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The Iran Deal – still pending — 20 Comments

  1. I think there was enough opposition in the Senate that Obama could not present this as a treaty. I suspect that the new Congress in 2023 will have something to say. Much of the pressure behind Biden’s “agenda” is the knowledge that it will all be reversed after the election.

  2. If not submitted to the Senate for approval as a treaty, this is a temporary foreign policy agreement, subject to reversal by a subsequent administration.

  3. I only know of 2 bits of influence:
    former Sen Kerry’s father in law relationship with a child’s spouse
    Obama’s relationship with the Iranian-born advisor Val Jarrett

    There must be an amazingly powerful confluence of power to continue the push since it has no American popularity at all. It’s so easy, as we’ve learned, for the DC bureaucracy to bury policies yet this policy leads a charmed life.

    To me, this argues against something like “Analysts agree that the US and Saudi Arabia will diverge. Iran being the only counter weight to SA, the US will need to cultivate a relationship with Iran” If it was only demographic and geo-political considerations, it would not have the force behind it that is visible to all of us.

  4. There must be an amazingly powerful confluence of power to continue the push since it has no American popularity at all.

    Yes, and that always brings up the old question, “cui bono.”

    The most likely cause of these odd maneuverings is money. Where is it going ?

    Somebody knows.

  5. Honestly I think money explains a lot in terms of Biden and co but not nearly enough to fit all of this. I think the classic “follow the ideology” entreaty fits; we have a nasty alliance of Islamist supporters and Far Leftists making an alliance to attack the middle, as well as Israel. The fact that this allows them both to shed connections with several of the more stable but outwardly nasty and reactionary factions like the Saudis in exchange for the Bright Future of Islamist Hellscapes promised by the “Resistance Bloc” under Iran also helps.

    Also on this subject, this brings me to one of my bete noires. The utter insanity that “Arabist” policies have had. The West has been heavily involved in the Middle East for about a Century and a half and the dream of the Arabist never seems to go away in spite of the many, many, many facets that should have killed it dead. Starting with the fact that the so-called “Arab Revolt” with the Sharif of Mecca claiming to be (essentially) Emperor of All Arabs who would lead them heroically onto the Allied Side… over-promised and under-delivered. Most Arabs remained fervently loyal to the Caliphate even under the control of the Ottoman Turks, many of those that didn’t were of separate and often rival factions to the Husseini Clan in Mecca (such as the Saudis) with no desire to submit to him, and those that did had such inglorious messes like being stuck outside the city of Medina, unable to end the siege by the time the Western Allies broke the back of the Ottoman Government. Hence why the siege wouldn’t end until 1919, and only then because the Turkish commander was betrayed by his own homesick subordinates.

    It’s dismal and should have told everyone that Arabs are not some kind of grand monolith that we either should or even were capable of uniformly appeasing. AND YET we keep making these same mistakes.

    It’s made all the worse because Arab strategic and political culture values STRENGTH, especially if they are dealing with non-Muslims. Compromise is one thing, but appeasement smells like weakness and going too far to currying favor with them probably does more harm than good. And even if it doesn’t it has decidedly underwhelming results, as Ike’s support of Egypt and the Soviets during the Suez Crisis presaging the Arab Cold War and about half the region going Anti-Western shows.

  6. Among the Qataris, there’s almost no support for Persians. Despite that, the government of Qatar has formed a cautious alliance with Iran, because both countries have a longstanding opposition to the Saudis.

    If American Arabists are now using Qatar to justify their position, then no one can take them seriously. That is, no one can take their geopolitical analysis seriously. However unpleasant the thought, American Arabists seem to be primarily motivated by simple Jew hatred.

  7. “And yet the Biden administration is pursuing this terrible deal, just as the Obama administration did when Biden was vice president. They simply do not care what the public thinks, and they certainly are aware of what the public thinks.”

    Actually it’s worse than that; they hate the public, they really do.

    Israel needs to pursue policies as if the USA hates their guts. And the demonkrats And the State Dept do in fact hate their guts. Any time the US has a demonkrat Congress/President , they will support policies harmful to Israel. Any idiot can see this.

    Ironically, it is Iran’s policies that are literally driving Arab nations to become sort of pals with Israel. The Arabs may hate the jews – they certainly do – but they know Israel is not a threat to them, whilst Iran is. And Iran hates Israel more than they hate the untermensch Arabs.
    The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

    What I don’t understand is why Israel, an advanced technological nation – unlike any Arab nation (which is one reason the Arabs hate Israel, in addition to jewish people belonging to the wrong tribe) keeps seeking (depending upon?) USA aid.

    IMHO, Israel has the home-grown capability to defend itself. If they need to buy some US military technology, fine. But it’s time they begin relying less on the US aid and devote more resources to increasing their own defense/offensive capabilities.. Israel certainly has the motivation and brain power to do this.

  8. I’m under the impression that Congress passed a law preventing a repeat of the Obama/Iran deal.

    JohnTyler,

    “What I don’t understand is why Israel, an advanced technological nation – unlike any Arab nation (which is one reason the Arabs hate Israel, in addition to jewish people belonging to the wrong tribe) keeps seeking (depending upon?) USA aid.”

    In the aftermath of the 1976 Yom Kipper War, which only American military aid enabled Israel to win, it became a commonly accepted dogma within Israel that it could not survive without American support.

    Over the years,Israel’s subsequent pariah status in the UN has reinforced that belief, and often only the US blocking particularly onerous sanctions in the UN has resulted in the US having an effective veto power over Israel continuing its military actions. I think it likely that is the primary reason why Israel never finishes its wars.

    For years I’ve maintained that Israel tell the US to go pound sand when we tell them to back off. Israel needs to annex Gaza and the West Bank and, since it is impossible for a devout Muslim to be loyal to Israel, to forcibly evict every Muslim from Israel. To remain in Israel, Muslms must publicly reject the pedophilic murderer Muhammad anddeclare that Allah is a false ‘god’.

    Then declare that the day that Israel suffers a nuclear attack is the day that Mecca and Tehran cease to exist. And if the EU nations continue to support the Muslim world, that Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris will be added to that retaliatory list.

    In addition, to reduce jihadist recruitment, formally declare that captured terrorists will be quickly tried and then executed in an unclean manner, which will be televised and then buried with pig guts. By their own beliefs, forcibly impress upon jihadists that neither paradise nor virgins await them.

  9. Quibble alert: 1973 war (or October war / Ramadan war / Yom Kippur war).

    With regard to American support, I think there’s also the underlying assumption/hope (on Israel’s part) that at this point it would be more of the genuine moral and political support/solidarity variety and less of the military sort—though should the latter be required, as in 1973, it would certainly be welcome.

    (Also involved is support and cooperation with regard to developing new technologies, e.g., the Iron Dome defensive system, which the US helped fund, and continues to do so. To be sure, significant amounts of the results of these R&D efforts redound to America’s use and benefit.)

    The assumption here is PRIMARILY that the chances of a large bust-up between Israel and those who aren’t too happy about its existence WILL, with American support, be discouraged and therefore reduced; even if smaller-scale—and one hopes more “manageable”—conflicts will continue to break out from time to time.

    Note that the LAST thing Israel wants is to be destroyed(!) and the SECOND-TO-LAST thing Israel wants is to have to destroy or greatly damage anyone who has is attempting its destruction.

    No matter what one may think, Israel would really rather NOT have to do the latter…and the belief/hope/assumption IS that the backing of America would help to discourage (i.e., prevent) such an eventuality….

    “Biden” has other plans, however, and is far less (i.e., not even remotely) interested in Israel’s assumptions/hopes than it is with promoting “even-handedness” (AKA being an “honest broker”), “justice” and “peace” in the region.

    (Being an “honest-broker” means, in this case, “even-handedly” and “non-judgmentally” weighing Israel’s potential destroyers’ arguments against Israel’s desire to prevent its own destruction…without taking sides(!))

    The result is a resumption of Obama’s grand “strategic” “vision” of cutting Israel down to size (“even-handedness”), empowering Iran (AKA “peace” in the region) and encouraging the Palestinians’ maximalist demand (AKA “justice”).

    In short: The hell with Israel and its assumptions and hopes.

    And so, with such encouragement, is it any mystery why the mini-war between Hamas and Israel broke out last spring (a mere several months after “Biden”‘s “election”) and a renewed round of hostilities has currently exploded?

    …or any mystery why a new “deal” with Iran is imminent (though even if it does not “materialize”, the “mullahs” have been extensively empowered)?

    “Biden” is indeed the gift that never stops giving…

    The question (rhetorical, albeit) is, “gift for whom?”….

  10. }}} …[O]ver the past generation, progressives have taken over the institutions of the Democrat Party. They have become the dominant faction in the party and they control the Biden administration’s policies.

    Stop calling them “Progressives”. Progressives suggests that what they are is, in any possible regard, “Progress”.

    This would be like calling the former East Germany by the name it chose for itself: The “German Democratic Republic”. Only a complete imbecile thought it was either Democratic OR a Republic of any sort. You had to be kind of ignorant to not realize that it was a state as close to 1984 as humanity has ever created.

    The proper name for them is “PostModern Liberals” (as opposed to “Classical Liberals”, who are at least worthy of some semblance of respect).

    CLs are probably less than 5% of all self-identified “Liberals” (they are probably outnumbered by the RINOS who are closer to CLs than most of all liberals are — the real issue with RINOs is how utterly spineless they are, not their ideas).

    PostModern Liberalism is — as I have said in this blog’s comments many many times before, a social cancer. Not a figurative one, an actual, literal cancer.

    Their aim is to destroy Western Civilization. Every idea, notion, and concept they operate under targets the rational, moral, economic, and any other social basis for Western Civilization. They operate by the Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis:

    The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

    The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

    Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:

    “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

    .

    Looking back on the last 55+ years of Democratic activity, do things now start making more sense?

    September 28, 2008
    Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
    By James Simpson
    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

  11. Passover/Easter greetings from Israel!

    1. As usual, Caroline Glick gets it largely correct. I certainly hope Neo is right about widespread support for Israel among secular Americans. I fear that many college educated people under 50 have been subjected to PC indoctrination throughout their formative years.

    2. One curiosity is how the Israeli experience is a magic mirror for supporters as well as enemies – If the US and Europe show conservative Israeli society where woke sexual contortions lead, the Israeli experience provides a reality check of the Marxist mix of false Western guilt and one-world kumbaya fantasy…

    This projection is typified by Geoffrey Britain and other saber-rattlers who wish Israel would do what they want done in their neck of the woods…. Talk to them about deporting their own Muslim 5th column and suddenly it’s not so simple, nor is it clear what equilibrium society returns to after such an upheaval.

    Currently Israel is experiencing its 2nd wave of *internal* Pali terror – that is, pogron-like attacks by emboldened Arab residents of *pre-67* Israel on their Jewish neighbors.

    Just like Oslo-era attacks from Pali-controlled Gaza, Judea, and Samaria destroyed the conceptions of many intellectuals, these attacks shatter the mantra by which many middle-Left Israelis have lived – it goes like this:

    “The problem is *those* settlers over *there* and their post 1967 “occupation”, but regular Israeli Arabs are partners in Israeli society and accepted the 1948 partition.” (There is a clear religious/secular subtext to this song that lets mainstream Israelis view themselves as enlightened Westerners and hum John Lennon’s “Imagine” to themselves…)

    Yet very few have had sudden revelations or drastic changes of opinion. This is human nature: people’s self-images are bound to certain positions. Like birth pangs, the waves of violence cumulatively work to overtake, destroy, and make untenable previous truths.

    As where you live, these changes take time – human time. A significant chunk of society must make a political change similar to Neo’s. The response of the police and army to narrative-upending violence from Israeli Arabs has been confused, unsure, and tentative – reflecting a population slowly surrendering PC illusion for reality. And the institutions always lag the populace.

    I sense that some supporters of Israel have a projected, wishful view of Israelis as commandos who can brush aside all the moral and practical considerations that make extreme ethnic cleansing difficult and undesireable. Or that our experiences created wall-to wall clarity and consensus. This is not so.

    After each attack my son has interesting discussions with left-leaning guys in his army unit, as various pennies drop. In human time…

    Perhaps this grass-roots awakening is accelerated here by our narrow margin of error – too much navel-gazing, and buses start blowing up. But unzombie-ing Left-leaning institutions is the same slow process here as where you live.

    I love Netanyahu – but he’s a politician and a patriot, not a prophet.

  12. I do not think that theological factors are the *only* reasons for the strong Evangelical support of Israel; maybe not even the most important factor. A high % of Evangelicals are from a Celtic background, and Celts traditionally have a lot of respect for people who *fight*, especially people who fight against heavy odds.

  13. Lots of words above this note so no one will likely see it, but here goes anyway.

    70% did not want Obama care, 64% are against this, and 72% are against that and yet someone keeps voting for these knuckleheads both R&D…

    R’s had two years to just dump O’Care and did nothing. As an old person with health difficulties I see the negative effects of O’Care all the time. The legislation needed to be one line long. No more O’Care, yea or nay.

    All would have survived including me as the docs had more ability to actually practice medicine instead of drowning in bureaucratic nonsense.

    Today, we see the bureaucrats running our care facilities with little representation from the actual care givers. Why do you think that you still have to mask up as you head into your clinic or hospital? It saddens me to see the care givers giving in to this nonsense.

    So frustrating and infuriating. I don’t see much in the way of a way out…

  14. It’s been clear from the first day of this abomination administration they like Barky’s administration want to get Iran nuclear weapons. Either the same cabal or like minded who knows but it’s clear what they want.

  15. @ JD Keene > “70% did not want Obama care, 64% are against this, and 72% are against that and yet someone keeps voting for these knuckleheads both R&D…
    R’s had two years to just dump O’Care and did nothing. ”
    I saw it 😉 – and agree (cue rant about John McCain).
    However, I note that this sentence could be used as a boiler-plate reference to any current institution.
    “Today, we see the bureaucrats running our care facilities with little representation from the actual care givers”

    For instance,
    “Today, we see the bureaucrats running our schools with little representation from the actual parents of the students.”

    “Today, we see the bureaucrats running our Cabinet offices with little representation from the actual elected President.” (especially 2016-2020)

  16. David, an interesting theory.
    Two problems would appear to crop up, however:
    1. The Republic of Ireland.
    2. The purported waning of support of the State of Israel among some evangelicals groups, specifically, and young evangelicals, generally.

  17. Barry Meislin…”Two problems would appear to crop up, however:
    1. The Republic of Ireland.
    2. The purported waning of support of the State of Israel among some evangelicals groups, specifically, and young evangelicals, generally.”

    Don’t understand the point about Ireland…do you mean anti-Israel attitudes in Ireland itself, or does this involve American evangelicals?

    Purported waning of support for Israel among evangelicals…to the extent this is a matter of *young* evangelicals, could perhaps be explained by the spread of lefty ‘the minority group is always right’ attitudes among that age range, overpowering traditional Celtic respect for fighting people.

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