The more one reads of the Iran “deal”, the worse it looks. We now know that the chief enforcer of the nuclear side of the deal won’t be the United States but the International Atomic Energy Agency – the same crew that the mullahcracy has hoodwinked, bamboozled, and flat-out deceived for over a dozen years – under terms that the IAEA is refusing to reveal. In other words, we have no real assurance that the lifting of sanctions, the tens of billions in thawed accounts, and the lifting of bans on arms buys and on ballistic missile production will even get us the ten-year “freeze” in Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
In short, there is no possible justification to support this agreement, at all. This leads to the inevitable…question: what do we do then?
My BD colleague, Shaun Kenney, seems convinced the only alternative is war. Assuming that is his view, it is one I do not share. We can avoid war with the mullahs, if we keep our heads and act rationally.
First, we must accept that an unreliable ten-year pause in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions is not enough to justify allowing the regime free reign in exporting terrorism and importing military might. Even assuming the mullahs will keep their word (and given the lack of transparency with the IAEA, we don’t even know if there has been any word to keep), Tehran will become a nuclear-armed regime in 2025. The real question is this: will they also have a much stronger conventional army and ballistic missiles by then? Reject the agreement and the answer is no; accept it and the answer is yes. This conclusion comes even before the recognition that the mullahcracy is certain to use the thawed assets in the deal for exporting terrorism against both Israel and the Sunni gulf states (to say nothing of buying off more Iraqi politicians and alienating Iraqi Sunnis – making our fight against IS that much harder). Simply put, the mullahcracy is weaker without the deal than with the deal.
Of course, this means even the fig-leaf of a “delay” is removed from Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. We have to acknowledge that the democratic world has failed to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power. That means taking some difficult but necessary actions. To wit:
Extending America’s “nuclear umbrella” to the Sunni states and Iraq. This could very well be the only way to ensure these regimes do not develop their own nuclear weaponry. Thus, it would limit the nuclear proliferation to Iran (as unfortunate as that is). That won’t be enough to reassure those states (or Israel), which means we must do something else.
Accept, and fight, the regional Cold War, for that’s what this is. For too long, America has tried one-and-done interventions in the Middle East. Even now, we are hoping that at some point IS will be defeated and we can leave the region. Well, we can’t leave the region. We have enemies that will do us harm, but we also have allies who are willing to help. A combination of containment and support for democratic elements within Tehran can be as successful there as it was in Eastern Europe. Granted, it will take time, but the alternative is given Tehran carte blanche to wreak havoc with our allies and take aim at us. Of course, Tehran has allies of its own, which leads to the last thing we must do with this problem: enlarge it.
Hold Tehran’s ally (the Chinese Communist Party) and its benefactor (the Kremlin) accountable and responsible for anything the mullahs do. Any Middle Eastern Cold War should really be seen in the proper context: as a regional theater in Cold War II. The mullahcracy wouldn’t be nearly as strong and powerful as it is today without Zhongnanhai (which first sold uranium to the mullahs in 1991) and, to a lesser extent, Moscow. When Cuba acquired nuclear weapons, President Kennedy didn’t treat them as some independent threat, because he knew better. From now on, any agreement involving Iran should have Beijing and Moscow on the other side of the table, and both should know that they will face consequences for any Tehran-inspired hijinx, not just Tehran.
In short, it is time to recognize the real problem – the Khomeinist regime – and get serious about taking steps to help the Iranian people bring it down and take their country back. Nuclear weaponry need not be a guarantor of a regime’s survival (indeed, as Mikhail Gorbachev and Pervez Musharraf accidentally proved, it isn’t even one now). Moreover, taking more action to remove the regime from power would send the most powerful signal to others that going nuclear will not save them from the wrath of their own people.
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