Category: Politics

Posted on

Who Is Trying to Stall the Greater Jerusalem Bill?

0As of late last week, the cabinet was scheduled to discuss and push forward the landmark Greater Jerusalem Bill this week. Yet, last night Prime Minister Netanyahu unexpectedly took the bill off the table citing the need to consult with America first.

The Prime Minister said the following: “We are in contact with the Americans; the Americans turned to us seeking to understand the essence of the Law. As we have cooperated with them so far, it is worthwhile talking with them and coordinating them. We are working to promote and develop settlement rather than to promote other considerations.”

However, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz insisted the bill we brought up today.

“This is a historic law that will guarantee the Jewish majority in Jerusalem and strengthen our hold on the city.”

Despite the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, the Americans do not seem phased by the bill, which begs the question of who really is behind the stalling of the Greater Jerusalem Bill?

Bibi Netanyahu has long derided sudden changes in the status quo.  He like manageable situations and although he is not particularly against the Greater Jerusalem Bill his in ability to carve a new paradigm under the Trump administration is increasingly leaving him behind his own Likud Colleagues and other right-wing parties.  Netanyahu’s insistence to clear the move by the Americans is another sign of his disconnect with the fast pace of actual change on the ground.  Israelis have by and large moved beyond the conflict with the “Palestinians” and by doing so understand the need to create a new bottom up approach that includes safeguarding Jerusalem and the Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria.

Now where is this more clear than the new Labor leader Avi Gabbai’s courting of the right-wing by stating “I will not remove communities in Judea and Samaria.”

So Does Bibi Want to Annex or Not? 

The Prime Minister has been very clear for 15 years that he views the solution to the Israel-“Palestinian” dispute within the guise of Lichtenstein or Luxembourg.  This would essentially mean a Palestinian State in area A and B, but with no real need to have an army since its security is given over to Israel. It would seem that for Bibi, one can have overlapping sovereignties within the same land similar to certain areas of Europe since the final agreement would leave “Palestine” confederated to Israel.

This is ultimately why the Prime Minister relishes the status quo. Yet, reactions by the ultra-orthodox over Shabbat desecration and Jewish Home’s response to the lack of movement over the Greater Jerusalem bill as well as a bill cancelling disengagement may force Bibi to break the status quo in order to stave off new elections.

Throwing his coalition issues back at Trump may work in the short-term, but Israel needs to move forward in annexing municipalities in order to properly administer the Jewish population in and around Jerusalem will not go away. The future is catching up with Netanyahu and his inability to part with the status quo maybe his undoing.

 

Posted on

Who Will Stop Iran?

Since President Donald Trump’s famous Iran policy speech, Iran has been on the move, in a sense testing how serious the USA was in stopping their forward march.  They have used the Iraqi military, the USA has financed and trained to occupy Kirkuk and as of this morning crossed over into territory enshrined as Iraqi Kurdistan by even the most ardent Iraqi constitutionalists.

With all of the Kurdish infighting aside, the Kurds are still both America’s and Israel’s most reliable partner in the Middle East and they are the last force capable of blocking an Iranian advance.  The Iraqi military and the Iranian backed PMU have been unlawfully using American weapons against the Kurds. Of course, this has caught the ire of the US Congress who has become vocal in its urging of the White House to come to the aid of the Kurds before it is too late.

The failure to stop Iran now will not only hand the region over to the Iranian Mullahs, it will spell the end of American dominance at a global level. Afterall, if Israel and the Kurds, as well as the Saudis sense that the USA can no longer be counted on to ensure stability in the region, there are others that may be able to.

This is why Israel, Saudi Arabia, and parts of the Kurdish leadership are now in deep discussions with Putin and his military leadership. While this may be a ploy to force the USA to act, it appears to be a recognition of the new reality on the ground.  The only question to the three countries listed above, what will they have to pay to the Russian Bear to ensure it tightens the leash on Iran?

Posted on

From JFK to Trump – The End of the Deep State and a New Path Forward


The days of invasion and occupation by the US for the preservation of a flawed, fiat currency based economic system are slowly coming to an end. Things are so out of hand that this week one US Senator couldn’t even keep track of all the wars the US is engaged in. Moving forward, sweeping changes are taking place as the petrodollar system is under attack by China and the global currency reset led by Bitcoin continues. US foreign policy has been thrown into shambles as evident by the recent state visit by the Saudi king to Russia. The Saudis likely purchase of S-400 air defense systems seriously weakens attempts to isolate Russia via sanctions.  These events all contribute to the undermining of the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.

As the current system of central banking ends (whether it is in 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years is immaterial), the only thing in question is what will replace it. I have advocated for the use of cryptocurrencies as an effective way to counter the Chinese / Russian push toward a gold standard. Greater use of cryptocurrencies will eventually make central banks (like the FED, ECB, etc.) irrelevant. I generally ignore so-called experts who have claimed the imminent death of Bitcoin. For example, Jamie Dimon’s opinion on Bitcoin is like asking the head of the post office what he thinks of e-mail. 99bitcoins.com even has a running log of over 170 pronouncements. Importantly, the potential for blockchain technology is enormous. Entire industries including (and not limited to) finance, insurance, advertising and health care can experience greater efficiencies as more transparency is introduced for all transactions.

Generally, for a currency to be effective, it should have three qualities – functioning as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value. For a more technical understanding of the valuation of Bitcoin, I recommend reading NYU Professor Damodaran’s blog post. What I think most people miss is that for any currency to be successful it needs one thing – confidence. For the past 70 years, the US dollar has had the world’s confidence. In the future, whatever replaces it (either gold, silver, Bitcoin, some other cryptocurrency or something totally different) will need that confidence to succeed.

President Kennedy vs The Deep State

With the US is in the throes of seemingly unbridgeable partisan division, the news that President Trump will not block the release of the long-classified CIA and FBI documents regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should come as good news. Unfortunately, any time the JFK assassination is brought up by the talking heads in the media, they simply label those who disagree with the official narrative as ‘conspiracy theorists’. This scurrilous attempt to demonize anyone who engages in critical thinking often trivializes conflicting government information and disturbing facts like the death of numerous key witnesses. Perhaps, those in the media would consider members of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (in 1970s) as conspiracy theorists too for some of their findings.

For those who are skeptical of the official Warren Commission report, it is crucial to understand the motivation for groups who had an interest in President Kennedy’s death. In one of his more controversial speeches before the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961, President Kennedy referenced ‘secret societies’ and a ‘monolithic and ruthless conspiracy’. In my opinion, the context of the speech clearly shows that he was not referring to the Soviet Union but to an internal, subversive force within the US government. This is what some would call the deep state or shadow government. In light of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy stated his desire to ‘splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds’.

We have also gotten hints of the existence of the deep state / shadow government from politicians over the years. President Eisenhower referenced the military–industrial complex right before the end of his 2nd term. Senator Daniel Inouye (United States Senator from Hawaii from 1963 to 2012) spoke about a ‘shadowy Government’ during the Iran-Contra hearings. Congressman Larry McDonald, called ‘the most principled man in Congress’ by Congressman Ron Paul, spoke of a conspiracy to create a one-world government.

I would encourage anyone to do their own research and draw their own conclusions on questionable CIA activities like Operation Gladio, Operation Mockingbird, Operation Paperclip and Project MKUltra in addition to an extensive history of executing regime change. Interestingly, it was confirmed that CIA Director John McCone, brought in by President Kennedy to replace Allen Dulles, was part of the JFK assassination cover-up. Even in recent years, the CIA’s practice has been to lie to its own employees as ‘a means of protecting vital secrets’. Some contend that the release of the JFK assassination files could lead to more revelations of prior incidents (i.e. 9/11/01 attacks, Oklahoma City bombing, etc.).

Mainstream Media Failure

The mainstream media has been a willing accomplice of the deep state for decades by manipulating public opinion. For example, in this video, a young Dan Rather completely misrepresents the details of the Kennedy shooting. I liken actions such as these to The Truman Show, a film about a man who is living in a constructed reality tv show that is televised globally around the clock. Once the character, Truman Burbank (played by actor Jim Carrey), realizes that nothing in his life is real, he starts to rebel and attempts to escape his existence. When the creator of the show is asked in an interview why Truman hadn’t discovered the true nature of his world, he replies ‘We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented, it’s as simple as that’. This arrogance is apparent in many mainstream media talking heads.

Fortunately, this control of the American people by the mainstream media is crumbling. A recent poll shows that 46% of American voters(including 20% of Democrats) believe that the media make up stories about President Trump. In a panel hosted by CNN two months ago, a group of Trump supporters dispute assertions made by the moderator, telling her that they trust their Facebook feed more than CNN.

President Trump vs The Deep State

With the deterioration of the mainstream media and inflamed partisan divisions, a vacuum in the US exists. While Congressman Ron Paul (especially now since he is out of office) has no problem speaking out on controversial topics, he does not yet have a large enough audience to drive public opinion. President Trump has dropped hints by:

  • Tweeting that ‘Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?’ [January 11]
  • Cryptically referring to the CIA as a fifth column in a speech to the CIA, the day after his inauguration [January 21]
  • In an interview with Bill O’Reilly and in response to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin saying “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?” [February 4]

These veiled messages are President Trump’s way of providing clues to the American people of a much darker reality. They suggest the existence of a deep state comprised of rogue, nefarious individuals in US intelligence services that do not have the people’s (and certainly not the President’s) best interests in mind.

New Spiritual Awakening

While everyone within this financial-media-military industrial complex is not a bad person, they are part of a corrupt system that needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Many are simply trapped while others feign ignorance.

Optimistically, I think we can achieve some sort of a spiritual awakening in the US that can transcend the partisan divide. We are currently living in an upside-down world of lies. As we witness more revelations of sordid, criminal activity among those in the entertainment industry, more people will question the media and even look at some of the President’s tweets in a more positive way. Perhaps, the glorification of those in film, music, tv, and sports can be replaced with something more meaningful. Who knows, maybe one of President Trump’s most curious predictions that the ‘era of division will be replaced with a future of unity, total unity’ will come true. As the upcoming economic disorder approaches, the alternative scenario is too dire to discuss.

Originally Published in News with Chai.

Posted on

American Jewry’s Necessary Moral Reckoning

The main source of American Jewish antagonism toward Israel is divergent views on the Palestinians.

It is no longer a secret that Israel and much of the American Jewish community are moving in different directions. Leftist American commentators like Peter Beinart and Roger Cohen, and the Jewish organizations that keep them on perpetual speaking tours insist that Israel no longer merits American Jewish support.

Aside from their pique at Israel’s refusal to equalize the positions of the Reform and Conservative movements to that of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel and their refusal to recognize that so long as the Reform and Conservative movements have next to no following in Israel they cannot expect to receive the same consideration as Orthodox religious authorities, the main source of American Jewish antagonism toward Israel is divergent views on the Palestinians.

Specifically, Israel’s political leadership and the public that voted them into office rejects the American Jewish leadership’s positions on the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay’s statements last week proclaiming that he doesn’t support destroying Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria in the framework of a peace deal with the Palestinians made clear that it isn’t just the Israeli Right that rejects the position of the majority of the American Jewish community. The head of the leftist Labor Party also rejects their position that Israel should expel hundreds of thousands of its citizens from their homes in the framework of a peace deal and discriminate against them for as long as no deal has been reached.

Facing the likes of Cohen and Beinart and their supporters are Israel’s defenders who argue that the primary reason for the increased estrangement between Israel and the American Jewish community is the radicalization of the American Left, and the Left’s concomitant embrace of anti-Israel positions.

Since the 1920s, the American Jewish community has identified with the political Left. So long as the Left – and particularly the Soviet Union – supported the Jewish national liberation movement, Zionism and the Jewish state, the American Jewish Left was happy to be both leftist and Zionist.

The American Jewish movement away from Israel began after the Soviet Union cut off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967. The cleavage grew wider in successive decades as Western Europe incrementally aligned its policies on Israel with those of the Soviets and after the Cold War, replaced the Soviet Union as the epicenter of anti-Israel political rhetoric.

Today, anti-Israel activists are the rising force in the Democratic Party. Progressive politics have been so thoroughly suffused with anti-Zionism and its concomitant rejection of the civil rights of American Jewish Zionists that Democratic presidential hopefuls like senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker are abandoning their previously pro-Israel positions to ingratiate themselves with their party base.

While there is little doubt that the American Jewish Left’s increasing hostility toward Israel is a function of its membership’s abiding allegiance to their ideological camp, there is also something else at play.

In an article published this week in the American Jewish online magazine Tablet titled, “Why do American Jews Idealize Communism?” Prof. Ruth Wisse recalled the prominent role that American Jews played in the American Communist Party in the 1930s. Wisse cites the Jewish Women’s Encyclopedia Archive which notes that according to Communist Party historians, “almost half of the [Communist] party’s membership was Jewish in the 1930s and 1940s.”

This isn’t to say that almost half of American Jews were Communist. There were a mere 83,000 Jews in the Communist Party in 1943, while there were 4.7 million Jews in the US. But those 83,000 Jews – and their even more numerous fellow travelers – played a definitive role in dictating the terms of the political and social discourse in the US during those years.

Wisse quotes then Commentary magazine editor Robert Worshaw who wrote in 1947 that during the 1930s, “If you were not somewhere within the [Communist] party’s wide orbit, then you were likely to be in the opposition, which meant that much of your thought and energy had to be devoted to maintaining yourself in opposition…. It was the Communist Party that ultimately determined what you were to think about and in what terms.”

In other words, there was no way to set a public policy agenda or cultural agenda independently of the Communist Party. If the Communists determined that the public should be focused on subjugation of African Americans and should ignore the Soviet gulag, for instance, and if you felt that the gulag should be discussed, then you could find yourself accused of racism for speaking of the gulag rather than Jim Crow. If you wished to discuss neo-Classical rather than cubist art, then you were considered a throwback with no sense of art. And so on and so forth.

The only party with the power to determine what Americans would speak about, what “right thinking” Americans would think and what subjects were either irrelevant or beyond the pale, was the Communist Party.

And again, a portion of the American Jewish community played an outsized role in the Communist Party.

In her article, Wisse remonstrates with the American Jewish community for failing to conduct a moral reckoning with its historical affiliation with a party and a movement that murdered 30 million of its own citizens and was responsible for the spread of war and misery worldwide, through its totalitarian, inhuman ideology.

In her words, “We Americans and Jews ask nations that once succumbed to fascism and practiced genocide in its name to acknowledge their past evils. We do so not to perpetuate guilt, but because self-awareness alone prevents repetition of the same behavior. How then can Americans and particularly the Jews among them perpetuate the romance – or the innocence – of the Bolshevik regime?” Wisse continues, “We are… obliged to take seriously that many Jews supported one of the most murderous regimes in history and to see how and why and to what extent they went wrong.”

Wisse does not draw a connection between the American Jewish community’s growing antagonism towards Israel today and its avoidance of a moral reckoning with its Communist-supporting past. But it is important to connect the dots.

Earlier this month, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria struck a “unity” deal with Hamas. Under the deal, Fatah agrees to support the Hamas regime in Gaza and take responsibility for the general functioning of governing structures in Gaza. Hamas, for its part, will continue to wage war against Israel and act as an autonomous governing authority, just like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas insists that it has not tempered its view of Israel. It remains committed to the annihilation of the Jewish state.

The deal paves the way for Hamas to join the PLO, and so replace Fatah as the largest faction of the PLO. Hamas’s leader Khaled Mashaal apparently views the deal as a vehicle for him to eventually replace Fatah and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president.

In the face of this unity deal, there is no way to pretend that support for the Palestinians is anything other than support for terrorists who seek to annihilate the Jewish state. There is no way to pretend that support for Israeli land giveaways to the Palestinians constitute anything other than support for the empowerment of terrorists at Israel’s peril.

In other words, the Palestinian unity deal makes it impossible for Israel’s American Jewish antagonists to credibly claim that their disaffection with Israel owes to their commitment to peace and justice rather than moral sanctimony and self-righteousness.

It is difficult to avoid the sense that the American Jewish community’s decreasing support for Israel and increasing support for Palestinian terrorists is a natural extension of its past support for totalitarian Communism. It is equally difficult to avoid the conclusion that so long as the American Jewish community avoids a moral reckoning with that past, it will be incapable of reconsidering its present course.

Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post

Posted on

Decertifying Iran- A moral imperative. But now what?

As the experience of 2003 shows, Iran will only abandon its nuclear program if confronted by what it perceives to be a tangible military threat

In a large country with multiple facilities and ample experience in nuclear concealment, violations will be inherently difficult to detect. Devising theoretical models of inspection is one thing. Enforcing compliance, week after week, despite competing international crises and domestic distractions, is another. Any report of a violation is likely to prompt debate over its significance—or even calls for new talks with Tehran to explore the issue – Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2015.

…in 2015, Congress passed the Iran nuclear agreement review act to ensure that Congress’s voice would be heard on the deal. Among other conditions the law requires the president of his designee to certify that the suspension of sanction under the deal is appropriate and proportionate to…measures taken by Iran to terminate its illicit nuclear program. Based on the factual record…I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification we will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout – President Donald Trump, October 13, 2017.

Last Friday, the US president, Donald Trump, refused to certify the July 2015 nuclear Iran “deal” concluded in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran, and the P5+1(the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany), and the EU on the other.

Dubbed with the wildly inappropriate misnomer the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) the “deal” is—as we shall see—anything but “comprehensive”. Moreover, it could hardly be designated a “plan of action” when a far more fitting characterization of it would appear to be a “plan of inaction”.  

Decertification: The moral imperative

In effect, by decertifying the JCPOA, Trump was merely fulfilling his legal obligations under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA).

Passed immediately following the signature of JCPOA, the INARA bill mandates (among other things):

The President shall, at least every 90 days, determine whether the President is able to certify that:

– Iran is fully implementing the agreement,

– Iran has not committed a material breach of the agreement,

– Iran has not taken any action that could significantly advance its nuclear weapons program, and

– Suspension of sanctions against Iran is appropriate and proportionate to measures taken by Iran with respect to terminating its illicit nuclear program and vital to U.S. national security interests.

In light of the record of Iran’s gross misconduct, it is patently clear—or at least, it should be—that no US president could, in good faith, certify that Iran was in compliance with its JCPOA commitments or that continued US adherence to the JCPOA—particularly the suspension of sanctions against Iran—was “vital to US national security interests”.

After all, how can anyone certify that Iran is in compliance with its pledges to not “advance its nuclear weapons program” or is not in “material breach of the agreement”, when this is impossible to verify, given the fact that Tehran has barred inspection of its military sites—the very sites in which one might suspect militarized Iranian endeavor is taking place.

Moral imperative (cont.)

But perhaps even more astonishing and disconcerting is the revelation that “secret side deals” exist between Iran and third parties, to which the US is neither privy, nor party to—and hence has not the foggiest notion as to how these may impact or impair the implementation of, or the adherence to the terms of the JCPOA. Typically, these involve “deals” between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the body charged with the inspection of Iranian nuclear sites. Incredibly, in some cases, these deals allow Iran to conduct its own inspection of its facilities. Moreover, the IAEA is obliged to keep much of the information gathered confidential and not share it with other parties—including the US.

You couldn’t make this stuff up!

No less crippling to effective inspection—and hence to the ability of the US president to certify that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA—is the fact that if suspicion arises that illicit activity is being conducted, Iran must be given weeks of advance warning, providing it ample opportunity to conceal or dispose of any incriminating evidence. Worse, the Iranians must also be provided with adequate reasons for the suspicion of untoward conduct on their part, thus   risking exposure of intelligence sources that provided the relevant information!

Indeed, these very absurdities of the JCPOA were crisply and caustically conveyed by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a Knesset address on the day immediately after it was reached: “It’s like giving a criminal organization that deals drugs a 24-day warning before inspecting its drug lab…The agreement also requires the world powers to… show Iran the very intelligence for which they want to conduct the inspections in the first place.”

Incomprehensive plan of inaction

To be honest Donald Trump has never really been my “cup-of-tea”. Indeed, without wishing to be too disparaging, to my mind, his incontestable advantage is that he is…not Hilary Clinton.

That said, the decertification speech was undeniably impressive. He provided an effective tour d’horizon of Iranian malfeasance: Tehran’s violation of agreed production quotas of heavy water and operation of advanced centrifuges; its intimidation of inspectors from carrying out their work effectively; its flouting of international resolutions regarding the development of ballistic missile technology; its fomenting turmoil “throughout the Middle East and beyond”; and last but not least, its sponsorship of terror across the globe.

In this, Trump demonstrated compellingly that Iran had not only violated the spirit, but also the letter, of the JCPOA. But beyond that, he not only exposed how appallingly incomprehensive this purportedly “comprehensive” blueprint is, but also the grave perils of inaction the alleged “plan of action” necessarily entails.

Indeed, without wishing to push historical parallels too far, some portions of Trump’s speech were distinctly reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s stern caveat in his epic account of World War II, ‘The Gathering Storm,’ in which he cautioned: “…. if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival”.

Expressing strikingly similar sentiments, Trump warned: “History has shown that the longer we ignore a threat, the more dangerous that threat becomes…We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout”.

Incomprehensive inaction (cont.)

Trump detailed Iran’s transgression as justification for his decision to desist from certifying the JCPOA: “Our policy is based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world…Based on the factual record I have put forward, I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification.”

Of course, this catalogue of Iranian misconduct underscores just how hopelessly ineffectual the entire JCPOA edifice is. For by limiting its relevance to Iran’s nuclear program (and even then inadequately), it, in effect, allows the Islamist theocracy license to wreak mayhem in any other sphere, wherever and whenever it chooses—without incurring any of the penalties in the unverifiable nuclear deal.

To convey just how ludicrous the JCPOA arrangement is, just imagine reaching an agreement with a belligerent neighbor down the road that he will refrain from attacking you and your family with firearms but is free to stab you with knives, batter you with clubs, impale you on spears and target you with arrows. Worse, not only is he free to do this without retribution, but you actually agree to help him finance  his stockpile of said knives, clubs, spears and arrows.

Ridiculous as this might seem, this is in principle precisely what Trump was called on to certify last Friday—and is being vilified by allies and adversaries for not doing so.

Go figure.

The futility of “fixing”, the necessity of “nixing”

While decertification of the JCPOA is both inevitable and imperative, it is not in itself an alternative strategy. Indeed, even the Trump administration itself has been at pains to clarify that, in and of itself, the decertification does not automatically imply that—with all the withering criticism it has of the agreement—the US will not necessarily opt out of it.

This is a risky position to adopt and, like a man with one foot on the pier and the other in the boat, it is one that cannot be maintained for long. Indeed, the US has now created a clear choice for itself if it is not to retreat humiliatingly from the robust stance it has taken: Either to endeavor to fix the defective JCPOA, or to nix it.

Any remotely realistic analysis will swiftly lead to the conclusion that any endeavor to fix the JCPOA (i.e. introduce far more intrusive inspection procedures and impose far more extensive and intensive punitive measures for delinquent Iranian behavior) are futile.

Clearly, it would require large doses of unfounded and unbounded optimism to believe that Iran could be induced by diplomatic pressure to submit itself to a harsher regime of inspections/sanctions than that currently stipulated in the JCPOA. After all, if the P5+1 countries backed away from sterner coercive measures when confronting a weaker, poorer Iran, what reason is there to believe (and more importantly, for Tehran to believe) they would stand up to a now much richer and stronger Iran??

This bleak prospect leaves us with only one other option – the necessity to nix the JCPOA in its entirety – which might just happen anyway. For as Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney predicts: “Decertification corrodes the legitimacy of the deal…[It]will slowly collapse.”

Decertification- what now?

So how is the US (and Israel( to deal with a post-JCPOA reality? What strategies are available to prevent a good initiative from making the situation worse?

According to its adherents, the JCPOA was the best possible agreement. This is clearly an untenable contention—unless the underlying assumption is that the only feasible alternatives are those Iran deigns to accept.

However, if the rationale is not to accommodate the ayatollahs, but to coerce them or replace them, the alternatives are clear:

The first of these options is to enhance US sanctions, backed by a credible threat of military action aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and their attendant infrastructure.

 

Skeptics as to the efficacy of such a harsh alternative should be reminded of the events of 2003, when Iran, in effect, curtailed its nuclear program after the US-led invasion of Iraq created a tangible threat which US-military presence projected in the eyes of the Islamic Republic. As a result “Iran agree[d] to suspend its uranium–enrichment activities and ratify an additional protocol requiring Iran to provide an expanded declaration of its nuclear activities and granting the IAEA broader rights of access to sites in the country.”

 

Significantly, once the threat perception receded, Tehran annulled this agreement and reverted to accelerating its nuclear program.

 

What now? (cont.)

 

The only effective alternative to coercing the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear program is to replace them –i.e. induce regime change. Sadly, just as it has greatly reduced the possibility (or at least, greatly increased the cost) of coercing them to forgo nuclear weapons capability, so it has dimmed the prospects for regime change. In the words of one well-known Iranian expatriate: “The Vienna [i.e JCPOA] deal bears a very grave danger for Iran’s civil society. Not only won’t we see their economic situation improve, but the regime will also have an incentive to abuse human rights more severely. A flood of cash is going into the pockets of this leadership. It will be used to tighten their grip [on power] and to further imprison, torture and kill innocent Iranians.”

So over  two years after it was agreed upon, all the JCPOA has really achieved is to empower the Iranian tyranny militarily, enrich it economically and entrench it politically—for nothing more than a dubious delaying of its acquisition of weaponized nuclear capability.

Which, of course, is why decertifying it was no more than a moral imperative.