The United States and its allies are now sitting down–once again– with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program. What will happen? What should happen?
Two recent headlines give us some clues. Three years after the Israelis destroyed the Syrian Al-Kibar nuclear reactor, the regime in Damascus continues to stonewall the International Atomic Energy Administration. And 16 years after a supposed breakthrough agreement with North Korea, a “breathtaking” uranium enrichment program continues apace.
Here slow-dancing with Venezuela’s Chavez, Iran’s Ahmadinejad
has several back-door partners to denude current sanctions.
Iran specializes in playing diplomatic rope-a-dope. Its allies in China continue to supply it with missile and nuclear technology. Recent documents appear to confirm the sale of BM-25 rockets to Iran from North Korea. These missiles have a 4000 kilometer range. Iran is now capable of targeting Western Europe for the first time. The USAF says Iran will have the ability to launch an ICBM, or intercontinental ballistic missile, by 2015 along with an attached nuclear device.
Brazil and Turkey, with the tacit support of China, call for reprocessing some of Iran’s enriched uranium for medical isotopes. That proposal will be resurrected. A variation of this will include a repeat of the October 2009 proposal to move some significant portion of Iran’s enriched material out of the country to Russia, for example, also for reprocessing into medical isotopes.
What will happen? It may depend on how hard the bite is of the economic sanctions currently in place. Will these sanctions include action by China? What about Venezuela using its banking system to help Iran evade them? How serious will the “international community” be? And most importantly, how serious will Tehran take America’s ability–should it come to that–to “give ’em a whoopin'” they richly deserve.
Apparently the US has only met “in part” the “international test” required by our allies to get serious about the Iranian threat. Many have expressed very serious concern. One key Middle East nation recommended we “cut off the head of the snake.” Others prayed the US or Israel would save the day by using military force to destroy as much of the Iranian nuclear program as possible. Our Secretary of Defense says that would delay an Iranian nuclear program for a few years but not much more. But others continue to ignore the Iranian threat.
To the extent the international sanctions against Iran are implemented in a serious manner, the Tehran regime may compromise. Some of the potential nuclear weapons material may be eliminated and transformed into isotopes. But the enrichment capability will probably remain because we have made it a “right” of countries to possess such technology.
Even as they are rogue states, described by our own state department as the premier sponsor of terrorism in the world today. Even as they kill American and coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even as they, allied with Syria and Hezbollah, seek to further destroy whatever independence remains of the government of Lebanon. Even as they seek to destroy Israel.
Part of our problem is our belief in a totally false narrative. First, we repeatedly describe Tehran’s terrorist partner, Syria, as a potential “peace partner.” Second, we continue to believe terrorism is primarily caused by legitimate grievances held by the “Arab street” most importantly the lack of a Palestinian state. Third, we do not understand that a poisonous coalition of states, intelligence services, terror groups, shadowy financiers and jihadi recruitment centers camouflaged as mosques and madrassas, are at war with us.. Fourth, we continue to believe that most terrorist attacks directed at the US have been carried out by loose bands of individuals angry at our culture, power and foreign policy, randomly attacking targets of convenience.
What we have forgotten is much like the Cold War, terrorism is a policy directed against the West and NATO and its allies, including Israel, as a means of achieving not only hegemonic goals but also revenge. We think Al Qaeda is the major threat when all terrorist attacks prior to the Embassy Bombings in Africa in 1998 were never attributed to Al Qaeda.
But Beirut, Lockerbie, Berlin, Oklahoma City, Long Island, World Trade Center 93, to name but the most notable terror attacks, were all serious attacks. And they were all probably carried out by states and state sponsors of terrorism, using terror groups as accomplices. This form of warfare is not new, having been perfected by the Soviets throughout the Cold War. It is warfare without attribution. It is to circle around one’s enemies and undo the power of deterrence.
If we are serious about all this, we should unplug Iran from the world’s economy. If you do business with Iran, you and your associated companies, banks, oil tankers, industrial firms, shipping fleets do not do business with America. Period. And that means China. In addition, a successful completion of the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan would significantly strengthen the forces arrayed on Iran’s borders opposed to its terrorist ways. So that has to be part of a successful US policy.
As we stand in the way of Tehran’s hegemonic goals, people mistake Iran’s behavior as a response to US “threats.” Not unlike North Korea’s refrain that is only the US “hostile policy” that is responsible for Pyongyang’s murderous actions, Iran will no doubt continue to claim the same. The administration has moved sanctions in the right direction. As a country, however, our policy decision comes down to this: do we seek to remove the regime entirely? Or, do we “cut the grass,” so to speak, accepting incremental change that while viewed as steps in the right direction are actually nothing more than slick diplomatic rope-a-dope?
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