Israel and the Russian challenge
Obama cannot take action against Russia without discrediting his entire Middle East policy, and so destroying his own legacy.
January 20, 2016
Caroline Glick
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OBAMA’S POLICY in the region is based on the assumption that the US is responsible for instability and war in the Middle East. As a consequence, Obama’s regional policy is one that requires the US to abandon those who benefited from US protection and partnership – first and foremost Israel and Saudi Arabia, and appeasing those who most oppose the US and its allies – first and foremost Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
With Iran’s capture of the US naval craft and its illegal detention of 10 US naval personnel last week, Iran demonstrated, once again, that it has not been appeased by Obama’s nuclear and financial concessions.
Iran continues to view the US as its primary enemy and it continues to view itself as at war against America.
It is beyond dispute that Iran committed a war crime in photographing the US military personnel in humiliating ways and forcing one sailor to film an apology to Iran. The language of the Geneva Conventions is cut and dry on the subject.
But rather than take action against Iran, by among other things, delaying the revocation of economic sanctions against Iran, the Obama administration defended Iran’s act of war against the US.
In a press briefing, State Department spokesman John Kirby argued that Iran did not commit a war crime when it detained and photographed the US sailors in humiliating ways because Iran is not at war with the US.
This is an idiotic statement meant to hide an indefensible position. Obviously, if Kirby is right and Iran is not at war with the US, then the act of detaining and photographing the sailors moves from a mere war crime, to an act of international piracy and hostage taking.
In other words, in detaining US sailors and photographing them, Iran either committed a war crime and an act of war, or it committed an even larger crime – and initiated a war with the US.
But Obama cannot acknowledge that this is the case, because if he does, he will be unable to defend his larger policy – which is equally indefensible.
Iran began broadcasting photographs of the sailors kneeing before their Iranian captors and a video apology in which a sailor issued a groveling apology and thanked Iran for its kindness and hospitality the day before Secretary of State John Kerry stood before the cameras in Vienna and announced that the US and its partners would remove economic sanctions against Iran as soon as the IAEA announced that Iran was abiding by the nuclear deal.
The IAEA then duly announced that Iran was in compliance and it could receive its $150 billion in frozen funds.
Iran crowed that the American sailors cried and otherwise acted like cowards when they were apprehended just hours before Obama went before the cameras and congratulated himself for his brilliantly smart diplomacy that has prevented war. Obama similarly chastised unnamed critics for criticizing his decision to bow and scrape before Iran as it committed acts of war against America.
Obama was undoubtedly relishing the moment as he declared diplomatic victory over his political opponents, but even if he was unhappy about Iran’s behavior he couldn’t have done anything about it.
Obama brags that he was able to reach a nuclear deal where all his predecessors failed. But this hides the main distinction between him and those who came before him.
None of Obama’s predecessors concluded a nuclear deal with Iran because unlike Obama, none of his predecessors were willing to abandon US interests – including the interest of preventing the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism from acquiring nuclear weapons – in order to get a deal. Obama cannot attack Iran’s aggression on the high seas without calling into question the wisdom of his nuclear diplomacy.
He cannot take action against Russia without calling into question his belief that US power in the Middle East is the chief cause of all the region’s problems.
Israel’s military and political leaders are right to be concerned about the implications of Russia’s return to Syria. And it is far from clear that there is a way to credibly minimize the dangers. But, since we’re not going anywhere, we will have to make the best of a bad situation.
Whatever we do, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that unless the next US president rejects Obama’s entire Middle East policy and shepherds the military and financial resources to abandon it, on Russia, Iran and beyond, Israel will have to fend for itself for the foreseeable future.
Israel and the Russian challenge
