This week marked the fifth anniversary of former President Obama’s JCPOA, the sell-out nuclear accord with Iran.
Below is a selection of my analysis from the past ten years on Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb and Western acquiescence in this, led by Obama. I am sad to say that I smelled Obama’s rotten deal coming back in 2012.
In the coming months, will Trump act boldly with Israel to cut the Iranians down to size?
Click on the links to read the full articles.
The NIE is Wrong about Iran, Again
Friday, February 18, 2011
A new American NIE says that sanctions are causing Iran’s leaders to debate whether to move forward with their nuclear bomb program. Israeli analysts disagree.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
An insidious new mythology is being advanced which replaces the Iranian threat with the “Israeli threat” to Middle East stability. This has the scent of incitement against, and demonization of, Israel. Political attention must be redirected to the place it most urgently belongs: the Iranian contagion that is inflaming the region.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The interim agreement with Iran that the P5+1 powers seem set to conclude with Iran in the Baghdad talks this week – involving the suspension of Iran’s 20 percent uranium enrichment – is dangerous on four levels.
Kicking the Iranian Can Down the Road
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
As the debate intensifies regarding unilateral Israeli action against Iran, everybody seems to be playing kick the can down the road. Blame the other. A very dangerous game.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Obama’s reelection means that Olmert is going to run against Netanyahu with Obama’s backing, that Palestinian statehood is bearing down on us, and that an American “grand bargain” with Iran at Israel’s expense is possible.
Is America moving to accommodation with Iran?
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Thomas R. Pickering and colleagues are paving the way in Washington for a climb-down from Obama’s declared policy of preventing (and not merely containing) Iran’s obtainment of a nuclear weapon.
A grand American retreat from confronting Iran?
Friday, May 24, 2013
The soft signals and acquiescent music coming from prominent US think-tanks are increasingly hard to miss. Washington wags are paving the way for a climb-down from Obama’s declared policy of halting Iran’s nuclear drive.
Washington vs. Jerusalem on Iran
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
It is not “blind mistrust” of Iran or “militarism” or niggardly Israeli nay-saying that leads Israel to insist on complete dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Iran, but rather hard-nosed realism and years of unfortunate experience with false and failed peace agreements.
American capitulation to Iran?
Friday, October 11, 2013
Beware Obama’s emerging understandings with Iran. Heed his long-term goals of resetting America’s relations with the Muslim world, and don’t underestimate his willingness to undercut current allies (including Israel and Saudi Arabia) in the process.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Just like Israel, the Saudis smell that Obama is preparing a seismic shift in US alliances in the region, and cooking-up a “grand bargain” with the Iranians.
The beautification of Bashar, the veneration of Rouhani
Thursday, October 31, 2013
The same “experts who once sought to sell us a “kind and gentle” Bashar Assad, are now working overtime to lionize and sanitize the new Iranian poster boy, President Hassan Rouhani.
Nuclear Iran: Nothing to lose and everything to destroy
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Prof. Steven David: “There are circumstances in which it is all too easy to see how an Iranian leadership – rational, cost calculating, reasonable and prudent as it may be – would still present a very real possibility of using its nuclear weapons against Israel.”
Thursday, November 14, 2013
What will it take to rouse American Jewry into action against Obama’s drift towards a grand civilizational deal with the Iranians, at Israel’s expense?
Washington’s sanction contradictions
Thursday, December 19, 2013
One day, the U.S. says sanctions will force Iran to relinquish its nuclear program. The next, it says delaying sanctions will make Iran more amenable to shutting down its program. Confusing, isn’t it?
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
America is not the only party that can play linkage politics. Netanyahu should now be saying to Obama: If you’re not going to protect Israel and the region from the Iranians, expect less cooperation from me on other files. You screwed Israel over Bushehr, so don’t expect me to give you Yitzhar.
On chicken droppings and lame duck Obama’s plans for Israel
Friday, October 31, 2014
Obama is purposefully engineering the denouement of the special relationship between America and Israel; just as he is doggedly overseeing the decline of America on the world stage.
Halting Obama’s Iran Surrender
Friday, January 23, 2015
Netanyahu believes with every bone in his body that the contours of Obama’s emerging deal with Iran are dangerous for the world and existentially disastrous for Israel. He should be applauded for the initiative to speak forthrightly on the Iranian threat in Congress next month. It’s called leadership.
What explains Obama’s zeal for a deal with Iran?
Thursday, February 19, 2015
It is ardor for Islam and sympathy for Islamic ambitions of global leadership, not just distaste for American overreach, that apparently fuels Obama’s secretive dash towards a deal with Iran. There is no other plausible explanation for his willingness to overlook Iran’s emerging Islamic empire.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Here is my suggestion for the speech that Netanyahu is to give in Washington on March 3 – on fortitude, fate and a binary moment of clarity. “Is America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through an irresolute and debilitating bargain with the Ayatollahs of Iran? I pray not.”
Thursday, April 9, 2015
The notion that if Iran violates the nuclear accord all sanctions could be swiftly re-imposed is claptrap that insults the intelligence of any observer.
Friday, July 10, 2015
With four deadlines come and gone, it’s probably safe to predict that there won’t be a grand package deal with Teheran this weekend, or at all. Instead, we’ll get a lot of smiles, and agreement to continue talking indefinitely, without closure on Iran’s nuclear weapons drive. Obama will proceed to sell sham narratives about Iran, even as Khameini rebuffs and humiliates America.
Monday, July 20, 2015
The list of fundamental falsehoods about Iran that undergird the P5+1 accord with Iran keeps on growing. It is frustrating and infuriating. Here are nine of Washington’s fibs and feints.
Friday, July 31, 2015
In defense of its concordat with Iran, the Obama administration is peddling a growing list of misrepresentations: That Iran will be motivated to keep the agreement; that America can snapback sanctions; that the deal it will moderate or contain Iran’s aggressive ambitions; and that there was no better deal, and the alternative is war.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran is meant to redirect the entire vector of American Middle East policy: To retreat from Pax Americana and allow Iran to take its place as a major regional power. That’s why Netanyahu won’t scale back his opposition. Obama’s retreat must be stopped, and the Iran deal must be made politically toxic.
Friday, January 15, 2016
The Ayatollahs see Obama as a supplicant, not a superpower. They understand this, alas correctly, as license to run wild. The “zhobour” meted out to American seamen reflects rising Iranian imperial cockiness.
Friday, July 1, 2016
One of the Obama administration’s top shills for the sellout to Iran has been a lobbyist for Boeing all along. The celebration of the first anniversary of the JCPOA is marked by strategic drivel as cover for business greed and oversize ego.
Friday, July 8, 2016
There is an Israeli “grand strategy.” Washington misunderstands this. Israel should be expounding its worldview forthrightly. Its strategic posture makes a lot of sense in the totally transformed regional landscape.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Trumpian truth-telling about Iran, Syria and the Palestinians can improve the strategic environment, gut the Palestinian strategy of delegitimizing Israel, and improve the moral tone of American foreign policy. Rehabilitative discourse is critical for the Middle East.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
How will he enforce or renegotiate the nuclear deal, confront Iran’s expansionism, and work with Russia simultaneously?
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Trump and Netanyahu must together craft a strategy to combat the malign influence and hegemonic ambitions of the mullahs.
Confronting the con artists of Iran
Friday, November 24, 2017
Iran is on the march, presenting a significant security challenge to Israel, to moderate Sunni countries, and to the West. No duplicitous decrees by supreme or smiling ayatollahs should deflect our attentions.
Waking up to the Iranian threat
Friday, February 16, 2018
With the weakening of ISIS, the growing strength of Russia in Syria, and the continuing retraction of American involvement in the region – Iran apparently feels emboldened enough to escalate its confrontation with Israel.
Hoping for regime change in Iran
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Might more be done to advance an Iranian counter-revolution? Israeli diplomat Uri Lubrani certainly thought so, and he was not naive. Pushback against Tehran’s gains in Syria would help, as would a tidal wave of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Nobody in the world has the right to criticize Israel’s defensive actions on the Gaza border, even if Israel had used significant force against the Hamas mobs – which it didn’t.
Friday, May 4, 2018
The JCPOA was based on Western charity for Iranian lies. After Israel’s intelligence coup, the question becomes this: Will JCPOA boosters continue to deny reality and accuse Israel of being alarmist? Will they continue to pretend they didn’t know, and to accept Iran’s naked denials? Can they possibly continue to defend the weak verification regimes and early sunsets of this inadequate accord?
Friday, May 11, 2018
President Trump is acting to restore America’s credibility as a world power after eight years of diffident presidential leadership. He is not frightened by the mobs of the Arab or Persian world or by their effete champions in the West. He doesn’t quake in his boots at the possibility of upsetting Mahmoud Abbas or Ali Khamenei….
Friday, September 21, 2018
Iran is attempting to create a “deterrence barrier” in Syria to protect its nuclear program. Israel must act forcefully against Iran even if this means full-scale war, says General Amidror.
Nowhere, no-time supervision of Iran
Friday, October 5, 2018
The head of the IAEA this week said to Israel: Go to hell; we know better; we’ll take our time; and we don’t really want to embarrass or anger the Iranians… On the limitations – indeed, the uselessness and even venality, of international institutions – when it comes to guaranteeing Israeli security.
Friday, August 2, 2019
Danger ahead: There are signs that President Trump is getting ready to ease the pressures on Iran and bargain for a new nuclear deal: A US-Iran “deal of the century.” This could be knottier and more nebulous than valuable. My fear is twofold: that Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign will be cut short before Iran’s leaders truly have no choice but to capitulate to Western demands…
Friday, January 10, 2020
In eliminating Qassem Soleimani of Iran, Trump struck a blow for moral clarity. It should be considered not only a strategic move but an act of justice in foreign affairs.
The Iran deal, five years later
Friday, July 24, 2020
The nuclear deal between the West and Iran has funded Iran’s aggression, rather than buy its moderation. Who will now curb Iran’s aggression and nuclear progress, and how? Trump’s penchant for grand deals that prove his greatness makes me worry that (in a second term) he could be tempted into a settlement with Iran that falls far short of what is necessary. On the other side of the aisle, most Democrats support re-entering the JCPOA and lifting some sanctions against Iran.
