The United States and the other powers who
signed the infamous "Iran deal" are in a major bind.
Former President Obama wanted a world without nuclear weapons, and
the 2015 nuclear weapons agreement with Iran had the intention of rolling back
the Iranian nuclear program and setting up a stringent compliance
program. But however well intentioned Obama's policies were, they
haven't stopped Iran from continuing to make aggressive moves that violate the
spirit of the agreement and taking advantage of concessions that have
rendered Ayatollah
Khamenei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Quds Force
more dangerous than ever.
These Iranian entities now have a "Shia
crescent," fortified with Iranian generals, Shia militias, and
Hezb'allah enforcing the new Middle East. The architect and face of
Tehran's Middle East ambitions and newfound global clout is General
Qassem Soleimani, whom U.S. officials credit with thousands of American
soldiers deaths. It's uncertain if General Soleimani controls Iran's
cyber-attacks on the west, but the U.S. Justice Department in late March charged:
"nine Iranians and an Iranian company for attempting to hack into hundreds
of universities worldwide, dozens of companies, and parts of the U.S.
government, on behalf of Tehran's government." The Justice
Department described the attacks as "one of the largest state-sponsored
hacks ever prosecuted."
Here's what decades of Iranian aggression, Western appeasement,
and believing that Iran will integrate into the world community has
wrought. Iran went all in to save Assad against democracy-seeking
rebels in Syria, and according to Foreign
Affairs:
Roughly 400,000 people have been killed, 5.5 million have
fled Syria, and 6 million are internally displaced. The UN estimates
13 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance.
The Iran nuclear deal was supposed to curb these hegemonic
behaviors and lead to economic integration. Instead, an Iranian
airline under
U.S. sanctions violated the nuclear agreement by "ferrying
weapons and fighters into Syria repeatedly and bought U.S.-made jet engines and
parts through Turkish
front companies, investigators said in a mid-February recent government
filing."
And Syria is only getting worse. Intelligence has
surfaced that U.S. officials are now monitoring regional reports that,
with Iranian assistance:
North Korea has neared completion of the construction of an
underground military base located near Qardaha in Syria, the hometown of
President Assad, that could be used for advanced weaponry and nuclear-related
work.
Moreover, Syrian news outlet Zaman Al Wasi has reported that
"according to satellite images and a military source the underground
facility has been under construction since the beginning of the Syrian
revolution in March 2011." The U.S. State Department has
monitored and condemned North Korea for providing
Assad with chemical weapons while knowing that Iran is the main
supporter, along with its proxy, Hezb'allah, of the Syrian regime.
Geopolitical realism leads one to infer that the recent Trump-Netanyahu
meeting wasn't about working toward Israeli-Palestinian peace or a solution to
Syria; instead, it was "how to show a common front versus
Iran." These are only some of the issues with Iran that have
made President Trump want to completely change or scrap the 2015 nuclear deal
entirely. Israel and the U.S. are also attempting to come up with a
cogent, proportional response to Iran's recent
threats against Israel, Tel Aviv, and Netanyahu along with Iran's
lethal ballistic missile program.
The bone-chilling scenario is where Israel backs up its "never
again" slogan over the Holocaust and decides to use nuclear weaponry
as a first strike option against Iran. Never again means never
again, and "the epicenter of genocidal Jew-hatred" begins in Iran.
It was the West, led by the Obama administration, that erupted
these troubles through cutting off crippling sanctions for engagement at all
costs – fromknowing and
allowing Osama bin Laden, his family, and his close associates safe haven and
passage in and out of Iran to "the Obama administration hobbling a covert
initiative (by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency) that tracked Hezb'allah's web
of criminal activities, allowing millions of dollars to fall into the hands of
Iran-backed militias," according
to a Politico report.
Further, an effort by former President
Obama to bury Iran-sanctioned Hezb'allah activities was born of the
desire for a historic presidential legacy that a nuclear deal with Iran would
produce. The former administration also paid Iran $1.7 billion to
release five Americans held by Iran, and the regime was allowed to do this
without any repercussions. Even worse, according to The
Washington Times, the U.S. government discovered that the money ended up,
"with Hezbollah, and the Quds Force, which has an extensive history
of state-sponsored
terrorism, and Houthi rebels in Yemen fighting the Saudi monarchy and
government."
Energy is where Western officials have some of their greatest
concerns. The U.S., Britain, France, and Germany are working to
amend the Iran deal over worries that Iran's recalcitrant actions will drive up
oil prices. Trump nominating hawkish Iran skeptic John Bolton as his
new national security adviser doesn't bode well for lower energy
prices. Nor does Iran's "elaborate
oil sanction-skirting scheme" alleviate fears that Iran is using its
oil and natural gas reserves as a weapon the way Russia weaponized state-run
oil company Rosneft. Bloomberg did an extensive story on Iran
skirting oil sanctions here.
Returning to Hezb'allah, Iran, and Israel, Hezb'allah secretary
general Hassan Nasrallah in a televised address in late February warned Israel
about its claim to an oil and gas field off the southern coast of Lebanon
called Block 9. Nasrallahsaid,
"Hezbollah could disable Israel's offshore oil installations within hours." With
oil and natural gas being the backbone of world and Middle Eastern economies,
this type of inflammatory rhetoric has caused Israel to warn Lebanon,
Iran, Hezb'allah and international oil and gas companies from participating in
any activity that doesn't recognize Israel's maritime rights and territorial
waters. Hezb'allah activists in Lebanon are now fanning the
flames over these disputed oil and gas sites that could cause another
war to break out between Hezb'allah and Israel and spike oil and gas prices to
levels not seen since 2014, when $100-a-barrel oil was the norm.
But whom do you believe about Iran's actions since before and
after the nuclear deal? On one side is Vali Nasr, dean of advanced
international studies at John Hopkins University, who writes:
Iran's willingness to engage with the US over its nuclear
program showed it is driven by hardheaded calculations of national interest,
not a desire to spread its Islamic Revolution abroad.
Then there is Mohammed al-Sulami, a Saudi columnist who has a
Ph.D. in Iranian studies. He disagrees with
Dean Nasr: "exporting Iran's revolution is a pleasant euphemism for
regional chaos."
What we know is that among the battlefields of Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
and parts of Saudi Arabia, along with Hezb'allah's influence in the global drug
trade and illicit weaponry sales, Iran is the central figure.
Unless confronted, Iran will eventually split apart the Middle
East. Iran could be welcomed into the world community and flourish
immediately with its young, literate, and highly educated population. Instead,
it chooses authoritarian rule cloaked in religion – all in the name of
stability that does nothing to loosen its iron-fisted governance.
Iran will never change until its Islamic regime is put on the
dustbin of history. Here's sincerely hoping it doesn't come to total
war among the U.S., NATO, Iran, Israel, Middle Eastern Sunni nations, and all
parties interested in the outcome.