3 min read
No one on the right side of half-witted can view the agreement reached between the international community and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran as anything other than, at best, a fudge and, at worst, a capitulation to Iranian obstinacy.
The agreement does not and will not prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Weapons inspectors will need to give Tehran no less than 24 days' notice of any inspection - more than enough time to hide incriminating evidence - and, as has now emerged, secret annexes to the agreement (so secret that the relevant texts have been hidden even from the American government) reportedly restrict the inspection of major nuclear facilities located within Iran's military complex at Parchin.
Iran will be able to continue operating its nuclear facility at Fordow and to continue the development of advanced centrifuges. Meanwhile, the ban on the sale of ballistic missiles to Iran will have been lifted. And the deal hammered out in Vienna will virtually expire in 15 or so years.
So when, in a recent speech, US President Obama claimed he had achieved "a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" he was - to put it diplomatically - being economical with the truth. Indeed, in this same speech the American president made a startling admission. There was a time when Obama said his goal was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear ordnance. But now he conveyed a very different message: "If, 15 or 20 years from now, Iran tries to build a bomb, this deal ensures that the United States will have better tools to detect it, a stronger basis under international law to respond and the same options available to stop [the] weapons programme as we have today, including, if necessary, military options." The ambition, in other words, is no longer to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but to be able to deal more effectively with such a situation if and when it arises.
The purpose of Obama's speech was to drum up Congressional support for the agreement hammered out in Vienna. Congress is controlled by the Republican party. It is true that any Congressional veto of the Iranian deal could be vetoed by the president. But that could itself be overridden by a two-thirds Congressional majority, which would require some Democrats to side with the Republicans. A number of Jewish Democrats in Congress have already signalled that they may do just that.
Unsurprisingly, meanwhile, leading opponents of the Vienna settlement are lobbying furiously against it. These opponents include major Jewish organisations, including the deep-pocketed American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And the fact that Jewish money - albeit American-Jewish money - is being used to this end has led the president to adopt an unfortunate and worrying rhetoric: Israel and its supporters are warmongers and American-Jewish money is being used to drag America into war.
For example, in a TV interview on July 21, Obama railed against "the money" and "the lobbyists" that were being marshalled against the Iranian agreement. "You've got a bunch of talking heads and pundits, and folks who are not going to be making sacrifices," the President claimed, but who may force America into a war with Iran that may be in Israel's interest, but is certainly not in America's.
In his August 5 speech, Obama warned that the agreement with Iran is "in America's interests and Israel's interests, and as president of the United States it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally".
The inference here is clear: opponents of the deal are putting Israel's interests before those of the US. In a two-hour meeting with Jewish leaders on August 4, Obama threatened that, if the deal was struck down in Congress, the result would be a war in which Tel Aviv - not Washington --would be the major casualty.
The President conceded that American pro-Israel lobbies were entitled to campaign against the deal, but claimed that the Jewish state would be the prime target of Iranian anger. In spite of Obama's protestations to the contrary, the alternative to a bad agreement is not war: it is to work for a better agreement. American Jews are entitled to lobby to this end.
