America, we have a problem.<\/p>\n
In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can’t or won’t fight.<\/p>\n
The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and ran all the way to Baghdad.<\/p>\n
The Turks could annihilate ISIS in Syria, but they won’t fight. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs have sent zero troops to fight ISIS. A handful of air strikes is it.<\/p>\n
Now consider what our old enemies have done and are doing.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah and Iran have sustained Bashar Assad’s Syrian army for four years and have ISIS and the al-Nusra Front on the defensive around Aleppo.<\/p>\n
Iran and its allied Shiite militia in Iraq are battling ISIS for Tikrit.<\/p>\n
Backed by Hezbollah, Houthi rebels have seized Yemen’s capital and are battling al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP is the No. 1 terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.<\/p>\n
While Iran and its allies are fighting al-Qaida and ISIS, Turkey and our Arab allies are malingerers at best and collaborators at worst.<\/p>\n
How explain this? Not difficult.<\/p>\n
The Shiites, a religious minority in the Muslim world \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Hezbollah, Assad’s regime, Baghdad, Tehran \u00e2\u20ac\u201d see ISIS as a mortal threat and are willing to fight to kill the monster.<\/p>\n
Our Sunni allies won’t go out and fight ISIS, because that would make them allies of Iran and the Shiites, whom they fear even more.<\/p>\n
Our Sunni friends want America to crush ISIS and al-Qaida, then to crush Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. But why is it in our interest to send U.S. troops back into any of these wars?<\/p>\n
Is America more threatened than our Arab allies?<\/p>\n
Rather than listening to allies who are non-combatants, we should take a hard look at the Mideast. To whom does the future belong? And with what can we live?<\/p>\n
The Republicans want to give a blank check to Obama and any future president to fight ISIS and al-Qaida everywhere and forever. And they want the United States to treat Iran as we should have treated Nazi Germany had Hitler been about to get the bomb.<\/p>\n
But if the GOP platform takes the neocon-Netanyahu line that we must not only fight ISIS and al-Qaida, but also Iran and Syria, the party will imperil its improving chances for 2016.<\/p>\n
Americans don’t want another war.<\/p>\n
And if John Kerry comes home with a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, Americans are likely to reject a party that is seen as trying to torpedo that deal, when the alternative is war with Iran.<\/p>\n
We do not know exactly what is in the Kerry deal, but what has been revealed thus far is no cause for panic or hysteria.<\/p>\n
Though Israel has 200 atomic bombs, Iran has not produced a single ounce of uranium enriched to bomb-grade 90 percent.<\/p>\n
Since talks began, Iran has diluted all of its 20-percent enriched uranium and halted production. Tehran is willing to cut her operating centrifuges by a third.<\/p>\n
Inspectors and cameras are now in all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The heavy-water plant at Arak, which would produce plutonium, has been halted. The reprocessing plant that would be needed to extract bomb-grade material has not even been started.<\/p>\n
U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 and 2011 declared, with high confidence, that Iran has no active bomb program.<\/p>\n
While Bibi Netanyahu says the Ayatollah tweeted that Israel must be “annihilated,” the same Ayatollah issued a fatwa against Iran ever producing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
We cannot trust Iran, we are told. Correct. Nor should we, as history has proven. Moscow cheated on Nixon’s SALT I agreement by replacing its light single-warhead SS-11 missiles with heavy SS-19s with multiple warheads.<\/p>\n
But as Meir Dagan, ex-head of Mossad points out, if Iran cheats at any of its facilities, we will know it, and it would take a year before Tehran could produce enough highly enriched uranium even to test a bomb.<\/p>\n
Plenty of time to gas up the B-2s.<\/p>\n
Another question, too rarely raised, is this:<\/p>\n
Why would Iran test and build a nuclear bomb, when this would set off a nuclear arms race across the Middle East and put Iran in mortal peril of being smashed by the United States, or by Israel with a preemptive strike?<\/p>\n
Right now, Hezbollah dominates Lebanon. Assad is gaining ground in Syria. Iraq, thanks to “W,” is Iran’s ally, not the mortal enemy of Saddam’s day. The Houthi have Sanaa.<\/p>\n
The Shiite majority in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is berthed, will one day dominate that Gulf state. And the Shiites in oil-rich northeast Saudi Arabia will one day rise up against Riyadh.<\/p>\n
Why build a bomb, why get into a war with a nuclear-armed superpower, when everything’s going your way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"