RUTHFULLY YOURS

Iran is already in flagrant violation of its obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions referenced in the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed on July 14, 2015, by Iran, the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. Nevertheless, the Obama administration is making excuses for Iran. It is still on track to reward Iran soon with the freeing up of over $100 billion in frozen assets and the lifting of economic sanctions.

First, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was not able to complete the full investigation of Iran’s suspected past work on a nuclear explosive device, which was supposed to be a precondition for moving forward with implementation of the JCPOA’s terms. Even with the limited information it was provided, including samplings and photographs taken as a result of Iran’s own self-inspection, the agency concluded that, at least through 2009, Iran had conducted such activities. The agency also stated in its report that Iran had appeared to cover its tracks at its Parchin military site:

“Since the Agency’s first request to Iran for access to the particular location of interest to it at the Parchin site in February 2012, extensive activities have taken place at this location. These activities, observed through commercial satellite imagery, appeared to show, inter alia, shrouding of the main building, the removal/replacement or refurbishment of its external wall structures, removal and replacement of part of the roof, and large amounts of liquid run-off emanating from the building…The Agency assesses that the extensive activities undertaken by Iran since February 2012 at the particular location of interest to the Agency seriously undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.”

America has much to learn from Europe’s current condition. In Europe, the decline in religious faith has led to a universal weakening of society and a loss of confidence in the value of its civilization. And the effects of this have been grave: throngs of unassimilated immigrants, unchecked military threats from abroad, and confusion about national identity threaten Europe’s future. America, by contrast, still shows many signs of strength. Nonetheless, should we lose our sense of shared identity, Europe’s path likely awaits.
The threats confronting Europe also confront America: mass immigration of people whose loyalty cannot be guaranteed, the purging of religious assumptions from the public square, and the state’s growth which squeezes out civil society.

In a gloomy but strangely enthralling book published at the end of the First World War, the historian and polymath Oswald Spengler wrote of the decline of the West, arguing that Europe was moving inevitably to its end according to a pattern that can be observed among civilizations from the beginning of recorded history. Each historical superorganism, he argued, displays its distinctive and defining spirit through its culture. That of the West is “Faustian”—involving an outgoing and conquering attitude to the world displayed in the science, art, and institutions that came to fruition at the Reformation, spread themselves far and wide through the Enlightenment, and then reached a crisis at the French Revolution.

After that great period, things began to ossify into rigid legal and bureaucratic forms. Thus was born the period of “civilization,” typified by Napoleon’s new rationalization of the old spirit of France. Culture leads to civilization, which in turn leads to decay and then death. The culture of the West, Spengler argued, will dwindle to a purely mechanical simulacrum of its former greatness before disappearing entirely.

In 2003, Samantha Power won the Pulitzer Prize for A Problem from Hell, her searing critique of American responses to genocides from Bosnia to Iraq. More than a decade later, the unrestrained brutality in Syria has turned the administration that appointed Power as UN Ambassador into the deadliest case study of our time.
It’s hard to imagine a greater foreign policy failure than the American response to the conflict in Syria, which has mushroomed into one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War.

What started as a series of peaceful demonstrations for democratic and civil society reform in 2011 has since degenerated into a brutal multi-front conflict involving the Assad regime in Damascus, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Iranian-backed Hezbollah, a smorgasbord of mostly Islamist rebel groups including al-Qaeda, secular left-wing Kurdish militias, and, of course, ISIS—the most psychopathic army of killers on the planet.

Rather than live up to his earlier and undeserved reputation as a “reformer,” President Bashar al-Assad has proven himself the most violent dictator in the Middle East since Saddam Hussein.

ISIS, meanwhile, rather than living up to U.S. President Barack Obama’s description as al-Qaeda’s “JV team,” has evolved from a ragtag terrorist organization to a full-blown genocidal army massacring its way through Syria, Iraq and beyond.

The American response so far is only a tad more robust than the sound of chirping crickets.

Erdogan came to office in 2003 with a policy of “zero problems with neighbors,” but has since led Turkey to problems with most, if not all, of them.

Turkey’s foreign policy choices and current crises have combined to make Erdogan reach out to Israel for help.

Israel has weighed the price and found it acceptable: Israel will pay Turkey $20 million; Turkey will expel the Hamas leadership from Istanbul and will buy Israeli gas.

The restoration of relations with Israel is less a political reconciliation than an admission of the utter bankruptcy of Turkey’s last five years of diplomatic endeavor.

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

Turkey’s relations with Israel have been strained, to put it mildly, since 2010 when, through a non-profit organization, Turkey funded the 2010 Gaza Flotilla aimed at breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

After a bloody confrontation, which ended in the deaths of nine Turks, Turkey demanded that Israel be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and subjected to UN sanction. The ICC ruled that Israel’s actions did not constitute war crimes. In addition, the UN’s Palmer Commission concluded that the blockade of Gaza was legal, and that the IDF commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara ship had faced “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers,” and were therefore required to use force for their own protection. The commission, however, did label the commandos’ force “excessive and unreasonable.”