Time For The "Nuclear Option"

The US and assorted other civilized states have been making noises and ugly faces for some years now over the Iranian efforts to attain nuclear weapons.  Diplomatic and economic sanctions have been employed.  So have more robust measures ranging from the more or less covert such as computer viruses to the rather obvious, the shooting of nuclear researchers.

Th net result has been the continued and accelerating Iranian quest for the bomb.

Years ago, the notion of Iranian science or work in advanced technology would have been seen quite properly as an oxymoron.  During the early days of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, science and technology were downgraded severely as a matter of theologically predicated policy.  It was only years later, years marked by the stalemated bloodletting of the Iran-Iraq War, that the mullahs and ayatollahs changed their religious tune.  Only after the near defeat at the hands of the technologically superior Iraq convinced the Supreme Guardian of the Revolution that the deity did, after all, will Iran to have sufficient and sufficiently advanced weapons to protect the revolution.

Science and technology came back to the front and center of Iranian governmental life in the late Eighties and beyond.  Oil money poured into new and reinvigorated institutes and university departments.  Chief among these were those entities which dealt with nuclear research and development as well as key support systems of nuclear weapons including but not limited to ballistic and guided missiles.

The Iranians deserve great credit for accomplishing much over the next two decades.  In both nuclear and missile development, they were very much on their own.  Only South Africa was as internationally isolated during its nuclear development period--and even then the Pretoria regime received some assistance from Israel including supplies of tritium necessary for boosted fission as well as fusion bombs.  Other than some early model centrifuges from A.Q Khan's ring in Pakistan, the Iranians pulled themselves up by their own fission bootstraps.

The monolithic Western governmental opposition linked with the earlier conviction that only a nuclear capacity would assure Iranian survival in a future war to enhance greatly the firm belief that the possession of nuclear weapons was an existential matter.  The existential foundation of the nuclear option was reinforced by Tehran's observation of how the US treated the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  The Islamabad Bad Boys were  handled with gentility and respect by Washington for one simple reason--Pakistan had the bomb.

This meant that should Iran match Pakistan's accomplishment, the result would be elevated status on both the global and regional stages.  Not only would the "Mahdi Bomb" assure Iran's survival as an Islamic theocracy, it would propel the country to the status of regional hegemon and global actor of real potency.  These were two very fine reasons to bear heavy burdens and make great sacrifices for the years it would take to develop a credible nuclear capacity.

There is no doubt but the many sanctions regimes imposed, particularly those of recent origin focusing on shipping and insurance, have place very heavy loads on the Iranian economy.  There is no doubt but the sanctions taken in total have forced the Iranian government and people to make sacrifices over and above those required by the inefficient and repressive nature of the government.

Most importantly, there is no reason to conclude that the sanctions and diplomatic pressures have modified Iranian behavior--other than to make the mullahs and their frontmen more intransigent, more creative in sanction evasion, and more committed to acquiring the bomb no matter what the price.

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, in the battle of political wills between the US led West and Iran, it is the latter which is winning.  In this context, the Iranians have introduced a form of game changer--a new generation of improved centrifuges which will reduce greatly the time needed to turn twenty percent enriched uranium into weapons grade stuff.  Further, they have acted in a prudential manner, placing the new fast-spinners in deep dug bunkers.

Now ninety plus senators have urged the immediate introduction of a game changer from the American perspective.  In a letter to the president, this overwhelming majority of the senate have demanded the imposition of sanctions against the Iranian central bank, the bank created some fifty years ago to act as the interface between the consumers of Iranian oil and the Tehran government.  This move, described as the "nuclear option," would, if enforced, prevent the clearing of payments to Iran from all purchasers of oil.

For its part, the government of Iran has stated this move would constitute "an act of war."

While not being an armed action, the isolation of the Iranian Bank Markazi would be the equivalent in effect of the US freezing of all Japanese assets in the summer of 1941.  That action, the culmination of a long campaign of escalating economic pressures, prevented Japan from acquiring oil and other strategic materials from the US.  This gave the government of Imperial Japan the choice of a humiliating surrender to American political dictates or war.

As you know, the Japanese chose the second alternative.  The decision makers believed that the fortunes of war might favor Japan given other constraints operating on the US including the ongoing Great Depression and a preoccupation with Nazi Germany.

It would not be irrational for Tehran to make the same choice today or into the near future.  The US is in the throes of a severe economic challenge including possibly the second of a double dip recession.  It is still engaged in an unpopular and seemingly inconclusive war in Afghanistan.  The current administration is perceived as both irresolute and feckless.

The senators hint at the possibility of legislation compelling the imposition of the ultimate sanction should the president decide not to use the authority he already has to make the move.  This make the challenge both direct and definitely non-trivial.  As the choice is both clear and stark, it will be difficult for Mr Obama to "lead from behind" or equivocate.  And, it is debatable whether or not he has the political capital necessary to stare the senators down.

Were the Iranians to choose war, now is the least-worst time for us to fight it.  Looking ahead, there is no doubt but the American military will be significantly weaker a year or two hence.  The budget battles assure the Pentagon will take a heavy hit.  In this context is is important to recall that people close to the Oval have intimated the president would be happy to see the military budget at or below fifteen percent of total expenditures.  This would be a funding level not seen since the years immediately preceding Pearl Harbor.

We forget how unready the US was for World War II.  We forget how difficult it was to mobilize our industrial resources and manpower for that war. Perhaps most important, we overlook the fact that playing the sort of catch-up now that we did so well seventy years ago is quite impossible.  It is no longer feasible or even possible to undertake the kind of forced draft military build-up today which we did between 1941 and 1944.  The radical changes in military technology have been responsible for this ground truth as they are for the companion reality that a draftee based armed force is not possible.

Right now or in the next few months, the US is quite capable of decisively defeating Iran should the latter be so ill-advised as to treat our imposition of the "nuclear option" as a literal act of war.  Further, it is a war which would be widely supported by We the People--provided only that it was fought as a retaliatory and punitive action without any follow-on occupation and rebuilding of the place.

President Obama is long overdue in making a defecate or get off the pot decision about Iran and its search for the bomb.  We have played the escalating sanction game long enough and have had more than sufficient opportunity to have observed the counterproductive results.  Diplomacy of the talk sort has also run its course without beneficial results.

The senatorial letter is forcing a final decision.  Either we have to admit that we can live and the world can live with a nuclear capable Iran and all that implies or we have to take the final, decisive act.  The president would be best off acting on his current authority so he will look as if he were actually a "decider guy" as George W. used to put it.  Better to look as if you are acting of your own volition than to be seen as being frog marched by the senate.

Should Iran respond with war-like acts either directly or through surrogates, by overt military actions or through terrorism, let it be.  As George W. memorably put the matter, "Bring it on!"

Here A Bomb, There A Bomb, Everywhere A Bomb

No.  Not those pesky and ubiquitous roadside bombs, not even the upscale models now being imported by Taliban in Afghanistan from those friendly mullahs across the border in Iran.  No.  Not the personal type of bomb so beloved by wannabe seekers after martyrdom.

The bomb(s) in question are those of a nuclear nature.  It seems the latest growth industry in such stable, peace loving countries as North Korea and Pakistan is making more plutonium and, in the fullness of time, more fission or (drum roll) fusion weapons.

The situation in North Korea is somewhat ambiguous as is to be expected, but there are rather alarming indications that the Hermit Kingdom of the North is either cranking up the supposedly decommissioned plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon or is taking another pass at reprocessing the spent fuel rods so as to extract more plutonium.  The South Koreans, who have both a tendency to get nervous and a set of good reasons for doing so, also believe the Northerners are enriching more uranium.

Recent satellite imagery shows construction work in progress near the foundations of the cooling tower destroyed by the North three years ago as part of the now moribund denuclearization process.  The indications are minor and give no hint as to what is--or is going to be--constructed.  There is even the possibility that the Northerners, knowing that the site is constantly monitored by both national and commercial imaging satellites, are engaged in a bit of creative chain rattling.

However, the impending transition of power from Dear Leader to his Number Three Son brings a number of imponderables into play.  These include necessary genuflections before the hardest of the military hardliners or counters to the new, improved South Korean psyops program, which can be commenced at any moment for any reason.  Or, it may simply be one more of those, take-us-seriously-damnit! gestures of which Pyongyang is so fond.

The capacity for Pyongyang to make mischief cannot be overstated and must not be underestimated.  The impending succession does nothing to lessen either the intentional making of mischief or the potential for miscalculation.  While the North may only have sufficient plutonium for a half dozen bombs, the amount of highly enriched uranium cannot be estimated with rigor.  It is within the realm of conservative plausibility to estimate the Hermits have sufficient fissile material to double the number of potential warheads on the shelf.  In addition, the fact that the North does not yet have warheads small enough to mate with their current stock of missiles in no way lessens the degree of threat.

Pending miniaturization--an accomplishment not likely to be in the distant offing--the North can wreak a sufficient degree of havoc simply by getting one or two truck borne devices across the DMZ.  Even a couple of small (Hiroshima sized) nudets in or near the Seoul metroplex would all but fatally cripple South Korea.  In short, the war could be over almost before anyone knows it had begun.

In this context it might be recalled that the Northerners are the tunnel rats from hell.  Their subterranean earth moving skills have provided a number of tunnels easily capable of passing five ton trucks under the Z.  Sure, the North would (to quote a line in Dr Strangelove) "get their hair mussed," but the costs to the South would be much greater, potentially quite unbearable.

That's enough for one depressing subject.  Time to go to the next, even more depressing one.

Pakistan.  That's right, our "ally" and "close friend," the always stable, ever reliable, constantly honest, and aboveboard "partner" in the Grand Campaign Against Violent Political Islam.

The context first.  Pakistan is broke.  It depends upon the success of its extortion program to keep the international (primarily US) money flowing.  The floods have made the basket case even more supine.  The army is allegedly engaged in both flood relief and fighting the Taliban in the FATA while actually standing ever vigilant on the Indian border facing a threat which will not come--no matter how much Islamabad may wish otherwise.  The government is an excellent definition of the term, "non functional."  At the same time the perceived existential and functional legitimacy of the government has sunk to levels which make President Obama's approval ratings seem stratospheric in comparison.

With this as background consider that Pakistan is plunging on at flank speed in the construction of a third reactor in its Kushab plutonium production facility.  Satellite imagery shows that the second reactor has been finished, tested, and may be in full scale production while the construction work on the third unit is proceeding at a rate faster than that of the second.

The Kushab complex exists for one primary purpose, the production of plutonium.  Plutonium for weapons.  The increase in production indicates that Pakistan is pushing for a thermonuclear capability as well as boosting the number of deployable weapons.  As the details of the reactor as well as its predecessors are not available in the open literature, the secondary purposes of the reactors cannot be determined.  However, it is fair to assume that at least one of the reactors is configured for the production of tritium, the form of hydrogen central to initiating fusion reactions.

There is undoubtedly a direct linkage between the forced draft expansion of the Kushab complex and the Pakistani resistance to the fissile materials limitation treaty which has been languishing for years now.  This makes the unopposed election of Pakistan to chair the IAEA all the more ironic.

Pakistan is not only a member of the nuclear club, it is a particularly ambitious one.  The Islamabad government and the army both justify the investment in nuclear weapons production as defensive, a necessary deterrent to any Indian employment of its arsenal.

That position is, to be polite, a mess of caca.  Pakistan already has a sufficient number of weapons to serve as a credible finite deterrent.  Considering the distances involved and the flight time of either missiles or manned aircraft, the Pakistanis must use a launch-under-warning approach.  This doctrine is most effective if the targeting philosophy is counter-value not counter-force.

Given the size of India and, thus, the number of alternative launch points as well as the near term potential of an Indian submarine launched cruise missile capacity, the notion of counter-force targeting in a second strike configuration makes no sense.  Only a form of mutually-assured-destruction predicated on counter-value targeting operates as a sufficient deterrent.

For this approach there is neither need nor justification for a large number of warheads and launchers.  A modest--less than one hundred deliverable warheads--is sufficient.  The enormous expense of expanding the Kushab complex cannot be justified on legitimate defense needs.  Complicating the situation for the government is that the expansion of the physical plant and concomitant work force enhances the problems of security.  The same applies to any proliferation of warheads or fissile materials stockpiles.

Other than a sort of military elephantiasis, there is no excuse for what the Pakistanis are doing at Kushab.  There is certainly no rational explanation.  But, considering the propensity for the grandiose often exhibited by Pakistani senior military personnel, the elephantiasis diagnosis may be correct.

The US has cause for enhanced anxiety with the expansion of Kushab.  The civilian government of Pakistan is, to be kind, not overly stable.  The military forces of Pakistan are riddled at all levels with adherents of violent political Islam.  The strategic ambitions of members of the armed forces, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the bureaucracies are no less than grandiose as all hands focus with an irrational but deeply historically rooted hostility on India.

For the US and other civilized states, the problem of securing the Pakistani nuclear facilities, arsenal, and fissile stockpile are real and pressing.  Bluntly, the possibility of violent political Islamists gaining a nuclear capability via Pakistan is greater than the nuclear threat presented by Iran.

Pakistani officials have proclaimed loud and long that their country is both stable and responsible.  These protestations ring hollow when considered in conjunction with the irresponsible action of expanding the Kushab complex at a time of very real, very great national peril.

There is an upside to the Pakistani nuclear dilemma.  The US and its Western European allies are not alone in this contretemps.  The prevailing winds--both those geographic in nature and those of armed political Islam--assure that both Russia and China have a dog in the fight, whether they either recognize or like the idea.  Any nudet in the sub-continent will have impact in both countries.  Similarly, any access via Pakistan to nuclear materials or weapons by advocates of violent political Islam will have effects deleterious to both.

The takeaway?  Simple.  To date the nuclear club has been able to exercise self-control.  Today, that reassuring state of affairs is under direct threat from both North Korea and Pakistan to a degree surpassing the danger represented by Iran.  And, it is up to the initial members of the club to keep matters from getting worse.

Iran Turns Lebanon's Crank Some More

A while back the Geek posted on the advantage Iran would enjoy by embroiling Israel in a shooting war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Doing such would involve diplomatic repercussions which would limit Israel's capacity to take direct action against the emerging existential threat of the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

In the past few days the Lebanese crank has been turned not once, but several times. The most dramatic of these actions was the fatal shooting of an IDF reserve colonel overseeing a brush clearing operation on Israel's side of the border. In the resulting firefight another Israeli officer was wounded and a Lebanese troop or two killed, as was a reporter for Hezbollah's television station on hand to document the fun and games.

The presence of the journalist and an accompanying cameraman suggests the Lebanese forces had planned the action. Given the close--dare one write, "intimate?"--ties between the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Hezbollah as well as the fact that Hezbollah is a fully functioning component of the government of Lebanon (GOL), it is highly probable that not only was the outrage planned but also approved at a high level in both the LAF and GOL.

One result of the unprovoked, unjustified sniper fire has been a (temporary perhaps) cessation of American military assistance to the LAF. The initial move to halt the flow of already programmed assistance was taken by the chairs of the relevant subcommittee and full House Foreign Affairs committee. But, there is support in Congress for a more extensive block on aid.

The State Department is, unsurprisingly, pushing back on the hold. State has grounds for concern. GOL has taken the expectable position of rejecting any US aid that comes with any appended conditions. In a move equally devoid of drama or shock value, the Iranian government has offered any and all necessary assistance to assure Lebanon's territorial integrity against "Zionist" aggression.

It is the second factor which rubs State's fur the wrong way, of course. The folks in Foggy Bottom and, presumably, the Pentagon hold some faith in the proposition that US aid to LAF will bring some influence upon the Lebanese military and government in its train.

Duh!

These people must be either off their meds or know a dealer handling truly righteous stuff actually to believe that a few hundred million bucks worth of obsolescent gear will somehow, someway, offset the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the capacity of Iran to wag the Lebanese dog's tail whenever and to whatever degree Tehran believes indicated. Hezbollah has an effective veto power over GOL even without resorting to force. It controls vital ministries including the one dealing with foreign affairs.

Need more be known?

The potency of Hezbollah as well as GOL's subservience was highlighted in a speech by Hezbollah capo, Hassan Nasrallah, in which the cleric accused Israel of being behind the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose son is the current incumbent. The "evidence" offered by Nasrallah was a risible pastiche of intercepted non-encrypted imagery transmissions from Israel UAVs of a decade ago and allegations of sinister Israeli spies littering the Lebanese landscape.

The Lebanese government, which should have been insulted by Nasrallah's speech, said nothing. The current prime minister was seemingly in agreement, if not with the speech, then with the goal toward which Nasrallah's speech was directed--the ending of the UN investigation which was aimed evermore closely at Hezbollah.

After a disastrous false start lamentably supported by the George W. Bush administration in which the UN created tribunal sought to pin the tail of blame on Syria, the investigation finally got back on course. This course led directly to Hezbollah as the agent of death. This, in turn, implies Tehran knew and at least tacitly approved of the killing.

The takeaway is simple: Neither Hezbollah nor Lebanon, nor, for that matter, Iran, can tolerate any imputation of responsibility for the death of Hariri, senior, a very popular and effective politician who had a unique ability to straddle the several competing religious communities which comprise Lebanon. Any odor of culpability would fracture the tenuous stability which has taken root in the past couple of years.

Fracturing Lebanon would immediately and drastically reduce the value of both Hezbollah and Lebanon as the means and venue for diverting Israel from going after the Iranian nuke plants. That would be a major no-no from the perspective of Tehran.

The need to preclude Israel from using its military muscle has become more critical to the mullahs and their stooges. This fact has been bought front and center in an article in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg. In this apparently well researched and evidently well reasoned piece, the writer comes to a stark conclusion--Israel will go it alone if necessary by next July at the latest to abate the Iranian nuclear threat. That is, of course, barring the success of other, less robust means.

Iran is long, very long in bluster, threats and photo-op weapons. Its actual capacity to defend against advanced air and missile delivered munitions is far more questionable. Against an American attack Iran is virtually defenseless. Against an Israeli attack the same may well be the case.

While Tehran is secure against any American threat given the tone and character of the current president, the mullahs cannot be so sanguine regarding Israel. The latter country perceives correctly that a nuclear armed Iran is not simply a game changer but a very real threat to the lives of thousands of its citizens.

As a consequence, the imperative to deter Israel through a diversionary effort looms large in the calculations of the Iranian leadership. The best opportunity for doing this given the current state of global affairs and perceptions within the elites of the West is by way of Lebanon. One more round of warfare between Israel and Lebanon (read Hezbollah) would defang Israel for months, perhaps years.

That would be the equivalent of victory for the mullahs. It would be the same for the legions of people in the Arab street who see Iran as no threat and Israel as the biggest bully in the world.

The upshot of this concatenation of considerations is simply that the ball is back in Obama's court. Unfortunately, it is most probable that the b-ball playing president will muff his shot.

Firing A General Won't Make The World Better

The MSM as well as some of the new media have been looking for the bright side in the firing of General McChrystal. Reading these assorted attempts at top spinning a major disaster of the self-inflicted sort leads one to alternate tears with laughter.

There simply is no bright side to Mr Obama's exhibition of toughness, his resolute protection of civilian supremacy against the nonexistent threat of General McChrystal's negative assessments of the collection of time servers, people suffering under a delusion of adequacy, and lofty thinking lamebrains.

Tossing McChrystal off the troika to the wolves just as the time sensitive Afghanistan war is reaching the critical moment makes as much sense as inviting Osama bin Laden to help himself to the contents of the large nuclear warehouse not far from downtown Albuquerque. Not even the dual hatting of the politically acceptable and Iraq experienced General Petraeus alters the facts on the ground.

The removal of McChrystal will not boost morale and confidence among the US, allied, or Afghan National Forces. The removal will, however, give a boost to the morale and confidence in victory within the forces of the enemy.

Beyond the AfPak area of operations, the Obama decision will have consequences which equal or exceed those within the theater. Mr Obama's move will, for example, engender good cheer in Tehran.

So far, Mr Obama's dealings with Iran have been a record of continued complete failure. It is perfectly OK, considering this, to ask just how canning McChrystal makes matters worse. To do this, we have to get down to the basics.

The most basic fact of late is this. The Iranians have announced that their efforts at enriching uranium to twenty percent have resulted in producing seventeen kilograms of the stuff. This implies that their current rate of production is at least five kilos per month. A quick extrapolation shows that Tehran will have enough twenty percent feedstock to produce sufficient weapons grade uranium for two Hiroshima sized devices by the time of the midterm elections.

Another, equally basic fact is this. The sanctions including the fourth round of UN Security Council impositions as well as the additional measures taken by the European Union and those wending their way through Congress (against the opposition of the Man In The Oval) will not, can not, have a desired, positive effect on the quest for the "Mahdi Bomb."

The failure of both diplomatic engagement and sanctions implies that the US now has only two options regarding Iran. The first is the oft mentioned (in hushed tones) military option. The second might be called the Dr Strangelove approach. Remember the film's sub-title? That's right, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."

This translates to some version of containment. Now containment worked when directed at the Soviet Union. It worked because both the US and the USSR shared a common value: There is no profit in committing national suicide.

To assume the Iranians have the same calculus of rationality is dubious at best. The Shia form of Islam as practiced in Iran is notably eschatological in orientation. The leading clerics as well as the country's president share an end-of-time world view which celebrates the necessity of a final war for the coming of the Mahdi. Given this consideration, it is not at all prudent to base policy on the efficacy of containment even a containment backed by relatively effective ABM systems and the threat of American nuclear retaliation.

The Iranians have been justifiably worried about the US employment of the "military option." The removal of General McChrystal from command on the eve of an operation which even Iranian observers believe would be successful shows Tehran that the US is most likely to blink first when standing eyeball to eyeball on the precipice of war.

The Iranians came to know General McChrystal quite well during the general's duty in Iraq, during the time when his special forces units cut great swaths through the ranks of the Iranian trained, Iranian supplied, sometimes Iranian commanded Shia insurgents. The mullahs and their Revolutionary Guard Corps bully boys also took McChrystal's measure during his abbreviated tenure in Afghanistan.

Frankly, General McChrystal assumed the same role in the mind's of Tehran's military leaders that George Patton did in the estimate of the German high command--the bogyman from hell. The removal of McChrystal proves to the mullahs and their men that Barack Obama has not been and never will be serious about any use of the "military option." Tehran has concluded with a certainty never felt by Mao that the US is "a paper tiger."

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, no president who is serious about the possibility of waging war in support of policy would remove a genuine, successful fighter of wars. Not even the replacement of McChrystal by Petraeus changes the algorithm as General Petraeus, no matter how beribboned, is not the warfighter that McChrystal is.

Beyond Iran lurks a legion of Islamist or Islamist leaning governments. The evident withdrawal of American support for Israel has encouraged the Islamist states to become more so. It has also forced other governments to lean ever closer to the more extreme stance of political Islam.

The muscle flexing of the adherents of political Islam has become more evident with every day which has passed since the IDF stopping of the "humanitarian flotilla." The fifty-seven member OIC has taken the point in both the UN Human Rights Council, and, most recently, in the Security Council. Our "allies," Turkey and Pakistan, have been carrying the OIC freight. Now these two stalwarts of political Islam have been joined by Malaysia in calling for an emergency UN session on the question of the IDF boarding of the flotilla.

The intent of Malaysia and its fellow members of the OIC is the launching of yet one more diplomatic assault on Israel. President Obama's previous efforts at "outreach" to the Muslim countries coupled with his transparent appeasement of the "frontline" Arab states provided the basis for this move. However, his firing of McChrystal has served to turbo-up the political courage of the OIC bloc.

Once again, the firing of a competent warfighter shows the hostiles of political Islam that the US has no "big stick" to support its softly spoken diplomatic words. The ground truth which has eluded Mr Obama and his "team" is simply that all diplomacy, hard or soft, spoken or acted, must finally rest upon the credible capacity and will to use force. Putting a successful warfighter out to pasture on the verge of a critical campaign because of a few poorly chosen (if accurate) words incautiously spoken near the ears of a "progressive" journalist shows the US is not currently willing to countenance the use of war as an instrument of international politics.

Mr Obama has shown he can be decisive. He has shown a willingness to seek revenge for attacks on members of his "team." It is to the misfortune of the US, to that of the civilized countries of the world, that he chose to demonstrate how tough and decisive he can be in a way which gives direct and real aid and comfort to the enemy.

Going It Alone

Israel is in the most uncomfortable position it has inhabited since the get-go. No country, certainly not Iran, is nearly as isolated today as the Jewish state.

Even during the Fifties when Eisenhower followed a policy of "even handedness," there was a strong American guarantee that Israel would not be overrun by its perpetually hostile neighbors. The Eisenhower Archives are filled with memos and telexes to this effect--even during the days of the Great Presidential Temper Tantrum also known as the Suez War of 1956.

Thanks to the policies of President Obama (who bodes well to take permanent possession of the Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" trophy) it is Israel and not Iran which now stands alone, surrounded by hostiles and facing existential threat. The cringing approach of appeasement has brought, as any realpolitiker would have projected, failure as its reward.

The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions will not convert the mullahs of Tehran to peace, love, and flower power. The sanctions, once promised by SecState Clinton to be "crippling" are hardly an annoyance to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps given that entity's vast experience and skill in avoiding previous sanctions.

As everyone who is oriented in time and place would have known months ago, Iran's protectors, Russia and China, would place their interests ahead of any sort of international consensus. One can be thankful that Iranian Orator-in-Chief, Ahmedinejad, so insulted Moscow that Putin, Medvedev, and company actually put the sale of S-300 air defense missiles on hold. Had it not been for Ahmedinejad's capacious mouth, the sanction regime imposed by the latest Security Council vote would have permitted the sale and delivery to go through.

Iran has allies. This reality was shown in harsh relief as Iran, Turkey, and Russia sat down for a confab regarding regional security just this week.

Such a meeting does little to support President Obama's insistence that Iran is more "isolated" following the sanction vote. Nor does the White House's opposition to efforts in Congress to impose unilateral American sanctions on companies trading in refined petroleum products to Iran support the oft repeated administration notion that the UN sanctions would provide a basis for stronger measures by the US and EU countries.

The reason pumped by the Oval crowd is that Doing Something Real on the part of Congress would carry with it the probability of annoying "allies." Well, fer sure, dude, that is to be expected, France and Germany as well as Russia and China are feathering their own businesses with beaucoup trade with Iran. Both Sarkozy and Merkel are quite willing to talk the talk but refrain from making companies walk the walk. And, golly, these fine folk shouldn't be put in a bind simply because Congress is more worried about an Iranian nuclear capability than is either France or Germany--or Mr Obama.

It is hard to decide whether Mr Obama knows he is lying or is so filled with the miasma of ideology that he really, really believes what he has been saying regarding either Iran or Israel. Suffice it to write that not even the previous Monument to Naivete, peanut farmer turned governor of a small state morphed to the presidency, Jimmy Carter, was as out-to-lunch in Mideast policy than the Nice Young Man From Chicago.

The focus on the artifact of the Great Humanitarian Aid Flotilla To The Starving Millions Of Gaza has become a very dangerous preoccupation not only for the US and other seemingly civilized states but, most of all, for Israel. Thanks to the melding of the utter brainlessness of so many of the "elites" of Europe and the US with the administration's policies of "outreach" to the Muslims of the world, the government of Israel has been forced to divert its efforts from dealing with the existential threat represented by emergent Iran to the sideshow of why IDF commandos were so bold as to kill people who were trying to kill them.

While the government of Israel made a blunder in the precise tactics of interdicting the Great Humanitarian Aid Flotilla, the ground truths remain unchanged. The flotilla was a deliberate provocation orchestrated and conducted with the assistance of the Erdogan regime; the Miza Marmara had on board a number of martyrdom seeking jihadists who offered cold arm resistance to the fast roping commandos. End of story.

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu and his inner cabinet, the Septet (also either the Seven Samurai or the Seven Dwarfs depending on your point of view and the choices they make) are wrestling with damage control and new means of placating Obama over the Gaza Strip blockade rather than the very important subject of how to deal with Iran before it is an hour too late. Iran along with its allies, Syria and Turkey, and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, seeks the total obliteration of Israel as currently constituted. That is a ground truth impossible to ignore or rebut.

While Mr Obama is apparently quite comfortable with the idea of a Mahdi Bomb, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary, the state and government of Israel cannot afford such a detached, laid back attitude. While it will be quite some time before Iranian technicians can miniaturize a nuclear charge so as to make it deliverable by one of its medium or intermediate range ballistic missiles, it will take very little time to build a bomb which would fit comfortably in a truck.

(Feeling depressed, Ahmad, anxious, tired of this life? Think martyrdom. Particularly if you can drive a truck.)

Think of it this way, Ahmad, you don't even have to cross the Israeli border. Just get to a checkpoint on the Lebanese border--or the Gaza border after our Western tools have opened the Strip to our ships--and let the sucker go. A twenty kiloton ground pounder will kill a whole bunch of Jews--particularly if Allah wills the winds to blow in the correct direction. Come on, Ahmad, that little push of the clicker will make you a hero orders of magnitude greater than the guys who flew into the Twin Towers. Way to go, fellihin!

By the most conservative estimate the Iranians are only a pair of years from having a workable truck transportable nuclear weapon or two. Letting one or both rip on Israel would be a mighty blow against the "Zionist entity" particularly if followed by ground attacks from all those nice neighbors known as "frontline states." The ground attacks won't even have to be conducted by heavy and well coordinated forces if the government and people of Israel are not prepared for the initial shock.

In a world filled with "get-or-get-got" situations, the one faced by Israel is the most compelling. To "get" implies the willingness to be held responsible for starting the equivalent of a full scale war at a time when the global economy would be an inevitable collateral casualty. To wait until being "get-got" and then retaliate means the political will to absorb a large number of Israeli casualties must exist.

The time to make decisions between "getting" and surviving "getting got" is short. The time to make the necessary preparations in both political will and material capacities for either option is not much longer. Every minute wasted on damage control over the flotilla mess is time wasted.

For this the Obama administration must and will take great responsibility when historians of the future consider this period. Cringing, hand-wringing, bowing to Muslims has been bootless. Turning Uncle Sam's back to Israel is much, much worse.

How To Shoot Oneself In The Mouth

Noted Statesman and Progressive Political leader of the most Faithful people of Iran must be letting the pressure get to him. In an outburst which far transcended even his own well known and oft demonstrated capacity to go over the rhetorical edge, the Iranian "president," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has not only done the usual--excoriate the US and President Obama--he has done the same to Russian president Dimitri Medvedev.

Ahmadinejad is a very practiced player of brinksmanship, but he may have pushed the Russian button too hard for the good of his cause--gaining Iran nuclear weapons. The Iranian's "stern warning" that the American president was in the process of blowing his last best chance to gain Tehran's compliance with the much modified proposal to put some low enriched uranium in Turkish custody pending the delivery of twenty percent enriched fuel rods for its American supplied research and medical isotope producing reactor is more of the same old, "yadda-yadda and dabba-dabba-do," but his insulting "advice" to President Medvedev that the Russian needs to think longer and harder before joining the Western jihad against a "great nation" is a zebra of a completely different stripe.

The Russian response to Ahmadinejad's friendly counsel was not long coming. Nor was it particularly warm. Actually, "hot" would be a better characterization--as in white-hot with anger.

The Russian government is well aware that it has much more at stake in its relations with Iran than does the US. Russia has a wide variety of long-standing interests in play with Tehran, all of which are placed at real risk if Russia joins with the US, the UK, France, and Germany in rejecting the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil last weekend.

If the Iranian government and Mr Ahmadinejad really were as slicky-boy as they believe themselves to be, they would have had some slight chance of retaining some of the valuable support long given by Moscow at the UN and elsewhere. However, the "deal" put together by the Good Friends of Tehran did not begin to address the most fundamental and most troubling threats presented by the Iranian nuclear effort.

Since October, when Tehran first seemed to accept and then reject the initial proposal crafted by the US and its associates, the centrifuges have continued to spin. As a direct consequence, the temporary removal of twelve hundred kilograms of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium would not leave the Iranians with too little of the stuff to process to higher degrees of purity. The Russians can count as well as anyone else.

Secondly, the Grand Bargain left the Iranians committed to continuing to enrich their fissionables to a level of twenty percent even with the fuel rods en route. The only reason for this twist in Iranian policy was the desire to have a breakout capacity for weapons grade uranium, as it is vastly simpler and faster to go from twenty percent to ninety plus than it is to go from zero to 3.5 or from 3.5 to twenty percent. Having made more than a tad of highly enriched uranium themselves, the Russians know how the game is played.

Finally the Great Deal did not address the new and improved--and greatly enlarged--enrichment facilities which Tehran has under construction or planned. The new capacities are far in excess of whatever legitimate need for low enriched reactor fuel might be needed in the near term, or the much longer term for that matter. This discrepancy did not pass by the Russian eyes unnoticed.

Taken together with the insulting "friendly words" from Ahmadinejad, the Russians could be expected to go fast boost exoatmospheric. And, they did. The "advice" was categorically rejected by the top foreign policy advisor at the Kremlin, Sergei Prikhodko, as "political demagoguery." He added,

Any unpredictability, any political extremism, lack of transparency or inconsistency in taking decisions that affect and concern the entire world community is unacceptable for us.

A better and more accurate description of Iranian behavior is hard to make.

A second Sergei, this time Sergei Karaganov, the head of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, which is quite influential and reflects the thinking and views of those in the Kremlin, observed that the Iranians "were digging their own grave."

Of course, actions count for much more than mere words in foreign relations--a fact of life which has not penetrated the thinking of President Obama yet. For the Russians, as for many seasoned players of the game of nations, words are the necessary precursor of action--and point in the direction the actions will most likely take.

Currently, the Russian built reactor is scheduled to go online in August. It is, of course, possible now that "technical" problems might retard the event. Or, another dispute between Tehran and Moscow over the financial end of the transaction may emerge. Or, some other unforeseen difficulty will manifest itself. You get the point--Russia has the initiative and can use it when and how doing such best serves Russian national interests.

Then there is the matter of the S-300 air defense system. The Obama administration went the extra set of miles to exempt this deal from any upcoming sanctions much to the delight of the Kremlin. Now it is quite possible that the Ahmadinejad "friendly words" will serve to cause the Russians to reconsider delivery. They have, after all, been paid for the hardware in major part. It would be a no risk, no lose means of retaliation for the insults and intended pressure.

As any number of past American presidents could have informed Ahmadinejad, nothing fails faster in desired results with the Russians than pressure openly and ineptly applied. The Kremlin will and has responded favorably to demonstrations of political will resolutely applied over time, but never to open threats--most importantly those delivered with an outrageous effrontery.

It is possible that the Ahmadinejad fusillade was intended not for the Kremlin but rather for the folks back home in Buncomb County. The spewing of threats couched as concerned warnings might have simply been meant to cover Ahmadinejad's hind end from any sniping on the part of the ultras in Tehran or Qom. Or, the Iranian semi-maximum leader might simply have been his own, old, usual out-to-lunch self.

In any event, Ahmadinejad has provided a very real service for all of those who want to see Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons. Thank Allah for such large mercies as Ahmadinejad and his ever ready mouth.

Diplomats Are The Weakness Of Diplomacy

There is a very major, even a fatal, disease which afflicts diplomats--particularly those who represent liberal democracies such as those of Western Europe and the US. The disease is just this, the diplomats are so prone to the seductive nature of the process that they forget (if they ever really knew) that the purpose of diplomacy is to accomplish definite goals in the international political arena.

Diplomats so love the processes of diplomacy--the meetings, the exchanging of notes, demarches, memos, the conferences, the whispered discussions on the sidelines of conferences, the carefully phrased, often anonymous, statements and leaks to the media, the photo-ops, the self-congratulatory celebrations of success of process--that they ignore the goal. The focus is so process oriented that the nature of the goal--as well as its achievement--fades away on some distant, hazy horizon.

In a slight variation on this theme, the diplomats, having accomplished something, overlook such matters as verifying that the goal has actually been achieved, monitoring on-going compliance with an agreement as the months and years roll by, or even whether or not the accomplished task has genuinely advanced or defended a true national or strategic interest. This means that once the final paper has been signed, the last press statement given, the ultimate photograph of some smiling "statesman" taken, the diplomats move on blindly to the next exercise in "process."

History, diplomatic history, is rife with examples of "process" running amok so as to obscure completely the failed nature of the product. This has been equally true when the "process" results in a declaratory product--the Monroe Doctrine, the Open Door, "Peace Without Victors"--or a contractual agreement such as the Versailles Peace Treaty, the UN Convention on Human Rights, the Paris Peace Accords, the Oslo Accords.

Today the astigmatic focus on "process" above all realpolitik concerns exists all around us. High profile examples of the diplomatic fatal affection with "process" include the Mideast Peace Process and the Iranian Nuclear Question. In both of these the hypnotic fascination of "process" has served to render any meaningful goal less and less likely. Further, the constant emphasis on "process" has warped beyond all recognition just what American national or strategic interests are in play in either the Arab-Israeli conflicts or the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons.

The recent hyperbola emanating from the Oval and its environs concerning the presumed linkage between Mideast peace, solving the Iranian question, and Israel's having not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty shows the disastrous triumph of diplomatic "process" over the substance of national interest and security. In the pursuit of "process" the Nice Young Man From Chicago has been willing, even eager, to conflate illegitimately the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons with the Israeli expansion of "settlements" in East Jerusalem thus shoving the substance of national interest ever deeper in the background.

The Obama administration has connected the ongoing "failure" of the "peace process" in the Mideast with enhanced risks to US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in a manner so bogus as to excite pity. Now, Team Obama has surpassed even this exercise in bloviation unrelated with any real world basis.

The US has backed Egypt's play in seeking to pressure Israel into signing the NPT which would require the Jewish state to abandon its presumed nuclear arsenal. The justification for this travesty is to be found in the requirements of "process." Specifically the Obama administration pretends to believe that by forcing Israel into the NPT it would be possible finally to achieve a global consensus on the next round of sanctions directed at Iran.

Two impediments presented by the real world of real people pursuing real national interests are simply ignored by the Obama people in their fixation on the "process" of bringing Iran to the bargaining table where the mullahs will enter into a good faith agreement to abandon any warlike ambitions in their nuclear program. You want to know what these real world impediments are?

Glad you asked, bucko. The first is simply that the Iranians have made it clear they will not give up enrichment (or anything else meaningful) even if they agree to the proposed exchange of low enrichment uranium for higher purity uranium useful in their aging reactor. The second comes from the fact that no responsible Israeli government would abandon their prime deterrent.

In its latest process-driven pressure campaign the Obama administration has managed to do something so profoundly silly that even the Nobel Prize happy Jimmy Carter or Bill (I-Must-Have-A-Success-Any-Success) Clinton didn't go so many bridges too far. The Obama people have carved out a stance which must now serve as the Palestinian Authority's minimum acceptable terms for agreement. In effect the Obama White House is now the de facto bargaining agent for the PA.

To reach this point the members of Team Obama had to so narrow their focus to one of "process" that they imitated Oedipus, blinding themselves to such unpleasant historical facts as the number of times Palestinian leaders have rejected or not taken official notice of even more generous offers by the Israeli government. It is apparently unacceptable to Team Obama that the principals, the Israelis and the Palestinians, might achieve substantial agreement by a means other than the US approved "process."

Nor has the American emphasis on "process" enjoyed substantial results with the Iranian Question. The ever shifting deadlines, the always flexible schedules for compliance, the ever recurring need for more conversations with more countries for more consensus have benefited no one's national interest--unless one happens to have a high office in Tehran. In recent days the search for "process" has reduced American diplomats to claiming success when a more or less senior US diplomat has dinner with the Iranian ForMin and representatives of the other fourteen governments currently serving on the Security Council.

Consider for a moment the (remote) possibility that Iran does finally agree to the proposed transfer of three percent for twenty percent enriched uranium on conditions acceptable to the US and its Western partners. Then what? There is no reason to conclude the Iranians will abandon the quest for nuclear breakout capacity.

A useful analogy would be the outcome of the legendary Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of seventy-five years ago and the somewhat later bilateral agreement between Imperial Japan and the US not to fortify their Pacific Ocean possessions. The first treaty failed to limit either aircraft carriers or submarines--the two decisive systems of WW II in the Pacific. The second had no substantial verification and enforcement mechanism with the result that while we neglected the Philippines and other islands, the Japanese made their new acquisitions--gained courtesy of the Versailles Peace Treaty--a no-go zone and fortified them to the max.

There is crucial substance in play with both the Israeli-Arab peace and the Iranian nuclear question. Key American national and strategic interests are involved with both. It is tragic for the US--and the world generally--that these clear, very specific interests have been veiled behind a scrim of diplomatic "process."

The tragedy is unnecessary. It is an artifact created by the coupling of diplomatic blinders and President Obama's personal True Beliefs and a style of international relations informed by cultural relativism and the organizing ideas of Saul Alinsky.

There is irony as well as tragedy resident in the current self-made, self-imposed policy debacle. Mr Obama is searching for a way out which does not involve war. In his search the consequent focus on "process" makes war more likely.

Not less.

Obama And "Point 31"

Hidden under the plethora of ink and electrons generated by Ahmedinejad at the UN and (fortunately) inept Pakistani makers of VBIEDs, there are some real foreign policy and national security matters. This is not to deprecate the potential for major bloodletting had Faisal Shahzad been less incompetent. Nor is to minimize the dangers lurking behind the hyperbolic rhetoric and warped history purveyed by Iran's Orator-in-Chief at the UN.

Both represent clear and present harm to American national security and interests.

Still, there are times when the largest of future harms resides in cool text buried away in tedious documents read by few and acted upon by still fewer. Such is the case with a draft document currently being circulated by this year's capo of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Egypt, for the guidance of the one hundred or so countries holding membership in NAM. Deep in the bowels of this paper is Point 31.

Point 31 calls for all signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to refrain from transferring or allowing the transfer of any and all materials, equipment, and knowledge related to nuclear research and engineering to Israel unless and until that country joins the NPT. Point 31 also calls upon all signatories to the NPT (which, of course, includes the US) to disclose all information in their possession regarding the Israeli nuclear program including but not limited to a full release of all information relevant to previous transfers of equipment, technology, materials, and knowledge to the Jewish state. The Egyptian position paper is unclear if this requirement would be rendered null in the event Israel signs the NPT.

Egypt is, as it has been for many years now, plumping for the nuclear disarmament of Israel under the beguiling guise of creating a nuclear weapons free Mideast. The Egyptians are not motivated in this so far bootless quest by high minded desires to see the Mideast as an idyllic place in which heavy atoms eager to fission or light atoms equally happy to fuse are conspicuous by their absence.

The government and military command of Egypt like their counterparts throughout the Arab majority region recognize perfectly that Israel's nuclear capacity is the ultimate guarantor of Israel's existence, of Israel's capacity to defeat any hypothetical combination of adversaries, even one equipped with overwhelming superiority in the most technologically advanced warlike stores and munitions. This realization has a universal deterrent effect upon even the most zealous advocate of wiping the Zionist entity off the map.

Mark this well. It is the Israeli possession of nuclear weapons which assures Israel's survival and not any promises on the part of any and every American administration. History has proven to the satisfaction of the Israelis (at least) that the promises of an outside Great Power are not sufficient to deter a resolute and motivated enemy. They, in apparent contrast to President Obama and others in his administration, learned the single greatest lesson of World War II. That lesson is contained in the failure of the Anglo-French guarantees to Poland.

Sure, the agreement was signed. It was publicly declared to be the guiding light of national policy in both London and Paris. Yet, Hitler unleashed the panzers anyway. He was unimpressed by either the political will or material capacity of the French and British to intervene effectively on Poland's behalf.

Hitler was proven wrong. It took nearly six years and millions of dead. And, what good did Poland receive in the process? Ask the corpses of Katyn forest.

The government and people of Israel mean no disrespect to the US when they aver or imply that a country must look to its own resources to protect its own interests, chief among which is national survival. It is not so much that the Israelis do not believe the good intentions of the many American presidents (including Mr Obama) when they announce the linkage between Israel and the US, but rather, they know that reality may prove different when push comes to shove.

In this the government of Israel is no different from that of France under Charles de Gaulle. The Great Charles irked the US no end when he went his independent way with the creation of an all-French nuclear force. Small to be sure, but existing solely to protect French interests.

France was easily accepted as a nuclear power, a member of the NPT committed in theory to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. In that status France is equal to the earlier developers of nuclear arms, the US, the UK, the USSR, and China. All of these members of the "Official" Nuclear Club are equally committed to the goal of a "nuclear free"world.

Whether the same can be said of the members of the "Unofficial" Nuclear Club, those countries which have nuclear weapons but are not subscribers to the NPT is arguable. India, Pakistan, and (in an intentionally ambiguous way) Israel constitute the "Unofficial" bunch. On a purely realpolitik basis it is quite unlikely that any are in favor of proliferation. But, none are legally committed to this which puts them at inherent odds with the five big guys of the "Official" club.

It is of more than simply passing interest that the Egyptian Point 31 mentions only Israel by name. Arguably there is not even an implication that the same strictures should apply to NPT signatories with respect to the other two members of the "Unofficial" group. Perhaps this is due to an Egyptian capacity to sleep soundly given that (a) Pakistan is a fellow Islamic country and (b) India is too preoccupied with either or both Pakistan and China to spare any bombs for Egypt.

More probably the Egyptian care in labeling is based on practical politics. Cairo has no desire to annoy fellow NAM heavyweight India or its colleague in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC,) Pakistan. Assuring the full compliance of the juggernaut of the NAM or the slightly smaller bloc of the OIC means not ruffling any of the easily displaced diplomatic feathers of the highly nationalistic governments of India and Pakistan.

Point 31 does represent a diplomatic tarbaby for the Obama bunch. By so eagerly and publicly embracing the chimera of a "nuclear free" globe as well as a similar status for the Mideast, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has created a very pretty problem for himself.

Linking the threat presented by Iran with a reduction in nuclear weapons has boxed Obama quite well. It will be far, far more difficult to isolate Iran sufficiently at the current NPT review conference without giving some measure of support to the Egyptian position. At the same time, any support for Cairo's cleverly worded Point 31 will result in further intransigence on the part of Israel.

Obama has overlooked or willfully ignored the ground truth here. Without its ambiguous nuclear policy, Israel is a small, stationary target for all attackers from the suicide bomber to the combined conventional forces of the Arab "frontline states."

Obama has overlooked or willfully ignored the necessary corollary. No state can rely upon the promises of another when existential matters are involved. As Le grande Charles put it, "Is it believable that the US will put New York or even Chicago at risk to protect Paris or Lyon?"

Even if much lower stakes are involved, can any responsible government hand over the guarantee of existence to an outside power? Particularly one whose support for Israel seems to be evanescent to a degree previously unthought?

So far Iran has done a commendable job in enlisting the support of members of NAM as well as other "small" non-nuclear states with the contention that the West generally and the US in particular constitute an oppressive minority practicing the most hypocritical of policies with respect to nuclear energy. The addition of Egypt's Point 31 goes a long, long way to firm this pro-Iranian tilt at the UN.

Much of President Obama's approach deserves (cautious) commendation. But, his stance on a nuclear free world generally and a Mideast similarly lacking in nuclear weapons is misguided and counterproductive. If nothing else, Mr Obama, Ms Clinton, and others need to get a grip on the reality that pressuring Israel to join the NPT and relinquish its nuclear guarantee of national survival is as wrong as a cat barking.

Mr Obama, Ms Clinton, and the other high minded idealists of the administration also need to take a very firm grip on another reality. The opponent right now in the Mideast/Persian Gulf region is not Israel. It is Iran. And, on the diplomatic front as well as the practical one of developing a breakout capacity, Iran is winning.

This means, we--and the rest of the civilized world--are losing. Thank you, President Obama. Will you ever learn that vaporous words and invoking the shade of Saul Alinsky won't hack it in international politics? Before it is too late?

What A Shock! The US Doesn't Have A Policy

The biggest yawner of the news cycle is the "revelation" by the NYT of a "secret" memo by SecDef Robert Gates in which the blunt former spook informed the White House that we have no policy, no strategy for dealing with a nuclear capable Iran. Gee whilikers, who would have thought?

The memo was written shortly after the Iranians successfully ignored yet one more of the lines in the sand so often drawn by President Obama. Of course, it is legitimate to ask whatever possessed the administration to believe the mullahs and their verbose front men would actually agree to surrender their uranium stockpile and otherwise live according to the worldviews of the US, the West, the IAEA, and other assemblages of foreign infidels?

As unsurprising as the contents of the Gates Memo was the response from the White House. National Security Advisor, (former) Marine General James Jones, took the predictable route of assuring the masses that the administration has really, really been on top of the policy planning thing each and every one of the past fifteen months.

The general went on to make his key point. The US strategy was not a public document. We had to trust the older?, wiser? heads in and near the Oval. Effective action, the general wanted us to believe would be taken when, how, and if appropriate.

Duh.

The problem comes in determining the actual state of Iran's nuclear capability. The most probable goal of the mullahs is to assemble all the components of a nuclear weapon but not put the final package together in a deliverable form. This would not only allow the transgressor state to keep within technical compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty but immeasurably complicate the task of assessing capability. And the degree of threat.

(It deserves recalling that the US would have been in compliance with today's NPT when the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded on board the B-29s. Final assembly occurred only after the bombers were airborne. Only then did the US possess weapons as defined by the NPT.)

Implicit in the Gates Memo is the most basic question: Is the US prepared to accept a nuclear capable Iran, particularly one which has an off-the-shelf arsenal?

The president and his secretary of state have worn out their vocal cords saying, "No way." Yet the nature of the failed policies on the ground have given credibility to the opposite. We are willing to see Iran join the Nuclear Club (virtual division.)

The Gates Memo also demands a clear cut demonstration of political will in the (rather unlikely) event the administration is seriously committed to a No-Nuclear-Iran policy. Diplomacy requires credible political will as its foundation if it is to have any effect.

The Iranians have no reason to believe that the US will take any real risks to compel Tehran's compliance with our requirements. The soft sanctions which have been enforced with even greater tenderness have not shown that the US and its "allies" are truly serious about forcing the Iranians to abandon the nuclear weapons quest. The unfortunate combination of soft actions and "hard" words, words which have been lessened in their effect by the hearty admixture of kind, gentle, open handed presidential remarks, has combined to assure the mullahs that no icky-poo consequences will ensue over their attaining nuclear status.

It would not be surprising if the Iranian regime has concluded that its robust pursuit of the nuclear goal has been responsible in large measure for the Obama administration's radical shift in policy toward Israel. Considering that the regime's hold on the political and diplomatic context operating on the Israel-Arab matter is tenuous at best and its sense of self-importance borders on the grandiose, it is not out to lunch to infer that the Bearded Lads of Tehran see that their having hung tough in the face of American "pressure" has had the result of forcing the administration to back down in its support of Israel. That is a very important factor in Iranian policy thinking.

Achieving a breakout capacity covered with the same fog of ambiguity which has typified the Israeli nuclear program for fifty years would give Tehran an unaccustomed degree of regional and global influence. The self-evident lack of a well defined, well presented policy on the part of the US, particularly one which includes a credible degree of direct military threat, has not only furthered Iranian influence, it has lessened that possessed by the US. In the region and throughout the world, the loud talk and ineffective action of the Obama administration has done much to erode the American capacity to be taken seriously.

In a similar vein the bumbling actions of the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan for so many years went a long, a very long way to eroding the fear with which many countries once viewed our military capacity. The sheer ineptitude of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years of "shock and awe" in these two wars did nothing to enhance the credibility of the American military as a Big Stick. It must be remembered that all diplomacy other than that between countries with the greatest number of coinciding national interests rests in large part on the "military option." Certainly all diplomacy of the coercive sort, the kind we are engaged in with respect to Iran, rests on the perceived will and ability to employ force in support of policy.

The Iranians have concluded, perhaps quite accurately, that the US lacks the will and ability to use its military against the Revolutionary Republic. Thus it is safe for Ahmadinejad to boast of Iran's military being too "mighty" for any foreign state to consider attacking the country. It is a boast that he believes will never be put to the test.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has recently sent a memo around which reminded all hands of the need for a range of options to be both prepared and refined so that the administration will have the military means available immediately should it conclude that diplomacy has failed and the Iranian nuclear nuisance must be abated. This is a necessary step. But it is not both necessary and sufficient.

As the ancient recipe for rabbit stew starts, "First, catch your rabbit," the first step is to have a definite policy. The Obama administration which means Obama himself, must decide whether or not to declare defeat and proceed to some sort of containment policy directed against a nuclear capable Iran or, with the failure of unsupported diplomacy, to use the long taboo "military option." Given the record of delay, of hesitation, of combining hard words with soft mood music, and the unwillingness of key players such as Russia and China to see the potential threats in a way similar to that of the US, France, and the UK, the choice must come soon and must be made both public and compelling.

War is undesirable, to put it mildly. The consequences of a military strike would be of "world historical" importance. The same may be said of the Iran-Bested-Us alternative. A nuclear capable Iran would be certain to be a severe game changer both in the region and around the world.

Tough choices, it may be inferred from the Gates Memo, do not become any easier with the passage of time. They become both harder and starker. To be blunt, the Obama administration has fiddled while the Iranian centrifuges have spun. The fiddling must stop before the centrifuges have scored a clear cut victory over the Civilized States of the world.

This may mean that Mr Obama will have to act as if he had morphed into George W. Bush. The US may have to act as a Great Power pursuing its national interest whether Brazil or even China likes the idea. Mr Obama may have to run against type, against his own sense of self. But, that sort of thing comes with being in the Oval.

Moving Uranium--Faux Pas Or Provocation?

Watching the people who watch Iran has become as much fun as watching the people who watched the Kremlin was in the good ole days of the Cold War.

The latest piece of amusement came along after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publicly reported that the Iranians had moved (with IAEA inspectors standing by) most of their stockpile of low enrichment uranium from its underground storage facility to a processing plant above ground. That's right, bucko, over two tons of the stuff right there in a shed visible and attackable from the air.

The physical movement came on the heels of the policy move announced by the Iranian Orator-in-Chief to the effect that Iran was proceeding with enrichment to the twenty percent level in order that Iranians might not lack medical radioisotopes produced in the elderly, US furnished nuclear reactor. The deed coming so quickly in the wake of the words pushed the hot buttons of Iran watchers from Tokyo to Washington. After all, even the most ignorant of diplomats and decision makers understands that once the twenty percent enrichment level is made it is all a bob sled run downhill to weapons grade product.

A flurry of meetings, consultations, and viewings-with-alarm ensued at warp speed. The focus of all these--including at least some of the recent visits to Israel by senior US military figures--has been twofold: Why did the Iranians move the goods? and How to keep Israel from responding to the opportunity?

The rather large contingent of those who believe the Iranians are slicker than Bill Clinton on a good day quickly (one is tempted to write "reflexively") ascribed the move to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which is allegedly seeking to invite an Israeli attack in pursuit of both national unity and a final war with the "Zionist entity." They argue that putting all the nuclear eggs in one basket (well, one large specially constructed cask) with a figurative sign reading "Bomb Here" would constitute an invitation the Israelis could not refuse and the results would be good from the perspective of a badly beleaguered regime.

The Iranian people would unite as one behind the mullahs and the mullahs' men. The hounds of war would be unleashed with the possible result being the "final solution" of the Zionist problem.

As a piece of reasoning this impressive exercise in conspiracy thinking hangs together. It meshes well with the rhetoric of the regime. It takes some account of realities both in the region and the world. It is good enough to assure that the given-to-nervousness Obama administration would launch a quiet diplomatic offensive to keep the Israelis on the reservation.

As reasoning the hypothesis is justifiable. As an exercise in realistic assessment it is not.

Iran is rather unlikely to place the vast majority of its uranium, its potential future nuclear capability, its diplomatic trump card, at high risk. The Koran wavers of Tehran are willing to take calculated risks but not make risky gambles. They are most likely convinced that neither Israel nor the US is convinced that the time is right for the "military option."

This assessment is correct. The push-comes-to-shove moment is not yet here. Arriving rapidly perhaps but not yet upon us.

Reinforcing the low probability of the move being a provocation is the reality that the Iranian centrifuge cascade has been showing itself to be inherently creaky and possessed of a less than impressive reliability. LEW once strewn across the landscape by missiles or bombs is not quickly nor easily replaced--particularly if the means of production are inefficient and cranky.

There is a simpler explanation. It lacks the charm and high drama of the Iranians-as-super-manipulators notion. But, it does meet both technical requirements and the past caution shown by the regime.

The alternative is this. The order to go ahead with twenty percent enrichment caught the engineers by surprise. To execute quickly they had no option but to move the LEW en bloc to the above ground facility and start the new cascade spinning. As was the case in the old Soviet Union, nothing must take precedence over meeting production norms.

This meant taking the calculated risk that Israel would be restrained from seeing an opportunity and taking it. This implied relying upon the Obama administration to carry Tehran's water effectively. It also assured that the production demand could be met in a timely fashion without delaying the production of more LEW.

Given the Obama administration's commitment to sanctions and consequent diplomacy, the Iranian bet was a safe one. Considering that China opposes sanctions as do several current members of the UN Security Council such as Brazil, the last thing the administration needs would be a typically muscular Israeli rising to the nuclear bait.

There is no doubt but JCS Chairman Mullen conveyed the "don't do it!" message loud and clear when he stopped in Israel last week. In doing so he was backstopped by the chief of police in Dubai and his investigation into the assassination of Hamas arms smuggler al-Mabhouh and the consequent diplomatic imbroglio.

The take-away? Simple. The Iranians are clever, but not that clever. They are goal oriented. Not yet suicidal.

Madam Secretary, You've Got It Wrong

Secretary of State Clinton described Iran as a "military dictatorship" in the making during her current show-their-flags tour of the Mideast. The purpose of the SecState's diplomatic blitz is the gaining of open support for a new round of sanctions from the oil sheikdoms of the Gulf. As an add-on of some importance, she is attempting to lever Saudi Arabia into guaranteeing China's oil supply in the event Iran cuts back on its shipments following the imposition of new sanctions.

One of the gambits being employed by Ms Clinton--and the rest of the Obama administration--is focusing on the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Obama team is taking the line that the IRGC constitutes a privileged elite and sanctions targeted on it will not hurt the Iranian people generally and may help the political opposition.

Secretary Clinton has taken the line to its next logical extent when she averred the IRGC was a nascent military dictatorship surpassing in power both the "elected" civilian government and the clerical establishment. While this reasoning sounds good it suffers from one minor flaw: It is as wrong as a cow growling.

The nature of the error can be understood quite easily from an apposite historical analogy. In Nazi Germany the SS ran its own industries, controlled much of the advanced technology development, and operated its own rather substantial economy. It was a state-within-a-state.

At no time, not even in the closing weeks of the war, did the SS either control or dictate terms to the regime of Adolph Hitler. Despite having his own rather substantial and certainly very well equipped private army the head of the SS, Himmler, never threatened a coup, never took over functional control of the Nazi apparatus. Rather, Himmler and his very large establishment were complete and effective servants of the regime and the ideology behind it.

The same phenomena were at work over the years in the Soviet Union. The organs of state security were states within states. So also was the Red Army. Yet at no time did these bodies present a threat to the Party and regime. Authoritarian? Yes. Military dictatorship? Not a chance.

So it is in Iran. The IRGC is both a state within a state and a very loyal and dedicated servant of the regime and the ideology upon which the regime and state rest. There is no hint, nor is there any real potential, of the IRGC taking over the reins of power and changing the semi-theocracy of today into the military dictatorship of tomorrow.

Right now Iran is a semi-theocracy. Today, there are some democratic features at work in the political processes. However, the current system is not dynamically stable. The assorted pressures at work within Iranian social, political, and economic life are shoving the country ever closer to an authoritarian theocracy. When this happens, the IRGC will be the key instrument of regime maintenance. It will be (with a tip of the hat to the old Soviets) "the sword and the shield of the revolution" even more than it is presently.

The IRGC will not become a "military dictator" and Iran will not be a "military dictatorship." Ms Clinton has it wrong with her animadversion.

The coming Iranian theocracy will be a legitimate product of Islamic religious, which is to say, Islamic political thought. A theocratic state is totally compatible with Islam. It is not pushing the envelop to assert that a theocratic state is organic to the precepts of the Koran.

The leadership and most, if not all, the members of the IRGC are ideologically sound. They are good, observant Muslims of the Shia branch. Thus their loyalties are to the ideology espoused by the clerical establishment of Iran and the principles first laid down by Ayatollah Khomeini.

The IRGC will carry out its many missions both at home and abroad, military and industrial, overt and covert, with dedication, ruthlessness, and a degree of efficiency. It will not, however, become the government. Nor will it replace the clerical establishment with one of its own manufacture.

Ms Clinton and her fellows in the Obama administration may not like to admit the real deal. The target of all diplomacy, sanctions and, if need be, war is not and will never be the IGRC but rather the religious ideology and eschatological orientation of the regime in both its civilian and clerical components. The target is and will be, in the words of an Australian judge passing sentence on five convicted wannabe jihadists, "intolerant, inflexible religious conviction."

Without going into the morass of Islam generally, suffice it to note that the Iranian regime of the past thirty-one years has shown itself to be motivated by "intolerant, inflexible religious conviction." Even the often praised in the West leaders of the "Green Movement" since last June share the basic premises of the clerics and the current Tehran government--and the IRGC.

It is the same "intolerant, inflexible religious convictions" which have made it impossible for normal diplomatic means--including sanctions--to have any positive, lasting effect on the Iranian courses of action. Far more than any mere "military dictatorship," Iran today is immune to the typical blandishments and coercions of the Great Game of Nations.

This is a harsh reality for the touchy-feely types of the post-Modern, multi-cultural elite to accept. They cannot bring themselves to believe that a regime in today's world can actually find its strength in a set of religious precepts laid down in the Arabian desert more than a thousand years ago. They cannot wrap their minds around the concept of "theocracy" even as it both stares them in the face and threatens to bite them in the tush.

So, as a sort of default state, the lawyerly minds of Secretary Clinton, President Obama, and the rest of the crew fall back on an irrelevant boogieman from the past--the "military dictatorship." With "thinking" of that sort, we had best prepare ourselves for a world with a nuclear capable Iran--or a war which can only be won in a narrowly technical sense.

Spinning Across The Line

The Iranians have made the decision to, "damn the West! Full speed ahead!" in their quest for the Really Big Mahdi Bomb.

As has been standard operating procedure with the mullahs and their men, the latest push has been covered in realms of rhetoric ranging from the dire need of "our patients" for radioisotopes from the aging US manufactured reactor to ever-so-sincere declarations that there is no incompatibility between enriching to twenty percent and the continuation of diplomatic conversations or negotiations or whatever.

Fer sure, dudes. Like you can't buy the isotopes elsewhere? Like the only place they are made is in your creaky old reactor? Get real!

And, there is no contradiction? Just what sort of hicks from the sticks do you blokes think we in the West are? You really believe that countries with the technological base and diplomatic experience the US/EU states possess don't see the fundamental contradiction?

There are several salient matters to be considered here.

The first is the Iranians do not have the capacity to actually fabricate the fuel rods for the reactor. The French do. Even the Argentinians can do the job. Not the Iranians.

Secondly, the hardest part of enriching to the ninety percent level necessary for a nuclear bomb comes at the beginning of the process. After hitting twenty percent it is, in a real way, all down hill. As few as 500 centrifuges of the type used by the Iranians could give the necessary highly enriched uranium in a matter of a couple or three months given twenty percent feedstock.

Outside of Iran is the looming reality that China will not support any new sanction regime. While the Russians are now making ugly noises over the Iranian lack of "sincerity," Vladimir Putin still gets much domestic mileage from opposing the US. The continued invocation of the US missile defense system as a roadblock to a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty is indication of this. The implication is that while China might not openly block a move at the Security Council backed by Russia, there is no certainty that Russia is in agreement with any new pressure plan.

Then, of course, it is more than a bit uncertain that any sanctions whatsoever, no matter how resolutely and completely enforced would have a positive outcome from the US/EU perspective. The Iranian government and military have shown themselves both resilient and dedicated to say nothing of creative in dealing with the past sanction regime(s).

Inside Iran the forces of government and opposition are focusing on the upcoming 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. It is possible that the "smashing blow" mentioned by the Supreme Leader will be directed against the opposition (Note: Pressure consolidates long before it fractures, particularly if the pressure is violently applied.) If so, that would be to the longer term advantage of the West.

But, before anyone gets too breathless with excited anticipation, it should be noted that the conditions inside Iran today do not run in parallel with the situation back in 1979. The opposition leadership is part of the Revolutionary generation, for example. Another consideration is that the working class has not joined the opposition. Thirty-one years ago it was the mass strikes rather than the street protests and bloodshed that cracked the regime wide open. (Admittedly it was the violence which caused President Carter to lose his tenuous grip on realpolitik regarding Iran.)

The Obama administration hopes for a new round of Security Council sponsored sanctions "within a few weeks." That is nice. However, it may be scarcely relevant.

If the Iranians can go ahead enriching to twenty percent without any meaningful as opposed to rhetorical consequences, the cone of options available to the US and the West will become severely limited. There will be essentially two left open: accept and accommodate a nuclear capable Iran or go to war.

It will be rather like July 1914 with one difference, one very critical difference to be sure. This time around one side most assuredly does not want to resort to war.

One can only hope that the mullahs of today and tomorrow and the days after are not in a great hurry to usher in the return of the Mahdi by pushing the new, Big Button in Tehran. Given the very strong eschatological (end of days or time beyond secular time or end days) thinking so rampant in Shia theological circles, it would not be prudent to bet the ranch on restraint being the primary Iranian governmental virtue.

Oh, well, as the ancient Chinese toast/curse has it, "May you live in interesting times."

We sure will be.

The US Gets The Old "One-Two," Again

The US has a remarkable--and completely baseless--faith in economic sanctions. The number of times such pressure has gained a positive policy outcome since the Colonial response to the Stamp Act over two hundred years back is so close to zero that no real distinction can be drawn.

More typically sanctions whether unilateral or of the multi-national sort are without effect at best and counterproductive at worst. Doubters might want to take a dekko at either the progressive slew of sanctions imposed on Imperial Japan (and the ultimate effect at Pearl Harbor) or those of George H.W. Bush on Panama--a country so dependent on the US that it used the dollar as its circulating medium--and the aftermath, Operation Just Cause.

Regardless of history and its lessons we have been at it again in the Great Iranian Nuclear Caper. To date the sanctions imposed by the UN have been without discernible effect, or at least, a noticeable, positive one. The reasons for the failure are well known and have been commented upon many times in this blog.

However, we are about to go through the motions, the well-scripted, well-choreographed and quite over-rehearsed dance of more UN Security Council sanction effort. And, once again, in an equally well-scripted, well-choreographed, over-rehearsed ploy, the Iranians and the Trolls of Beijing are moving to block or at the very least denature the US sponsored move.

Ahmedinejad made the first gesture even as he crowed over the launching of a payload of turtles, earthworms, and other lesser critters on board an Iranian rocket. The Iranian Orator-in-Chief made conciliatory noises to the presumed effect that maybe, perhaps, the Iranians just might accept the long standing UN brokered exchange of Iranian low enrichment uranium for higher octane stuff from abroad.

The Iranian ambassador to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency could not confirm the substance of his boss's statement. Neither did he deny it. The old Tehran shuffle was in play.

While Tehran shuffled, the action passed to the Trolls of Beijing. This well-practiced bunch came on stage not only on cue and on their mark but with the dialogue each and every well-honed ear around the world knew would be coming.

The ForMin got the lines. He delivered them in Paris not that many days after SecState Clinton had warned from the same city of Chinese "isolation" should they not get on board with the new sanctions. The ForMin, Yang Jiechi, opined that sanctions would not be in order given the "new" Iranian willingness to give diplomacy a chance.

Yang's timing was most unpleasant for his French hosts. The French are on the verge of assuming the Security Council's rotating presidency and they had meant to make the most of it. French PM Francois Fillon was chomping at getting the opportunity to grab the spotlight and demand the next round of sanctions, the "crippling" ones so often alluded to by Ms Clinton.

The Chinese position is pretty much of a show-stopper. No glory for the French. No pain for the Iranian regime. And, no gain for the Obama administration.

Any sort of sanction which would not be slapped down by a Chinese veto will be of such an inconsequential nature that no Iranian would notice it. Unless, of course, propaganda purposes would be served by so doing.

The UN Security Council will pass something. The Chinese will probably accept the passage of one more piece of symbolism without doing more than deploring and abstaining. A Security Council resolution of any nature is the necessary prologue to what might actually be for real sanctions by the European Union.

Russia is sort of on board for a Security Council action as the Bear's ego was bent by the Iranian rejection of the first cut of low-for-midrange uranium exchange. The Kremlin really believed they had a more "mature" relationship with the Mullahs of Tehran. The boys really don't like to be proven wrong.

Of course it is impossible to have a "mature" relation with Iran--unless you simply bow down to the will of Allah as interpreted by the Supreme Leader and his clerical coterie. Nor can mere discomfort such as that presented by the sanctions both old and the new, improved, "crippling" sort outweigh in the Tehran calculus the good which possession of a nuclear capability would automatically provide.

The reality is that Iran is run by a crew of True Believers with a strongly eschatological bent and shrewd dreams of regional hegemony and global player status. The only counter-force to the regime and its supporters is the domestic opposition.

Clearly a careful orchestration of effort between Concerned Civilized Countries and the domestic opposition is not beyond the realm of the plausible--and possible. Coupled with wide-ranging sanctions which undercut the already flaky Iranian economy (and, of course and necessity, mean real pain for the average Iranian regardless of his position on the political spectrum) a full-bore support for the domestic opposition carries the strong potential of pushing the regime over the edge with results as good for the world and the Iranian people as fatal to the regime.

In the Goldilocks game of diplomacy there are always three options. One will always be too cold--in this case, sanctions per se. One will be too hot--the "military option." The third has the potential for being "just right." This means the combination of open support for the opposition and a genuine attempt to ruin the Iranian economy lock, stock, and barrel.

The "just right" alternative perforce will be messy. And bloody. But, it beats the alternatives of having a nuclear capable mullahocracy or a very unpleasant and far from small scale war.

The clock has about run out on the Obama administration in this game. The number of viable options has dropped to one. And, only if the administration finally comes to terms with the real world and not the fantasyland it has been living in for a year now.