As nuclear talks between Iran and major world players enters its third day what has emerged is that Iran will get major relief from sanctions in exchange for the dubiously enforceable promise of restricting its uranium enrichment to levels for peaceful energy use only.
America, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are the ‘big six’ who have taken it upon themselves to hand over the shop, at the expense of Israel’s security, in order to claim that they have made some kind of historic deal.
And as US Secretary of State John Kerry jets around Europe posing as the deal maker , we find out that the Obama Administration had already taken it upon themselves in June to stop imposing sanctions on new entities created to do business in place of a sanctioned one.
According to the Daily Beast Friday: “In the six weeks prior to the Iranian elections in June, the Treasury Department issued seven notices of designations of sanctions violators that included more than 100 new people, companies, aircraft, and sea vessels. Since June 14, however, when Rouhani was elected, the Treasury Department has only issued two designation notices that have identified six people and four companies as violating the Iran sanctions.”
The problem with the ‘big six’ doing these negotiations is that the Chinese and Russians are quite content to do business with Iran regardless of its nuclear status. This means that those two soften the impact of a deal in a way more favourable to the Iranians. Indeed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Iran should be allowed to have a peaceful nuclear programme under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Then there is Obama who can’t wait to cut a deal with Iran no matter the cost; British Prime Minister David Cameron who trusts the Russians and agrees with Obama as a matter of course; and French President Francois Hollande who’s more left-wing than his British and American counterparts. The most sensible one in the group is German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her country doesn’t have the military strength to enforce anything.
Much more sensible is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is quite alarmed at this week's events. He responded: “I understand the Iranians are walking around very satisfied in Geneva as well they should because they got everything and paid nothing, they wanted relief of sanctions after years of gruelling sanctions, they got that. They paid nothing because they are not reducing in any way their nuclear enrichment capability. So Iran got the deal of the century and the international community got a bad deal. This is a very bad deal and Israel utterly rejects it. Israel is not obliged by this agreement and Israel will do everything it needs to do to defend itself and defend the security of its people."
He’s the only one on the international stage that can see through this. Most world leaders are either doing deals with Iran on the side (between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of Iranian oil are sold per day on the black market), or else they are hopelessly enamoured with the idea that peace is always possible through negotiation alone.
Some of these negotiators need to re-take their school history classes. Lesson one is that Iran is leading along the international community in much the same way Nazi Germany out maneuvered the League of Nations in the 1930s. Lesson two is that the 45 year-old cold war ended in 1989 because America, backed by Britain & Germany, out-armed the Soviet Union and stood strong demanding terms from a position of strength.
Mark Dubowitz is the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which works closely with Congress and the administration on devising the current Iranian sanctions. He says “For five months, since Rouhani’s election, the United States has offered Iran two major forms of sanctions relief, first there’s been a significant slowdown in the pace of designations while the Iranians are proliferating the number of front companies and cutouts to bust sanctions.”
Iran is constantly creating new companies to act as fronts and proxy’s to get around sanctions which are typically aimed at individuals, companies and vehicles. In simple English what Dubowitz is saying is that as the Iranians create new methods to by-pass the sanctions the Obama administration has by policy decided to stop sanctioning new entities.
The second kind of sanction relief is the White House opposing new kinds of sanctions against Iran from the American Congress, even when they have bi-partisan support. This is a nice arrangement for congressional Democrats who can look tough on terrorism and defending Israel knowing there is no chance any of it will actually get done.
Dubowitz finishes his comments with: “Sounds like Obama decided to enter the Persian nuclear bazaar to haggle with the masters of negotiation and has had his head handed to him”. Whereas that is true the real losers will first be Israel and then the rest of the free world as an increasingly belligerent Nuclear Iran throws its weight around in world affairs.
