The MENA region is in shambles, as Iranian proxy-wars, and other conflicts dominate Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Mali, and Egypt, along with the possibility of a Palestinian civil war around the corner. Recently, the US Navy has defended itself from missile strikes by Houthi rebels, backed by Iran off Yemen’s coast. The P5+1 Iran nuclear deal, or treaty, was a gross dereliction of duty by all countries involved in the negotiations. The Republican-controlled US Congress, for doing absolutely nothing to exercise its constitutional control over implementation, also holds blame along with the Germans and French.
We still live in a world where the U.S. is the sole superpower, though reluctantly under President Obama, and someone has to lead. Unfortunately, and with dire consequences, President Obama chose to believe the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and negotiate a partial stop to their nuclear weapons program.
This agreement/treaty, which was supposed to be the dawn of a new era for Iran – the cradle of civilization – instead, has only emboldened Russia to now threaten the U.S. and world with nuclear war. It has also emboldened the Chinese to become more insistent on their crackdown of domestic freedom of speech, to cast aside international law in the South China Sea, and to raise tensions with the Japanese.
And the Chinese are sitting idly by while their proxy – the North Koreans – are drawing near to testing another nuclear weapon. Negotiating with the Iranians has done nothing but embolden bad actors across the globe, actors that only understand military strength, crippling economic sanctions, deterrence, and forceful balance of power. Even the once staunch western ally, the Philippines, now openly mocks the U.S. and looks to improve ties with the Chinese. When tiny, inconsequential countries mock the U.S., EU, and NATO those are problems that can’t be solved unless something changes with the above entities’ weakness on the world stage.
The Iran nuclear deal, led by President Obama, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and current Secretary of State John Kerry was built upon lies, and unfathomable, naïve weakness. Hillary Clinton in 2008 nailed it when she stated that Barack Obama’s foreign policy was “naïve.” In the new book: “The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East,” by Wall Street Journal Chief foreign correspondent, details the inept schmoozing, sordid details and unbelievable danger the U.S. and the world is now in since this agreement has been implemented.
The Iranians, the Russians, and Chinese torched the U.S., led by President Obama at the negotiating table, and pacifist Germany laughed all the way to the bank. Business is booming with the Iranians, and now weaker Iran and other foes have been led to believe that nothing will stand in their way to whatever it is they want to accomplish in their neighborhoods, and the world stage.
The post-WWII order, established and led by the U.S., is now dead. In its place is a multi-polar world that no one knows where is headed – but actually men such as Angelo Codevilla predicted in his book Character of Nation exactly what will take place.
Mr. Codevilla saw a world where America will not come to the world’s rescue, and at that point all bets are off from World War III happening. Mr. Codevilla believes the West will cave to Islamists, Russia, an abrasive China, along with Mexico on the southern US border – all in the name of peace. Not a hard-fought peace, like that which was won in WWII, which has endured for over seventy years, but one not unlike the book by Phillip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle where Germany and Japan divided the world up after winning WWII.
If the Iranians develop a nuclear weapon, the Russians become more belligerent and the Japanese and Chinese start a shooting war in the East China Sea what happens next? The Iranians aren’t going anywhere, and now are flush with post-sanction relief money. According to General Martin Dempsey, the former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, he has openly opined about needing to invade the Iranians, because the deal with them only made them more, not less hostile towards peace-loving nations.
We’ve witnessed what happened when the US pulled out of Iraq, and now world economies are beginning to greatly slow down, and not recover from the 2008 financial crisis. This is because of the retreat on the world stage by the U.S., Britain, NATO, and other former allies. But the question to ask is who will lead the world unless the Americans lead it? This questions was forcefully and eloquently asked by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark and Secretary-General of NATO in a Wall Street Journal editorial where he pleads with America to once again lead the world, and not make dangerous deals with maniacal Islamic fatalists.
This P5+1 agreement was built on lies, ego-driven-nihilism for the sake of presidential legacies, and the need to have peace at all costs while denying human nature, ideology, and the history of the Iranian regime. The Iranians have been two-bit bullies since the Islamists took over that country. While certain segments of Islam are peaceful, and even poetic in their nature, that never was the Iranians.
Why President Obama led the coalition to negotiate with Iran is still a mystery. But it isn’t a mystery to know that they aren’t backing down, and they certainly aren’t leaving the world or petroleum stage anytime soon. They now know that they have backed the U.S., EU and NATO into a corner. Impotent Western governments believing terrorism is the new norm; a US presidential election based upon sexual harassment; and an agreement that even the Socialist French thought was horrible – it all only spells disaster for the world.
The wild card is the Saudis. Now that Afghanistan is in play for the Iranians and Saudis, and oil prices aren’t reaching $100 barrel this year or next, what will the Saudis try to accomplish moving forward? It’s publicly known they are changing their economy into a 21st century one, and not its current model based mainly on petro-dollars. That’s a good thing, but the eerie part is where will they turn as the Iranians become stronger and more adventurous?
More than likely, the Saudis will turn to the Israelis to purchase nuclear weapons in the near future now that there is a détente between the Egyptians, Saudis, and Israelis over the transfer of the Tiran and Sanfir islands to the Saudis by the Egyptians. Though initially blocked in Egyptian court, it is believed the Egyptian parliament will approve the transfer to gain a three-country strategic balance of power against the Iranians.
Western sophisticates and real-world political strategists such as Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Xi believe war is impossible to one and a means to an ends for the others. Man’s nature never changes, but remains unforgiving of past aggression and irrational in structure. Appeasement with thugs is only seen as timidity to be used to crush weaker nations. The reciprocity the P5+1 which was thought to be gained from the Iranians has done the exact opposite: made madmen into believers that the weak can take on the strong, and win, while being celebrated on the world stage by the disciples of Neville Chamberlin.
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