The official announcement has not yet come, but it appears that a U.S.-led diplomatic ensemble in Vienna has succeeded in persuading Iran to accept $90 to $130 billion in sanctions relief – as well as international legitimacy for its nuclear program. This, so that the Islamic state can continue its passion for “peaceful” scientific research, (research so peaceful that it must be conducted deep inside of a mountain).
Iran in return will be obligated to accept international inspections and limit uranium enrichment, such that its nuclear breakout may not occur for several more months – if it complies.
The reason so great an amount of lucre will soon be filling the war chests of terrorist militias worldwide is because the Iranians, who needn’t have been given the slightest incentive to continue their nuclear program, are expert negotiators. Seeing how much their decadent Western interlocutors wanted a deal, they perpetually raised the price for their consent.
The soon-to-be signed Iran nuclear deal will leave Israel with little choice but to end the Iranian regime as we know it.
With unimagined brazenness, they even demanded the U.S. drop the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. They then packed their bags and left Vienna, informing the Americans they would return only for a signing ceremony but not for further negotiations.
An “unnamed U.S. official” told the Washington Post that the U.S. is willing to torpedo the deal over this demand, but don’t believe it. The very woke Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, has already publicly hinted to his Iranian counterparts how the U.S. intends to end the impasse. Milley said he would not favor removing the terrorist al-Quds Force from the U.S. ban. But al-Quds is just one of five branches of the IRGC. The message to Iran: Don’t worry, we’ll continue to make four concessions for every one of yours!
So we can expect the negotiators to be clinking glasses in Vienna any day now, which will probably be not unlike the scene in the ancient Persian capital of Shushan when King Ahasuerus (possibly Xerxes I) accepted his chief minister Haman’s request to murder all the Jews of his empire.
“…and the king and Haman sat down to drink while the city of Shushan was confused [‘navocha’].” (Esther 3:15)
Note that the word “navocha” does not mean terrified or stunned, but rather conveys a sort of analytical uncertainty, as in Maimonides’ classic work using the same root-word, “Moreh Nevuchim,” or “Guide to the Perplexed.” The Persian capital’s Jewish population apparently had difficulty interpreting the true meaning and intent of the genocidal decree placed upon them.
If this same confusion exists today, it could be because the party driving the Iran nuclear deal was the United States of America, widely thought to be Israel’s best, and often only, friend in the world in the three-quarters of a century since the Jewish state’s modern revival.
And yet, the facts speak for themselves. The United States has so prioritized reaching this agreement that it relied on the Biden Administration’s No. 1 enemy, Russia, to make it happen. The Iranians had the temerity to ban contact with the Americans, and the Americans accepted this! Consequently, at the very same time the U.S. has been imposing the strongest economic sanctions it has ever deployed to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and demanded that other nations join this effort, the U.S. has actually waived sanctions on Russia in order to clinch this deal, such that Moscow will be able to build nuclear power plants in Iran!
“We have received written guarantees – they are included in the very text of the agreement on reviving the JCPOA,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov regarding his country’s demands for full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran.
One may ask: What is the U.S. national interest in vesting power in one of only four countries the U.S. lists as a state sponsor of terrorism, a country which openly seeks America’s destruction and hosts daily street rallies decrying America as the “Great Satan” and Israel as just the “Little Satan”? And how does weakening Israel and America’s traditional Arab allies in the region serve U.S. interests?
The answer to these questions are not readily apparent, as the deal actually dismantles the security structure the U.S. has painstakingly built in the region since the end of World War II, in which the U.S. defends Arabian oil fields to keep gas prices, on which the U.S. economy depends, cheap and to secure the flow of this vital commodity through world markets.
Besides undermining this U.S. interest, the agreement also strengthens America’s chief geopolitical rivals, Russia and China, both longtime backers of the regime in Tehran. Also puzzling, prior to the deal’s conclusion, the Iranians launched several violent attacks against American assets in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Not only did these not deter the Americans from pressing forward, but U.S. officials even endorsed Iranian claims that they were targeting Israeli interests, when the evidence suggested the U.S. consulate in Erbil was the target.
A more serious perplexity may be raised regarding U.S. efforts to empower Iran:
Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missiles do not yet have the range to reach the U.S. (though they can reach Western Europe). But that should be cold comfort for U.S. military planners, since all it takes is a humble Iranian commercial oil tanker with a mobile launch platform to send an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack into the U.S. atmosphere. A single imprecisely targeted nuclear payload is thought capable of incapacitating every electric system in the U.S. Banks would not be able to transfer funds electronically, people could not use credit cards or cell phones and even the Biden Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services acknowledges an EMP attack would disrupt hospital computers, communications systems and equipment.
Despite Shiite Iran’s millenarian hatred for Israel, it is not unreasonable to think the Iranians would prefer to put their nukes to work in bringing down the Great Satan than in blasting nuclear radiation into their home region, especially given the realistic expectation that Israel would counterstrike and instantly devastate Iran.
That the United States would irrationally undermine its fundamental national interests would come as a surprise to Machiavelli and Cardinal Richelieu, but the doctrine of raison d’état has a mere half a millennium of experience behind it, whereas the age-old quest to destroy the Jewish people has not paused since the Egyptians tried plunging Jewish male babies into the Nile.
At our Passover seders Friday night, Jews will soon be saying – and (antisemites take note) even singing – “Vehi she’amda…,” a strange through tragically true sort of national anthem:
“It is this that has stood for our forefathers and for us, that not only one has stood against us to destroy us, but that in every generation they stand against us to annihilate us, and the Holy One Blessed is He rescues us from their hand.”
But why would Israel’s staunch ally, America, stand against the Jewish state? The answer is that erstwhile U.S. flag burners and their ilk are now wearing suits and ties and have titles such as “Special Envoy for Iran” and “Secretary of State.” The American people, by and large, do not support their government’s radicalism.
American democracy has given way to wokeocracy.
Meanwhile, as in ancient Persia, so too in our times, the Jews are confused – at least those of them in the on-the-verge of collapsing (and not a moment too soon) Israeli government, whose representatives lack the self-respect of the Saudi and Emirati leaders who rightly refused to take President Biden’s phone calls.
Esther’s fast in ancient Persia took place during the holiday of Passover. If we would like to enjoy our holiday meals undisturbed, Israel now has no choice but to end the Iranian regime as we know it. There will be celebrations in Shushan once again when Khamenei (the Persian pronunciation of Haman) hangs from the gallows.
Americans too will eventually thank Israel. When a new liberal Iranian regime publicizes its predecessors’ plans, they will see that the current administration’s hard-won diplomatic accomplishment imperiled their very survival.
Gil Weinreichis a writer living in Jerusalem.