OBAMA ACCEPTS A NUCLEAR IRAN?

By Dr. Jerome Corsi

Press Release
April 13, 2010


Chances increase that Israel will strike Islamic republic

The lead article in the current March/April 2010 issue of the Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs magazine strongly suggests the Obama administration has decided to accept an atomic Iran.

This takes on heightened importance given the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attend President Obama's 47-country nuclear security conference out of concern that Egypt and Turkey plan to use the meeting to pressure Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons arsenal, Reuters reported.

As the Obama administration relations with Israel deteriorate to a level unprecedented since Israel's founding in 1948, the chances increase that it will feel increasingly isolated, making ever more likely the possibility Israel will have no choice but to exert its right of self-defense and launch a pre-emptive military strike on Iran, with or without the permission of the United States.

Nor can Israel have any confidence the Obama administration will obtain meaningful sanctions through the U.N., especially after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made clear last week at the signing of the START nuclear arms limitation treaty that Russia supports only limited additional sanctions.


The assumption Iran will get the bomb

The Foreign Affairs magazine article was titled "After Iran Gets the Bomb: Containment and its Complications."

The co-authors were James M. Lindsay, a senior vice president and holder of the Maurice R. Greenberg Chair at the CFR, and Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the CFR.

"Even a successful military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would delay Iran's program by only a few years, and it would almost certainly harden Tehran's determination to go nuclear," the co-authors wrote in their first paragraph.

"If Iran's nuclear program continues to progress at its current rate, Tehran could have the nuclear material needed to build a bomb before U.S. President Barack Obama's current term in office expires."

The alternative Lindsay and Takeyh recommend is to resort to a policy of containment, taking their cue from the policy former ambassador George Kennan first formed in the 1950s to deal with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union.


Betting the mullahs will be rational

In a remarkable paragraph, Lindsay and Takeyh postulate that Iran's religious leaders can be expected to act pragmatically:

To satisfy their revolutionary impulses, Iran's leaders have turned anti-Americanism and a strident opposition to Israel into pillars of the state. Tehran supports extremist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamist militias opposing U.S. forces in Iraq. The mullahs have sporadically attempted to subvert the U.S.-allied sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. But the regime has survived because its rulers have recognized the limits of their power and have thus mixed revolutionary agitation with pragmatic adjustment. Although it has denounced the United States as the Great Satan and called for Israel's obliteration, Iran has avoided direct military confrontation with either state. It has vociferously defended the Palestinians, but it has stood by as the Russians have slaughtered Chechens and the Chinese have suppressed Muslim Uighurs. Ideological purity, it seems, has been less important than seeking diplomatic cover from Russia and commercial activity with China. Despite their Islamist compulsions, the mullahs like power too much to be martyrs.

Equally remarkably, the co-authors discount the possibility that Iran might transfer a crude nuclear device to terrorist protégés.

"Iran has not provided Hezbollah with chemical or biological weapons or Iraqi militias with the means to shoot down U.S. aircraft," they write. "Iran's rulers understand that such provocative actions could imperil their rule by inviting retaliation."

Curiously, the co-authors advise the United States "should also publically pledge to retaliate by any means it chooses if Iran uses nuclear weapons against Israel," evidently discounting the temptation Iran would face to detonate a nuclear weapon over Tel Aviv, with Israel being a "one bomb" state that would be effectively destroyed with the loss of Tel Aviv.

Still, Lindsay and Takeyh write as if Israel should be reassured by a U.S. pledge to retaliate, if the pledge were made "in an executive agreement or a treaty."


Why Israel can't wait

The conclusion of "Why Israel Can't Wait: The Coming War Between Israel and Iran" was that Israel will never permit Iran to obtain the bomb.

In the final analysis, Israel cannot afford to calculate that Iran might be rational or that Iran's President Ahmadinejad does not mean his many statements that Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map of the Middle East.

With the Obama administration tilting toward accepting not only the negotiating positions of Hamas in the Gaza and the most radical Palestinians controlling the West Bank, Israel cannot afford to count on the United States.

The truth is that Israel's economy is stronger than the U.S. economy, certainly in that Israel does not need to borrow trillions of dollars just to keep their government operating.
In past wars, Israel has had to defend itself, even while the United States pressed for peace agreements just as Israel was winning key strategic objectives in the military engagement.

The confrontation with Iran will be no different.

Israel will have to defend itself against an atomic Iran precisely because the Obama administration has shown itself to no longer be a reliable friend.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jerome R. Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling books THE OBAMA NATION: LEFTIST POLITICS AND THE CULT OF PERSONALITY and the co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND: SWIFT BOAT VETERANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST JOHN KERRY. He is also the author of AMERICA FOR SALE, THE LATE GREAT U.S.A., and WHY ISRAEL CAN'T WAIT. He is a regular contributor to WorldNetDaily.com.