The Iran Deal Can’t Be Enforced

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This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Febraury 5, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
February 5, 2017

Iran’s continued missile testing on Saturday has given President Trump one more reason to tear up his predecessor’s deal with the regime in Tehran. After Iran’s Jan. 29 ballistic-missile launch, the Trump administration responded with new sanctions and tough talk. But these alone won’t have a material effect on Tehran or its decades-long effort to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons.

The real issue is whether America will abrogate Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, recognizing it as a strategic debacle, a result of the last president’s misguided worldview and diplomatic malpractice. Terminating the agreement would underline that Iran is already violating it, clearly intends to continue pursuing nuclear arms, works closely with North Korea in seeking deliverable nuclear weapons, and continues to support international terrorism and provocative military actions. Escaping from the Serbonian Bog that Obama’s negotiations created would restore the resolute leadership and moral clarity the U.S. has lacked for eight years.

But those who supported the Iran deal, along with even many who had opposed it, argue against abrogation. Instead they say that America should “strictly enforce” the deal’s terms and hope that Iran pulls out. This would be a mistake for two reasons. First, the strategic miscalculations embodied in the deal endanger the U.S. and its allies, not least by lending legitimacy to the ayatollahs, the world’s central bankers for terrorism.

Second, “strictly enforcing” the deal is as likely to succeed as nailing Jell-O to a wall. Not only does the entire agreement reflect appeasement, but President Obama’s diplomacy produced weak, ambiguous and confusing language in many specific provisions. These drafting failures created huge loopholes, and Iran is now driving its missile and nuclear programs straight through them.

Take Tehran’s recent ballistic-missile tests. The Trump administration sees them as violating the deal. Iran disagrees. Let’s see what “strict enforcement” would really mean, bearing in mind that the misbegotten deal is 104 pages long, consisting of Security Council Resolution 2231 and two attachments: Annex A, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the main nuclear deal, known by the acronym JCPOA); and Annex B, covering other matters including ballistic missiles.

Annex B isn’t actually an agreement. Iran is not a party to it. Instead it is a statement by the Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany, intended to “improve transparency” and “create an atmosphere conducive” to implementing the deal. The key paragraph of Annex B says: “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons” for eight years.

Note the language I’ve italicized. Iran is not forbidden from engaging in all ballistic-missile activity, merely “called upon” to do so. The range of proscribed activity is distinctly limited, applying only to missiles “designed to be capable” of carrying nuclear weapons. Implementation is left to the Security Council.

The loopholes are larger than the activity supposedly barred. Iran simply denies that its missiles are “designed” for nuclear payloads—because, after all, it does not have a nuclear-weapons program. This is a palpable lie, but both the JCPOA and a unanimous Security Council accepted it. Resolution 2231 includes a paragraph: “Welcoming Iran’s reaffirmation in the JCPOA that it will under no circumstances ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” The ayatollahs have been doing precisely that ever since their 1979 revolution.

Finally, Resolution 2231 itself also merely “calls upon” Iran to comply with Annex B’s ballistic-missile limits, even as the same sentence says that all states “shall comply” with other provisions. When the Security Council wants to “prohibit” or “demand” or even “decide,” it knows how to say so. It did not here.

The upshot is very simple: Iran can’t violate the ballistic-missile language because it has reaffirmed that it doesn’t have a nuclear-weapons program. Really, what could go wrong?

These are weasel words of the highest order, coupled with flat-out misrepresentation by Iran and willful blindness by the United States. The Jell-O will not stick to the wall. The deal cannot be “strictly enforced.” And this is only one example of the slippery language found throughout the deal.

Pentagon sources have said that the missile Iran recently tested failed while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. This is telling. If the missile program were, as Iran claims, only for launching weather and communications satellites, there would be no need to test re-entry vehicles. The goal would be to put satellites in orbit and keep them there. But nuclear warheads obviously have to re-enter the atmosphere to reach their targets. The recent tests provide even more evidence of what Iran’s ballistic-missile program has always been about, namely supplying delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons.

Time always works on the side of nuclear proliferators, and the Iran deal is providing the ayatollahs with protective camouflage. Every day Washington lets pass without ripping the deal up is a day of danger for America and its friends. We proceed slowly at our peril.

Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

The return of the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK

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This article appeared in the Boston Globe on January 30, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 30, 2017

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s just-completed visit to Philadelphia and Washington came at a critical time for both her country and the United States, and particularly for the one-week old Trump administration. Rarely in peacetime have two national leaders faced a more consequential opportunity to redirect, dramatically and swiftly, the course of international affairs.

The prospects here lie at the core of the alliance structures America has created since 1945 to protect its vital global interests. Strong and lasting alliances are not merely transactional. They do not rest on accounting examinations of recent debits and credits. Instead, they rest on profoundly important shared values and interests, foundations that endure transitory political and economic bumps in the relationship. This is how the US-UK “special relationship” was built over the years since it was forged in World War II.

May and Trump made it clear in their public remarks that they intend to rejuvenate the “special relationship,” in both economic and political affairs. That does not mean they will necessarily agree on everything, exemplified by their likely conflicting views on sanctions imposed on Russia for its military adventurism across international borders in Ukraine. Nonetheless, a newly independent Britain and a new Trump administration have far more uniting than dividing them.

May’s government is currently undertaking the unprecedented task of unwinding itself from the cumbersome, bureaucratic and regulatory morass of the European Union. The Brexit decision, made last June 23 in a referendum, confounded trans-Atlantic business and political elites, who could not imagine that the desire for mere self-government could overcome the secular theology reflected in their conception of Europe’s “ever closer union.” May herself opposed Brexit, but now leads a government whose place in history will be determined by whether it succeeds or fails in exiting the EU on terms advantageous to Britain.

In America, Trump’s victory upended decades of belief in multilateral trade deals essentially for their own sake. The new president has said he believes in free trade, insisting correctly that true free trade is not reflected in the dirigiste, “managed trade” provisions that characterize so many so-called free trade agreements. Perhaps even more importantly, Trump has said emphatically that he will follow a revolutionary principle in administering trade treaties: He will expect the other parties to adhere to their obligations, and will not conceal or ignore their violations.

The potential for a dramatically different trade and investment agreement between America and Britain, despite obvious risks and difficulties, should be the highest and most immediate priority. Both countries can shed layers of stifling government regulations in the process, and London and New York could sustain and enhance their reputations as the financial capitals of the world, while competitors in Europe and Asia lag behind.

US businesses could reach UK markets all but closed-off for decades because of high EU external barriers to trade. In short order, Canada could join this new bilateral trade relationship, with other non-EU nations in Europe coming on board in due course. Not only would the prospect of a US-UK agreement strengthen London’s hand in the exit negotiations with Brussels, it would encourage nations remaining within the EU to demand that the lords of Brussels wake up to what is happening in the wider world.

Politically, with Britain freeing itself from the EU’s common foreign and defense policy, it will resume its role as a full leader of NATO. For far too long, NATO’s European members (with some notable exceptions) have simply not adequately attended to threats to international peace and security. Sustained, disciplined thinking on global threats like nuclear proliferation and international terrorism, and threats on the Continent itself from a belligerent Kremlin, has been lacking, also for far too long.

As Britain once again demonstrates a broader perspective, the possibility of making NATO a global organization, as suggested by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Maria Aznar, can receive careful attention. Admitting Australia, Singapore, Japan and Israel, to name just a few, could contribute significantly to international stability if they thought NATO capable of resuming a vibrant existence.

Especially in Europe, there is misplaced concern that Trump will work actively for the collapse of the EU. He doesn’t have to; the Europeans themselves are doing quite a job of demonstrating the EU’s manifold internal problems. The new White House should simply cease propping up the EU’s mercantilist, anti-democratic, inward-looking proclivities, and nature will take its course.

And although May and Trump appear to differ on the Russia sanctions issue, this is neither new nor unusual in US-UK relations. Tony Blair was accused in Britain of being George W. Bush’s poodle during the second Iraq war, a charge that was unfair and untrue from the outset. Neither Theresa May nor Donald Trump are anyone’s poodles, and a new special relationship will be the stronger for it.

John R. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was the US ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006.

Moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem as Simple as Moving the Sign from One Building to Another

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton discussed the prospective relocation of America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem:

“One of the things that distinguished Donald Trump, and you can see it even in his first days in office, is during the campaign he said ‘I’m going to do X, Y, and Z’ – and miraculous to behold, he’s actually doing it on so many different fronts, internationally and domestically.”

“You can move the embassy by taking the plaque off the wall at our consulate building in Jerusalem and putting up a sign that says ‘U.S. Embassy.’ You can build a bigger embassy, the full-scope embassy, obviously over a longer period of time, but you could make the dramatic move quickly.”

“Once you slow down, once you miss the chance to strike dramatically in the early days…once you give up that opportunity, the cost actually mounts.”

“Israel has the land. Let’s forget the legalities. Israel has control of the territory. They believe it’s their land, dating back historically, and they’re building settlements on it. I tell you what, nobody’s going to stop them.”

Isolationist? No — Donald Trump has a vision for the world and he’ll make it happen

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This article appeared in The Telegraph on January 23, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 23, 2017

Donald Trump’s inauguration unquestionably heralds a rejuvenated US-UK Special Relationship. His view of America’s international role requires it, featuring, for example, reversing Barack Obama’s disdainful relegation of Britain to “the back of the queue” for trade negotiations after leaving the EU. Symbolically, mere hours after taking the constitutional oath, President Trump returned Winston Churchill’s bust to the Oval Office. Theresa May’s imminent visit to Washington is, therefore, perfectly timed.

In his 16-minute inaugural address, Trump’s focus was domestic, contrasting with John F Kennedy’s even-briefer 1961 speech emphasising Cold War themes. Post-Kennedy, the addresses became longer and less memorable, sounding like programmatic State of the Union messages. Trump chose brevity for the sake of emphasis.

Though directed primarily at US voters, but also perfectly appropriate for UK Leave supporters, Trump said: “It is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” Indeed, that happens universally, but only America, Britain and a few others are criticised for it. The new president stressed that his administration would be “transferring power from Washington and giving it back to you, the American people”. But he also wanted to dramatise national unity and patriotism. In a hint of Disraelian “one nation” language, Trump said: “Through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.”

Not awed by the EU

Trump’s emphasis on “making America great again” and “America first” both highlight his implicit revival of American exceptionalism and its essentially inexorable consequence that Washington’s international role will not only not diminish but increase. Although critics cringe at the historical antecedent to “America first”, they should remember John McCain’s inspiring 2008 presidential campaign slogan, “country first”. Just which country do readers think McCain had in mind?

Some European commentators incorrectly predicted doom and gloom about Washington’s future commitments to NATO. Certainly, Trump has criticised NATO, as has almost everyone familiar with its sclerotic decision-making and the failure of too many members to meet their agreed levels of defence spending. Trump is merely saying publicly and emphatically what others have said privately for decades: NATO needs to shape up. That’s what Trump meant in his inaugural address: “We will reinforce old alliances.” Is there something in that sentence that is hard to understand?

Undoubtedly, Trump is not as awed by the EU as Obama or even previous Republican presidents. And with good reason. For decades, the EU has failed on multiple fronts, largely because it became (or always was) primarily an unrealistic political project intended to eviscerate the very concept of the nation state, rather than an economic one. The EU is failing because the citizens of its member states do not feel the EU’s remote leaders have their best interests at heart. Trump’s victory and inaugural address should be warning signals to Europe’s tired and disconnected elites.

Rebooted special relationship

It is a logical extension of this approach that Mrs May will become the first foreign leader to hold talks with the new president later this week. Even though few of the new administration’s political appointees are in office as yet, there will never be greater receptivity to inventive ideas for maximising the post-Brexit economic benefits to both countries. Mrs May and her advisers need to think creatively about the trade and broader economic relationship they want to achieve.

Moreover, a mutually beneficial bilateral US-UK agreement will strengthen London’s hand with Brussels. Contrary to what critics have said, Trump is not against free trade. He simply expects other countries to adhere to the terms they agreed to – something Britain should have no trouble doing. And remember, this is the man who wrote The Art of the Deal.

On international political issues, Trump stated unambiguously that his priority is to “unite the civilised world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth”. This is no small task. By its terms, it means not merely defeating Islamic State and al-Qaeda, but also terrorism’s principal funder and state sponsor, the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran. This is not the message of an isolationist president, or one who misses the fundamental ideological threat posed by the radical Islamicists​. It unquestionably means the US will look to its allies for counsel and co-operation in their common struggle.

Obama’s Legacy: America ‘Endangered Now on Fronts That Were Inconceivable Eight Years Ago’

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The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on events surrounding this week’s transfer of power in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve seen eight years of consistent decline consistent decline of American influence around the world, a weakening of structures that have been set up over decades to protect American interests around the world.”

“The decline of this influence has made America a much less-safe space. We’re endangered now on fronts that were inconceivable eight years ago.”

“Trying to recreate those positions of strength around the world, not just military but political and economic, that build up structures of deterrence that keep our adversaries at bay is the top priority and it’s going to be difficult to do given the damage Obama has done.”

“NATO and the U.N. are very different organizations. NATO as a common defense organization is a creation of the United States and intended to protect our interests in the North Atlantic area.”The strength of the alliance if to our advantage. If we don’t look out for stability in Europe to protect ourselves, nobody else is going to do it for us.”

Revisit the ‘One-China Policy’

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This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 17, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 17, 2017

The People’s Republic of China sent its aircraft carrier, Liaoning, through the Strait of Taiwan early this month, responding at least in part to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s phone conversation congratulating US president-elect Donald Trump.

That’s Beijing’s style: make an unacceptable long-distance phone call, and an aircraft carrier shows up in your backyard. It is akin to proclaiming the South China Sea a Chinese province and constructing islands in international waters to house military bases; to declaring a provocative Air Defence Identification Zone in the East China Sea; and to seizing Singaporean military equipment recently transiting Hong Kong for annual military exercises on Taiwan.

It is high time to revisit the “one-China policy” and decide what the US thinks it means, 45 years after the Shanghai Communique. Donald Trump has said the policy is negotiable. Negotiation should not mean Washington gives and Beijing takes. We need strategically coherent priorities, reflecting not 1972 but 2017, encompassing more than trade and monetary policy, and specifically including Taiwan. Let’s see how an increasingly belligerent China responds.

Constantly chanting “one-China policy” is a favourite Beijing negotiating tactic: pick a benign-sounding slogan; persuade foreign interlocutors to accept it; and then redefine it to Beijing’s satisfaction, dragging the unwary foreigners along for the ride. To Beijing, “one China” means the PRC is the sole legitimate “China”, as sloganised in “the three nos”: no Taiwanese independence; no two Chinas; no one China, one Taiwan. For too long, the US has unthinkingly succumbed to this wordplay.

Even in the Shanghai Communique, however, Washington merely “acknowledges” that “all Chinese” believe “there is but one China”, of which Taiwan is part. Taiwanese public opinion surveys for decades have shown fewer and fewer citizens describing themselves as “Chinese”. Who allowed them to change their minds? Washington has always said reunification had to come peacefully and by mutual agreement. Mutual agreement hasn’t come in 67 years, and won’t in any foreseeable future, especially given China’s increasingly brutal reinterpretation of another slogan — “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong.

Beijing and its acolytes expected that Taiwan would simply collapse. It hasn’t. Chiang Kai-shek’s 1949 retreat was not a temporary respite before final surrender. Neither the Shanghai Communique nor then US president Jimmy Carter’s 1978 derecognition of the Republic of China persuaded Taiwan to go gentle into that good night — especially after congress enacted the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.

Eventually Taiwan even became a democracy, with the 1996 popular election of Lee Teng-hui, the peaceful, democratic transfer of power to the opposition party in 2000, and further peaceful transfers in 2008 and last year. So inconsiderate of those free-thinking Taiwanese.

What should the US do now? In addition to a diplomatic ladder of escalation, we can take concrete steps helpful to US interests. Here is one prompted by China’s recent impoundment of Singapore’s military equipment. Spoiler alert: Beijing will not approve.

America could enhance its East Asia military posture by increasing US military sales to Taiwan and by again stationing military personnel and assets there, probably negotiating favourable financial terms. We need not approximate Douglas MacArthur’s image of Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, or renegotiate a mutual defence treaty. Basing rights and related activity do not imply a full defence alliance. Our activities would not be dissimilar to Singapore’s, although they could be more extensive. The Taiwan Relations Act is expansive enough to encompass such a relationship, so new legislative authority is unnecessary.

Some may object that a US military presence would violate the Shanghai Communique, but the language of the Taiwan Relations Act should take precedence. Circumstances in the region are fundamentally different from 1972, as Beijing would be the first to proclaim. Nearby Asian governments would cite the enormous increase in Chinese military power and belligerence. Most important, effectively-permanent changes in the Taiwan-China relationship have occurred, making much of the communiqué obsolete. The doctrine of rebus sic stantibus — things thus standing — justifies taking a different perspective than in 1972.

Taiwan’s geographic location is closer to East Asia’s mainland and the South China Sea than either Okinawa or Guam, giving US forces greater flexibility for rapid deployment throughout the region should the need arise. Washington might also help ease tensions with Tokyo by redeploying at least some US forces from Okinawa, a festering problem in the US-Japan relationship. And the current leadership of the Philippines offers little chance of increasing military and other co-operation there in the foreseeable future.

Guaranteeing freedom of the seas, deterring military adventurism, and preventing unilateral territorial annexations are core American interests in East and Southeast Asia. Today, as opposed to 1972, a closer military relationship with Taiwan would be a significant step towards achieving these objectives. If China disagrees, by all means let’s talk.

Previous Candidates Promised to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Trump ‘Is Going to Do It’

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The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on the potential relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem:

“I think there are good substantive reasons for the United States to move its embassy there, in much the same way it was a good thing for Donald Trump to take the congratulatory call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen.”

“Let me make one thing clear that perhaps many listeners don’t understand: the U.S. embassy can be in a part of Jerusalem that nobody – not even the Palestinian Authority – has ever claimed ought to be part of a Palestinian state.”

“The notion that somehow we’re violating some commitment to the Palestinians, or prejudging the outcome of negotiations over the future status of Jerusalem, is absolutely wrong, if the embassy is ultimately placed in West Jerusalem – which no one has argued, since 1948, was ever going to be anything other than Israeli territory.”

Obama’s not-so-smooth transition

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This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on January 7, 2017. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
January 7, 2017

America’s presidential transitions are critical to smoothly transferring power but are simultaneously fraught with danger. Decisions by the departing president almost invariably affect the new president. While we must not impair the basic constitutional principle that there is only one president at a time, sensible leaders recognize that the world does not begin anew on Inauguration Day.

Both the president and the president-elect can fulfill their respective electoral mandates without undue friction if they handle the task well. If they handle it poorly, America and its friends worldwide unnecessarily suffer uncertainty and confusion that tarnishes the outgoing president’s reputation and unfairly hampers his successor.

Unfortunately, we are now experiencing the second kind of transition. On both domestic and international matters, Barack Obama has taken sweeping executive actions after Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 election but before his Jan. 20 inauguration. These include broad executive orders precluding oil and gas production on hundreds of millions of acres of offshore federal areas; designating broad swathes of Utah and Nevada as national monuments to prevent even carefully monitored economic development; rushing through voluminous new economic regulations; and allowing countless political appointees to “burrow in” to federal career jobs, thereby preventing the incoming administration from removing them.

Internationally, Obama allowed the adoption last month of an unprecedented, harshly anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution, sanctioned Russia, and expelled Russian personnel from America because of alleged cyberattacks in the 2016 elections and harassment of U.S. diplomats in Moscow. He also made further concessions to Iran’s ayatollahs to save the collapsing 2015 nuclear deal. And we still have nearly two weeks until Inauguration Day — ample time for more mischief.

Why has Obama gone to such lengths, which he knows are completely contrary to the policies of the new administration and Republican congressional majorities? While every outgoing administration engages in such activities to some degree, that being human nature, none recently has matched Obama’s frenetic pace. Certainly, building his legacy, boxing in the Trump White House and exacting a bit of political revenge are likely factors.

But the surest explanation is that Obama, like most political leaders, Republican and Democrat, simply did not expect Trump to beat Hillary Clinton. Much of what Obama is now doing he would not have done before Nov. 8 for fear of providing ammunition to his political opposition. Since our presidential campaign season is basically now two years long, Obama had little leeway after losing control of the Senate in 2014 (having already lost the House of Representatives in 2010).

His administration likely did not foresee any problems in a surge of post-Nov. 8 activity because, assuming Clinton won, they did not fear his initiatives would be reversed. He could take controversial steps, receive both the credit and the criticism, and leave Clinton a clean slate. Almost surely she would not have rolled back any significant measures. Trump’s victory changed everything, confronting Obama with the unpleasant reality that both his plans for the transition period and his entire legacy were suddenly in jeopardy.

Other outgoing presidents have not been so churlish. Perhaps the best example is how President George H.W. Bush handled his November 1992 decision to intervene militarily in Somalia after losing just a few weeks before to Bill Clinton. Bush was deeply concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Somalia, which had effectively descended into anarchy. Already a lame duck, Bush nonetheless boldly decided on the day before Thanksgiving to dispatch U.S. military forces (and others willing to assist) to open channels for humanitarian relief supplies to reach endangered Somali civilians.

Although, in the initial stage, Bush insisted on U.S. command to ensure the intervention succeeded, he was prepared to turn over responsibility to a U.N. peacekeeping force once the mission was accomplished. Success in fact came quickly. Thus, as Clinton’s inauguration approached, President Bush confronted the decision of what to do with the deployed American troops. He informed the incoming Clinton team that he was prepared either to withdraw all U.S. troops by Jan. 20, or leave them in place, depending on what the Clinton administration policy would be. President-elect Clinton responded that he would like the troops to remain, and so they did. Clinton went on to pursue a failed policy of nation-building in Somalia, including the deaths of 43 U.S. troops, but these were all entirely his decisions, unrelated to what he inherited on Jan. 20.

Bush was fully president until Jan. 20, 1993, and he did what he thought needed to be done in Somalia. But he had both the grace and the wisdom to know that his successor might have a different view, and he acted accordingly. President George W. Bush understood his father’s insight, and in his turn acted to provide President-elect Obama with a smooth transition.

It’s too bad Obama hasn’t followed their examples.

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and, previously, the undersecretary of State for arms control and international security.

The Two-State Solution Is Dead

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The former U.S. ambassador discussed out-going Secretary of State John Kerry’s anti-Israel speech delivered Wednesday:

“Just as a matter of empirical reality, the two-state solution is dead. That’s about the only thing John Kerry came close to getting right yesterday.”

“The notion that this is simply consistent with prior U.S. policy, which is the Obama administration line, is flatly incorrect.”

“The failure to veto this Resolution 2334 reverses fifty years of American policy, ever since the 1967 war between Israel and the surrounding Arab states, which ended in the iconic Resolution 242, the so-called Land for Peace Resolution.”

Obama’s Parting Betrayal of Israel

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Trump must ensure there are consequences for supporting U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334.

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on December 27, 2016. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
December 27, 2016

Last Friday, on the eve of Hanukkah and Christmas, Barack Obama stabbed Israel in the front. The departing president refused to veto United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334—a measure ostensibly about Israeli settlement policy, but clearly intended to tip the peace process toward the Palestinians. Its adoption wasn’t pretty. But, sadly, it was predictable.

Mr. Obama’s refusal to use Washington’s veto was more than a graceless parting gesture. Its consequences pose major challenges for American interests. President-elect Donald Trump should echo Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s defiant and ringing 1975 response to the U.N.’s “Zionism is racism” resolution: that America “does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”

Mr. Obama argues that Resolution 2334 continues a bipartisan American policy toward the Middle East. It does precisely the opposite. The White House has abandoned any pretense that the actual parties to the conflict must resolve their differences. Instead, the president has essentially endorsed the Palestinian politico-legal narrative about territory formerly under League of Nations’ mandate, but not already under Israeli control after the 1948-49 war of independence.

Resolution 2334 implicitly repeals the iconic Resolution 242, which affirmed, in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, that all affected nations, obviously including Israel, had a “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” It provided further that Israel should withdraw “from territories occupied in the recent conflict”—but did not require withdrawal from “the” or “all” territories, thereby countenancing less-than-total withdrawal. In this way Resolution 242 embodied the “land for peace” theory central to America’s policy in the Middle East ever since.

By contrast, Resolution 2334 refuses to “recognize any changes to the [1967] lines, including those with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.” This language effectively defines Israel’s borders, even while superficially affirming direct talks. Chatter about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is nothing but a truism, equally applicable to the U.S. and Canada, or to any nations resolving trivial border disputes.

There can be no “land for peace”—with Israel retroceding territory in exchange for peace, as in the 1979 Camp David agreement with Egypt—if the land is not legitimately Israel’s to give up in the first place. Anti-Israel imagineers have used this linguistic jujitsu as their central tactic since 1967, trying to create “facts on the ground” in the U.N.’s corridors rather than by actually negotiating with Israel. Mr. Obama has given them an indefinite hall pass.

The Trump administration could veto future Security Council measures that extend Resolution 2334 (e.g., purportedly recognizing a Palestinian state). Mr. Trump could also veto efforts to implement Resolution 2334 (e.g., the sanctions for what it calls Israel’s “blatant violation under international law”). Still, there are significant dangers. Other U.N. bodies, such as the General Assembly and the numerous specialized agencies where America has no veto, can carry Resolution 2334 forward.

Even more perilous is that individual nations or the European Union can legislate their own sanctions under Resolution 2334’s provision that “all States” should “distinguish in their relevant dealings” between Israel’s territory “and the territories occupied since 1967.” This is a hunting license to ostracize Israel from the international economic system, exposing it and its citizens to incalculable personal and financial risk.

Once in office, President Trump should act urgently to mitigate or reverse Resolution 2334’s consequences. Mr. Obama has made this significantly harder by rendering America complicit in assaulting Israel. Nonetheless, handled properly, there is an escape from both the current danger zone and the wasteland in which the search for Middle East peace has long wandered.

First, there must be consequences for the adoption of Resolution 2334. The Trump administration should move to repeal the resolution, giving the 14 countries that supported it a chance to correct their error. Nations that affirm their votes should have their relations with Washington adjusted accordingly. In some cases this might involve vigorous diplomatic protests. But the main perpetrators in particular should face more tangible consequences.

As for the United Nations itself, if this mistake is not fixed the U.S. should withhold at least its assessed contributions to the U.N.—which amount to about $3 billion annually or 22%-25% of its total regular and peacekeeping budgets. Meanwhile, Washington should continue funding specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency, if only to dissuade them from entering the Resolution 2334 swamp.

Second, Mr. Trump should unambiguously reject Mr. Obama’s view that Resolution 2334 is justified to save the “two-state solution.” That goal, at best, has been on life-support for years. After Mr. Obama’s provocation, its life expectancy might now be only until Jan. 20. And good riddance. This dead-end vision, by conjuring an imaginary state with zero economic viability, has harmed not only Israel but also the Palestinians, the principal intended beneficiaries.

Far better to essay a “three-state solution,” returning Gaza to Egypt and giving those parts of the West Bank that Israel is prepared to cede to Jordan. By attaching Palestinian lands to real economies (not a make-believe one), average Palestinians (not their political elite), will have a true chance for a better future. Other alternatives to the two-state approach should also be considered.

Mr. Obama loves using the word “pivot” for his ever-changing priorities. It is now up to Mr. Trump to pivot away from his predecessor’s disastrous policies on Israel. Taking up the challenge will be difficult, but well worth the effort for America and its friends world-wide.