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Prof Triggernometry
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DEFENSE FEED
Joe Biden’s Magical Thinking On Iran
By
Michael Rubin
Published
23 hours ago
On July 12, 2022, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman sat down with the Atlantic Council’s Barbara Slavin to explain the Biden administration’s thinking on Iran:
“I think there is a very viable agreement and Iran just has to say, ‘yes’,” said Sherman, explaining that internal politics are likely at play over who is truly the nation’s current supreme leader. “As best as we can tell, they can’t come to a decision….” According to Sherman, it’s in Iran’s best interest to make a deal. “They would get sanctions relief. They would improve their economy and sell their oil again and the world needs their oil, so they could get a good price for it. It’s all in their interest to do this, but they’re having a very hard time getting consensus,” she said. “The European Union, the French, the Germans, the British who have negotiated this deal, along with Russia and China, all want this deal.”
From an American perspective, of course, Sherman is right. But Iran is not the United States, and Sherman commits the cardinal sin of analysis: mirror-imaging. From an Iranian perspective, Sherman is both arrogant and naïve. Her arrogance is the belief that she knows better than her Iranian counterparts do what is best for Iran. Her naiveté is rooted in the fact that her blind spot toward the Islamic Republic’s ideology helps Tehran advance the nuclear program that diplomacy means to prevent.
To construct a strategy toward the Islamic Republic without understanding how ideology shapes its behavior is a recipe for disaster. For Sherman to blame “internal politics” reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Iran. The supreme leader acts as God’s deputy on earth. He directs politics, not the other way around. While there are elections in the Islamic Republic, elected positions have no influence on security policy, such as Iran’s nuclear program.
True, a decade ago, the supreme leader authorized limited talks over Iran’s nuclear program; Tehran’s motivation was not a desire for peace, but rather financial relief. In the year preceding the start of negotiations, Iran’s gross domestic product fell 5.4 percent. Because the Obama administration offered Tehran upwards of one billion dollars in relief per month to negotiate and the regime became less financially desperate, Khamenei strengthened Iran’s redlines. Ultimately, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) did not do what Obama advertised. It reversed decades of counter-proliferation precedent, fell short of demanding Additional Protocol ratification, and did not address delivery systems.
More here: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/07/joe-bidens-magical-thinking-on-iran/
Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader says he can now build a nuclear weapon, thanks to Obama, Biden and the ever-present Wendy Sherman. Remember it was Bill Clinton and Wendy Sherman's incompetence that led to the development of North Korea's building and testing of nuclear weapons and their present arsenal of such weapons after Bill swore it would never happen. Every President since Carter has sworn that Iran would not achieve a nuclear weapon, but the incompetence of Joe Biden is going to assure Iran will do so.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19229325/iran-capable-buildin-nuclear-bomb-threat-west/
