IRAN AND THE BOMB

Let’s begin with a few facts the Obama administration seems to overlook.

It is hard to believe any White House could assemble a more naive team that can’t even find the ball, let alone watch it. You don’t even need inside information to tell you where to start. It is all there for all of the former players now pacing on the sidelines.  Why should Iran want a nuclear weapon? Not a bad starting point. The only friends the Shia Moslem nation of Iran has are those like Russia, China, North Korea, and France who view them as a lucrative market for all their wares and as an anti-American supplier of oil. They have no friends among the Sunni Moslem nations. The Iranians fought a long and bloody war against Iraq when it was under Sunni rule. Today, decades later that bloody war is still remembered by Iraqis who lost family members in the fighting.

Iran’s exporting of terrorism through its puppets Hamas and Hezbollah has alienated Lebanon. Iran is hated by the Israelis and pays for its uneasy partnership with Syria. Iran is without loyal allies. That is a weak position from which to dominate the Middle East, unless they become a nuclear power. That’s is their number one strategic goal. How can anyone think they will negotiate away their top priority national security goal?

A military strike by Israel or the United States would destroy or set back Iran’s time table to achieve nuclear status. The sanctions, before the Obama administration eased off on them, were causing hardships in Tehran. Not all Iranians want to make sacrifices to achieve nuclear weapons. For internal political reasons the religious leaders decided to roll out a strategy of negotiating to buy time and get concessions from the West on the crippling sanctions. This strategy had worked before. Why not dial back the anti-American rhetoric and pretend to negotiate on their nuclear program?

Of course the Obama administration jumped at the bait and became the leader of the “let’s negotiate” flock. He thinks it makes sense to use all possible diplomatic endeavors before resorting to any military action. That is generally true but not when it is obvious that the other side is playing you. Iran is so confident that the Obama administration is below the paper tiger level that they have blatantly tested an ICBM capable of destroying Israel and hitting several American targets. Big clue. Yes! No nation has ever spent treasure on developing a long-range ballistic missile unless they were positive they could mate it with a nuclear weapon. There is no other rational explanation. Yet our president is resisting his own party’s effort to ready additional sanctions to ensure Iran lives up to the agreement.

Officials from the administration and learned talking heads will tell us that it will be some time before Iran can weaponize a nuclear device. Don’t believe that fairy tale. North Korea and other nations that are not admirers of the U.S. and Israel would sell the Iranians whatever they need in a heartbeat.

To sum up the administration’s position: They are confident that even though the Iranians have put much treasure and time into developing a nuclear weapon they can be talked out of completing the task. After buying hundreds of centrifuges, building underground facilities to house them, and developing long-range missiles, how can anyone believe they can stop Iran’s long, expensive effort to acquire nuclear weapons by negotiating from a weak position? The administration’s followers will point with pride to the Iranian destruction of highly enriched uranium. This not true. The Iranians didn’t destroy anything, they merely converted the enriched uranium into another form that can easily be reversed.

Don’t be surprised if the Iranians test their bomb while Secretary Kerry is having tea in Damascus.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels.