Some might recall US Presidential candidate, Joe Biden’s pledge to work to
rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was a multilateral
agreement intended to limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
The JCPOA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, when
Biden was Vice President and was considered one of the only foreign policy
successes of his eight years in office.
Other signatories to it were Britain, China, Germany,
France, and Russia and it was endorsed by the United Nations. The agreement
included unannounced inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA and,
by all accounts, it was working and was a non-proliferation success story.
In return for its cooperation Iran was to receive its
considerable assets frozen in banks in the United States and was also to be
relieved of the sanctions that had been placed on it by Washington and other
governments.
The JCPOA crashed and burned in 2018 when President Donald
Trump ordered US withdrawal from the agreement, claiming that Iran was cheating
and would surely move to develop a nuclear weapon as soon as the first phase of
the agreement was completed.
Trump, whose ignorance on Iran and other international
issues was profound, had surrounded himself with a totally Zionist foreign
policy team, including members of his own family, and had bought fully into the
arguments being made by Israel as well as by Israel Lobby predominantly Jewish
groups to include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Trump’s time in office was spent pandering to Israel in
every conceivable way, to include recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s
capital, granting Israel the green light for creating and expanding illegal
settlements on the West Bank and recognizing the occupied Syrian Golan Heights
as part of Israel.
Given Trump’s record, most particularly the senseless and
against-American-interests abandonment of JCPOA, it almost seemed a breath of
fresh air to hear Biden’s fractured English as he committed his administration
to doing what he could to rejoin the other countries who were still trying to
make the agreement work.
After Biden was actually elected, more or less, he and his
Secretary of State Tony Blinken clarified what the US would seek to do to fix
the agreement by making it stronger in some key areas that had not been part of
the original document.
Iran for its part insisted that the agreement did not need
any additional caveats and should be a return to the status quo ante,
particularly when Blinken and his team made clear that they were thinking of a
ban on Iranian ballistic missile development as well as negotiations to end
Tehran’s alleged interference in the politics of the region.
The interference presumably referred to Iranian support of
the Palestinians as well as its role in Syria and Yemen, all of which had
earned the hostility of American friends Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Israel inevitably stirred the pot by sending a stream of
senior officials, to include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister
Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss the Iranian threat
with Biden and his top officials. Lapid made clear that Israel reserves the
right to act at any given moment, in any way… We know there are moments when
nations must use force to protect the world from evil. And to be sure, Biden,
like Trump, has also made his true sentiments clear by surrounding himself with
Zionists. Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland have filled the three top
slots at State Department; all are Jewish and all strong on Israel.
Nuland is a leading neocon. And pending is the appointment
of Barbara Leaf, who has been nominated Assistant Secretary to head the State
Department’s Near East region. She is currently the Ruth and Sid Lapidus Fellow
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an AIPAC
spin off and a major component in the Israel Lobby. That means that a member in
good standing of the Israel Lobby would serve as the State Department official
overseeing American policy in the Middle East.
At the Pentagon one finds a malleable General Mark Milley,
always happy to meet his Israeli counterparts, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd
Austin, an affirmative action promotion who likewise has become adept at
parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself.” And need one mention
ardent self-declared Zionists at the top level of the Democratic Party, to
include Biden himself, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?
Rejoining the JCPOA over Israel objections was a non-starter
from the beginning and was probably only mooted to make Trump look bad.
Indirect talks including both Iran and the US technically have continued in
Vienna, though they have been stalled since the end of June.
Trita Parsi has recently learned that Iran sought
to make a breakthrough for an agreement by seeking a White House commitment to
stick with the plan as long as Biden remains in office. Biden and Blinken
refused and Blinken has recently confirmed that a new deal is unlikely,
saying time is running out.
There have been some other new developments. Israeli
officials have been warning for over twenty years that Iran is only one year
away from having its own nukes and needs to be stopped, a claim that has begun
to sound like a religious mantra repeated over and over, but now they are
actually funding the armaments that will be needed to do the job.
Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has
repeatedly said the IDF is accelerating plans to strike Iran and Israeli
politicians, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly
been threatening to do whatever must be done to deal with the threat from Iran.
Israeli media is reporting that US$1.5 billion has been allocated in
the current and upcoming budget to buy the American bunker buster bombs that
will be needed to destroy the Iranian reactor at Bushehr and its underground
research facilities at Natanz.
In the wake of the news about the war funding, there
have also been reports that the Israeli Air Force is engaging in what is
being described as intense drills to simulate attacking Iranian nuclear
facilities.
After Israel obtains the 5000 pound bunker buster bombs, it
will also need to procure bombers to drop the ordnance, and one suspects that
the US Congress will come up with the necessary military aid to make that
happen. Tony Blinken has also made clear that the Administration knows what
Israel is planning and approves. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair
Lapid on October 13, 2021 and said if diplomacy with Iran fails, the US will
turn to other options. He followed that up with the venerable line that
Israel has the right to defend itself and we strongly support that proposition.
Lapid confirmed that one of Blinken’s options was
military action. “I would like to start by repeating what the Secretary of
State just said. Yes, other options are going to be on the table if
diplomacy fails. Eeverybody understands what does that mean. It must be
observed that in their discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, Lapid and Blinnken
were endorsing an illegal and unprovoked attack to prevent Iran from acquiring
a nuclear weapon that it is apparently not seeking, but which it will surely turn
to as a consequence if only to defend itself in the future.
In short, US foreign policy is yet again being held hostage
by Israel. The White House position is clearly and absurdly that an Israeli
attack on Iran, considered a war crime by most, is an act of self-defense. However
it turns out, the US will be seen as endorsing the crime and will inevitably be
implicated in it, undoubtedly resulting in yet another foreign policy disaster
in the Middle East with nothing but grief. The simple truth is that Iran has
neither threatened nor attacked Israel.
Given that, there is nothing defensive about the actions
Israel has already taken in sabotaging Iranian facilities and assassinating
scientists, and there would be nothing defensive about direct military attacks
either with or without US assistance on Iranian soil. If Israel chooses to play
the fool it is on them and their leaders. The United States does not have a
horse in this race and should butt out, but one doubt if a White House and
Congress, firmly controlled by Zionist forces, have either the wisdom or the
courage to cut the tie that binds with the Jewish state.
