Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Tightening the Screws on Israel
Let me be blunt. The Iranian deal always was a disaster and, after President Netanyahu’s presentation, we’re relearning what we already knew. Mama Toad’s post did a great job of soliciting input from Ricochetti about Netanyahu’s statement. And if you want an outsider’s view, take a look at David Harsanyi’s article in The Federalist. I encourage you to offer your opinion on this dangerous and ridiculous agreement, but this OP will take two different directions, particularly regarding Israel. One question is: what do we do next on the Iran agreement? The second addresses a different topic: what do you think are the dangers of the protests in Gaza at the border with Israel?
So let’s look at Iran first. They’ve lied from the start, in spite of “guarantees” for transparency and investigations by the IAEA. In its February 22, 2018 report, the IAEA summary reads as follows:
The Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used (LOFs) declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. Evaluations regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities for Iran remained ongoing. Since Implementation Day, the Agency has been verifying and monitoring the implementation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA. The Director General will continue to report as appropriate.
I assume the IAEA has only investigated those places the Iranians originally agreed to open, and no one has any way of knowing if other sites had been built and were being used long before the agreement with the Obama administration. Given the repeated lies about their developing a nuclear program, why should we believe they’re claim of transparency?
Let’s remember that Israel never approved of this agreement. As Harsanyi says in his article:
Now that the framework for sanctions has been destroyed, there are few good options left. But the agreement, as it stands, is worse than worthless. Rather than setting firm limits, the deal gave Iran cover and time to continue its efforts, making war with Israel more of an inevitability.
The Jewish state can’t allow a Holocaust-denying adversary with terrorist proxy armies on its borders to have the power to destroy them, or even blackmail and threaten the entire region at best — something Iran has engaged in for more than a decade without even having its hands on nuclear weapons.
Many observers state that Netanyahu’s presentation only offered information that was already known. So let me get this right: We already knew that Iran had lied to us, and now that we have that actually verified, so what? Pardon my sarcasm, but does it matter to anyone that we have a flimsy agreement that is of great benefit to Iran and no benefit to anyone else? In addition, what did we gain from the illusion that Iran was slowing its development of nuclear weapons? Deferring the destruction of Israel or Saudi Arabia until 10 years from now, when Iran will potentially be even more dangerous?
Worse yet, Netanyahu hoped that his presentation would move Europe to reconsider its desire to “fix” the agreement. Instead, France and Britain believe the need for a pact is even more important now. Given the previously mentioned chronic lying, someone will need to explain this attitude to me.
I propose that on or before May 12, President Trump should drop the deal. Anything that Iran agrees to will be based on lies. We have no reason to trust them. Even if the deal is modified, they can continue their nuclear development within hidden sites. We may also at some point decide to destroy facilities that have been used for development. If we don’t bomb those sites, Israel probably will. They did it previously in Syria.
As if this crisis weren’t difficult enough for Israel, it is dealing with border protests in Gaza. Hamas claimed that they weren’t driving the protests, but we now know that Hamas has been helping out Palestinians who have been injured or the families of those killed:
Hamas has distributed payments to Palestinians injured and to the families of those killed in protests in the border region between the Gaza Strip and Israel, Hamas spokesman Hazim Qassim said on Thursday.
Palestinians critically and moderately injured received $500 and $200, respectively, while families of those killed were given $3,000, Qassim said, according to a report on the Islamist movement’s official website.
Protestors have also broken through the border fence in some spots, and have “rolled burning tires, hurled rocks and flown kites with flaming objects attached trying to damage the fence.”
Human rights groups have been protesting that the Israelis are shooting on unarmed protestors (not considering that weapons can easily be concealed). Amnesty International reports “that many of the injuries appear deliberately intended as life-changing and that they have video proof of peaceful protestors being shot at while their backs are turned to the fence along the Gaza Strip or while running away from the fence.”
Meanwhile, there is this report:
The weekly demonstrations are scheduled to continue until May 15, the Palestinian Nakba Day on which they remember their displacement following the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948. Part of that commemoration this year is expected to be possibly tens of thousands of Palestinians rushing the Israel barrier.
I wonder how well the fences will hold up then?
Published in Foreign Policy
Israel needs to ignore world opinion. It will never win, because the world hates the Chosen People. I don’t know why.
Thanks for this. An important read.
Well, they’ve always made the ideal scapegoats. Not everyone thinks we’re chosen the same way you do, unfortunately. But of course, the Middle East is special. I think you’re right about ignoring public opinion, though. Why should they give it credence when the world will hate them anyway?
Edit: I added in comment #7 that I was being sarcastic about the Middle East being special. I meant singled out for terrible treatment by many countries, and the UN, too.
Of course?
There is a stink of treason on the whole Iran nuclear deal affair from President Obama, to Secretary of State John Kerry and Ben Rhodes. And maybe Senator Bob Corker should be included for making this a “non-treaty” deal.
President Obama certainly “adhered” to Iran in wanting to make them a regional hegemon. And we gave them “aid” in the billions and “comfort” in knowing that they duped us.
What reason does Iran have now to stay in the agreement? Iran’s deputy foreign minister has said the deal is “unsustainable”.
President Trump was right to label this deal as a disaster.
We the American people suffer from this. What consequence is there to the three stooges Obama, Kerry, and Rhodes?
More than anything else, the Gaza protests are a dry run for a much larger project. That would be sending 150,000 “women and children” to swarm the fences near populated areas such as Kefar Sava.
They want to see how we will react.
I should have indicated I was being sarcastic @johnh. Since the Jews became a state, the rest of the world has given them more misery than any other country; just look at the condemnations from the U.N. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.
Unfortunately I expect they will get off scot-free (no pun intended!) I’m not sure, @scottwilmot, but I heard on talk radio today that Ben Rhodes was feeding the media their stories during the time the agreement was being negotiated, so they’d put just the right slant on things. I couldn’t believe he was admitting it. If it wasn’t Rhodes, I’m sure it was someone from Obama’s administration. But none of us are surprised.
Thanks for chiming in @israelp. I suspected something like that might happen; it makes me ill. Do you have any other insights you can add? Do you have any thoughts on what would happen if they destroyed the fence (which I assume is possible)?
No, that’s all true. It was Rhodes. He bragged about it back then.
And see also this:
Ben Rhodes Reveals How Obama Duped America Into The Dangerous Iran Deal
I am better at seeing problems than solutions. Not to mention that it requires more specialized knowledge than I have.
Now I am sick. This is so outrageous, it’s beyond belief. Obama could never have done this without the complicity of the media, either. Awful. Thanks for the links–I think. ;-)
Who was duped? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see it was a dangerous sham.
“Many observers state that Netanyahu’s presentation only offered information that was already known. So let me get this right: We already knew that Iran had lied to us, and now that we have that actually verified, so what?”
The reason why Netanyahu presentation was so, so important is that Trump and those in his cabinet can no longer hide behind any remnant of a fig leaf that we should keep this nuke deal in place. It is now confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that it is a very bad and very dangerous deal from beginning to end. It is also confirmed that Iran, many in the Obama administration, including Buraq Hussein himself and many in the press blatantly lied to us. It would now be political suicide for Trump not to back away completely from this deal. He would be crucified by his own supporters. This deal was clearly treasonous and anyone now claiming that there any reason to keep it is clearly a traitor, including Bob Corker. There is now no excuse to keep any part of this deal.
The secondary reason why the Netanyahu’s presentation is so important is that it shredded Iran’s credibility completely. Iran’s meddling terrorist and expansionist behavior may be soon put to the ultimate test and it’s loss of credibility may be important because there may be soon a war between Israel and Iran worth all the marbles in the Middle East with the Saudi’s jumping in on Israel’s side to help Israel. Remember the old Arab saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the ultimate we’re gonna have to fight to death enemy of the Saudi’s is Iran. Not Israel.
The world hates Jews because you guys control the world’s banking and stuff. And you used to make matzo balls out of the blood of Christian children. You might still do that, I’m not sure.
You also treated Oliver Twist and Desdemona very badly.
Kent
Yeah, well, Isaac of York was a stand-up guy for Ivanhoe when he needed him. And Rebecca was as much a hero as Ivanhoe was.
Sir Walter Scott only gave those Jewish characters some good lines because he needed a loan from the bank.
Kent
Believing Obama would sell out Israel isn’t hard for me. But what did he sell them out for?
A multipolar Middle East where all the poles are at peace with the US and therefore with reduced space for Russian Great Gamery seems like something that would be in the US national interest.
These are not “protests.” They are an invasion, as Eugene Kontorovich wrote about a previous use of this tactic on Israel’s northern border.
And in a report linked by William Jacobson from the The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,
And since the report, a “Palestinian journalist” has been identified as another member of PFLP.
As Jacobson notes
A multipolar Middle East with a nuclear armed Iran a few years down the road will be so peaceful. Well, except for the part where Iran has (depending on who you listen to) either been cheating on the agreement or not cheating on the agreement because (depending on your biases) Obama either got snookered into a deal with lots of lovely loopholes for Iran to take advantage of or he sold out America.
I really like the way the pallets of cash which are now fungibly in the hands of the IRGC are helping Iran multipolarize its way deeper into Syria to establish bases on Israel’s eastern border to bookend the money the IRGC now has for Hezbollah in the north.
And I love the way the Iranian deal led to Iran staying bought and pulling in its horns. Well, except for the part where Iranian Great Gamery is now expanding in the USA’s back yard funded by that IRGC cash. Wasn’t that deal supposed to make Iran peaceful? Not that any of the OTMs coming across the un-wall are Farsi speaking men of military age or anything. Oh. Wait.
And that’s not to mention Erdogan, who is looking increasingly neo–Ottoman these days. But not to worry, I guess. Before Erdogan gets too annoying the Iranians will have their nukes and can expand their hegemony under the nuclear umbrella; that’s a win-win for the mullah’s who will then be the indispensably bribable custodians of the nukes, which will probably make them safe at home no matter how disgruntled people get.
Its a good thing they Iran hasn’t gotten any infusions of cash; that might have helped them go on illegally developing ballistic missiles that can reach Europe or be container launched from ships, or from some of Hezbollah’s bases in South and Central America.
Besides, we don’t have to worry about a couple of Iranian nukes. The US electrical grid really truly will be hardened against EMP attack by the time Iran is able to pull off an attack like that. Right?
Thanks, Barry. Love ya.
But wait, there’s more: Wasn’t it Obama’s fecklessness in Syria just as things were getting back on an even keel after Bush’s missteps that opened the door to Russia’s getting back into the Middle East, starting to pick up some of its old weapons customers/beta testers and so on?
Interesting take here:
Which is food for thought. As is:
To look at the Atlantic essays, I’d have to unblock my browser from blocking ads and I don’t want to bother in order to read the Atlantic.
The excerpts you posted though make it clear that the deal is criminally terrible for the United State. President Obama refused to allow the Senate to debate and vote on this terrible deal that requires (requires!) that the US
Simply terrible.
I don’t see it.
At the end of the day the deal specified that the US couldn’t undermine the value of sanctions relief in exchange for Iran ceasing its nuclear program.
Because without that undertaking sanctions relief is….of limited value. Right? Clearly the US didn’t trust Iran – hence all that checking – but Iran didn’t trust the US to keep its word either – and perhaps they were justified?
I don’t know that reduced credibility is a good thing when it comes to making deals – for anybody.
What I see is that President Obama signing an international agreement that binds the United States to anything without seeking the approval of the United States Senate as required by the United States Constitution is a Bad Thing.
The actual details of the agreement only cement that fact.
Point : – )
You know how to warm my little heart… thanks…
LOL
http://ricochet.com/archives/dumping-iran-nuclear-deal-terrible-idea/
Listen to VDH interviews this month, he seems to be saying, the goal should be to bring the Mullahs down and we can use their violation of the agreement to move in that direction without explicitly stating the goal or ending the agreement. Violating that agreement provides leverage to reinstate the sanctions, which must be universally followed or they have no real impact. I may be projecting on him because bringing the Mullahs down should always have been our central goal and while Obama has made that extremely more difficult, it should remain our goal as it is the only way to end the threat they pose to everyone on all fronts.
After all the lies with Obamacare, why would anyone be surprised that the Iran deal is equally bad and built on lies?
Europe wants to trade with Iran. The US should impose complete sanctions on Iran and sanction any country that continues to trade with Iran. The Europeans should not be allowed to have it both ways.
Our policy should recognize that we are poison in the ME and should do things only indirectly. There are those (e.g., the Kurds) who will gladly accept help and are in a position, willing and capable of doing great harm to our mutual enemies.
Our goal for Iran should be about tumbling the Iranian government but allowing Iranians to tumble it. The Mullahs are corrupt, stupid and unpopular. Iranians are desperately poor as a result of the policies the Mullahs have chosen. Foreign wars and building an atomic bomb while everyday Iranians are poor is not something Iranians like.
As part of the policy, we should make it as expensive as possible on Iran to continue its aggression throughout the Middle East by arming their enemies and those who would resist them. Dead Iranian Guards are an entirely unmitigated good. Everyone that dies outside Iran is one less to fend off toppling of the government. Iran is in overstretch and make the government pay for it.