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Why Did Obama Want to Elevate Iran?
An article by reporter Lee Smith discusses the possibility that the Obama team went after Gen. Flynn because he was the man most able to undermine/expose the Iran deal. Reading the article in The Tablet, I kept scratching my head wondering why Obama worked so hard to elevate Iran at the expense of US interests and those of our ally Israel. Can someone explain to me, from Obama’s perspective, how the Iran deal was in the interest of the US?
Published in Foreign Policy
I think that is incorrect. In Indonesia he attended mosque with his step father. I am sure that he was required to do at least the basic submission of the five pillars. That makes him Muslim and it is a death penalty to be apostate. Exceptions, I’m sure, are made for useful idiots.
Israel was, of course, Socialist from its founding until the Likud election. Naturally, it was seen as a Democrat ally. The other issue the left had with Israel was when it won the Six Day War. Democrats identify, at least since 1968, with losers.
The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the great catastrophes of the modern era. It resulted in the United States being an unopposed superpower. This is not a healthy situation. Since China was not yet in a position to oppose the US properly, the answer was to set up regional hegemons; China was already moving into that role in south Asia. What about the Middle East?
Israel is an occupying power and oppresses the Palestinians, not to mention being opposed by the regional Muslim powers and the Eurozone, so the best options were Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a regional threat and needed to be balanced by a Muslim nuclear state in the region. The Saudis were too connected to the US, and the royal family is hard to rely on.
Iran had had he advantage of being at war with the US, and also allowed for a Sunni-Shia tension that could be exploited.
In addition,
whilemany American politicians and businesses have made a lot of money in relationships with Saudi Arabia. However, that is a pretty stable set of arrangements. Not a lot of room at that table for a whole new group of American players. Obama was bringing a new era, in which new opportunities for enrichment could be set up. So help the Iranians to enrich uranium, and whaddaya know, you can enrich your own future.Regarding Israel:
At US taxpayer expense:
The simple answer is that he basically made the wrong choice every time he made a choice.
Iran is one of the world’s great civilizations, and is very much at the crossroads of the world. We tend not to see this from our vantage point in North America. Iran led a flourishing empire for about 1,200 years (roughly 600 BC to 600 AD).
It was conquered by the Muslim expansion, but ultimately incorporated Islam into Iranian civilization. It suffered Mongol conquest, and then the brief Turkic empire of Timur (Tamarlane). Iranian independence was restored around 1500, and ruled a powerful empire that included much of Iraq, part of Turkey, and other neighboring regions, through the mid-1700s. It largely retained its independence throughout the colonial period.
Iran was occupied by Russia, Britain, and the Ottomans in WWI, and the British sought to establish a protectorate after the war, but failed. In WWII, it was again occupied by Soviet Russia and Britain, but regained independence after the war.
Iran was in a difficult geopolitical situation during the Cold War, as it bordered the Soviet Union. A rather corrupt and inept monarchy was kept in place by the US — a sad combination of incompetence, ham-fisted oppression, and secularization. This was not popular with the Iranian people, who overthrew the Shah in 1979. This revolution was strongly opposed by the US, but didn’t gain support from the Soviets either, as Iran had simmering conflicts with Soviet satellite Iraq. Iran suffered terrible losses in the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Both NATO and Warsaw Pact nations supported Iraq in this bloody war.
This tragic recent history put Iran at odds with the United States, for no good reason. The US propped up the unpopular Shah due to Cold War geopolitics. There is no reason that the animosity between the US and Iran should have survived the Cold War.
Except Israel.
The British made a terrible mistake when they opened Palestine to Jewish immigration after WWI. Palestine was finally free of Ottoman oppression, but instead of being given a chance to make an independent state, the Palestinians faced a Jewish invasion that took over their historic homeland. The Jewish settlers engaged in quite a bit of terrorism against the British, especially during WWII.
The exhausted British washed their hands of the Palestinian Mandate after WWII, and a tentative partition of the country was approved by the UN, but the peace did not hold. The State of Israel was established on Palestinian land, and won a series of aggressive wars over the ensuing 25 years. The Israelis seized land in violation of international law, and continue to occupy that land to this day, including the Dome of the Rock, which is one of the most sacred sites of Islam.
[Cont’d]
For complicated reasons, the US sided with the invading Israelis in this long conflict. This has created a great deal of animosity throughout the entire Muslim World, including Iran. This has given rise to the decades of conflict in the Middle East.
If there is going to be peace in the Middle East, the US has to recognize the legitimate interests of the various Muslim peoples living in the region. Iran presents a special opportunity, because it was never a Soviet satellite. Other than our error in opposing the Iranian Revolution, there is little cause for conflict between the US and Iran.
The Iranians are not expansionist. Iraq was actually the aggressor in the war in the 1980s. Iran does have a legitimate interest in ensuring that a hostile Iraqi government does not emerge, which could risk another horrific war.
Iran is accused of being a state sponsor of terror. That’s quite a charge to be leveled by the US, which armed the Mujahideen, Karzai’s Northern Alliance, and many other factions in the region — not to mention Israel. The region is a mess, with many competing factions and much violence on all sides.
Matters were made much worse by the two aggressive wars fought by the US in the wake of 9/11, which threatened to put US puppet governments on both sides of Iran. Don’t forget that President George W. Bush identified Iran as part of his so-called “axis of evil,” so the Iranians had every reason to fear attack by the US. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were failures.
President Obama faced the aftermath of about 60 years of bumbling and hostile US policy toward Iran, on the heels of about 30 years of bumbling and hostile policy by the British, our predecessor hegemon and ongoing ally.
If there is going to be a lasting peace, both sides must put aside this unnecessary hostility. Relations with Iran should be normalized. Sanctions against Iran — led by the US — impose terrible economic costs on the country and impoverish its people.
Iran does have nuclear ambitions. Can you blame them? Are we going to give up our nukes? Are we going to make the Israelis, or the North Koreans, or the Pakistanis give up theirs? I realize that it’s unpleasant to contemplate, but we can hardly blame any country for seeking the weapons — which we invented — that are necessary for defense.
This was the vision behind President Obama’s deal with Iran. It hasn’t gone perfectly, of course. Such things rarely do. But a long-term settlement with Iran is in the best interest of the US and of the region.
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I do not actually agree with the policy adopted by President Obama, and I presented a somewhat one-sided view of history in the explanation above. I think, however, that I was reasonably successful in “steelmanning” the argument on the other side. Let me know if I’ve missed any important arguments.
It sounds like you are in the right (left) place,. The Israelis have been oppressing the Palestinian s by dying at least since 1938.
It’s pretty disheartening to hear this kind of … stuff in shul. Robert Frost had it right:
Oh Jerry, there you go bringing facts to the argument again.
A few comments, if you will allow me:
The 1953 CIA backed coup in Iran which overthrew a democratically elected Mossadegh has had a huge impact on Iranians’ view of the US Government’s intentions. People in the US may not remember what happened in 1953 but the Iranians certainly do. It is not a clean slate.
The Islamic Republic does have some really disturbing antisemitic aspects – it surely does – but Iranian culture as a whole does not. And even the IR is not a monolith on this. Their view of Israel is not ruled by the Jewish State thing.
The Islamic Revolution in 1979 was as confused and contested by its participants as any revolution anywhere. But the aftermath – however socially unpalatable to people like me – is closer to democratic representation than any other long stretch of time in Iran’s history. The Government may lack the popular authority that only truly free and fair elections can grant, but it has more popular authority than any Iranian Government before it (except for Mossadegh’s, which only lasted a year).
Israel is an excuse, imho, for the US’ ongoing attempt to strangle the Islamic Revolution. It works well as a domestic motivator, but in real life Iran is no threat to Israel and is unlikely ever to be one.
The real reason is that Iran is the one country in the Middle East that has successfully said no to a US dispensation and not (yet) been forced to retract. Keeping things consistently awful for Iran is a way of keeping the others in line. Sort of how the Cuba embargo worked to keep the rest of Latin America quiet for decades. (And how Venezuela sanctions are supposed to work now.)
That kind of dominance – based on force and collaboration with predatory local elites – is not sustainable without a compounding effort that starts to feel unsustainable. I think that’s what Obama was aiming to extract the US from, and that’s really where the opposition to the Iran Deal comes from.
The only thing I’d say is I really do think the Obama people believed the Saudis would continue to fund Hamas as Iran financed Hezbollah, and with Iran as a future nuclear power, would create a pinching motion on the Israelis from both the Shiia and Sunni sides and force them eventually to give in to the Palestinian demands. The idea that the House of Saud would see the Mullahs as a bigger threat to them than the European interlopers running things in Jerusalem never entered their minds, so the Saudis throwing Hamas under the bus in favor of more overt ties with Israel was a complete surprise.
I can’t see why.
The Islamic Republic’s ideology sees hereditary monarchs as intrinsically unislamic tyrants. That’s ironic but also clear in terms of how they view the Sauds and the impact adoption of this aspect of their ideology by the Saudi population would have on the Saudi monarchy.
Also – covert to overt but no substantive change. Doesn’t seem like such a big deal, or even a surprise to be honest.
Certainly the snarky term “Our friends the Saudis” was created for a reason, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find that the bulk of the Iranian population is more disposed towards better relations with the United States than the bulk of the Saudi population (which on an individual basis seems to account for the lion’s share of terror attacks on American interests). But that’s the equivalent of saying the bulk of the people in Michigan have no problem with a 77-year-old barber reopening his shop from the COVID shutdowns — all well and good, but not all that important if the fanatical governor and the other state officials running Michigan see things differently.
The current regime in Iran managed to turn Donald Trump, the scourge of the Bill Kristol wing of the neocon movement, into the guy pushed far enough to order the Soleimani counterstrike in January. He may have disparaged Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, but it was the Mullahs’ continued probing of how far they could go with Trump that ended up getting the guy who was pulling troops out of Syria six months earlier to green-light the kill-shot. That’s all on Iran’s leadership, and their relationship with us may not change until the regime does.
Your answer to Obama’s actions is in his belief system, mainly his faith in Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his black liberation theology. He basically views the world as oppressors (whites) and oppressed (black/everybody else). His beliefs is to destroy the oppressors and help the oppressed. Thus destroy the whites and help all others.
I think it actually is important, because Governments acting against the wishes of their people have to expend more force because they have less authority. It creates a tension that takes ongoing effort to maintain. Expending force costs.
Honestly, I think he does this kind of thing when there’s something going on at home that he wants to distract you from. He’s really good at dominating the news cycle, though foreign military moves does seem an extreme way to do it. I think it was his arguably very media savvy response to the House voting to impeach.
[Edited to add: which is disturbing, in the light of this and of this.]
(I also think he’d be fine with the Iran Deal if he’d thought of it first, but that’s jmho.)
Obama wanted to make Iran the controlling power in the Middle East at any cost. Whether V. Jarret was the primary influence may be asked, however the connection between the two appears more than odd. Perhaps the mutual thinking ran deep enough to give rise to as why has Jarret been so close to the family that she had moved in with the Obama family and quietly remains with them after all this time.
Sounds like gossip, save it is fact and given all the privelages granted during her time in the administration and remaining time is truly strange.
Sorry, didn’t mean to flag🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Jared Kushner would have been a counterbalance against going all-in on any Iran deal, but the Mullahs could have buttered up Trump and softened his feelings. Instead, they treated him like he was no different than the previous three Republican presidents, possibly because they were taking advice from Democrats like John Kerry. Unless he’s telling you which brand of ketchup to buy, never take advice from John Kerry.
Because the Democrats identified so much with Labor as being kindred souls on government-dictated social policy, the American left was far softer on Israel for its first 30 years than the European left, which maintained a hostile attitude towards Israel from the moment it was clear it was not going to be even further left, and become a Soviet satellite state in the Middle East (which is why Stalin didn’t block its creation in the U.N. back in ’47-’48). The Six Day War started the conflicted feelings on the left in America a bit, because they found themselves on the same side as Nixon, because the Soviets had gone all-in with Nasser and the big Arab states as a way to gain their foothold in the Middle East (something Sadat changed after the ’73 conflict).
The full anger didn’t build until after Israeli voters had the audacity to vote
Republicanfor Likud and put Begin in office in ’77, but it took a while for the hated to become entrenched — they mostly cheered the Camp David Accords under Carter which gave Egypt back the Sinai, and they still were willing to condemn things like Trotskyite beanpole Vanessa Redgrave’s “Zionism equals Racism” Oscar telecast statement in 1978. Once Reagan got into office and his administration started developing connections with the Likud leadership, that’s when the support on the left evaporated and we moved into the current situation of near open hostility between Israel and the Democratic Party, minus the brief periods of Labor control (which vanished after Arafat walked away from Barak’s offer and set off the second intifada in 2000).Gotta say, these kind of agreements should be based on facts, not feelings. But perhaps that’s unrealistic?
(And nobody elected Jared Kushner to anything. Amirite?)
True. But Valerie Jarrett also got zero percent of the popular vote in 2008 and 2012, and still wielded influence for eight years in the White House. Some presidential associates simply have more clout and staying power than other presidential associates.
I don’t understand the issue with VJ. Meaning I get the advisor point you made, it’s fair for VJ as well as JK, but why is it such a big deal that VJ was born and lived in Iran till she was six?
Fascinating exchange. Thanks. Never served in that part of the world and have never understood any of it. In such instances one finds observers who have and then see what they say about places one does know. That doesn’t work for Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Moreover the foreign policy discussions were more about process, than substance. I just quit trying to make sense of it. The discussion above is as good as it gets and short enough for my old, disinterested brain.
People aren’t robots. Few even have any control of their feelings.
True, but a bank will make/not make a loan based on set criteria – not the manager’s mood.
I didn’t mention where VJ was born, though the ties might play a factor in her world view. But if the reports that she was part of secret talks with the Iranians are true, she did play a more hands-on role with U.S.-Iran relations than she did in other areas of policy, where she was more of a lead advisor to Obama, but still in the background. But I think Val could have been born at Wrigley Field in Chicago and still developed the same world view, based on where the entire left-right dynamic on Israeli and Iran has gone over the past 45-50 years.
I’m reluctant to get into an argument about Israel or Iran as I sense some strong feelings here. There is another side to the Mossadegh coup. The Shah was a far more rational ruler of Iran that the mullahs. No democrat but sane.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/six-myths-about-the-coup-against-irans-mossadegh-11173
The CIA was no more competent in the 1950s than it has been recently.
While Mossadegh had enjoyed great popularity earlier in his term, his coalition had come under great pressure, and former allies had begun to oppose him. Chief amongst these was Ayatollah Kashani, the speaker of the Majles, and a vital influence for the next generation of politicized clerics, significantly, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. I personally find it very interesting that the US has not made an effort to publicize these connections. Given the tensions between the governments of Iran and the United States since 1979, one would think that undermining the Iranian clerical leadership through showing the links to the coup would be in the interests of the United States.
During the oil crisis, Mossadegh became very unpopular. Things were so bad that when it was clear that his now fractured party would not gain a majority, he cancelled parliamentary elections. In February 1953 there were mass demonstrations against Mossadegh (possibly arranged for or instigated by foreign agents including the CIA); demonstrations of enough severity for Mossadegh to increase security measures in Iran.
One personal story. A good friend and medical school classmate was born in Iran but left under something of a cloud as he was opposed to the Shah. He came to the US and graduated from medical school with me in 1966. He did a residency in orthopedic surgery in LA and married a nurse he met at LA County. After he finished his residency, he wanted to go back to Iran and introduce his wife and children to his parents, who still lived in Tehran. They flew to Tehran and he was greeted in the airport by the SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. He was given two choices; to return to the US immediately, or to serve his one year military obligation in the Iranian army. He chose to stay and spent a year as a doctor in an oil field where he learned to play golf on a sand golf course. They carried a piece of Astroturf around to hit the ball. He still plays golf and lives in LA. He and his wife Dixie attended my 80th birthday party.
The Shah’s government was far more benign than the present regime.
I don’t know anything at all about the reality of this but I would add that a child growing up comes under the strong influence of those engaged in that process. VJ’s father’s influence, considering his possible grievance posture favoring Iran over America, may have been far more significant than her first six years in Iran. And Barack Obama had a similar early experience.
You obviously have not worked in a bank. I have seen loans rejected for just that.
Perhaps for your friend.
If true for the rest of the country there would have been no Islamic Revolution that lasted.