US: An ‘Understanding’ With Iran, Empty Promises For Israel

The U.S. is about to enter into an “understanding” with the Islamic Republic with Iran. Why an “understanding” instead of an “agreement”? This is merely sleight of word on the part of the Bidenites. Of course it’s an agreement, but if the administration called it that, it would have to obtain congressional approval, and there are still enough Congressmen, including some Democrats, who have not lost their heads, and who would scuttle the deal that promises to unlock tens, and possibly hundreds, of billions of dollars for Iran, with Iran giving very little for very little in return. Aside from promising to free three Iranian-Americans held hostage, Iran will provide a series of promises about ceasing to enrich uranium beyond a certain level (promises that have been blatantly violated before, as Iran has now been enriching some uranium up to 84%, far beyond the level of 20% it had committed to observe), and to cooperate with IAEA inspectors. Those inspectors have been deceived by Iran many times before, either when Iran could not explain the existence of shards of uranium metal found by inspectors at certain sites, or when Iran simply blocked the IAEA inspectors from visiting sites they had wanted to inspect. More on this catastrophic “understanding” can be found here: “US said to reassure Israel on security amid reports of emerging interim Iran deal,” Times of Israel, June 17, 2023:

As Washington appears to be nearing an interim nuclear agreement with Tehran, the US has assured Israel that it will maintain its security edge and freedom to act against Iran, according to a report Friday….

When the Bidenites now assure Israel that the US will maintain its QME, they are not offering anything new. The Administration is already obligated, by law, to “maintain Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.” It’s a little like a debtor promising a creditor that “yes indeed, if you promise to give me that pigskin wallet, I promise to repay my debt.”

As for “assuring” Israel that it has “freedom to act against Iran,” that too, is bizarre. Of course Israel retains its freedom to act against Iran in any way it sees fit to assure the survival of the Jewish state. It doesn’t need the US to grandly allow it such freedom, as if it were granting a concession. There is something skewed in the American view, that Israel should only be “free to act” if the US grants permission. And Israel should apparently be grateful to the Bidenites that they are grandly granting it that freedom.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the United States and Iran were homing in on informal, limited understandings aimed primarily at anchoring the current status quo and preventing a potentially catastrophic escalation, referred to by Iranian officials as a “political ceasefire.”

The agreement would see Tehran pledge not to enrich uranium beyond its current level of 60 percent purity, cooperate with nuclear inspectors from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stop its proxy terror groups from attacking US contractors in Iraq and Syria, avoid providing Russia with ballistic missiles, and release three American-Iranians held in the Islamic Republic, the report said, citing three unnamed senior Israeli officials, a US official and several Iranian officials.

In return, Washington would promise not to tighten its existing economic sanctions, unfreeze billions in Iranian assets held abroad alongside assurances that the money will only be used for humanitarian purposes, and not pursue punitive resolutions against the Islamic Republic at the United Nations or at the IAEA.

An Iranian pledge to use the tens of billions of dollars It will now receive “only for humanitarian purposes” is worthless, because money is fungible. If Iran uses those unfrozen billions, or the amounts it will now get from renewed oil sales, for food, medicine, hospitals, housing, and infrastructure, that will only free up other tens of billions of dollars that Tehran had been spending on food, medicine, hospitals, housing, and infrastructure, so that it can spend that money on support for its proxies in the region, from the Houthis in Yemen to the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, to the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well, of course, on its weapons, including ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, and most important of all, its nuclear program – the same nuclear program that it now promises, not for the first time, essentially to halt..

The United States is not going so far as to call the understanding with Iran an official agreement as that would require congressional approval, the report said.

There are two things that the American government can now do that will help reassure Israel and at the same time, alarm Iran so much that it might finally stop trying to cheat the IAEA inspectors.

The “assurance” that would mean the most is if the US said that it will treat Israel as if it were a member of NATO, which it clearly deserves to be, both because of its military strength, that is equal to that of every other member of the alliance save the U.S., and because, civilizationally if not geographically, Israel is a member of the West. The same cannot be said for Turkey, a member of NATO since 1952, which has no business remaining in the alliance, now that it has abandoned Kemalist secularism for Erdogan’s islamist bent. Erdogan once predicted a war “between the Crescent and the Cross,” leaving no doubt as to which side his country, under his leadership, would be on. The U.S could clearly state that any attack on Israel by Iran will be considered an attack on the United States, and will be responded to with every military means at America’s disposal. That would get Iran’s attention.

Even if that is not politically possible, the US might provide Israel with two weapons that so far it has withheld, and that Israel almost certainly would need if it determined it had to put paid to Iran’s nuclear project. First, the 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators, the largest “bunker-busters” in the American arsenal, would be needed by Israel for attacks on the nuclear facilities Iran has built deep underground, as at Natanz, or inside a mountain, as at Fordow. The second are the KC-46 Pegasus air-to-air refueling tankers, which Israel would need if its planes are to fly all the way from Israel to Iran and back. Israel has four of these planes on order, but the US has so far refused to speed up delivery of them as Israel has requested. By making clear to the world that both the bunker-buster bombs and the KC-46 air-to-air refueling tankers will now be delivered without delay, the US will semaphore to Tehran that Israel will have everything it needs to successfully carry out the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, if Jerusalem decides that it must. That would concentrate minds in Tehran.