Yes, there is an alternative

Kerry to Netanyahu: Better Iran deal a ‘fantasy’

Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM, replies:

A reasonable alternative to the July 2015 agreement with Iran would reject the Carter state of mind, resurrecting U.S. confidence in its moral and strategic exceptionalism and restore U.S. power-projection and posture of deterrence.

A common sense alternative to the agreement with Iran would predicate benefits to Iran upon an end to the current conventional threats to global stability. The benefits resulting from the July 2015 agreement add fuel to these threats.

A common sense alternative would focus on the 36-year lawless, rogue, violent, supremacist, megalomaniac, non-tolerant, repressive and systematically noncompliant track record of the ayatollahs, who consider the U.S. the prime obstacle — and therefore the prime target — on the road of attaining their prime historical goal of regional and global hegemony.

A common sense alternative would precondition the $150 billion windfall granted to the ayatollahs (37% of their gross domestic product) — in addition to the mega-billion dollar flow of oil revenues ($60 billion annually), foreign investments and advanced military systems (fortifying their nuclear infrastructure) — upon ending their 36-year anti-U.S. policy. This policy includes hate and apocalypse-driven school text books; systematic anti-U.S. Friday sermons; the annual November 4 “Death to America Day”; bankrolling Islamic terrorism in Asia, Africa, Europe and the U.S.; terrorizing and subverting every pro-U.S. Arab country (which could cause havoc to the supply and price of oil); the nuclear and ballistic collaboration with North Korea; the anti-U.S. alliance with Venezuela; and the agitation of Latin America, including Mexico.

A common sense alternative would not reward, embolden and “turbocharge” the conventional capabilities of the ayatollahs, while they target — diplomatically and operationally — “the arrogant, usurper, oppressor, infidel, idolatrous Great Satan, the USA.”

A common sense alternative contends that elevating this agreement (which is a means) to the role of a goal would come at the expense of the real goal, and that the details of an agreement are significantly less pertinent than the details of the ayatollahs’ 36-year track record.

A common sense alternative would retain the threat of a surgical military action (no troops on the ground), highlighting Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s April 10, 2015 statement: “We have the capability to shut down, set back and destroy the Iranian nuclear program.” The 1988 U.S. surgical bombing of Iranian installations ended the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. In 2015, the threat of a surgical U.S. bombing would spare the globe conventional upheaval and a nuclear war.

A common sense alternative to the agreement with Iran assumes that reality — and not hope (or wishful thinking) — must be the basis for a national security strategy. Driving at night — in the Iranian darkness — would be much safer with the headlights on rather than reliance on hope.