Enabling Iran

"I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there is still time to avert them. For two thousand years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. Today, we are no longer silent. Today, we have a voice."
"And tomorrow, as prime minister of the one and only Jewish state, I plan to use that [voice] state."
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appearing before an estimated 16,000 supporters of Israel, characterized the disagreement over Iran as a family fight. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

"Netanyahu made all sorts of claims — this was going to be a terrible deal, this was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief, Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true."

"If they do agree to it, [not building a nuclear weapon in less than a year in a ten-year agreement] it would be far more effective in controlling their nuclear program than any military action we could take, any military action Israel could take, and far more effective than sanctions will be."

U.S. President Barack Obama

President Obama said in an interview on Monday that the dispute was a distraction and not “permanently destructive.” Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors reported their concern "about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed ... development of a nuclear payload for a missile", last Thursday. This speaks to the level of frustration of the IAEA at the continual stonewalling practised by the Islamic Republic of Iran when it comes to permitting the international inspection body access to nuclear sites that Iran claims are intended for peaceful civilian purposes exclusively.

And because of that insistence and the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama is desperately seeking a legacy issue with which to leave office, Iran is on the cusp of being granted the "right to enrich" status that it requires to retain and spin thousands of centrifuges, and to continue construction of the Arak plutonium reactor. Unspoken is an agreement that Iran will use its military auspices to help battle ISIS; which they would do without this American initiative geared to ensuring that no American troops need be 'on the ground' in a fighting capacity in Iraq and Syria.

The "sunset clause" that President Obama had granted by accepting the Iranian insistence that any restrictions on its program be time-limited, means that after a decade of observing the mild obstacles placed in the way of its immediate production of nuclear weapons, the Iranian Republican Guard which oversees Iran's nuclear program will have the clearance to ramp up their production of enriched uranium with no holds barred.

The country's nuclear development has thus been legitimized, enabling Iran to re-enter the international nuclear community as described by Mr. Obama, representing "a very successful regional power", a regional power that has Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states, let alone Israel, quaking and quivering in fearful anticipation of its end-game to control the Middle East through violent state-on-state aggression. Saudi Arabia knows that Israel is to be the first target, and it will follow.

Iran can now look forward to lifted sanctions, and all restrictions absent, its trade potential restored and oil money flowing in as it flourishes in all forward indices as foreign investment lifts its restored economy. And Iran can advance its momentum on its intercontinental ballistic missile program. Why would Iran need IBMs? To carry nuclear warheads. Riyadh or Tel Aviv don't need IBMs, but to reach other continents they would be useful.

An Iranian short range "Tondar" missile is launched during a war game at an undisclosed location in Iran in this undated photo released July 6, 2011. (Reuters)

And now that the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in doubt, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other states may decide that their future too should include nuclear weapons. Why should Pakistan be the only other Muslim state with a nuclear arsenal, after all, besides Iran. No one should imagine that Shi'ite Iran is not as deeply invested in Islamist jihad as the Sunni Islamic State. And while the Islamic State is terrorism personified, Iran is terrorism's greatest benefactor.

It has developed, armed and mentored Hezbollah and Hamas, both terrorist groups that Egypt has also, along with international terror lists, has named terrorist entities along with the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran has incited jihadist violence from Argentina to Bulgaria, and it is helping Syria's Alawite Shi'ite regime to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Syrian Muslims, inspiring Shia militias to commit atrocities equal to those of ISIS against Iraqi Sunnis.

Why wouldn't an Israeli President address the United States Congress when invited to do so by Republican leader John Boehner, who feels the American people need to hear what the foremost intelligence on Iran -- the Middle East country against whom repeated existential threats of annihilation have emanated from Iran -- has to say of the danger that country poses to the world at large, and more immediately on the horizon to the existence of the State of Israel?