped negotiate.
On one level, that makes no sense. As a plethora of analyses have established, the Vienna deal is enormously favorable to the Islamic Republic of Iran, legitimizing its nuclear research, assuring its future nuclear weapons program, helping its economy, and boosting its aggressive international goals. These advantages would make it appear absurd for Khamenei not to accept the deal. Plus, most Iranians celebrate the accord.
But rejecting it makes sense if one focuses not on those immediate advantages and instead looks at its future dangers to the Iranian regime's surviving. Leaders of fanatical and brutal governments such as Khamenei's invariably make ideological purity and personal power their highest priorities and he is no exception. From this point of view – its impact on the regime's longevity – the deal contains two problems.
First, it betrays Ayatollah Khomeini's vision of unyielding enmity to the United States, a core principle that has guided the Islamic republic since he founded it in 1979. A substantial portion of the leadership, including Khamenei himself, holds to a purist vision that sees any relations with the United States as unacceptable and bordering on treachery. For this reason, Tehran has long been the world's only capital not seeking improved relations with Washington. These rejectionists disdain the benefits of the deal; they refuse it on grounds of principle.
Their position is hardly unique. Similarly, Palestinian rejectionists oppose treaties with Israel, regardless of their potential benefits, not wanting to truck with the enemy. (Think of the 1993 Oslo accords, which brought land, money, legitimacy, and guns.) Principle trumps practicality.
Second, Iranian opponents of the JCPOA worry about its eroding the Islamist values of Khomeini's revolution. They fear that the businessmen, tourists, students, artists, et al., perched soon to descend on an newly-opened Iran will further tempt the local population away from the difficult path of resistance and martyrdom in favor of consumerism, individualism, feminism, and multiculturalism. They despise and dread American clothing, music, videos, and education. Khamenei himself talks of the U.S. government seeking a way "to penetrate into the country." From their point of view, isolation and poverty have their virtues as means to keep the Iranian revolution alive.
In short, the Iranian debate over the deal is a genuine one, pitting those who argue in favor of the deal's short-term benefits against those fearful of its long-term dangers. Khamenei must make a difficult choice.
Back in the West, opponents of the deal will, of course, rejoice if Khamenei rejects the deal. But his doing so also presents them with a problem. After claiming that Obama has given away the store, they must confront the awkward fact that the Iranian leadership turned down his offer. As Obama emerges as an apparent hard-liner who protected American interests and out-bargained the bazaar merchants, their argument collapses. His accusation about their "making common cause" with the Iranian rejectionists will look newly convincing and terribly damning. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, currently in Obama's dog house, is especially at risk of being dismissed as foolish. To avoid this fate, the deal's opponents must immediately prepare for the possibility of an Iranian "no."
That means their taking several steps: Pre-empt Khamenei by foreseeing and even predicting his rejection of the deal. Explain (as I have done here) that his reasons have nothing to do with its substance and everything to do with the purity of ideology and maintaining a revolutionary spirit. Develop a familiarity beyond the terms of the JCPOA and learn the intricacies of Iran's domestic scene. Hone anti-Obama arguments (such as: he deluded himself into thinking he had a negotiating partner when none existed). Devise a detailed policy toward Tehran that renews economic sanctions and enforces other penalties. Find allies internationally to help implement this renewed sanctions regime. Prepare the public for the possibility of destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
Khamenei's rejection of the Vienna deal would be great news for everyone and especially for the deal's opponents – but the latter urgently need to prepare for this eventuality.
Daniel Pipes is a CIJR Academic Fellow
Iran Allowed to Inspect its Own Nuclear Site Under Secret Deal With UN Agency: Document: George Jahn, National Post, Aug. 19, 2015—Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the UN agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.
The Latest Iran Revelation is Utterly Humiliating: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Aug. 19, 2015 —The day after a devastating take-down of the Iran deal from Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the Associated Press reports: Iran, in an unusual arrangement, will be allowed to use its own experts to inspect a site it allegedly used to develop nuclear arms under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.
Liberal Jews Afraid to Oppose Iran Deal: Vic Rosenthal, Jewish Press, Aug. 23, 2015—As many of you know, I returned to live in Israel a year ago after 26 years in the place I consider my beloved hometown, Fresno California, located in the large valley that runs down the center of the state.
Two More D Congressmen Against Nuclear Iran Deal (And Nadler For): Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press, Aug. 23, 2015 —This week, Democrat Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district announced he will both vote against the Nuclear Iran Deal and will also vote to override President Barack Obama’s promised veto of the measure.
