RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://lidblog.com/robert-malley-iran/

Per Jewish Insider, President Biden is considering adding another Israel hater to his team. Robert Malley, who shared his anti-Israel views as part of the Clinton and Obama administrations, an adviser to Bernie Sanders, and grew up with a socialist dad who was a close friend of terrorist Yasser Arafat. According to the report, Malley will be joining the re-Obama administration as Biden’s special envoy to Iran. 

The potential appointment of Malley comes as members of the Biden transition team have begun to lay out the president-elect’s vision for diplomacy with Iran following the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The Biden transition team declined to comment and noted that they do not presently have any personnel announcements.

A source familiar with the Biden team’s approach on Iran told JI, “The president-elect has said that if Iran resumes strict compliance with the JCPOA, the United States would return to the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. But Iran is a long way from returning to compliance, and there are many steps in the process to getting there that we will need to evaluate once in office. Our first order of business will be consulting with Congress and our allies on the path forward.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16974/popular-nuclear-mythology

While one looks with alarm at the massive Russian nuclear modernization effort now nearing completion, the disarmament lobby — such as Ploughshares and Global Zero — views such modernization as simply a reflection of how the American threat is perceived by the Russians.

There is also little doubt that the Russian Federation’s priority investment in nuclear weapons was — and remains — aimed primarily to checkmate the United States’ conventional weapons superiority, and give Russia a free hand to use its own military power for hegemonic purposes. The same could be said of North Korea and Iran’s decisions to go along their respective paths to nuclear breakout.

What brings the issue to the forefront today is that many luminaries of previous administrations who may now be staffing the incoming administration still hold these historically inaccurate views.

A commitment to a “sole-purpose” posture — or to its equivalent, a “no-first-use” stance — not only undermines the US nuclear umbrella upon which America’s allies have relied for 70 years, it also invites a Russian first strike. Moscow’s conventional and nuclear forces are configured for just that kind of operation and are ultimately restrained only by the American nuclear deterrent.

If the United States wrongly assumes that Russia’s deterrent serves no offensive purpose, we would be ignoring recent and authoritative evidence to the contrary…. Russia’s military posture is fundamentally offensive…. “active defense.”

Russia’s ability to initiate conventional strikes against its rivals and adversaries is closely backed up by nuclear weapons.

Iran would undoubtedly see even partial unilateral US disarmament as a green light for its nuclear quest. One can imagine what that would lead to in the Middle East.

Moreover, US unilateral acts of altruism, designed to lead by example, will not be reciprocated: states in general, and certainly Russia and China, are, to quote Charles De Gaulle, “cold monsters.”

There is a widespread belief, especially among advocates of nuclear disarmament, that a country with nuclear weapons is primarily interested in self-protection. The narrative continues with another belief — really more of a wish — that nuclear weapons should never be used to deter anything other than a nuclear attack from an adversary and, if that can be agreed upon, nations would then be willing to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/bidens_proposed_iran_deal_will_fail_.html

C’mon man! When was the last time you successfully stuffed a genie back into the bottle? Or convinced a conman to complete the kitchen remodel after you fully paid him upfront? Iran already has gotten just about everything it wanted from this agreement, and the United States almost nothing. It’s fourth and 85 yards with 12 seconds left in the game, and the kicker went out with a twisted knee in the third quarter. Enough metaphors there, I think, to get the point across.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a mere 3.67%. They are almost up to 20% which means that about 80% of the work required to enrich to 90% is done. Iran could have weapons-grade uranium on hand in a matter of weeks.

During the campaign, the Democratic candidates uniformly castigated President Trump for pulling out of the JCPOA. Somehow, they seemed to believe that one-sided adherence to terms ensured the viability of a two-party agreement. Even their platform appears to acknowledge Iran as a reliable partner in world affairs. “Democrats will . . . prioritize nuclear diplomacy, de-escalation, and regional dialogue.” Regional dialogue? Since the rise of the ayatollahs, Iran has managed to take a dump on just about everyone in the neighborhood. Right now too, Iran is a dumpster fire of human rights abuses.

“Democrats . . . believe the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remains the best means to verifiably cut off all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb.” Nuclear bombs, in general, require at least 90% enriched fissile material, missiles, launch platforms, and a guidance system, depending on the type of attack envisioned. This past week Iran has been playing with drones that can stand in for both missiles and platforms, and that have remote guidance systems. Today’s oil shipping traffic to Venezuela gives it land-based potential in the Americas, as well as ship-based. If they plan for low-tech delivery of a dirty bomb or an EMP attack, the need for a precise guidance system may be moot, if detonation in a general area is ensured. Let’s be realistic — Iran has too many pathways to a nuclear attack on the United States for the JCPOA to cut them all off.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16937/iran-nuclear-ambition

Even if the deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration were worth the effort, it is impossible to imagine the Iranians willingly recommitting to enrichment levels they have long since blown past. No one believes in their professed “peaceful use” of nuclear energy. So why does a return to the deal make any sense?

The killing of top terror-funding IRGC official Qasem Soleimani by the US military and Iran’s relatively toothless retaliatory attack against two US bases in Iraq suggest that the regime fears what an escalation of tensions would mean to its own future more than it desires to stab at the “Great Satan.” The regime may finally be on the verge of collapse.

Those sanctions are the only leverage the U.S. really has against Iran, and they may finally succeed, much as the Reagan administration was able to do to the USSR in the 1980s. Now is not the time to reduce or remove them in exchange for paper promises born of a campaign slogan, from a regime whose movements suggest it fears its days are numbered.

Through covert operations, hidden diplomacy, an intense military buildup, and a series of actions designed to throw sand in the gears of the Soviet economy, American policy destroyed the USSR from its fingertips to its heart. Former Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev have admitted it with grudging admiration. The only ones who were wrong were those in the liberal foreign policy establishment who pretended it was all just a coincidence.

President-elect Joe Biden ran on a slogan to “restore the Iran nuclear deal.” For those voters desperate to undo every accomplishment of the Trump administration, which abandoned the deal and imposed sharp sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, it must have sounded attractive.

But now that Biden will be responsible for American security and not just criticizing Donald Trump, he would do well to slow down and consider alternatives.