Iran Nuclear Deal

My position on Iran having a nuclear weapon is clear, they should never be allowed to have one, at least while this current pro-terror and religious fundamentalist regime is in power. My thoughts on Iran having a peaceful nuclear energy program Iran are also clear. Why would one of the most energy-rich country in the world need a new source of energy? Given the deceptive behavior Iran has had since 1979, I wouldn't bet that their intentions are peaceful. Then there is the host of problems that comes out of a nuclear Iran: existentialist threat to Israel, Sunni's escalating reactions, emboldening of Iran's proxy terror groups (i.e. Hamas, Hezbollah), and I could go on. 

I have always been skeptical of the deal the Obama administration has been negotiating with the mullahs. Moreover, the constant posturing of the ayatollahs during the negotiations on key points like immediate sanctions relief, no snap backs and no 24/7 inspections left me extremely worried. So when CNN broke the news this week, my angst level shot up. I was in China and could not access the Internet easily to educate myself on the deal's content. I still haven't looked at all the details, but it seems that important aspects have been negotiated by the West. First, snap back mechanisms are in and should be automatic. 24/7 inspections of key sites, including military sites, seem to be covered as well. It looks like Iran can object to specific visits by the IAEA, but that would give Iran a maximum of 3 weeks, after which sanctions will automatically snap back if an acceptable solution has not been negotiated by Iran and the P5+1. This is good and better than what I expected. However, this deal falls short on 2 points: 10 year timeframe and fast sanction relief. 

10-year timeframe:

The US objective of the deal silently went from stopping Iran nuclear program in return for Iran international legitimization, to Iran becoming a nuclear threshold power, while getting legitimized. That's indeed one of the main danger of this deal. In 10 years from now, assuming Iran hasn't broken out, Iran could legitimately become a recognized nuclear military power. 10 years is not a lot of time, it's actually very little history-wise. The counter-argument is that if legitimized, Iran could be a very different country in 10 years, in a very different Middle East. That's true but it's a big gamble.

Fast relief of sanctions:

It is wise to reward good behavior with sanctions relief. However, and I may be mistaken, it looks like Iran will get an enormous amount of frozen oil money just for signing the deal. That is of great concern, especially for Israel, whose mortal enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah, will get a new lifeline to dramatically advance their terror agenda against the Jewish state. 

So what to think of all this? And what should be Israel next steps?

Let's face it, this deal is far from being ideal, but we have to think of the alternative. What would happen if we had no deal? First, deal or no deal, Iran will get the bomb. However, no deal means Iran stays a pariah state, Iran most likely continues enriching uranium, and Iran chooses their moment to break out. So on that point, assuming Iran sticks by its covenants, the deal gives us 10 years and a timetable to prepare. At least that should give Israel time to strategically prepare for when the outcome turns ugly. Then there's the lifting of the sanctions and the resulting money in Iran's coffers. As I explain above, that's  an issue, a real one. However, there is evidence suggesting that apart from the U.S., the international community appetite for sanctions would have seriously waned down in case of no deal. That's because Iran can buy a lot of contracts and the world wants in. 

Bottom line- this is a bad deal but it's an OK "bad deal". Congress should make sure it clarifies the snap back mechanisms and inspection clauses instead of rejecting the deal, as Obama will veto a rejection anyway. Congress should also offer Israel an enhancement to the current security arrangement between the 2 countries and the U.S. President should openly state that the U.S. will consider any heightened Hezbollah or Hamas attack on Israel as an attack on the U.S. itself. As for Israel, the Netanyahu government should bury the hatchet and work with Obama on a joint plan to address the new threats from Hamas and Hezbollah. In my humble opinion, it would be an unwise course of action for Israel security to lobby Congress to stop the deal at this point. The train has unfortunately already left the station and Iran will get the bomb, no matter what.

Iraq Should Not Be US Responsibility At This Stage

Yesterday, the Obama administration declared that it could not be in charge of Iraq's security anymore.

For once, I agree with Obama that Iraq should not be America’s problem, at least at this juncture.

To be clear though, I care about Iraq, I see ISIS as a global threat, and I believe in troops on the ground in certain situations. Also, even though I believe we should never have gotten into Iraq, I do believe that we got out way too prematurely. But we got out, and since we have left, the geopolitical context has substantially changed.

By that, I mean Iran’s assertiveness and Syria’s civil war.

In Iraq and Syria, Iran and its proxies, are determined to fight ISIS. It’s not that Iran’s mullahs disagree with ISIS view of the world; it’s that old Shia-Sunni rivalry that is at play. That rivalry is so acute, that I am actually convinced that Iran wants to see ISIS decimated more than the US or any Western country. So why not let them do the dirty work for us? We should, and here are further reasons that we, in fact, must do so:

1. Sucking Iran In- by not bringing its firepower to Iraq, the US is inviting Iran to get involved even more seriously to defeat ISIS. That’s a lot of fronts on which Iran will have to be seriously engaged- Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Consequently, Iran’s hands become tied and less free to project their terror agenda elsewhere.

2. Casualties Are Not Us- it may sound horrible to say this, but I am all for having fanatics on one side fighting fanatics on the other side. Let’s have each side inflicting many casualties to the other.

3. Iran Nuclear Deal- getting out of Iraq reduces one important US dependency on Iran, which should hopefully lessen Iran’s leverage on America in the current dangerous nuclear deal negotiations.

4. Israel’s Security- Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy declared this week “Hezbollah, day by day, is contributing to the security of the state of Israel”. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s actually quite logical. Hezbollah, a proxy or Iran, armed and trained by Iran Revolutionary Guards, has been summoned by Iran to help fight ISIS in Syria. If Iran has to double their effort in Iraq, due to America’s position, then Iran will make more demands out of Hezbollah, first in Syria and probably in Iraq too. This means less Hezbollah’s provocations in the north of Israel. This also means Hezbollah’s well-trained fighters both dying and inflicting casualties on ISIS in a way that neither Israel nor America can. Indeed, if Hezbollah or Iran creates collateral damage or destroys a place of worship, nobody in the Muslim world would condemn. You can, however, imagine the outcry if it were the US or Israel doing so.

Making Sense of Obama’s Middle East Strategy

The Middle East is in big turmoil. Iran is surging. Iraq is a mess. Yemen is bound to be a bigger mess. Syria is a civilian slaughterhouse. ISIS is on the offensive. Sunnis are bombing Shiites. Shiites are killing Sunnis. Israel is genuinely concerned about its existence. The Palestinians are not going to have a state anytime soon.

And, America is retreating!

In fact, while attempting to retreat, America has put itself in various paradoxical situations:

• The US left Iraq but is still responsible for sorting it out

• The US left Yemen but is forced back through a Sunni coalition

• The US abandoned Egypt, triggered a terrorist group “democratic” takeover, maintained its arm shipments to the Muslim Brotherhood government but declared an arm embargo on the subsequent el-Sisi government

• The US has now lifted the embargo on the el-Sisi government

• The US is revisiting its long lasting relationship with Israel, its strongest ally in the region

• The US is trying to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran while asking for Iran’s help in combating ISIS in Iraq and supporting a Sunni coalition against the same Iran in Yemen

• The US wouldn’t accept Netanyahu’s apology on his shortsighted 2 state comment but doesn’t ask Iran to apologize for its “death to America” comments while negotiating with them

So what’s happening here? Is Obama clueless, anti-Israel, or pro-Arab as many would say?

It does seems as if Obama lacks a strategic compass. This mess is in fact the direct result of his actions and inactions. To be fair though, the Iraq mess could have been avoided if the Bush administration didn’t invade that country on false pretenses. But Obama inherited that situation, and as the executive in charge, we expect him to re-assess each situation and act accordingly. Clearly, leaving Iraq was not the best course of action as it triggered ISIS ascent and accelerated Iran regional assertiveness. But Obama is not clueless, there is more to it than what meets the eye.

Is he anti-Israel? I don’t think so either. There are a lot of facts proving that he is no fan of Netanyahu and probably not the biggest fan of Israel, but to call him an Israel hater would be unfair. He was a proponent for the funding of Iron Dome for instance.

Is he pro-Arab? Again, I don’t think so. He mistreated Egypt. He threatened Assad not to cross the chemical weapon line, but did nothing to defend all these innocent Arab lives after Assad did cross that line. And now, he appears to be turning his back on the Arab Sunni states in favor of Iran.

So what is it? I would venture that the explanation lies in Obama’s radical view of the world, of America’s role in it, and of the Middle East’s strategic importance to the US going forward.

Fundamentally, Obama doesn’t think that the US should be in the Middle East anymore. This is partly due to his liberal views of military disengagement but also due to his belief that the balance of power in the region has shifted in US favor. Indeed, with America’s energy independence at hand, Obama feels that the Middle East now needs the US more than the US needs it. So why continue to spend gigantic amounts of taxpayer money in a region that appears less strategic when he can redirect these budgets towards economic and social issues at home? Within this framework, letting Iran become a nuclear power in 10 to 15 years, or become the regional power, does not pose a strategic threat to the US anymore. Better even, Obama gets an opportunity to be the US President who normalized ties with Iran. What a legacy!

I do not agree with this view of the world and I believe Obama is unleashing a very dangerous situation. True, the US may not need the Middle East in the long run as an energy source, but as long as other parts of the world will, the Middle East will continue to be a region flush with cash that needs to be monitored by America. The combination of wealth and religious fundamentalism has shown to be very lethal and will increasingly threaten the US on its own soil. Moreover, expect Saudi Arabia and many other Sunni gulf states to start a nuclear race. The security guarantees that the US could issue to them so they wouldn’t arm would sound empty as this administration has created for itself a well deserved reputation of abandoning its traditional allies in favor of disengagement in the region and normalization with Iran. That outcome is directly at odds with America’s security as the combination will become wealth + religious fundamentalism + nukes. In the end, Obama can get the US out of the Middle East but he unfortunately won’t be able to get the Middle East out of the US.

Obama’s strategy is dangerous for the US and the world. It makes George W. Bush look like a strategic thinker and Jimmy Carter look like Machiavelli.

Aimer

La rencontrer.
Sans projection, ni idéalisation.
L'aimer pour ce qu'elle est vraiment.
Aimer c'est rencontrer.

Une fille puis une femme.
Une danseuse puis une mère.
Le futur arrive en conjuguant le passé à l'intensité du présent.
Aimer c'est conjuguer.

L'arbre est au gré des saisons.
Ses racines restent là.
Le passé, le présent, la géographie, tout se marie.
Aimer c'est marier.

Les années passent.
Les enfants grandissent.
Les visages changent, les corps aussi.
L'éternelle beauté c'est celle du cœur.
Aimer c'est tout cela, et plus encore.

What If History Had Started To Move Again in Paris?

In 1989, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote his famous essay The End of History.  The central tenet of the essay, and of Fukuyama’s 1992 book that followed, is that the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the advent of Western style liberal democracies and the end of the History of humanity’s socio-cultural evolution. Indeed, except for some cultural and historical differences, by 1989 western countries had adopted a system of market capitalism and democracy based on equality, the rule of law and a system of checks and balances to keep different branches of government in check with one another.

At the time of their publication, the essay and the book were praised and pretty much accepted by all political scientists. 25 years later the main challenges to the End of History’s argument came both from the Chinese example and the widening of income inequality in our democratic societies. I believe that China has not created a new form of totalitarian capitalism and will eventually be forced to democratize under the pressure of a growing and more affluent middle class. Cultural differences are also at play in China and the Singapore example, whose population is ethnically Chinese, likely shows that cultural aspects in these societies make it possible to instill capitalism and then move to democracy (as opposed to Europe and the US, which started with democracy instead). The other, very recent attack on Fukuyama’s assertion has been the widening of income gaps in democracies and the danger that it creates. Thomas Piketty argued in Capital in the Twenty-First Century that free markets have not only enlarged the gap between rich and poor, but have also reduced average incomes across the developed and developing countries. The decline of the middle class is an irrefutable fact, but I personally believe that we will eventually find answers to this important issue within the framework of liberal democracy. Fukuyama himself looked at the issue in his 2012 essay The Future of History that I recommend reading.

Thus I don’t believe that these two developments will eventually threaten the way humanity has chosen to organize itself. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris however, may trigger a debate on another challenge to our democracies. There is a threat that I find substantially more serious, it is the rise of radical Islam, or political Islam. This branch of Islam, financed by the energy-based wealth of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar, is committed to use the worst terrorism tactics in order to conquer all Muslim and non-Muslim lands, also called the House of War in the Quran (Dar El Harb), until the entire world has converted to Islam or submitted to strict sharia law. The ideology of these radicalized Muslims is based on Quran scriptures and fully anchored on transforming the so-called House of War into the House of Islam (Dar El Islam). Until the House of Islam is whole and the sharia law reigns over the entire world, the House of War will not cease to exist and the likes of Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS and Boko Haram will continue to carry their cowardly attacks on innocent people. The events in Paris this week are in fact just the continuation of a long chain of terrible events that started on September 11, 2001 in New York. So they were not unexpected unfortunately. But the rally we all saw on TV today may signal a tipping point. It may herald a new phase where liberal democracies around the world will recognize the issue by naming it correctly and doing away with political correctness when analyzing ways to solve it. That would be a good first step, but I am afraid that our chances of saving our way of life are by no means obvious.

Indeed, and this is my central point, the very democratic principles that we cherish and fight to keep alive, may actually limit and eventually prevent us to fight the evil in front of us. This may sound like an exaggeration, but think about it. How do you “legally” stop sleeper terrorists from striking? The Chouaki brothers and the Jewish market attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, were known by French police as potential sleeping terrorists and were under surveillance for a long time. Yet, they were not stopped. That’s because in a western country like France where the rule of law is in effect, the government cannot arrest someone without the evidence of a crime. The last Bush administration tried to do away with this by opening a prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they could avoid any US or international prosecution but that approach has obviously been harshly criticized and is not replicated around the world. Similarly, the recent open debate about the use of torture on a “human ticking bomb” within the Obama administration shows that people are more committed to democratic methods than to stopping a terrorist at all cost. And they are right! If we compromise on our bedrock democratic principles, then we are ourselves opening the door to a return to totalitarianism and abandoning our system of liberal democracy. Even the Israeli people, which arguably has seen the most terrorist attacks per capita in modern history has rejected the “ticking bomb” argument, using a democratic legal process that culminated in the Israeli Supreme Court outlawing coercive interrogation methods in 1999.  In the words of Aharon Barak, the then Israeli chief justice, a “democratic, freedom-loving society does not accept that investigators may use any means for the purpose of uncovering the truth.”

To be clear, I am fully committed to liberal democracy and to the respect of its associated laws. Also, I am not arguing that we cannot do anything to fight this evil. There is plenty we can do socially, financially, legally and militarily and we must do it. My view however is that even if we did all this within the boundaries of democratic law and principles, we might eventually lose and History will revert back to Islamo-Fascism and Totalitarianism. So what else could we do then? I would argue hope. Yes, hope that secular Muslims, if there is such a group, fight back and reclaim their religion. Perhaps Muslims should read and get inspired by the words of one of their own, the 13th-century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”