Facebook Feed

1 day ago

Yoram Ettinger
2023 Jewish demographic momentum in Israel: bit.ly/40qV0aV ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

3 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
Purim Guide for the Perplexed 2023: bit.ly/3ZdlxHY ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

3 weeks ago

Yoram Ettinger
אתגר מרכזי לביטחון לאומי: bit.ly/3xkSwh1 ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook

Iran – Delusion vs. Solution

Western policy-makers grow increasingly-reconciled to co-existence with a nuclear Iran. They assume that, notwithstanding the radical rhetoric, the Iranian leadership is pragmatic, cognizant of its limitations, unwilling to expose its people to devastating Western retaliation and considering nuclear capabilities as a tool of deterrence – and not as an offensive weapon – against the US, NATO and Israel.

 

However, a nuclear Iran would constitute a clear and present danger to global security and peace, which must not be tolerated. In order to avert such peril, it is incumbent to disengage from illusions and engage with realism.

 

Unlike Western leaders, the Iranian revolutionary leadership is driven by ideological and religious conviction, bolstered by ancient imperialist ethos:

 

  1. Jihad is the permanent state of relations between Moslems and non-Moslems, while peace and ceasefire accords are tenuous.
  2. The Shihada commits every Shiite to kill and be killed, in order to advance Shiite Moslem strategy.
  3. The strategic goal of Shiite Islam – which replaced illegitimate Judaism and Christianity – is to convert humanity to Islam.

 

The religious Shiite zeal is intensified by the Persian-Iranian ethos, shared by secular and religious Iranians, who believe Iran has been a regional and a global power for the last 2,600 years.

 

Iran’s religious/imperialistic strategy has guided Teheran’s tactical policy toward the US (the “Great Satan” and the key target for Iran’s terror and nuclear), Central & South America (an anti-US terror platform), Iraq (the chief Sunni rival in the Persian Gulf and an arena to weaken the US), Saudi Arabia (an apostate regime), the Gulf States (targeted for revolution and takeover), Afghanistan and Pakistan (arenas to erode the US’ image), international terror organizations and terror cells in the US and Europe (weakening Western societies), Syria, Lebanon, Hizballah and Hamas (threatening Israel and advancing regional hegemony) and Israel (the “Little Satan,” a Western outpost in the Abode of Islam, the source of Judea-Christian values).

 

Western leaders are top heavy on “pragmatism” and low on ideology and religion. Therefore, they are preoccupied with Iranian global tactical policy, minimizing the study of Iran’s strategic infrastructure of religion, ideology and history, which consider Shia, Jihad, Shihada and Persian imperialism as Teheran’s Pillars of Fire.

 

Western leaders believe in engagement – and not in confrontation – with Iran. However, Teheran’s revolutionaries regard such an attitude as a symptom of Western fatigue, of a tendency to “blink first” and of a modern version of the defeatist European slogan: “Better Red than Dead.” Moreover, Teheran considers the US a superpower in retirement and retreat, gradually adopting the European state-of-mind and losing its posture of endurance since the 1973 retreat from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the 1979 terrorist takeover of the US embassy in Teheran, the 1983 retreat from Lebanon following the blowing up of the US embassy and Marine headquarters in Beirut until the 2011 expected US withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, Iran demonstrated its willingness to pay a brutal price for its principles and interests, when sacrificing some 500,000 persons on the altar of the 1980-1988 war against Iraq, including approximately 100,000 children who were dispatched to clear minefields.

 

Teheran is encouraged by Western preoccupation with engagement and sanctions, which constitute a delusion and not a solution. For instance, Russia and China consider the US a rival and do not share the US assessment of Iran. They benefit from a weakened US and therefore they do not cooperate in the implementation of sanctions. Europe employs tough rhetoric, but displays frail action. And, the UN will not support a tough US policy toward Iran. The longer the sanctions and engagement process, the more time is available to Iran to develop and acquire nuclear capabilities.

 

Teheran benefits from Western adherence to a supposed linkage between the Palestinian issue and a successful campaign against Iran. However, there is no linkage between the Palestinian issue – or the Arab Israeli conflict or Israel’s existence – and the pillars of Iran’s strategy. The more entrenched the “Linkage Theory,” the heavier the pressure on Israel and the weaker the pressure on Iran.

 

In 1978, President Carter’s policy toward the Shah was perceived as the backstabbing of a US ally, providing a tailwind to the anti-Shah opposition and facilitating the Iranian Revolution. In 2010, Western policy toward Iran is perceived as an acknowledgment of the potency of the revolutionary leadership, thus serving as a headwind to a weakened domestic opposition and minimizing the possibility of a domestically-generated regime-change.

 

A sustained Western policy toward Iran would confront the Free World with a brutal dilemma: Accepting radical diplomatic, economic, military and religious demands presented by a nuclear Iran, or facing a series of vicious wars, including a rapidly escalated nuclear race among rogue regimes. In order to avoid such a dilemma, it is incumbent to disengage from the illusive options of deterrence and retaliation and engage with the realistic option of military-preemption/prevention. Furthermore, the cost of military inaction would dwarf the worst-case cost of a military preemptive action against Iran.




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb

US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb