By
CAROLINE B. GLICK
Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose
range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between
Iran and Europe.
On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite
imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last
April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently
constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site,
capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.
On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.
The
missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile
program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is
moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic
missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that
its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to
Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.
Also
on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address
a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner
has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding
Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed
by radical Islam.
Opposition leaders were quick to accuse
Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming
election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five
weeks before Israelis go to the polls.
Labor MK Nachman Shai
told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should
extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.
But
in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point.
Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s
election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national
security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of
Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s
national security.
Boehner’s chief concern, and that of the
majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties
alike, is that President Barack Obama’s policy in regard to Iran’s
nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to
Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obama’s policy
toward Iran’s nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.
Over the
past week in particular, Obama has adopted a position on Iran that puts
him far beyond the mainstream of US politics. This radical position
has placed the president on a collision course with Congress best
expressed on Wednesday by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. During a
hearing at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where Menendez serves
as ranking Democratic member, he said, “The more I hear from the
administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points
that come straight out of Tehran.”
Menendez was referring to
threats that Obama has made three times over the past week, most
prominently at his State of the Union address on Tuesday, to veto any
sanctions legislation against Iran brought to his desk for signature.
He
has cast proponents of sanctions – and Menendez is the co-sponsor of a
pending sanctions bill – as enemies of a diplomatic strategy of
dealing with Iran, and by implication, as warmongers.
Indeed, in
remarks to the Democratic members of the Senate last week, Obama
impugned the motivations of lawmakers who support further sanctions
legislation. He indirectly alleged that they were being forced to take
their positions due to pressure from their donors and others.
The
problem for American lawmakers is that the diplomatic course that
Obama has chosen makes it impossible for the US to use the tools of
diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
That
course of diplomatic action is anchored in the Joint Plan of Action
that the US and its partners Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia
(the P5+1) signed with Tehran in November 2013.
The JPOA placed
no limitation on Iran’s ballistic missile program. The main areas the
JPOA covers are Iran’s uranium enrichment and plutonium reactor
activities. Under the agreement, or the aspects of it that Obama has
made public, Iran is supposed to limit its enrichment of uranium to
3.5-percent purity.
And it is not supposed to take action to
expand its heavy water reactor at Arak, which could be used to develop
weapons grade plutonium.
THE JPOA is also supposed to force Iran to share all nuclear activities undertaken in the past by its military personnel.
During
his State of the Union address, Obama claimed that since the agreement
was signed, Iran has “halted the progress of its nuclear program and
reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.”
Yet as Omri Ceren of
the Israel Project noted this week, since the JPOA was signed, Iran
has expanded its uranium and plutonium work. And as the Eros-B
satellite imagery demonstrated, Iran is poised to launch an ICBM.
When
it signed the JPOA, Obama administration officials dismissed concerns
that by permitting Iran to enrich uranium to 3.5% – in breach of
binding UN Security Council Resolution 1929 from 2010 – the US was
enabling Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Enrichment to 3.5%, they
said, is a far cry from the 90% enrichment level needed for uranium to
be bomb grade.
But it works out that the distance isn’t all that
great. Sixty percent of the work required to enrich uranium to bomb
grade levels of purity is done by enriching it to 3.5%. Since it signed
the JPOA, Iran has enriched sufficient quantities of uranium to
produce two nuclear bombs.
As for plutonium development work, as
Ceren pointed out, the White House’s fact sheet on the JPOA said that
Iran committed itself “to halt progress on its plutonium track.”
Last
October, Foreign Policy magazine reported that Iran was violating that
commitment by seeking to procure parts for its heavy water plutonium
reactor at Arak. And yet, astoundingly, rather than acknowledge the
simple fact that Iran was violating its commitment, the State
Department excused Iran’s behavior and insisted that it was not in
clear violation of its commitment.
More distressingly, since the
JPOA was signed, Iran has repeatedly refused to allow the
International Atomic Energy Agency to access Iran’s nuclear
installations or to inform the IAEA about the nuclear activities that
its military have carried out in the past.
As a consequence, the
US and its partners still do not know what nuclear installations Iran
has or what nuclear development work it has undertaken.
This
means that if a nuclear agreement is signed between Iran and the P5+1,
that agreement’s verification protocols will in all likelihood not
apply to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. And if it does not apply
to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear activities, it cannot prevent Iran
from continuing the activities it doesn’t know about.
As David
Albright, a former IAEA inspector, explained in a Wall Street Journal
op-ed last May, “To be credible, a final agreement must ensure that any
effort by Tehran to construct a bomb would be sufficiently
time-consuming and detectable that the international community could
act decisively to prevent Iran from succeeding. It is critical to know
whether the Islamic Republic had a nuclear weapons program in the past,
how far the work on warheads advanced and whether it continues. Without
clear answers to these questions, outsiders will be unable to
determine how fast the Iranian regime could construct either a crude
nuclear-test device or a deliverable weapon if it chose to renege on an
agreement.”
Concern about the loopholes in the JPOA led
congressional leaders from both parties to begin work to pass
additional sanctions against Iran immediately after the JPOA was
concluded. To withstand congressional pressure, the Obama administration
alternately attacked the patriotism of its critics, who it claimed
were trying to push the US into and unnecessary war against Iran, and
assured them that all of their concerns would be addressed in a final
agreement.
Unfortunately, since signing the JPOA, the
administration has adopted positions that ensure that none of
Congress’s concerns will be addressed.
Whereas in early 2013,
Secretary of State John Kerry declared that “the president has made it
definitive” that Iran needs to answer all “questions surrounding Iran’s
nuclear program,” last November it was reported that the US and its
partners had walked back this requirement.
Iran will not be
required to give full accounting of its past nuclear work, and so the
US and its partners intend to sign a deal that will be unable to verify
that Iran does not build nuclear weapons.
As the administration
has ignored its previous pledges to Congress to ensure that a deal
with Iran will make it possible to prevent it from acquiring nuclear
weapons, it has also acted to ensure that Iran will pay no price for
negotiating in bad faith. The sanctions bill that Obama threatens to
veto would only go into effect if Iran fails to sign an agreement.
As long as negotiations progress, no sanctions would be enforced.
OBAMA’S
MESSAGE then is clear. Not only will the diplomatic policy he has
adopted not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and the
ability to attack the US with nuclear warheads attached to an ICBM),
but in the event that Iran fails to agree to even cosmetic limitations
on its nuclear progress, it will suffer no consequences for its
recalcitrance.
And this brings us back to Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu.
With
Obama’s diplomatic policy toward Iran enabling rather than preventing
Iran from becoming a nuclear power, members of the House and Senate are
seeking a credible, unwavering voice that offers an alternative path.
For the past 20 years, Netanyahu has been the global leader most
outspoken about the need to take all necessary measures to prevent Iran
from becoming a nuclear power, not only for Israel’s benefit, but to
protect the entire free world. From the perspective of the
congressional leadership, then, inviting Netanyahu to speak was a
logical move.
In the Israeli context, however, it was an
astounding development. For the past generation, the Israeli Left has
insisted Israel’s role on the world stage is that of a follower.
As
a small, isolated nation, Israel has no choice, they say, other than
to follow the lead of the West, and particularly of the White House, on
all issues, even when the US president is wrong. All resistance to
White House policies is dangerous and irresponsible, leaders like
Herzog and Tzipi Livni continuously warn.
Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu exposes the Left’s dogma as dangerous nonsense.
The
role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect
Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being
ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be
supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a
concern for what truly matters.
caroline@carolineglick.com
No comments:
Post a Comment