Biden's senseless quest for a deal with Iran
The U.S. is engaged in combat with Iran’s proxies in Syria. On Tuesday, our forces conducted air strikes targeting infrastructure used by groups with ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. On Wednesday, Iranian-backed forces fired rockets at two U.S. military bases. Three American servicemen were injured.
U.S. forces responded with helicopter attacks. According to U.S. Central Command, we destroyed three vehicles used to launch the attacks against our bases and killed two or three enemy militants.
In other news, the U.S. is deep into negotiations with Iran. If the negotiations produce an agreement, the U.S. will provide that regime with billions of dollars, a sizeable amount of which undoubtedly will be used to carry out military aggression like that which the U.S. is countering in Syria.
There should be a strong presumption against enriching an expansionist enemy whose proxies are battling our troops. The facts pertaining to the current negotiations do not overcome this presumption.
Any sensible analysis of our nuclear negotiations with Iran must begin by identifying what both sides want to achieve through an agreement. The U.S. wants to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That, at least, should be our objective.
Iran wants two things: (1) to bolster its economy so as to ensure the regime’s survival and (2) to obtain more funding with which to promote aggression and terrorism.
The next step in the analysis is to consider whether an agreement can achieve the objectives of the two sides. And therein lies reason why we shouldn’t be negotiating: Iran can easily get what it wants through negotiations. The U.S. can’t possibly get what it wants.
The first point obvious. In any deal, Iran would gain relief from sanctions and a huge amount of revenue — just as it did in the deal the Obama administration reached with the mullahs.
The second point — the impossibility of the U.S. achieving its goal of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power — becomes obvious upon a moment’s reflection.
Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have sacrificed vast amounts of resources and cemented its status as a pariah state by working assiduously to develop them.
Iran wants to obtain nukes for a very good reason — the best reason it could have. The regime understands that possessing them promotes, and probably ensures, its survival.
The mullahs are evil, but not stupid. They see what has happened to rogue regimes that have nukes and to those that lacked them. The North Korean regime is in no danger of falling despite dreadful domestic conditions and powerful enemies.
Libya renounced nukes. Not long thereafter, the regime fell and its leader was killed. Iraq never renounced nukes, but neither did it develop them. Iraq was invaded, its regime overthrown, and its leader executed.
We need not confine this analysis to rogue regimes. Ukraine gave up its nukes. Does it regret that decision now that Russia has invaded? I think so. Does Taiwan, under existential threat from Red China, wish it had nukes? I think so.
In short, it’s unrealistic — and in my view idiotic — to suppose that Iran will enter an agreement that would stop it from developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s march to becoming a nuclear power can be halted only by military action or regime change.
The most negotiations conceivably can do is slow down the march. In a best case scenario, a nuclear deal would push back the date Iran becomes a nuclear power by a few years.
Barack Obama thought that pushing back this date might prevent Iran from developing nukes at all. The theory — I would call it a hope — was that the Iranian regime, appreciating the benefits of an end to sanctions and pariah status, would give up its nuclear ambitions and its aggressive, terrorist designs. It would join the “community of nations,” to use that vacuous phrase.
This was never a plausible scenario. Today, we know it was a pipe dream.
From the effective date of the agreement until the time Donald Trump renounced it, Iran showed no sign of becoming less aggressive or terroristic. If anything, bolstered by its vastly increased revenue stream, the regime stepped up its campaign to promote its expansionist, anti-Western designs.
(Donald Trump indulged in a fantasy not that different from Obama’s. He thought that by reinstating sanctions, he could bring Iran back to the negotiating table and, through his special brand of artful dealing, reach an agreement that would succeed where Obama’s agreement had failed. It didn’t happen and never would have. Trump, by the way, seemed to entertain a similar fantasy with regard to North Korea.)
But what’s the alternative to negotiating with Iran? There are two. One is to maintain, and if possible strengthen, the sanctions regime. This won’t cause Iran to give up its quest for nukes, but neither will a negotiated agreement. And in this scenario, at least we won’t be enriching a regime that’s making war against our allies and our interests.
Furthermore, in this scenario there’s a chance Israel will attack and degrade Iran’s nuclear capability. There’s even a slight chance of regime change due to a collapsing economy.
The other alternative is to attack Iran’s nuclear capability ourselves. Would this course of action be preferable to negotiating an agreement or just letting things slide?
That depends on two things: First, how the ensuring war would go and second, what the consequences of Iran becoming a nuclear power would be.
No one can safely predict how a war with Iran would go. I believe that, if carried out well by the U.S., the war would it would end quickly and well. But who can safely predict that we would manage the war well?
As to the consequences of Iran becoming nuclear, I believe they would be dire. North Korea wanted nukes so the regime could remain in power. It is not, as far as I can tell, an expansionist power.
Iran is. It wants to dominate the Middle East. It wants to destroy Israel, our close ally. And the regime’s mantra is “death to America.”
There’s good reason why both Republican and Democratic presidents have consistently said that Iran becoming a nuclear power is “unacceptable.” Unacceptable enough to risk war over? That’s a hard question.
But whether to enter into a deal with Iran whereby we enrich the regime in exchange for promises that, even if kept, might delay Iran’s arrival as a nuclear power by only a few years — that’s an easy question. We shouldn’t do it.
But that’s just what Joe Biden is striving to do.