Iran’s No China

iranian-protestors-burn-us-flag-during-protest-tehranOriginally published by the Jerusalem Post

The Obama administration will never abandon its courtship of Iran. On the eve of the extended deadline in the US-led six-party talks with Iran regarding Teheran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, the one thing that is absolutely clear is that courting Iran is the centerpiece of US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy. Come what may in Geneva, this will not change.

To be clear, Obama does not seek to check Iran’s rise to regional hegemony by appeasing it. None of the actions he has taken to date with regard to Iran can be construed as efforts to check or contain Iran.

Their goal is to cultivate a US alliance with Iran. As Obama sees things, Iran for him is what China was for then US president Richard Nixon. Nixon didn’t normalize US relations with the People’s Republic of China in order to harm the Chinese Communists. And Obama isn’t wooing Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries in order to harm them.

Unfortunately for the world, China is not a relevant analogy for Iran. Nixon sought to develop ties with Beijing because he wanted to pry the Chinese out of the Soviet orbit. Courting China meant harming Moscow, and Moscow as the US’s greatest foe.

There is no Moscow that will be weakened by the US’s empowerment of Tehran. The only parties directly and immediately harmed by Obama’s policy of courting Iran are America’s allies in the Middle East. The Allies’ appeasement deal with the Nazis in 1938 had three victims: Czechoslovakia, the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world.

Obama’s policy of courting Iran also has three victims: Israel, the Sunni Arab states, and the rest of the world.

Obama’s initiation of the six-power nuclear talks with Iran harms Israel because the talks facilitate Iran’s nuclear program. That is, Obama is enabling Iran to develop the means to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

According to press reports of the content of the negotiations, the US has already abandoned its major red lines. It has abandoned its demand that Iran dismantle its centrifuges. Late last week the US was reportedly about to abandon its demand for Iranian transparency to the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding its past work on atomic bomb development.

In other words, the deal the US was hoping to conclude this week with Iran, and will now continue negotiating next month, involves taking no serious action to curtail Iran’s progress in developing nuclear weapons.

And in exchange for taking no action to curtail its nuclear progress, Iran demands and will likely receive a complete abrogation of binding UN Security Council economic sanctions against it. Those sanctions were passed in response to Iran’s illicit nuclear progress. The deal the US is now willing to sign renders Iran’s nuclear program legitimate.

Then there are the rest of the states in the region. The Saudis and their Sunni brethren are not the Czechs. They are Poland, Belgium France and Holland. Like the Nazis and the European states in late 1938, Iran threatens all Sunni states in the region.

As the Americans have engaged in obsessive-compulsive nuclear negotiations with Iran, the Iranians have divided their attention between nuclear development and regional expansion. In September they took over Yemen.

Houthi militia from northern Yemen took over Yemen’s capital city Sana’a that month. The Houthi are Shi’ite, and are to Yemen what Iran’s Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah is to Lebanon. The Houthis, who are already a major force in the US-trained Yemeni armed forces, are demanding control over them.

In addition to its proxy’s takeover of Yemen, as Middle East analyst Tony Badran reported earlier this month, the Iranian leadership is orchestrating a major information campaign to present itself as the regional hegemon to regional actors.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Qassem Soleimani has had his picture taken with Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq as well as with Iraqi regular military forces. Iranian security chief Ali Shamkhani went to Lebanon in late September and offered to arm the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Iran, these photo-ops and visits signal – is the new boss of the region. Yemen shares a 1,700 km border with Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis already fought a border war with Saudi Arabia in 2009. The Iranian proxy’s control over much of the border today is a clear threat to Saudi sovereignty. In light of the close ties the Houthis have spent the past decade cultivating with Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite minority, it is also a threat to the internal political stability of the kingdom.

As the Obama administration has erased red line after red line in the nuclear talks, and sided with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Iranian Sunni allies against US allies, Iran’s leaders have gloated that their hegemony over Yemen raises to four the number of Arab states under their dominion, that list including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Iran’s control over Yemen is a direct threat to the world economy. Before the Houthis marched on Sana’a, Iran was able to threaten global oil markets with its sovereignty over the Straits of Hormuz that controls naval traffic between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. With the Port of Aden, Iran will also control maritime traffic between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

It is true that massive increases in US oil sales due to its shale oil development will reduce some of the Middle East’s power to dictate oil prices. But Middle Eastern oil sales still constitute 40 percent of the world market and will continue to be a massive force in the global economy in the coming years. As the force controlling the flow of that oil, Iran will exert massive influence over the global economy.

Add to that the fact that Iran’s Hezbollah has sleeper cells in every major city in Europe and in several hubs in North America, and that Iran has strategic alliances with Venezuela and Nicaragua, a nuclear- armed Iran exerting hegemonic control over the Middle East and its oil exports will become a strategic danger to the global economy and global security.

One of the many eyebrow raising aspects of Obama’s courtship of Iran is that it isn’t tied to a US retreat from the region. The US isn’t retreating.

Obama has ordered hundreds of air strikes on Islamic State targets to date, and more will undoubtedly follow. The US participated in the NATO overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. US power remains a major factor in regional affairs, and Obama has not shied away from using it during his tenure in office.

The problem is that in all cases, his use of US power has helped Iran more than it has helped US allies. And in the case of Libya, US power has directly threatened US allies and empowered al-Qaida and it associates.

With the rise of China today, some US analysts question the wisdom of Nixon’s opening to Beijing.

But there is little argument that his China gambit caused strategic damage to the Soviet Union and contributed to the US victory in the Cold War.

Not only will Obama’s Iran opening not redound to the US’s benefit in the short term. Its inevitable result will be a decade or more of major and minor regional wars and chronic instability, with the nuclear-armed Iran threatening the survival of all of America’s regional allies. It will also lead to shocks in the global economy and massively expand Iran’s direct coercive power over the word as a whole.

Not only is Obama no Nixon, compared to him, Neville Chamberlain looks like a minor, almost insignificant failure.

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  • SCREW SOCIALISM

    CRAP on fascist irans flag with the crap from the koran written on it.

  • http://gerardjackson.com/ gerard jackson

    Chamberlain acted in what he genuinely thought were the best interests of his country. He was no traitor. When it came to the crunch he backed Churchill. On the other hand, Obama and his cronies hate America and loathe its people.

  • knowshistory

    so obama’;s courting of a sworn enemy, iran, is like Nixon’s reversal of established US policy, and favoring china. maybe so. how did favoring china work out for us? china was economically powerless. their country could only manufacture junk which could only be sold to peasants who were not allowed to buy anything else. their military consisted of millions of adolescent slaves carrying sticks. so Nixon, in the worst move of a lackluster presidency, handed trading favors to china, opening up our markets to an avowed enemy. in a few decades, china took over the business of manufacturing. our plants are idle, our population becomes more and more ignorant, lazy, and skilless, while we buy useless nicknacks from china on credit. now we see china on the verge of having a better navy and air force than ours. their economy is strong, while we have a “service” economy which is pol-speak for a ruined economy. so now Obama justifies his treason by comparing it to Nixon. I have to agree. what Nixon did out of stupidity, Obama does due to vile hatred for our nation and our legal population.

  • Bert

    Obama’s solid support for Iran and its nuclear ambitions suggest a more ominous future. When Israel will finally be forced to attack Iran what will Obama do? We have a big clue in the Gaza war when Obama cut air links to Israel, held up ammunition and put pressure on Israel to limit its actions. As Iran moves to get the bomb I think Obama may issue a direct threat to Israel that he will block ANY Israeli attack on Iran in the interest of “peace”. Zbignew Brezinski earlier suggested that the U.S. might shoot down any Israeli aircraft attempting to attack Iran. Who is to say what Obama is capable of in his support for Iran and his hatred for Israel?
    Who would have imagined the damage he is already doing to America and how far he will yet go? Iran’s leaders have repeated their desire to eliminate both the ‘Great Satan’ and the ‘Little Satan’. Obama may be supporting Iran in their announced goal.

  • Hank Rearden

    Caroline has a minor slip-up and has the geography backwards. The Straits of Hormuz control the access to the Gulf from the Indian Ocean and Aden that of the Red Sea not the other way around as the article says.

    The Obama team is clueless as to the history and the ambitions of the many players in the Middle East. It thought the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood was ushering in an “Arab Spring” of democracy and harmony. Pathetic.

    It has never had any idea what to do about Iran because it imagines that Iran’s highest goal is acceptance of American wishes whereas Iran is scornful of American wishes and has no intention of negotiating away the world stature that The Bomb will give it. Qaddafi gave away his nuclear program to the Brits and ourselves. How did that work out for him? You think the mullahs don’t take note of that?

    We are in the hands of a character who on his good days is an intellectually lazy fool and on his bad ones is hoping the opposition wins.

    Israel will have to look out for itself.

  • RMThoughts

    And the neocons will never give up on making war with Iran.

    • Erudite Mavin

      and the PaleoCons will never give up on making America and Israel the
      enemy vs Iran, Russia, and the rest of Radical Islam.

      • R DeWynne Brown

        and the PaleoCons will never give up on making America and Israel the
        enemy vs Iran, Russia, and the rest of Radical Islam.
        U nailed that one, Erudite Mavin!

  • SoCalMike

    Obama is in love with the mullahs.
    The more he loves them the more they loath and disdain Obama.
    Kinda like the way John Boehner loves Obama.
    The more he offers Obama to get along better, the more Obama loathes and disdains Boehner but like a jilted girlfriend that doesn’t stop him from offering kindness, love and affection over and over.
    Boehner to Obama “Hey big boy…”
    Boehner makes me sicker than Obama.

  • Cristinascar

    The liberals have no monnom sense whn it comes to the Jews and donthve to. common sense a religion that murders for blasphemy, never persecuted the minority, whose very existence is blasphemy to Islam?

    I’m sure Muslims never lied and censored the killing of powerless Jews, thats why in the country the code of Jewish law (called the Shulkan Orekh) , the Talmud, the Tosefta, the home of all the authors of every single major Jewish book ever written: Iraq there are exactly zero Jews today, even 200 years ago there were still 300,000 of them (like Ottoman Syria what you call “palestine” Iraq was then Ottoman governed and culturally)? Nonesense liberals are simplistic. selected truths, brainwashed robot, icapable of connecting dots but in the case of the tiny Jews you cant be wrong because they dont matter anyway. You are too small to, understand because we are in the midst of the greatest persocution, and stickiest in human history that of the Jews (did you know that millions of Jews are in poverty right now? of course you don’t, all Jews are rich and powerful to robots and Iranians).

    Theis middle east narrative leaves out the conmplete extinction of the indigenous Jews of the Middle East like all you evil frauds do, there were 3 million Jews in the Middle East but like all Zoroastrians outside of Iran in the 8th Century in the past 200 years the Arabs made all the Jews of the Middle East extinct They called for it too, they said we are embarking on a war of extermination against the Jews the founder of the Arab League Azzam Pasha said it publicly as did many other Arabs and North Africans. Did you mention the Blood Libels of Ottoman Syria in the 1840s where the Turkish authorities let the Antisemites have their way? Or the Blood Libels making tthew Jews of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon region extinct, in the 1860s? Did you mention the blood libels in Jerusalem in the 1880s? Did you mantion Mohamed Ali Pasha’s massacring of Jews during his takeover in the 1860s of the whole Ottoman Syria (what the brain dead liek you call “palestine”)? Or the killing of Jews by both sides of Druze MAronite Masscres the Beduin who were preferred by the Ottoman had blamed on the Druze , where all sides killed the Jews as always in that region? Did you mention that 4 Eastern Roman Emporers had laws allowing the Jews to enter modern Israel only once a year to cry about losing their temple, then were forced out again during the 400 til 600 AD? Did you mention the previous occupiers of the “palestine” territories when no one in the media cared, in the 6th law of their creation (and independehnce from the temaparary British Mandate of the League of NAtions to create a HHomeland for the Jewish People on the renamed from Ottoman Syria to British Palestine) of their invented country Jordan in 1950 I wrote 6th so you can easily look it up, bars all Jews from ever becoming citizens after killing every Jew who lived there, (or agian do you not have the critical thinking skills to realize that the liberal media of today is identical to Rome and the Catholic Churh of yesterday and is censoring the truth with its court Jew helpers and of course mostly not Jews, about Israel?) then cenosred it. You think 1900 years of being more criticized than all other peoples combined ends over night? Did you mention that Steinbeck he great German American author’s great uncle was trying to help Jews make it in Ottoman Syria region before Theodore Herzl was even born, got killed by mobs of Arabs and his daughters raped because those Arabs were so racist? It’s all the secret power Jew have, thats why all the powerful never mention even this the tip of the iceberg of the truth about Israel. Steve Wozniak figured it out ,and recently showed his support for Israel, some others one day might too, hopefully after teh human race goes extinct, for the crime if fools like them.

  • RMThoughts

    There will be no dialog.

  • watsa46

    The pseudo-talks represent an umbrella for Iran who continues feverishly to develop nukes and rockets.