There was no ‘better deal’ with Iran to be had. Now this
calamitous one offers Tehran two paths to the bomb.
By NORMAN PODHORETZ
Almost everyone who opposes the deal President Obama has struck with Iran hotly
contests his relentless insistence that the only alternative to it is war. No,
they claim, there is another alternative, and that is “a better deal.”
To which Mr. Obama responds that Iran would never agree
to the terms his critics imagine could be imposed. These terms would include
the toughening rather than the lifting of sanctions; “anytime, anywhere”
nuclear-plant inspections instead of the easily evaded ones to which he has
agreed; the elimination rather than the freezing of Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure; and the corresponding elimination of the “sunset” clause that
leaves Iran free after 10 years to build as many nuclear weapons as it wishes.
Since I too consider Mr. Obama’s deal a calamity, I would
be happy to add my voice to the critical chorus. Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly
with the critics that, far from “cutting off any pathway Iran could take to
develop a nuclear weapon,” as he claims, the deal actually offers Tehran not
one but two paths to acquiring the bomb. Iran can either cheat or simply wait
for the sunset clause to kick in, while proceeding more or less legally to
prepare for that glorious day.
Unfortunately, however, I am unable to escape the
conclusion that Mr. Obama is right when he dismisses as a nonstarter the kind
of “better deal” his critics propose. Nor, given that the six other parties to
the negotiations are eager to do business with Iran, could these stringent
conditions be imposed if the U.S. were to walk away without a deal. The upshot
is that if the objective remains preventing Iran from getting the bomb, the
only way to do so is to bomb Iran.
And there’s the rub. Once upon a time the U.S. and just
about every other country on earth believed that achieving
this objective was absolutely necessary to the safety of the world, and that it
could be done through negotiations. Yet as the years wore on, it became
increasingly clear to everyone not blinded by wishful delusions that diplomacy
would never work.
Simultaneously it also became
clear that the U.S. and the six other parties to the negotiations, despite
their protestations that force remained “on the table,” would never resort to
it (and that Mr. Obama was hellbent on stopping Israel from taking military
action on its own). Hence they all set about persuading themselves that their
fears of a nuclear Iran had been excessive, and that we could live with a
nuclear Iran as we had lived with Russia and China during the Cold War.
Out the window went the
previously compelling case against that possibility made by authoritative
scholars like Bernard Lewis, and with it went the assumption that the purpose
of the negotiations was to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
For our negotiating partners,
the new goal was to open the way to lucrative business contracts, but for Mr.
Obama it was to remove the biggest obstacle to his long-standing dream of a
U.S. détente with Iran. To realize this dream, he was ready to concede just
about anything the Iranians wanted—without, of course, admitting that this was
tantamount to acquiescence in an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the
rockets to deliver them.
To repeat, then, what cannot
be stressed too often: If the purpose were still to prevent Iran from getting
the bomb, no deal that Iran would conceivably agree to sign could do the trick,
leaving war as the only alternative. To that extent, Mr. Obama is also right.
But there is an additional wrinkle. For in allowing Iran to get the bomb, he is
not averting war. What he is doing is setting the stage for a nuclear war between
Iran and Israel.
The reason stems from the
fact that, with hardly an exception, all of Israel believes that the Iranians
are deadly serious when they proclaim that they are bound and determined to
wipe the Jewish state off the map. It follows that once Iran acquires the means
to make good on this genocidal commitment, each side will be faced with only
two choices: either to rely on the fear of a retaliatory strike to deter the
other from striking first, or to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own.
Yet when even a famous Iranian
“moderate” like the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has said—as he did in 2001, contemplating a
nuclear exchange—that “the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will
destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not
irrational to contemplate such an eventuality,” how can deterrence work?
The brutal truth is that the
actual alternatives before us are not Mr. Obama’s deal or war. They are
conventional war now or nuclear war later. John
Kerry recently
declared that Israel would be making a “huge mistake” to take military action
against Iran. But Mr. Kerry, as usual, is spectacularly wrong. Israel would not
be making a mistake at all, let alone a huge one. On the contrary, it would
actually be sparing itself—and the rest of the world—a nuclear conflagration in
the not too distant future.
Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of
Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. His books include “Why Are Jews
Liberals?” (Doubleday, 2009)
Let us remind ourselves what did the authoritative scholar Bernard
Lewis actually say:
“In this context, the deterrent that worked so well during the
Cold War, namely M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) , would have no
meaning. At the End of Time, there will be general destruction
anyway. What will matter is the final destination of the dead-- hell for
the infidels, and the delights of heaven for the believers. For people with
this mindset, M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement...”
When was the last time you saw this quotation in print?
Why
are Bernard Lewis's views on MAD being ignored?