First of all, anti-Americanism has been officially removed (or at least sidelined) from public discourse in Iran as the nuclear deal has been finalized. The preferred term is now “enemies” used to define Saudi Arabia and sunnis is general, while even the Council of Guardians now calls for “caution” when dealing with the US of A.
The Iranians are not crazy. The people of Iran are generally the most pro-American from probably all Muslim countries - there is a hardware store across the construction site where I work flying a large Stars and Stripes flag and selling Buck knives with the slogan “MADE IN USA MEANS QUALITY”.
The people of Iran have the misfortune to live under a ruthless and brutal dictatorship, but even the guys running the country are cold and calculating bastards, not insane apocalyptic lunatics as they’re often portrayed in US media.
Their primary interest, like with any other dictatorship, is staying in power and staying alive - and that means killing and imprisoning Iranians who dare to oppose (or simply might oppose) the regime, not going out with the proverbial atomic bang.
Most of those “hardliners” have asshole kids driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis and have no desire for “martyrdom”.
Ironically, rabid antisemitism and apocalyptic anti-Israel proclamations were part of a coherent policy to gain a prominence in the wider Muslim world positioning oneself as the main regional power, upending their real enemy Saudi Arabia. Whenever someone in the last 70 years wanted to prove their Muslim credentials, they would suddenly start caring about Palestinians (whom virtually everyone actually despises, especially in Gulf states) and hating on Israel.
Now that Iran received humiliating rebukes from sunni countries they tried to extend their influence in (Bosnia, Albania…) they retreated from this weird pan-Islamism espoused occasionally by Ahmadinejad into familiar shia vs. sunni territory, focusing on their 1300 year struggle for survival against sunnis, not the State of Israel.
Now that they have been oficially declared “infidels” by top Saudi clerics, this retreat into sectarianism seems almost complete.
So Iran’s immediate geopolitical goals are clear - running a war against ISIS in Iraq, propping up Assad and his unfortunate semi-shias in Syria, and weakening Saudi Arabia using Houthis in Yemen. And all this while not giving a reason to the US to bomb them despite Saudi pleadings.
I don’t disagree with most of that. Other than liking our products and liking us are 2 different things. Everyone likes French wine and hates the French, even the French. I also don’t disagree that times are changing, but the only thing contingent on my argument is that they are an enemy of Israel (they still are) and that their leaders cannot be trusted as party to a peace deal (they cannot). And while, yes, the vast majority of Iranians are victims as much as anyone, it unfortunately doesn’t take very many who do want martyrdom to mess everything up. You can make the same statement about pretty much every country in the middle east. The overwhelming majority don’t want to be martyrs. However, whether they believe it or not, the rhetoric from Iran is part of the problem.
Hey, lets hope I’m wrong and things are moving toward real, positive and lasting change, I’m just not holding my breath.
Can anyone tell me if Iran has acknowledged Israel’s right to exist yet?
Actually, almost no one wants to be a martyr. Iranians are Persians, they don’t have that end-of-times apocalyptic cult thing going on like salafi Muslims. That’s why they’re forcing Afghan migrants passing through Iran to fight in Syria and every Revolutionary Guard casualty in Syria is prompting questions about their involvement, despite official government propaganda.
The guys running Iran are ruthless bastards, but they’re rational, as I’ve explained many time around here. And for them, abiding by the nuclear deal is the only course of action currently.
Also, how many Persians or Persian-Americans have committed terrorist acts? Zero.
As far as Iran-Israel relationship is concerned, things aren’t so black and white:
Let me get one thing straight - I’m not defending the Iranian regime, nor the state-directed acts of terrorism committed by the said regime. But from all ME countries, Iran is the only one they could actually cut a deal with.
Rabid antisemitism is much, much more widespread in Saudi Arabia and Gulf States - thanks to Saudi propaganda Pakistanis, who practically have never even seen a Jew, display one of the highest levels of antisemitism beside Saudi Arabia.
I visited Jordan only once as a tourist so I cannot speculate about the situation on the ground.
King Abdullah is the poster boy for the “good Arab” in Western eyes. He’s educated, sophisticated, has an attractive wife and is definitely very, very smart - much like father, the late King Hussein.
One thing that everyone forgets to mention is that his power rests on these guys - the Bedouin staffed GID, spiritial successor of the Bedouin Arab Legion.
They are extremely efficient and extremely brutal - many Islamic radicals and terrorists simply disappeared in GID prisons never to be seen again.
“Joel C. Rosenberg is an American communications strategist, author of the Last Jihad series, founder of The Joshua Fund [that seeks to “Bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3.”],and an Evangelical Christian. He has written five novels about terrorism and how he feels that it relates to Bible prophecy”
Looks like a subject matter expert if I have ever seen one.
In a declassified 1999 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, the intelligence community estimated that Israel may field as many as 60-80 nuclear warheads, and possesses enough fissile material to build two hundred more. In addition to the quantitative edge of Israel’s strategic nuclear forces, it also has a secure second strike capability through its five Dolphin class submarines, whose Popeye Turbo submarine launched cruise missiles are nuclear capable. Coupled with the IAF’s twenty five F-15I Ra’am fighter-bombers and the Jericho ICBM platforms, Israel may have a complete nuclear triad.
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. “The Decades Ahead: 1999-2020.” July 1999, p.38
This is ludicrous. Since when has not knowing shit about a subject been a virtue in a discussion? You can’t be bothered to become passably familiar with the JCPOA, the NPT, Iranian domestic and foreign politics, and American grand strategy, yet that is an advantage vis-a-vis those that have painstakingly applied themselves to the study of the above?
I’m not sure what the cumbersome physics analogy is attempting to convey, but what predictive analysis did SMH23 put forth?
Are you defining entropy as “a lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder”? Anarchy is an organizing principle in world politics, but it isn’t randomness. Rather, anarchy means that there is no central authority above states that serves to mediate international behavior. While predictive analysis is the holy grail in international relations scholarship, it doesn’t follow that the behavior of states is random. Any casual student of world politics is familiar with the interplay of the systemic, domestic, and individual levels of analysis. Systemic incentives (independent variable) → internal factors (intervening variables) → Foreign policy.
While the nuclear deal is far from perfect, it is close to the best agreement the United States and its allies could have hoped to achieve short of war. The deal is currently the most effective means of keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Had diplomacy failed, the U.S. would have been faced with a daunting dilemma rife with costs and risks – a preventative military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities or the long term containment of a nuclear Islamic Republic.
According to the RAND analyst Dalia Dassa Kaye, “failure to reach a deal would likely have produced one or more of the following: an expanded Iranian nuclear program; an erosion of broad international sanctions without any benefit to regional or global security; heightened potential for military conflict; and the loss of opportunities to work on major areas of common concern to Iran and the United States.” Given that effectual foreign policy formulation must take into consideration the systemic imperatives of the world as it is and not as it ought to be, the nuclear deal is quite good. The JCPOA is the most intrusive and comprehensive inspections and monitoring regime ever negotiated. Compared to the United States’ 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea - an ambiguously worded four-page document that provided for little monitoring or enforcement – the detailed 159 page document leaves little to chance.
To succinctly sum up the salient technical provisions of the agreement:
Iran’s uranium-stockpile size will be reduced by 98 percent, a 3.67 percent cap will be imposed uranium enrichment (weapons grade uranium is 90%), late-generation centrifuges will be surrendered, the Arak heavy water facility will be dispossessed of its plutonium production capacity, IAEA inspectors will have anywhere, anytime access to Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, which will also be subject to continuous 24/7 monitoring through the use of electronic and fiber optic seals, laser sensors, smart cameras and encrypted networks. Before the JCPOA, Iran’s breakout time was estimated by the United States intelligence community to be approximately two months. Under the provisions of the nuclear deal, Iran’s breakout time will be increased to an estimated 12 months. Before the sunset of the agreement, it is expected that Iran will permanently ratify the IAEA Additional Protocol, which will ensure that vital safeguards remain in place.
Before the deal, an American preventive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would have very likely brought about the collapse of international sanctions against Iran. In the eyes of many, the use of military force would not have been an ultima ratio, but a hasty and thus illegitimate undertaking. In the rancor that followed, the Obama administration’s so-called dual track approach of diplomacy and sanctions may have been accused of being a mere stalking horse for airstrikes possibly regime change. As a result the United States’ legitimacy and overall counter proliferation policy very well may have been dealt a blow. Free from international sanctions and the legal restraints of the NPT, Iran’s nuclear program would be able to reconstitute quickly. With the expulsion of IAEA inspectors, the international community would lose its eyes and ears in Iran. In addition, Iran’s incentives to develop nuclear weapons to establish deterrence against the United States would be at an all-time high given it had recently been attacked.
In the context of the JCPOA, it’s reasonable to conclude that targeted strikes in response to blatant Iranian violations of the agreement would be widely perceived as a legitimate employment of force. The U.S. will be able to cogently argue that it employed the full spectrum of its policy instruments - propaganda, diplomacy, and economic statecraft – before resorting to war. The credibility of targeted military operations will also be significantly increased by the deal. As Austin Long points out, “From an intelligence perspective this is an unparalleled opportunity to collect, analyze and develop targeting databases on this crucial element of Iran’s ability to reconstitute its nuclear program. A bombing campaign that effectively destroyed the centrifuge manufacturing base would cripple Iran’s ability to reconstitute for years, perhaps even a decade or more. This opportunity alone should make Iran hawks gleeful.”
There will also exist a virtuous circle between the one-hundred-and-fifty inspectors that the IAEA has committed to Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal. If inspectors suspect Iranian duplicity or are waiting on the Iranians to grant them access to an undeclared site, Western intelligence services can fill in the gaps by devoting special collection and analysis resources to the areas of concern. Intelligence services, for their part, can alert the IAEA to suspicious Iranian behavior, who will then alert the international community. This model reflects the 2009 discovery of a clandestine second enrichment facility at Fordo.
As a former high ranking US official notes, Iranian policy – both foreign and domestic – can be described as “extreme rhetoric in public pronouncements balanced by calculated flexibility and utter realism in practice”
(Garry Sick, Iran’s Quest for Superpower Status. Foreign Affairs, Spring 1987, Found in Foreign Affairs, Iran and the Bomb, 2012, P. 6.)
I appreciate the reference, If I’m not mistaken this makes them the only regional power currently wielding the nuclear triad short of maybe Pakistan who is quickly pursuing although still lacking the SLBM capabilitiy to fully withstand or retaliate against a first strike correct?
My argument is that among the general populace the viewpoint on the deterrent implied based on the destruction of any particular regime or country is largely negated based on a general opinion that jihadists have little to no regard for self preservation and furthermore that the current radical jihadist lack a central structure that could be crippled by such a strike.
This is not to say that I personally agree that any ME state espousing such anti Semetic or anti Western viewpoints shares the same lack of self preservation. More so that any state i.e. Israel/US is going to respond at the popular level with a vehement backlash against said state despite the regimes interior motives. Furthermore there remains the very real risk that said regime could find themselves replaced by an internal power that believes their propaganda in a more zealous manner.
In short it comes down to the fact that words matter, and based on the (well deserved) criticism of Trump on this forum I would think that would be in common agreement here. We can argue back and forth about a regimes interior motives regarding their geopolitical or domestic posturing but if said regime publicly states they want to wipe Israel off the face of the map their can and should be only one manner in which we respond.
What is your personal opinion on why Israel opposed the JCPOA so fervently? I don’t personally have the detailed knowledge of the plan so am curious as to why you would support it with regards to US foreign interest and where the diverge with Israeli foreign interests.