#WTH: Why some believe there's a deal to be had with Iran

They are wrong.

©The Independent

Yesterday, the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that Iran is no longer cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and that he is no longer able to certify that Iran’s nuclear work is fully peaceful. Well, um, yes.

To state the glaringly obvious, for those concerned about Iran’s malign intentions, this is a major problem. But several commenters on previous pieces have asked me how we got here, and why Barack Obama seemed so dead set on making a deal with Iran that would ultimately funnel billions to the Islamic Republic, fuelling a fresh era of Iranian sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East. I’ve written about this before, and I suspect some of my theories will be unpalatable to my much-beloved readers. Nonetheless, hear me out.

For most of the modern history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the major issue was oil and its steady, reliable, and cheap supply. Who better to rely upon than a nation that for all intents and purposes sticks its fingers in the ground and watches the resulting gusher. That country is Saudi Arabia. People who write bumper stickers and think in words of less than two syllables like to suggest that this is why the United States has shed so much blood in the Middle East; it’s blood for oil. Now, a) relatively speaking, we have lost many more lives in Europe (where there isn’t much oil), and b) in Asia, where, same.

Beginning in the late 60s, early 70s, the United States layered on an increasingly warm and friendly relationship with the State of Israel, which also began to frame U.S. policy in the Middle East. Thus summarizes the gravamen of U.S. Middle East Policy for Dummies.™

After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 (thank you Jimmy Carter), the new regime in Tehran upended some, though not all, of our regional calculus. Suddenly, Iran was the bad guy upon which we all focused, and Iranian proxy groups were the terrorists that caught our eye. American attention was consumed by Shi’ite terror groups like Hezbollah, and then Hamas, and all have since multiplied like topsy. So far, so bad. Then 9/11 happened.

In the dumbing down of regional history and foreign policy analysis, it was clear that a) 9/11 was committed by Sunnis; and b) it was not committed by Shi’ites. (They were the ones who had killed the most Americans until 9/11, and they are now working to regain their lead.) In comes Barack Obama.

Forgive me for the staccato basic-ness of this post, but it’s important to understand that Barack Obama didn’t know squat about the Middle East, but thought that he did. And in some respects he was right: The United States had always viewed the region through oil-colored glasses, from the Sunni perspective, with a touch of the Jews thrown in. But, marveled Obama, what if that was all wrong?

Obama reviewed the bidding, correctly asking what exactly America had gotten out of this vital relationship with Arab Sunnis. A whole bunch of anti-Americanism, antisemitism, endless war on our ally Israel, and 9/11. Plus that oil, which is bad for the environment, etc. What if we upend that formula, and think about how the picture looks from Tehran? Evil Americans always trying to sanction, overthrow, and otherwise be mean to the Islamic Republic. Of course they would want a nuclear weapon; they want to deter the evil Americans and their Sunni (and Jewish) minions.

This is neither crazy, nor stupid. It’s just simplistic and naive. But, together with a group of swooning acolytes and some simple-minded scientists and teary-eyed diplomats, Obama set up his aim of rewriting the U.S. role in the Middle East. His goal was not to boost Shi’ite terrorism, nor to elevate Iran above the others. It was simply to level the playing field for the Iranians, and pay them off to stop building nuclear weapons, believing that in so doing, he would diminish their incentives to behave badly. It was a foolish plan, even more poorly executed by some of the most hapless diplomats the U.S. has ever deployed. Tehran ate their lunch, and then made them bring dinner, and ate that too. The Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a terrible deal.

Now again, you can disagree with me (and I feel confident you will), and assert that Obama was all about advantaging the Islamists, and giving them an edge in Arab and Iranian politics. And all I can say to that is that overweening arrogance and bad staff work were the primary Obama trademarks. He doesn’t love Islamists, he loves himself, and what passes for his ideas.

Pause for a moment. Consider the reality of U.S. policy in the region, and then, please, recognize that indeed, 50 years of lovey-dovey with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave us a bunch of oil and al Qaeda. 30 years of pretending Egypt wasn’t a ruthless kleptocratic dictatorship gave Israel a cold peace and the American taxpayer an almost $100 billion bill. The stories in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait and everywhere else are not much better. It wasn’t crazy to look for other options; what was crazy was the lie about whom we were dealing with, and the pretense that if were nice to them, they would be nice to us. Which brings me to the crescendo of this short piece: Our leaders no longer understand ideology very well.

During the Cold War, we understood that the Communists existed in opposition to America and freedom and markets. We further understood that Soviet Communism was not simply a bunch of dictators who draped themselves in the hammer and sickle and pretended to care about the proletariat. Many were like that, to be sure, but the very existence of the USSR was forged in opposition to the United States of America and the ideas, values, and principles upon which it was built.

For some reason, after the demise of Soviet Communism, the idea of ideological competition and ideological enmity disappeared from the American political lexicon. Everyone was Henry Kissinger, and all we cared about was interests. You cannot understand the Middle East if you think only of interests. Sure, new Saudi Arabia doesn’t much care for Sunni supremacism, and Egypt has been a corrupt tyranny since before Nasser died. But that’s not what’s going on in Iran (or in Turkey, for that matter). The leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a radical, Islamist, millenarian cult. They believe, and they will not negotiate away their beliefs, even for billions of crisp dollars.

The way to defeat ideological enemies is not to bribe them, nor to negotiate with them, because they are just buying time until they can bring their plans to fruition. But Barack Obama doesn’t understand that to this day, nor do many of his successors. And there are plenty of Republicans who also miss the fact that Iran is our implacable enemy, and that repeated efforts to turn our back on the Middle East will simply result in the problems of the region following us home. Why we cannot learn this lesson, and why we do not consider what would be necessary to defeat Iran’s evil ideology is a fatal flaw in U.S. foreign policy.