“Putin disregards efforts at dialogue and disregards efforts to contain him when he thinks America is led by a weak and feckless leader.”
“We have allowed our structures of deterrence, built up at great costs over many decades, to deteriorate.”
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 10, 2016. Click here to view the original article.
By John Bolton
October 10, 2016
Surprisingly to many, the ninth United Nations secretary-general will be António Guterres, a former socialist prime minister of Portugal.
One surprise is that the winning candidate is not from the Eastern European regional group, which has never had a secretary-general, while Western Europe gets its fourth. Another surprise is that the winner isn’t a woman, which will be disappointing to proponents of gender-identity politics. Mr. Guterres did serve 10 years as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and was previously active in the Socialist International, with both positions serving as springboards for his current candidacy.
What should Mr. Guterres know to perform his new job, and how should we judge his performance over the next five (and perhaps 10) years?
First, he must recognize that he owes his position to the Security Council’s five permanent members. This political reality causes gnashing of teeth in the missions of other U.N. members, and it sometimes raises the blood pressure of a secretary-general. But to be effective, Mr. Guterres will have to live in the rickety house the “perm five” have built, not align himself in opposition to it.
These five nations will often be divided, reflecting their national interests in global affairs, and thereby gridlocking the Security Council, as during the Cold War. So be it—Mr. Guterres must adjust. While there are other powerful, rising countries in the U.N., unless they persuade one or more of the perm five to turn on Mr. Guterres, they inevitably are lesser factors.
Second, across the sprawling U.N. agencies and programs more broadly, Mr. Guterres should recognize that member governments set policy, and the multiple U.N. bureaucracies must implement it. Neither the secretary-general nor U.N. secretariats have any independent policy-making roles, although long years of acting as if they do have created a troublesome institutional culture.
Mr. Guterres will be more productive if he concentrates on his limited turf, such as by reforming the U.N. secretariat’s bureaucratic morass. As Article 97 of the U.N. Charter says, the secretary-general is merely the organization’s “chief administrative officer.” If Mr. Gutteres fancies being this century’s Dag Hammarskjold, floating above the mundane world of nation-states, this may earn him points among the world’s high-minded, but he will accomplish little.
This is where Mr. Guterres’s European Union experience is worrying. Just as they have become accustomed to ceding national sovereignty to EU institutions in Brussels, many European diplomats in New York are perfectly comfortable doing the same with the U.N. Such an attitude regarding already too-independent-minded U.N. staffs is definitely something Washington should oppose. (A reminder for Mr. Guterres: With Britain exiting the EU, that organization will soon have only one Security Council permanent member.)
If member governments cannot agree on policy, then the U.N. should do nothing. Disagreement among the members isn’t an excuse for either the secretary-general (or the secretariat) to freelance, as former Secretary-General Kofi Annan was wont to do throughout his tenure. So doing will invariably lead to conflict with significant U.N. voting blocs and distract from other urgent tasks. Joe Biden likes to quote his mother saying disapprovingly of people who act beyond their bounds: “Who died and made you king?” Mr. Guterres should listen to Mr. Biden’s mother.
Third, when the U.N. does act, especially in matters of international peace and security, the secretary-general must focus diligently on the problem at hand. In particular, U.N. peacekeeping needs urgent attention. These efforts now total (according to current U.N. statistics) 16 operations, nearly 119,000 deployed personnel and a $7.87 billion annual budget. Allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, spreading cholera in Haiti and mismanagement dog U.N. peacekeeping forces, whose halos have slipped since they received their collective Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
U.N. peacekeeping history is packed with operations that were launched to end conflicts (or at least bring cease-fires) but never actually resolved them. In effect, U.N. military or political involvement becomes part of the conflict battle space, not a catalyst for ending it. Some disputes, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, are insoluble under existing circumstances. In such cases, withdrawing or substantially downsizing U.N. involvement until conditions are more propitious may, with the U.N. crutch removed, force the parties to take greater responsibility.
But where conflicts are resolvable, an international player of Mr. Guterres’s experience can make a difference, if he puts in the time and effort. It is not his job to appoint special representatives for peacekeeping or political missions, and then sit back and watch how they do. Active management and involvement by the secretary-general—which was the style of early secretaries general—is more likely to achieve concrete results, assuming the secretary-general carefully follows Security Council direction.
Given the problems endemic in the U.N. bureaucracy, and a world in flames—although many of the world’s problems are beyond the U.N.’s competence to solve—Mr. Guterres has more managerial work before him than his predecessors have been willing to undertake. If he sticks to that and whatever else U.N. members assign him in coming years, he will be fully occupied. If he strays beyond his remit, there is trouble ahead.
“I understand why Barack Obama wants to take it out of the control of the United States and give it to the rest of the world. That’s consistent with the way he’s handled foreign policy for the last eight years – and, by the way, consistent with the way Hillary Clinton will handle it.”
“It’s completely understandable that Clinton will try to avoid blaming Obama because she desperately needs to recreate the Obama coalition on November the 8th.”
“The Internet as we have known it is about to disappear, and I think that has national security implications. It certainly has implications for freedom of communication internationally.”
“Obama has long believed the United States is too strong, too powerful, too assertive, too successful…he wants to spread the power around. This is going to be a key part of his legacy.”
This article appeared in The Telegraph on September 28, 2016. Click here to view the original article.
By John Bolton
September 28, 2016
Three months after the Brexit vote, it’s time for the UK’s leaders to “get this country moving again,” as JFK once exhorted Americans. Or “make Britain great again,” per Donald Trump, if you prefer.
Brexit was undeniably a revolution in human affairs, opening up vistas for Britain once buried in European Union bureaucracy. Both economically and politically, London has a unique opportunity to rewrite the international conventional wisdom.
Margaret Thatcher foresaw exactly what Britain needs today: “Don’t follow the crowd. Let the crowd follow you.” On Britain’s relationship with the EU, for example, commentators dissecting the “Norway model” or the “Swiss model” are missing the point. Create a British model suited to Britain’s needs, and press ahead.
Negotiations with Brussels’ bitter-enders will be difficult; no one who has ever dealt with the EU could imagine anything else. But do not approach the EU true believers as supplicants. Their businesses and consumers want access to UK markets, products and services just as their British counterparts want the reverse.
Within the EU and within individual European governments, particularly Germany, Britain’s negotiators should seek allies to outflank recalcitrant politicians, many of whom are already severely stressed because of mistakes on other fronts, notably the terrorist attacks and refugee floods sweeping the continent. Divide and conquer has long been a winning strategy, and can be again in the exit negotiations.
On those security issues, Brexit affords the UK the opportunity to be an independent world power once again. No longer drowning in the molasses of EU decision-making, London can act as an equal partner with Washington regarding threats to the West globally.
True, there are those in America, as well as Britain, who have long held that it is in America’s interest to have Britain inside the EU arguing the US case. On this theory, the UK’s role is to be the US barrister before the high court of Germany and France.
This has always been nonsense. It hasn’t worked for the United States, but more to the point here, neither has it worked for Britain. You lose nothing by abandoning the role. The notion that Britain must have “a seat at the table” in the EU appeals primarily to those whose sole objective is having a seat at the table. (This means you, Whitehall mandarins.) Actually getting things done requires rising from a table and doing it, precisely what Brexit now allows.
EU politico-military decision-making invariably produces a smoothie – appetising perhaps, but hardly durable. Recent French and German efforts to move (yet again) toward more robust EU military capabilities may achieve rhetorical success, but little else. From the St Malo declaration forward, the EU collectively has been long on defence talk and short on action. A fully independent UK can now be more effective with Nato’s central and eastern European members by not having to temper its security posture to suit Berlin and Paris. For example, Britain’s view of resurgent Russian militarism within the former Soviet Union has consistently been more clear-eyed than many of its continental partners.
Now, London will once more have its own voice to say so.
Whether, after the US presidential election on November 8, America will again have the political leadership it needs to complement renewed British assertiveness is presently unknowable.
The election is tightening, however, as Trump’s support solidifies and as Clinton’s manifest inadequacies become more evident. But whatever happens in November, Britain must still make her own way.
History’s opportunities do not last forever. The Brexit decision should not be squandered through indecisiveness and inaction. If Britain proceeds confidently, the ripples of Brexit in Europe and beyond will force reforms that could remake the European political landscape to the advantage of both the UK and its soon-to-be-former EU partners. The same is true for Nato, which needs to become more agile and less bureaucratic.
Britain’s actions over the next few months will be more important for itself and the wider West than anything London has done since 1945.
This article appeared in the New York Post on September 11, 2016. Click here to view the original article.
By John Bolton
September 11, 2016
North Korea’s fifth nuclear test signals continuing progress and sophistication in its decades-long effort to possess deliverable nuclear weapons. Moreover, both US and South Korean military experts assess that the increasing range of Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles, and its ability to miniaturize nuclear devices in order to mate them with its missiles, means targets across America will be vulnerable in just a few years.
The North’s weapons program perfectly embodies Winston Churchill’s warning about “perverted science,” where humanity’s highest intellectual achievements fall into the wrong hands.
The test is yet another fire bell in the night. North Korea’s leaders may have been trying to get President Obama’s attention, but their odds of success are small. For nearly eight years, his resolute indifference to Kim Jung-un’s advances demonstrated that nuclear proliferation is just not one of his priorities.
While Obama’s rhetorical response to the North’s evident progress is sometimes vigorous, it never extends to meaningfully tightening sanctions or anything more robust. And Pyongyang doesn’t even slow down.
Why should it, given Obama’s lack of interest? Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also been thoroughly indifferent, although her rhetoric, especially as she runs for president herself, tends to torque somewhat higher than Obama’s. Nonetheless, if humor is permitted in these dire circumstances, Clinton’s just deserts will be having to deal with the consequences of their mutually failed North Korea policy if she wins.
Conversely, Japan and South Korea need little incentive to worry about Pyongyang’s growing threat. Their intense interest in missile-defense technology is less about China’s aggressive investment in nuclear and ballistic-missile programs than the North’s ongoing menace. In stark contrast, Obama and Clinton have consistently opposed vigorous national missile defenses for America — a mistake Donald Trump should emphasize.
Obama’s defenders argue the Iran nuclear deal demonstrates his nonproliferation bona fides. Instead, the Iran accord proves the opposite. New information emerges daily about the agreement’s inadequacies, both in its own right and in side arrangements like the cash-for-hostages ransom debacle. Plus, there’s increasing evidence of clear Iranian violations of the deal itself, which its verification mechanisms are insufficient to detect, especially considering that major Iranian cheating may be underway in hidden facilities in North Korea.
The unfortunately long, bipartisan history of negotiations with Iran and North Korea contains important lessons for the next president.
First, once launched on the path to nuclear weapons, Tehran and Pyongyang both demonstrated they had made irreversible strategic decisions. These were not lightly taken, nor the potential consequences ignored. Accordingly, once they were underway, negotiations to induce them to abandon their nuclear objectives were inevitably doomed to failure.
Gaining nukes had become essential not just for military purposes but for regime political survival. And just as diplomacy could never succeed, no “agreement” reached with the proliferators ever had serious prospects of being adhered to. Cheating was always central to the rogue states’ strategies. Once they had fixed on acquiring nuclear weapons, duplicity was an automatic reflex.
Second, our intelligence on North Korea has been negligible for so long, and obviously so to the rest of the world, that Tehran would’ve been foolish not to explore the possibility of cooperating with Pyongyang on developing nuclear weapons. We’ve known for at least 20 years of their extensive collaboration on ballistic missiles; why wouldn’t they also collaborate on nuclear weapons, the intended payloads of such delivery systems?
We should’ve long ago stopped “stove-piping” the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats as if they were unrelated. We need dramatically improved intelligence about the North, in considerable measure for what it could reveal about cooperation with Iran and other possible nuclear proliferators. Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others might well pay Pyongyang handsome premiums to counter the potentially existential threat of a nuclear Iran.
Quite rightly, the threat of radical Islamic terrorism is a central issue in the 2016 campaign. Nuclear proliferation and other national-security issues should be as well.
Candidates who demonstrate mastery over these matters, and persuasively explain their strategic thinking, would be tapping a rich, politically helpful and widespread concern among American voters.
They are looking for leaders who truly understand that our government’s most important job is keeping their fellow citizens secure from foreign threats.
This op-ed appeared in The Daily Telegraph on March 15, 2016. Click here to view the original article.
By John Bolton
The United States has an important national security interest in British voters supporting withdrawal from the European Union. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom on both sides of the Atlantic, Britain’s exit from the floundering EU would immediately create the potential for a more coherent and effective Western security posture globally.
President Barack Obama embodies the conventional wisdom, unabashedly supporting continued construction of a European superstate. Obama’s fascination with Brussels, however, reflects his own statist inclinations. His lack of international leadership perfectly mirrors the EU’s timid, ineffective defence of its own interests and values. Of course Obama loves the EU.
Arguing that today’s EU is collectively stronger than a continent of free nation-states misreads history, distorting it through a quasi-theological lens. The EU is less than the sum of its parts. Its politico-military “unity” is purest symbolism. Flags and anthems not only do not embody unity, but instead mask a poisonous, paralysing disarray.
Nor is unity reflected in incessant affirmations of Europe’s economic size, as if it were truly integrated. Indeed, if Europe had single-mindedly pursued a single market, abjuring political abstractions, it could have achieved more economic integration and broader political consensus together, rather than getting wrapped around the axle of “ever closer union”. And just as symbolic gestures do not ensure unity, reversing those symbolic gestures does not forestall Britain’s ongoing descent from representative government into Europe’s bureaucratic oligarchy. David Cameron’s proposed changes to London’s relationship with Brussels in no way addresses, let alone cures, the systemic failures inherent in EU decision-making structures.
America is partially at fault for the EU mirage because Nato, largely a US creation, has been so successful. For decades, sheltering under Washington’s military umbrella, Europe, including Britain, has recklessly shrivelled defence budgets and increased social-welfare expenditures. The results are not pretty. The EU has not only retreated from the world stage, it is becoming incompetent in ensuring security within its own “borders”. Europe’s loss of defence capabilities, as well as will and resolve, are deeply inimical to defending the West against today’s increasing global threats.
Radical Islamists, following their perverse ideology, have struck across Europe and America, and our collective response has been pathetically inadequate. Even Obama’s own intelligence officials have testified before Congress that the global terrorist threat from Islamic State, al Qaeda, and others is today greater than before 9/11. North Africa and the Middle East are descending into chaos, state structures are collapsing, post-First World War borders are disappearing, and large swathes of territory are slipping under terrorist control. Iran is on a clear path to deliverable nuclear weapons, a Middle Eastern nuclear-arms race is under way, and Israel is imperilled. That is without even mentioning expansionist Russia, nuclear North Korea and rising China.
If advocates of Britain remaining in the EU haven’t noticed, America’s international commitments are under attack from several populist directions in our ongoing presidential campaign. Some, especially among Democrats, simply do not value national security, preferring to focus on domestic issues, hoping – God forbid – to make America look more like social-democratic Europe. Others, especially among Republicans, think America’s allies have got a free ride, don’t appreciate US efforts, and should be made to fend for themselves. If Britain votes to stay In, this view may prevail across Washington. So be careful what you wish for.
Britain’s escape from the EU Titanic, combined with America emerging from eight years of folly this November, could revitalise the West as a whole, including the recumbent nations currently content to remain within the EU. The United States needs strong European allies, of which Britain has been and should remain the most important. We enjoy independence – you should resume yours. It works.
John Bolton is a former US Ambassador to the United Nations
By John R. Bolton
Posted on National Review Online
The Vienna deal sets up a choice of bad and worse.
When Congress returns to Washington in September, it faces one of its most critical decisions in recent years: whether to reject the Vienna nuclear deal and ostensibly stop President Obama from waiving economic sanctions against Iran. Unfortunately, many staunch opponents of the deal, who rightly criticize its debilitating errors, inadequacies, and omissions, nonetheless misapprehend America’s alternatives once Congress acts. They contend that, after blocking Obama’s waiver authority, we should not only maintain the current nonproliferation sanctions but impose stricter ones, both U.S. and even international. Under this theory, Iran would sooner or later be forced to seek new negotiations, in which Washington could extract a better agreement. And in the absence of such an agreement, they argue, “no deal is better than a bad deal.”
This is all fantasy. We have been overtaken by events, no matter how Congress votes.
Obama’s mistakes, concessions, and general detachment from Middle Eastern reality for six and a half years make it impossible to travel in time back to a theoretical world where sanctions might have derailed Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.
If Obama can save the Vienna agreement from Congress, he will lift sanctions for the remainder of his presidency. Alternatively, if his veto is overridden and U.S. sanctions remain in place, Europe, Russia, China, and everyone else will nonetheless proceed to implement the deal on their own. (And given Obama’s propensity not to enforce laws with which he disagrees, which he is already signaling in this case, U.S. sanctions will almost certainly prove ineffective.) Either way, it is naïve to think that a new Republican president in January 2017 will find any takers internationally to revive sanctions.
However Congress votes, Iran will still be marching inexorably toward deliverable nuclear weapons. Deals don’t constrain the mullahs, who see this capability as critical to the 1979 Islamic Revolution’s very survival. Not surprisingly, therefore, existing sanctions have slowed down neither Iran’s nuclear-weapons program nor its support for international terrorism. General James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, testified in 2013 that sanctions had not changed the ayatollahs’ nuclear efforts, and this assessment stands unmodified today. Tehran’s support for such terrorists as Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and Syria’s Assad regime has, if anything, increased. As for the sanctions’ economic impact on Iran, Clapper testified that “the Supreme Leader’s standard is a level of privation that Iran suffered during the Iran–Iraq war,” a level that Iran was nowhere near in 2013 and is nowhere near today.
In short, to have stopped Tehran’s decades-long quest for nuclear weapons, global sanctions needed to match the paradigm for successful coercive economic measures. They had to be sweeping and comprehensive, swiftly applied and scrupulously adhered to by every major economic actor, and rigorously enforced by military power. The existing Security Council sanctions do not even approach these criteria.
First, the scope of the Iran sanctions’ prohibitions has always been limited, and they have been imposed episodically over an extended period of time, thereby affording Tehran ample opportunity to minimize their impact through smuggling, cheating, and evasion. And while the sanctions’ breadth gradually expanded, the Council’s typical approach was to prohibit trade only in certain items or technologies, or to name specific Iranian businesses, government agencies, or individuals with which U.N. member states were forbidden to do business. This very specificity made sanctions far easier to evade. If, for example, the ABC firm was named to the sanctions list, it took little effort to create a cutout company called XYZ to engage in precisely the same proscribed activities.
Second, key foreign countries are decidedly uneven in adhering to sanctions. Russian and Chinese compliance is notoriously lax, and other countries are worse. Under Iran’s sway, Iraq has been openly and notoriously facilitating Tehran’s oil exports by providing false documentation of Iraqi origin or purchasing Iranian oil for Iraqi domestic consumption, thereby freeing Baghdad’s oil for export. The Obama administration itself repeatedly granted waivers to countries that claimed they needed to import Iranian oil. Although clandestine sanctions violators do not publish audited financial statements, creative criminal minds (and not a few creative entrepreneurial minds) have found enough slack in the sanctions to keep Iran afloat, even if its citizens suffered economically. No one has ever described the ayatollahs as consumer-society-friendly.
Finally, it was largely national law-enforcement agencies, rather than military forces, that monitored the sanctions. Unsurprisingly, the quality of such efforts varied greatly, and the Security Council hardly matches the Pentagon in command-and-control authority.
In recent history, the only sanctions regime to approximate the ideal paradigm was that imposed on Saddam Hussein in 1990, just days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Security Council Resolution 661 provided that all states “shall prevent . . . the import into their territories of all commodities and products originating in Iraq or Kuwait” except food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies. That is the very definition of “comprehensive,” and the polar opposite of the congeries of sanctions imposed on Iran.
Significantly, while Resolution 661 approached the theoretical ideal, even its sanctions failed to break Saddam’s stranglehold on Kuwait. Had Washington waited much longer than it did before militarily ousting Saddam, Kuwait would have been thoroughly looted and despoiled.
Thus, even strict, comprehensive, rigorously enforced sanctions are not necessarily enough to stop a determined adversary. Other critically important conditions, such as a truly credible threat of military force, must accompany sanctions. In 1990–91, the United States and a multinational coalition presented just such a credible threat, but Saddam nonetheless refused to back down, resulting in his humiliating military defeat. In 2002–03, Saddam yet again faced a credible military threat and again refused to back down. He thereupon not only lost militarily but also lost his regime and ultimately his life. Does anyone truly believe that Barack Obama’s fainthearted utterances that “all options are on the table” carry a credible threat to the mullahs, or that their hearing is any better than Saddam’s?
Finally, there must be a U.S. negotiator who knows how to negotiate. In 1990–91, Secretary of State James Baker made every effort to find a diplomatic solution meeting U.S. criteria, including a last-minute Geneva meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. Baker was prepared to try diplomacy but not prepared to concede the key point: immediate Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. His successors under Obama didn’t have that steel, and the results show.
We do not face the hypothetical question whether, five, ten, or twenty years ago, a better deal with Iran might have been possible. Even if we could honestly answer that question affirmatively, the option no longer exists. As we look forward, hard as it may be to swallow, there is no other deal available. Obama is right when he makes this point, although for all the wrong reasons.
Iran aside (since Tehran is obviously delighted with the deal), none of the other parties to the Vienna agreement have any interest in even considering resurrecting a stricter sanctions regime. Russia and China, as just noted, have hardly adhered to Security Council sanctions these last eight-plus years, and they are eagerly preparing to eliminate even the pretense of compliance.
In April, before the agreement was signed, Vladimir Putin issued a decree authorizing the long-stalled sale of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran. Even though S-300s were not actually barred by U.N. sanctions, Putin’s decree signals the start of an Oklahoma land rush of business for Russia, from nuclear reactors (for “peaceful” uses, of course) to military equipment and more. In July, Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, visited Moscow in open disdain of theoretically still-operative sanctions to discuss sales of weapons, including the S-300. Given all the evidence, there is simply no basis to conclude that an economically troubled Moscow wants to close its bazaar to Iran.
China is already poised to make multibillion-dollar capital investments in Iran’s oil-production and refining capacities, thereby giving it privileged access to Iran’s oil and natural gas in the future while also boosting Beijing’s competitive edge in extracting deals from other producers. Moreover, China and Russia both long to build a parallel global economic structure to challenge the one now dominated by Western institutions. From dethroning the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, to creating an interbank funds-transfer system to compete with the SWIFT wire-transfer system in global markets, to sidelining the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank through such institutions as the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijing and Moscow are looking for openings. Lifting the Iran sanctions gives them a new opportunity to exploit while also affording the Kremlin indirect relief from sanctions in response to its military intervention in Ukraine, by providing alternative business opportunities now denied. What possible incentive would Russia and China have to put Iran, a potentially major player in their alternative economic universe, back under pressure?
European firms are already locking up massive trade and investment deals with Tehran and pressuring their governments for even more. Germany, for example, saw sanctions reduce its annual trade with Iran from $8 billion to $2 billion; in slow economic times, the prospect of returning to or exceeding pre-sanctions revenue levels is compelling. And once the economic benefits begin to flow, Europeans will fiercely resist reinstituting sanctions. (This fundamental commercial reality is yet another reason the Vienna agreement’s “snapback sanctions” could never work.) It is little wonder that Germany’s ambassador to Washington, Philipp Ackermann, recently said, “It would be a nightmare for every European country if this is rejected.”
There was a recent flurry surrounding reports that Jacques Audibert, foreign-policy adviser to French president François Hollande, had said that Iran would eventually return to the negotiating table if Congress rejected the Vienna deal. The French immediately went into full denial mode, but the most telling evidence was Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’s making an on-his-knees pilgrimage to Tehran. Atoning for his earlier public disagreements with Obama’s disastrous concessions during the negotiations, Fabius extolled the prospects for business and invited Iran’s President Rouhani to Paris this November. Mercantilism is alive and well in Paris: When it comes to advancing French international commercial interests, even Socialist governments know the drill.
More happy news came on August 12, when Switzerland announced that it was lifting its sanctions immediately. Not a U.N. member — and hence not bound by Security Council decisions anyway — the Swiss government stressed its “interest in deepening bilateral relations with Iran.” Given the reach of Swiss financial and mercantile connections, this is a black hole for any effort to maintain sanctions against Tehran.
Nor are U.S. businesses blind. Ned Lamont, Connecticut’s 2006 Democratic Senate nominee, traveled to Tehran in June with — of all things — a delegation from the Young Presidents’ Organization. He reported that “Turk, German, and Chinese businesspeople were congesting the elevators and filling the conference rooms” of his hotel seeking deals. It was, said Lamont, “a modern-day bazaar, with businesspeople from around the world busily negotiating ventures.” Lamont’s joyful conclusion was that the “train had left the station and it is too late for the mullahs or the U.S. Senate to derail it.”
These accelerating developments demonstrate why relying on economic sanctions to coerce Iran was a chancy strategy from the start. Neither our allies nor Obama’s Washington are supple enough to exercise the economic power that sanctions imply, turning the heat up and down in carefully calibrated degrees to achieve the pleasure or pain desired. Once gone, sanctions are gone forever. The Vienna agreement itself proves that sanctions are a fairly blunt instrument. If the deal’s “snapback sanctions” are ever invoked for Iranian violations (as noted above, a dubious proposition), Tehran is then released from its obligations. What kind of penalty is it that frees the country being penalized from its other commitments?
As floods of newsprint have explained, the agreement will not stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, whether Iran complies with its terms or, more likely, is already violating them. Obama’s deal is a born failure for reasons we need not elaborate further here. And when he says that the alternative to his failed deal is “some kind of war” (a phrase that obscures more than it reveals), he is simply continuing his efforts to sell a bad deal.
Understanding the reality that, in today’s circumstances, the mullahs never intended to agree to — or follow — any deal that could satisfy America clarifies why our alternatives as we look forward are decidedly limited no matter how Congress votes: Either Iran remains solidly on a path to deliverable nuclear weapons, sooner rather than later, or someone uses military force to prevent that outcome. In fact, that has been the reality for the past decade, despite Herculean efforts by many to avoid facing it.
Accordingly, as of today, only a preemptive military strike can block Iran from becoming a nuclear-weapons state. We can understand why politicians flee from publicly considering the military option, just as we can understand why Obama tries to shoehorn debate into a “my way or war” dichotomy. But neither wishful thinking nor outright deception can change the fundamental strategic reality. That facing reality is unpalatable politically does not mean we can imagine another reality into existence. The spinmeisters can contemplate how to “message” the point, but America must recognize the facts it faces once Congress votes.
To stop Iran from achieving its 35-year goal of deliverable nuclear weapons, either America or Israel must be prepared to use military force. Obviously, under Obama, Washington has essentially left the field. Although he has said repeatedly that he wants to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, not contain it after the fact, containment is Obama’s only remaining option. This explains why Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is offering advanced weapons and increased cooperation to the Arab oil-producing monarchies. These are the classic foundations of a containment strategy.
The Gulf Arabs will undoubtedly accept Carter’s offers, and much more if they can get it. Deep down, however, they have no faith that, if they find themselves threatened by Iran, they are genuinely protected by America’s conventional or nuclear umbrella. Why should they? Ask Israel how it feels. Not surprisingly, therefore, a regional nuclear-arms race is already under way, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. This is one more compelling reason to stop Iran now. Taken alone, the Vienna deal already inflicts a mortal wound on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but a fully nuclearized Middle East would be a global strategic catastrophe.
Deep down, the Gulf Arab states have no faith that, if they find themselves threatened by Iran, they are genuinely protected by America’s conventional or nuclear umbrella. Why should they?
Accordingly, the spotlight falls on Israel, which twice before has struck nuclear-weapons programs in hostile states (Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007). Israel’s current options are hardly new or different. Jerusalem must choose between a world after a military strike and a world with a nuclear enemy whose objective is Israel’s destruction. It does not have the choice of preserving the world as it is today, because that world is rapidly becoming a world with a nuclear Iran (as before with Iraq or Syria).
Neither alternative is palatable, but in similar circumstances, Israel has not hesitated. In neither case, perhaps incomprehensibly to some, did the Middle East promptly descend into war and chaos. No other regional power wanted Saddam to have nuclear weapons (neither in 1981 nor thereafter), and, despite the flurry of anti-Israel activity at the United Nations, there were no sustained consequences following Israel’s attack. After Israel’s 2007 strike on Syria, Arab reaction was almost entirely muted, because the Arabs suspected that the al-Kibar reactor was a joint venture between Damascus and Tehran. The Sunni Arabs didn’t want a nuclear Iran in 2007, and they don’t want it now. Not only will the Arab monarchies quietly accept a preemptive Israeli military strike against Iran, some might even cooperate. This is how national interests actually work in international affairs.
Obviously, such a dangerous and complicated mission raises a host of questions. Can Israel succeed alone? Not as well as the United States could, to be sure, but well enough. As the British statesman Mick Jagger once wrote, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” Israel has the military capability to cause massive damage to key choke points in Iran’s nuclear program (at least, those we know about), notably the Isfahan uranium-conversion plant, the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, and the Arak reactor and heavy-water-production facility.
Isfahan and Arak are above ground and constitute fairly easy targets. Indeed, little-known Isfahan is both particularly important and particularly vulnerable. If Iran cannot convert uranium from the solid U3O8 to the gas UF6, its centrifuges cannot operate. Natanz is buried and hardened and will pose more obstacles for Israel than for America, but Israel can do the necessary. The Fordow uranium-enrichment facility is a more serious problem for Israel, but there is little doubt Jerusalem can close the entrance tunnels, air shafts, and electrical connections going deep underground. Preventive maintenance, in the form of small-scale Israeli strikes, to keep them closed may be needed over the years, but it’s hard for scientists to work when they can’t breathe.
Iran, of course, would respond. Herein lies the greatest danger and the hardest decision for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Iran would most likely retaliate by unleashing Hezbollah and Hamas to rocket Israeli targets, especially terrorizing civilian areas. What is not so likely is that Iran would take any action that would generate a U.S. military response, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz, mining the Persian Gulf, or attacking the Gulf Arab states or deployed U.S. forces in the region. Losing their nuclear program would be bad enough for the ayatollahs. Losing their navy, air force, and who knows what else at American hands, even under Barack Obama, would be far worse, and potentially fatal to the regime itself.
Other speculation about Tehran’s response is fanciful. Some say an attack would cause Iran to accelerate its nuclear efforts. Compared with what? And it’s hard to accelerate when key elements of your program have been reduced to ashes. Others say Iran would increase its terrorist activity worldwide — but could it do much more than it can when its assets abroad are unfrozen under Vienna and it receives billions of dollars in economic windfalls? We should not be blind to any possibility, of course, but we must remain focused and objective.
For America, an Israeli attack also has potentially enormous consequences, including the economic risks and the threat to our forces in the Gulf. But every potential increase in risk to the United States and to each of our allies consequent upon an Israeli preemptive strike will, whether our allies realize it or not, be far higher, and permanent, when Iran acquires deliverable nuclear weapons. As with Israel, our real self-interest lies in facing the threat now before it metastasizes and becomes truly nuclear.
If Jerusalem strikes Iran, we will undoubtedly learn of it only after operations have commenced. Given the level of distrust between Israel and Obama, there is essentially no chance we will receive advance notice. Nonetheless, America should be immediately prepared to do two things to help Israel. First, politically and diplomatically, we should argue unhesitatingly that a preemptive Israeli strike is a legitimate exercise of Israel’s inherent right of self-defense. In an age of weapons of mass destruction and insignificant attack-warning times, this is basic common sense for us.
Second, Congress should immediately authorize and appropriate all necessary assistance for Israel to allow it to defend itself against Hamas and Hezbollah or direct Iranian retaliation. Israel’s military would probably expend significant resources and suffer heavy losses of men and matériel over Iran. To defend its civilians adequately, Israel could brook no delay in suppressing hostile activity from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley or the Gaza Strip. Obama might procrastinate and equivocate, but Congress must do everything it can to force his hand.
These are bitter, unpleasant choices. They have been for 15 years or more. They are nonetheless still preferable to a nuclear Iran. Welcome to Obama’s post-Vienna world.
This deal with Iran is a historic mistake! Iran is on its way to nuclear weapons and – as a bonus – they’ll do it free of economic sanctions. Patriotic Americans everywhere need to oppose this rotten deal that Iranians preemptively celebrated by chanting “Death to America, death to Israel” in the streets of Tehran.
Sign the Reject the Iran Deal Petition: http://www.fasfreedom.com/one/
“The problem with America and the West’s response generally to Russian military activity in Ukraine has been weak and feckless.
“While (sanctions have) caused some economic troubles in Russia, it certainly has not undercut political support for Putin and has not deterred him from continuing his military activity and troublemaking inside Ukraine and contemplating other potential targets like NATO members Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.”
Ambassador Bolton discusses the G-7 meeting, Russia and Ukraine.
“There has to be a much bigger strategic analysis here. I don’t think the President has paid adequate attention to the cyber threats either on defense or offense. He ought to be leading the nation in a discussion of this new threat, which has enormous potential implications, and yet he barely talks about it.”
Ambassador Bolton discusses how the government hack can cause disruption.