Obama and Iranian hegemony

By David Weinberg
May 22, 2012
Israel Hayom
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1926 \t _blank http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1926


The interim agreement that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) seem set to reach with Iran this week — involving the suspension of Iran’s 20 percent uranium enrichment — is dangerous on four levels.
First, the deliberations over the exact details of this agreement are likely to drag out for months, into the fall, giving the Iranians time to surreptitiously enrich even more uranium and continue their explosives testing work. Of course, this suits President Barack Obama’s election timetable just fine, because Israel would not dare strike Iran while supposedly “positive and successful” negotiations are under way. 
Second, according to all reports, the emerging understanding with Iran would leave its nuclear development facilities intact, including the Fordo underground center, instead of dismantling them. This allows the Iranians to continue refining their nuclear skills. Even at low levels of enrichment (3.5% and 5%, which are not useful for a bomb) this provides a framework with which Teheran can bypass Western restrictions and hoodwink nuclear inspectors. 
After all, Iran has clandestinely crossed every “red line” set by the West over the past 20 years — putting nuclear plants online, building heavy water facilities, refining uranium, working on explosive triggers and warheads, and generally breaching all its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And it has gotten away with it.
Any deal that scales back sanctions and allows Iran to keep operating its advanced nuclear development facilities even at a low level is a fatal bargain. So says a new study by Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Centrifuge technology is easy to hide, and reaching low-level enrichment is 75% of the work toward a bomb, they warn.
Worse still is the nagging suspicion that Obama’s emerging deal with the Iranians involves tacit recognition of their hegemony in the Gulf region — which is what Tehran is truly after. This was the implicit warning brought to Israel last week by one of America’s top experts on Iran, Dr. Amin Tarzi, director of Middle East studies at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. He said, “Iran wants nuclear capacity and a warhead for imperial purposes, to prove that Iran is a special and great country, and to be able to dominate the Gulf region and the broader Middle East. Tehran is unlikely to use a nuclear warhead, but it wants to have one in order to achieve the status of a regional superpower, to be an equal partner with the U.S. in dominating the Middle East.”
Could it be that Obama is prepared for a seismic shift in U.S. alliances in the region, moving from the partnership with weakened princes in Saudi Arabia to a “grand civilizational bargain” with the ayatollahs of Iran? Might he quietly acquiesce to Iranian nuclear status in exchange for understandings with Tehran on division of power in the region? Let's also keep in mind the American withdrawal from Iraq: An Iraq controlled by Shiites (and heavily influenced by Iran) could easily become a bigger oil exporter than Saudi Arabia. 
Finally, could all this be a prelude to the implementation of Obama’s grand (second-term) vision of nuclear reduction and global disarmament? Obama could yet turn to Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, Iran, and yes, Israel as well, with the demand to disarm. Israel has understandings with the U.S. about its nuclear policy, originally reached by Richard Nixon and Golda Meir and reportedly reaffirmed in 1998 (by Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu) and in 2009 (by Obama and Netanyahu). But in the context of a grand bargain with the Iranians (and, by extension, with much of the Muslim world), might Israel’s nuclear status also be targeted for troublesome attention?
I say: Beware of understandings reached in Baghdad. Heed Obama's long-term goals of resetting America’s relations with the Muslim world, and don’t underestimate his willingness to sacrifice current allies (including Israel and Saudi Arabia) in the process. There is much more at stake than the stymieing of Israeli attack plans.