Tobin: Iran Anticipates the Day After Nuclear Test

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
10 June '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/10/iran-anticipates-the-day-after-nuclear-test/

Though the evidence that Iran is working on building a nuclear bomb is overwhelming, apologists for the Islamist regime have accepted its cover story that their program is only aimed at peaceful civil uses of the technology. But apparently a website run by the country’s Revolutionary Guard deviated from the party line on April 24.

The Guardian’s security blog reports that on that date Gerdab, the Guard’s website ran a piece anticipating what the day after the successful explosion of an Iranian bomb would be like. The Guardian translation of the piece fairly bubbles with excitement about the happiness in Iran and the “shock and despair” in Israel. The point of the piece is to show that life will go on normally in Iran but that people there will have a “sparkle” in their eyes.

Lest anyone think the hypothetical piece is pure science fiction, the news about the article came the same week that Iran announced that it would triple their production of enriched uranium.

The notion of normal life in post-nuclear Iran ought to focus the attention of those in the West on the consequences of allowing Tehran to fulfill its ambitions. The greatest danger of a nuclear Iran is not so much the possibility of them actually launching a strike at Israel, though that horrifying scenario can’t be discounted. Rather, it is that the existence of this “Shia Bomb” as the Guard article calls it, would make Iran a regional superpower. It would also mean that Iran’s terrorist allies; the shaky Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas would suddenly have a nuclear umbrella protecting them. Such a development would give the despot of Damascus and the terrorist groups on Israel’s borders the ability to operate with impunity. That means the “normal” day after the announcement of an Iranian bomb would be one that would bring untold dangers both to Israel and to the West.

It isn’t clear what the regime’s motivation was in running such a piece in a publication that the Guardian informs us is normally devoted to ensuring conformity with the regime on the web and identifying and threatening independent bloggers. Perhaps it was just a momentary lapse. It might also have been intended as a warning to the international community to back down on sanctions because of the consequences of angering a future nuclear power. Either way it ought to concentrate minds in Washington and elsewhere in the West.

As the International Atomic Energy Agency has recently said, there is little doubt about Iran’s intentions. President Obama has pledged that he will not allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons. But the Iranians are not any more impressed by Obama’s sanctions campaign than they were by his efforts to “engage” them. The question remains whether Obama and the West will do what needs to be done in order to ensure that the day the Islamists anticipate never dawns.

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Deciphering German foreign policy toward Israel and Iran

Benjamin Weinthal
JPost International
02/27/2011 03:43

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=210017

Analysis: The so-called German-Israeli ‘special relationship’ is clouded by Berlin’s tight relations with Tehran.

BERLIN – In the span of 48 hours last week, the German Foreign Ministry supported a Lebanese sponsored UN Security Council resolution which condemned Israeli settlement construction as “illegal,” and its top diplomat, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran at a time when the US and many EU countries are seeking to isolate Iran’s leaders as pariahs.

How to make sense of what many critics say is a flurry of German anti-Israel UN activity coupled with their claims of a callous posture from the country’s Foreign Ministry toward the Iranian regime’s violent repression of its country’s pro-democracy movement?

Let’s first dissect the UN vote. The Jerusalem Post learned from Israeli diplomatic sources before the UN vote that Yoram Ben-Zeev, Israel’s Ambassador to Berlin, was under the fairly certain impression that the Germans would join the Americans and prevent another diplomatic assault on the Jewish state at the UN. While Germany is not a permanent member of the Security Council, the Federal Republic, like Lebanon, is a non-standing member of the Council. There are currently 15 Security Council members, of which 14 voted against Israel.

Israeli diplomatic officials said they wish to remained unnamed because of the high sensitivity associated with the UN vote.

When asked about the German vote on Monday, an Israeli diplomat in Berlin declined to comment on the strong assurance that Germany would fall in line with the US veto. The diplomat, however, played down Germany’s backtracking, and chalked it up to EU policy conformity against the construction of Israeli housing in the disputed territories.

According to a Ha’aretz last week, Germany’s decision to join the UN diplomatic attack on Israel prompted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to express his displeasure and disappointment with Germany’s vote during a Monday telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. An unnamed “senior German source” leaked the content of the conversation.

According to the German source, Merkel responded to Netanyahu, saying “How dare you,” and “You are the one who disappointed us. You haven’t made a single step to advance peace.”

Delusion instead of solution

Op-ed: Western preoccupation with engaging Iran must make way for tougher approach


Yoram Ettinger
Israel Opinion/Ynet
29 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

Western policy-makers grow increasingly reconciled to coexistence with a nuclear Iran. They assume that notwithstanding the radical rhetoric, the Iranian leadership is pragmatic, cognizant of its limitations, unwilling to expose its people to devastating Western retaliation and considering nuclear capabilities as a tool of deterrence – and not as an offensive means – against the US, NATO and Israel.

However, a nuclear Iran would constitute a clear and present danger to global security and peace, which must not be tolerated. In order to avert such a wrath, it is incumbent to disengage from illusions and engage with realism.

Unlike Western leaders, the Iranian revolutionary leadership is driven by ideological and religious conviction, bolstered by ancient imperialist ethos:

1. Jihad is the permanent state of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, while peace and ceasefire accords are tenuous.

(Read full article)

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No, Israel Is Not About to Attack Iran Now, Here's Why

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
23 July '10

Posted before Shabbat

This article was published by PajamasMedia using their title. I want to make it clear that in saying "will" Israel attack Iran, they are giving a headline to an article saying that this is not going to happen in the near future. I'm not saying it will never happen.

How do you know someone has no idea what they’re talking about? Answer: They predict that Israel is about to attack Iran.

From the perspective of people in Israel who are closely following these issues, this idea is ridiculous. Understanding why this is so tells us a great deal about the situation.

First, it is too early to consider such an option in strategic terms. As long as Iran has not completed its effort to obtain nuclear weapons, the less there is to be gained by destroying uncompleted facilities or processes that are not yet at their full capacity. The earlier one attacks, the easier it is for the Iranian regime to rebuild.

Second, the whole Israeli strategy has been based on winning the maximum amount of Western support against the Iranian nuclear program. Israel worked hard to encourage the United States and the Europeans to put tough sanctions on Iran. Now we are in the sanctions’ era and these governments want to see whether the sanctions are going to have any effect.

Clearly, they are hurting the Iranian regime. People often don’t understand the purposes for imposing international sanctions. Ideally, the goal is to change the behavior of the targeted regime. But that’s not all. Sanctions are supposed to reduce the ability of an enemy regime to do what it wants to do. The fewer assets Iran has, the less it can put into military efforts.

In addition, the pressure of sanctions is to open up splits within the regime’s leadership and between the regime and the population. The people ask: Why are we suffering? Because of bad leadership and policies. Other members of the elite ask: Why are the top rulers and their policies leading us toward the regime’s downfall and the loss of our wealth and power?

This is happening to some extent in Iran today.

(Read full article)

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Scoop: White House Undercuts Congress's Sanctions on Iran and Builds Loopholes to Avoid Confronting Violators?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
19 June '10

What's the next big story the mass media hasn't yet discovered about sanctions against Iran's nuclear program? It's this: The Obama Administration is pressing Congress to reduce the sanctions it is proposing. As you might remember, while the White House was backing a weak sanctions resolution through the UN Security Council, the U.S. Congress passed a strong bill that would really damage Iran's economy and undercut its oil sales.

During the several months that the bills were wending their way through the House of Representatives and Senate, the White House refused requests for guidance by the congressional leadership on what the president wanted. Now, with Congress determined to have a single joint bill ready for passage before the summer adjournment, the White House is telling them to ease up on Iran.

Aside from the terms of the new sanctions, the White House has proposed a novel, and somewhat amusing, idea. Countries like Russia and China would be classified as "cooperating countries" because they voted for the sanctions' resolution. (Since Brazil and Turkey, which voted against it, have said they will observe the sanctions does that make them also cooperating countries?)

The great thing about being a "cooperating country" is that even if you don't try to implement the sanctions strongly, or at all, you will be immune to punishment.

(Read full post)

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