By Dore Gold, National Review
It is easy to reduce any analysis of the Geneva agreement to the number of centrifuges Iran will still have and the levels of enrichment that are permitted. Just last month, Gary Samore, who worked the nonproliferation file during President Obama’s first term, was quoted in the New York Times saying that “ending production of 20-percent-enriched uranium is not sufficient to prevent breakout because Iran can produce nuclear weapons using low-enriched uranium and a large number of centrifuge machines.” Samore’s concern about the leap from low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade is even more justified given that Iran is now deploying fast centrifuges that operate at five times the speed of the centrifuges used by Iran in the past.
But these important considerations are dwarfed by something far more fundamental. Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons is being made by a country with unquestionable hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East. As negotiators pose to have their pictures taken in Geneva, Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces are on the ground in Syria taking part in President Bashar Assad’s bloodbath against the Syrian people. They are not just training the Syrians, they are directly involved in the mass murder of innocent civilians. Their ambition is to make Syria into an Iranian satellite, placing them as a power in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The head of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s think tank already characterized Syria this year as “the 35th district of Iran.” In speaking about the national-security strategy of Iran back in 1991, in the Iranian daily, Ressalat, Khamenei declared: “Where do we look in drawing up the National Security Strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Do we look to preserve the integrity of our land, or do we look to its expansion . . . We must definitely look to its expansion.” In short, if Belgium were getting nuclear weapons, few would be concerned. But the Iranian case is entirely different.
The Iranian drive for hegemony is not just about rhetoric. In the last five years, Iranian weapons ships have been cruising in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, fueling insurgencies in Yemen, the Gaza Strip, and Lebanon, as well. President Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, who came out of the pro-Iranian al-Dawa movement, which conducted joint operations with Hezbollah in the 1980s, is also the defense minister and interior minister of Iraq. He is placing the powers he has amassed at the service of Iran. No wonder Saudi Arabia, which sees what is going on to its north in Iraq, to its east in Bahrain with a Shiite protest movement, and to its south with the Shiite revolt in Yemen, is so concerned. Thus Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia told Jeffrey Goldberg a few days ago that “the threat is from Persia, not from Israel.”
The big question then is not how Washington will handle the inevitable violations in this agreement, but how it will handle the next moves of Iranian expansionism. For as Iran approaches a nuclear threshold capacity, it is likely to become emboldened. Historically, since the days of President Wilson and Colonel House, when a hegemonic power rose on the European continent, the U.S. put in place a security structure to contest its drive for domination or to defeat it, if necessary. With Iran sensing that it has emerged victorious from this latest Geneva agreement, one can only hope that someone is thinking about contesting its actions against the West and against the allies of the United States.
— Dore Gold is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the author of the Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West.
The US will not be able to disengage from the ME and will not be able to match the Chinese. This administration is turning Americans against each other. Perhaps this is exactly what the Pr. is aiming for! The medical profession is already being destroyed, the economy is not picking-up, the Gvt (democrats) is using every single means to protect itself AGAINST the majority of the citizen. The republicans are incoherent at best!!!! They may be no match for the far left. Where are we going???? This administration has shown time after time that details are irrelevant.
@ yamit82:
@ ArnoldHarris:
US To Sell $10.8B In Missiles, Bombs To Saudis, UAE (Oct. 17, 2013)
$10.8 billion worth of missiles and munitions, including “bunker-buster” bombs.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131017/DEFREG02/310170014/
However, I don’t think it includes the super bunker busters which might be necessary for some sites.
ArnoldHarris Said:
The Arab Gulf States ideologically hate Israel but also the christian West, most of all they hate the Shia in Iran. As much as they hate us they love themselves more.
They do not fear Israel or the West we do not threaten their hold on power or wealth. Shia Iran with Nukes scares the hell out of them. The house of Saud stole the land occupied by Shia tribesman where most of the oil fields are located. They do not fear so much an Iranian nuke attack but a Nuke umbrella protecting those same tribesman were they to revolt against the current regime and the fear they might succeed. Then there is the always conflict for religious hegemony between the Sunni and Shia for the last 1600 years for domination of Islam.
Based on their perception, Obama has thrown them under the bus and can’t be depended upon to stop Iran, so their only choices are some form of capitulation and appeasement to Iran or looking to Israel to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
The Gulf states may have vast arsenals supplied mostly but not just by America they couldn’t fight their way out of a sand dune by themselves. It is widely thought that Pakistan has already supplied the Saudis a few Nukes in return for the Saudi financing of the Pakistani Islamic Bomb.
My feeling that they will make much of their American supplied air-force planes, (F-16’s-F-15’s) available to Israel to be flown by Israeli pilots from Saudi bases. That will allow Israel to make a sustained conventional attack with the Saudis supplying ordinance to supplement that of Israels. Use of Drones might be effective against some of the military targets even political ones but I don’t think they can be effective against hardened targets or those built deep under ground or under mountains. A conventional attack will also in all probability require large contingents of commandos for target acquisitioning. Weapons assemblies could be made in Warehouses in the middle of Tehran. Don’t think Israel would attack such a big civilian target.
The Iranian opposition is no less supportive of the Iranian Nuke program than the current regime, and the majority of the Iranian people are also supportive if for nothing Else national pride. A change of regimes may not bring the desired results as far as Israel is concerned.
I don’t think BB is up to the challenge. Obama played him for the fool and BB followed with “EYEs WIDE SHUT” because he wanted it that way.
@ yamit82:
I wonder what kinds and intensity of action would need to be taken by Israel to start a civil war in Iran, and whether that would be sufficient to help provoke a regime change in Teheran. All things considered, that would be far less dangerous than starting a war with nuclear weapons, if the needed end result could be achieved.
Also, what do you think of the endlessly-cited references to unpublicized meetings of the Israeli military and intelligence with the Saudis? This could equally prove useful for Israel as well as Saudi Arabia. But it could also turn out to be pure bullshit on the part of somebody’s overactive blogsite.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
ArnoldHarris Said:
I figure we have already reached that point a few years ago. I also believe that most of the till now reticence by Israeli governments since Sharon have refused the attack because of our own conventional limitations, ergo the attempts to push first Bush and then Obama into attacking Iran so Israel would not have to use our Nukes.
Whether Israel uses Nukes or not nobody can predict with accuracy the outcomes. I speculate that Iran already have a number of weaponized Nukes whether self made or purchased from North Korea or Pakistan, Russia and FSR black market off the shelf weapons. For money and ideology one can conceivably buy anything.
I dabbled in certain rare Isotopes some contend they were used nuke production, especially A certain Osmium 187 Isotope, Deals and contentions were 99.9% bogus and mostly Russian scams in the 90’s. Came close to a deal I believe was real but got cut out by Swiss Bank. Price was over $90,000 a gram. Still keep a file of proforma Invoices all bogus for offers of from a half Kilo to 5Kilos. I traveled to Moscow and Vienna and Zurich. Trying to pin down any real sources. Actually there was besides the big money involved a lot of danger many of these guys were really shady characters some out of a John le Carré novel. The KGB was involved some Jewish Oligarchs here in Israel and Switzerland and even an ex American congressman.
Cost me a bundle but it was an education. Chasing down these bogus scams I did hook up with some traders in conventional metals and did make some deals that eventually compensated me for most of my expenses in chasing rare Isotopes in Russia and Europe.
yamit82 Said:
thanks
@ bernard ross:
Disinformation, don’t believe a word.. “Uzi Mahnaimi,” is a known muckraker and probably a CIA stooge.
@ ArnoldHarris:
You have not exaggerated anything. The US government is acting to protect Iran from Israel rather than the other way around. Israel must strike Iran on its own, but the problem as a previous article posted here makes clear, how to do so without the US knowing? They could either do as Brzyzinski suggested, shoot down the Israeli planes, or perhaps tip off Iran.
Endless Israeli warnings and complaints about the certitude that Iran is refining its nuclear stockpile to weapons grade will get you about the same international response as warnings and pleadings about Nazi Germany’s mass murders of the European Jews achieved in 1941-1945.
Neither the Obama administration or any likely successor administration of the United States government will mount a military attack to destroy those growing nuclear stockpiles, the spinning centrifuges used for enrichment or any other kind of military action against that country.
Why all this is so is no longer worth the trouble of explaining.
The root of the matter is just this: Either Israel mounts the military effort to destroy that menace, or the Ayutollist government that now controls Iran will likely use some of that weaponry against Israel, either directly or by their Hezbollah satellite group in Lebanon.
Based on that certain assumption, either Israel must mount a successful military effort against Iran now, which can be achieved with non-nuclear weapons, if Israel waits too long, you will have no choice at all but to use some of Israel’s own nuclear weapons against them, which would be the first such nuclear mass destruction since the United States exploded primitive nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945.
So the time has come to stop the endless bitching about Iran as a substitute for concrete action. You must save yourselves, because, as always in past history, no non-Jewish government will ever do that for you. And, as a matter of fact, the more you whine about all this, the more they will ignore you. Just as they always have done.
Live or die. It’s up to you. Now, and probably forever.
Have I exaggerated anything here? If so, tell me about it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
If “someone” IS thinking about it, that “someone” won’t be anybody in the Executive Branch of the present USA govt.