Israel and Iran: The U.S. Is Putting Our Most Important Middle East Ally in a Bind

The Biden Administration is putting Israel, our most important ally in the Middle East, in a bind.  And Israel’s security and very existence is at stake.  The newly revised Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) will likely be signed in a matter of days.  The weaknesses of the original agreement are still in place—with a few more ominous concessions to the Iranians likely in the document.  The Iran International website released some details last week.  This is an organization opposed to the regime in Tehran.  The group released remarks by Ali Bagheri Kani, the chief nuclear negotiator for the terror regime, who celebrates concessions Iran has received from the United States.

Media reports reveal that for the last several days, Israeli Prime Minister Lapid has been trying to reach President Biden.  Our President has not returned Lapid’s phone calls.  Israeli National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata has been in Washington for several days to meet with American officials; the meeting with Hulata and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was canceled due to a “schedule conflict.” The term existential threat is overused to the point of being meaningless. However, because Iran has vowed to wipe out the Jewish State, Iran is truly an existential threat to the people of Israel.  Israel needs to be intimately involved with any negotiations by the Biden Administration with Iran, and they are being ignored.

Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies continue to provide undeniable documentation and proof that the Iran nuclear deal is a sham, the largest geo-political scam in years. The Biden Administration is intent on not being confused with the facts; it is dead set on reentering the agreement, facts notwithstanding.  Breaking Defense recently produced a revealing article that lays out the threat of this pending agreement and the dangerous naivete of the Biden team.  The website quotes a senior Israeli defense official who says, “We have proved again and again by hard intelligence evidence that Tehran is lying continuously and does not intend to fulfill everything it will promise to do in the framework of a new agreement.”

If the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 43-year history is any indication (and it is!), the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism will continue to secretly work on a nuclear weapon and use the hundreds of billions of dollars it will receive in the agreement to finance its terror networks throughout the region.  It will use its financial windfall to speed up its work on a nuclear weapon and the ballistic missile programs to deliver such a weapon. Additionally, the Iranian regime continues to have former U.S. officials on a hit-list, marked for assassination.

Israeli leaders are being very careful in their criticism of the Biden Administration, even though they have made it undeniably clear they oppose the agreement with Iran. It is a challenging time in Israel.  If they are forced into a conflict with Iran, they will need U.S. support.  A new election is set for November 1st to elect Israel’s next prime minister.  It is the fifth election in three years.  The current Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (all running for the office) must weigh their words carefully.  They are united in their agreement that the Iran nuclear deal is a farce, and their nation’s safety and security are in the balance.  The Biden Administration is placing the only democracy in the Middle East and our long-time friend and ally in an impossible and needless predicament.

Four successive U.S. Presidents have vowed that Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.  Whether President Biden will have the courage of his convictions and keep his word is doubted by many, but he indicated he would be willing to use force to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.  Israel, too, is likely ready to use military force to stop Iran from achieving its dastardly goal.

But why would the U.S. willingly put our own nation and its allies in this position? An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is a last resort.  Many of its nuclear sites are underground, making demolishing Iran’s nuclear weapons capability difficult. The potential for a wider war, one that involves other nations and even a limited ground war, is a risk of attacking Iran.  The situation may in fact demand this type of action at some point, but all parties should be working to avoid it.

For now, why not refuse to give Iran relief from sanctions and other concessions and instead use all measures necessary to force Iran into real negotiations—or suffer the consequences of its malevolent goals?  Punishing Iran and being realistic about their dishonesty is far preferable to war.  But it seems the Biden Team is incapable and unwilling to draw that line and recognize the true threat of the mullahs in Iran.  The Biden White House would prefer to pretend that Iran is negotiating in good faith and can be trusted to keep their word—even though all evidence, and even the words of Iran’s own leaders, indicate that this is positively, undeniably not so.

Here’s the bottom line:  The new agreement with Iran contains the same weaknesses of the original JCPOA.  It does not stop this nation dedicated to terrorism and the destruction of Israel from acquiring a nuclear weapon.  Rather, it merely delays it.  Even a potential delay is questionable.  For example, right now, the IAEA states that Iran possesses more than enough uranium to build a weapon.  The temporary hold back is that Iran’s uranium is enriched to a 60% level, and weapons grade is 90%.  But experts agree that Iran, with its advanced centrifuges obtained in flagrant violation of the first JCPOA, can reach that level in a short period of time, perhaps weeks.

Further, all military sites are still off limits to international inspectors.  These sites would be the probable places for Iran to continue its work on a weapon.  Why do the Iranians insist that they cannot be inspected?  Iran also continues to refuse to explain how the IAEA found nuclear residue on three undeclared sites in the country; in fact, in the new negotiations Iran demands that the U.N. stop that investigation.  The new agreement—like the original one—does not address Iran’s ballistic missile program or its commitment to terror and the destabilization of other nations in the region, including our Arab Gulf allies—who are also opposed to these negotiations with Iran.

There is a reason the original JCPOA was not presented by the Obama/Biden Administration to the U.S. Senate for ratification as a treaty.  It was so imbecilic and unwise, it would never have received support from the Senators.  The Biden Administration has no intention of presenting the present agreement to Congress either.  That itself is very telling.  Essentially, by Executive fiat, the Biden Administration is seeking to reach an agreement that is not verifiable or enforceable with a sworn enemy of the United States.  It will ultimately allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.  It will increase the grave threat faced by Israel and our Arab allies.  Iran will enter the oil market and international community with complete immunity from the consequences of its support of terror groups throughout the region.  Most dire of all, Iran will eventually have a nuclear weapon and the ability to extort the freedom-loving people of the world.

The Biden Administration could reverse course and stop this now.  But it is not likely President Biden will do this, even though Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and most people in Iraq would welcome the United States’ withdrawal from the negotiations giving concessions to Iran.  They rightfully fear a nuclear-armed Iran.  After all, they live in the neighborhood.