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Iran Isn't Just Trying to Build a Nuclear Bomb

BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
01/22/2015 05:49 PM ET


Charles Krauthammer

While Iran's march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran's march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried.

This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign.

The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But they are also agents of Shiite Iran, which arms, trains and advises them. Their slogan � "God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel." � could have been written in Persian.

Why should we care about the coup? First, because we depend on Yemen's government to support our drone war against another local menace, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. It's not clear if we can even maintain our embassy in Yemen, let alone conduct operations against AQAP. And second, because growing Iranian hegemony is a mortal threat to our allies and interests in the entire Middle East.

In Syria, Iran's power is similarly rising. The mullahs rescued the reeling regime of Bashar Assad by sending in weapons, money and Iranian revolutionary guards as well as by ordering their Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, to join the fight. They succeeded. The moderate rebels are in disarray, even as Assad lives in de facto coexistence with the Islamic State, which controls a large part of his country.

A strange occurrence last Sunday in the Golan Heights further illustrated Iran's domination of Syria. An Israeli helicopter attacked a convoy on the Syrian side of the armistice line. Those killed were not Syrian, however, but five Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon and several Iranian officials, including a brigadier general.

What were they doing in the Syrian Golan Heights? Giving "crucial advice," announced the Iranian government. On what? Well, three days earlier, Hezbollah's leader had threatened an attack on Israel's Galilee. Tehran appears to be using its control of Syria and Hezbollah to create his very own front against Israel.

The Israelis can defeat any conventional attack. Not so the Gulf Arabs. To the north and west, they see Iran creating a satellite "Shiite Crescent" stretching to the Mediterranean and consisting of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. To their south and west, they see Iran gaining proxy control of Yemen. And they are caught in the pincer.

The Saudis are fighting back the only way they can � with massive production of oil at a time of oversupply and collapsing prices, placing enormous economic pressure on Iran. It needs $136 oil to maintain its budget. The price today is below $50.

Yet the Obama administration appears to be ready to acquiesce to the new reality of Iranian domination of Syria. It has told the New York Times that it is essentially abandoning its proclaimed goal of removing Assad.

For the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs, this is a nightmare. They're engaged in a titanic regional struggle with Iran. And they are losing � losing Yemen, losing Lebanon, losing Syria and watching post-U.S.-withdrawal Iraq come under increasing Iranian domination.

Iran going nuclear would hugely compound the nightmare. The Saudis were already stupefied that the U.S. had conducted secret negotiations with Tehran behind their backs. And they can see where the current talks are headed � legitimizing Iran as a threshold nuclear state.

Which makes all the more incomprehensible President Obama's fierce opposition to Congress' offer to strengthen the American negotiating hand by passing sanctions to be triggered if Iran fails to agree to give up its nuclear program. After all, that was the understanding that Obama gave Congress when he began these last-ditch negotiations in the first place.

Why are you parroting Tehran's talking points, Mr. President? asks Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez. Indeed, why are we endorsing Iran's claim that sanctions relief is the new norm? Obama assured the nation that sanctions relief was but a temporary concession to give last-minute, time-limited negotiations a chance.

Twice the deadline has come. Twice no new sanctions, just unconditional negotiating extensions.

Our regional allies � Saudi Arabia, the other five Gulf states, Jordan, Egypt and Israel � are deeply worried. Tehran is visibly on the march on the ground and openly on the march to nuclear status. And their one great ally, their strategic anchor for two generations, is acquiescing to both.

in a perfect world, the shiites and the Sunni rag heads would just kill each other off. Sadly, they both hate us even more than they hate each other.

Fighting them is inevitable. Obama just wants it to be somebody elses problem, just like everything else.

Let the Arabs and the Europeans fight them.Take care of our home front. Then if the others fail just eliminate the whole works. ED K

Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950, in New York City and raised in Montreal. His parents were Orthodox-Jewish and he went to a Hebrew day school. "I got a rigorous Jewish education. I know what it is to be a Jew. There's a difference between being nominally Jewish or sentimentally Jewish and being grounded in Jewish learning".

Article written for the Jewish World Review............

Saul of Tarsus - born 8 AD - Acts 22:3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.

So the fact he is jewish invalidates his spot on assessment? Oh, I say fight and fight now...

only thing he is zealous toward is America fighting Iran on behalf of Israel.

Israel should be at best a small factor of the American rationale in that decision.

Kraut may be a Jew, but he is also observant, and correct in his assumptions. We would do well to listen to him and have our POTUS do something about it.

Israel is never a small factor in the American Rationale for any action in the middle east.

They've been talking about Iran being 6 months away from a nuclear bomb for what? 4 years now?

If Israel is convinced another country is building a weapon of mass destruction they intend to use on them at some point, then why have they waited - especially with a weak president in Obama?

btw, how many votes do we have for declared war on Iran here?

Jorge votes yes. Who else?

Obama is the terrorist Moslem threat to the USA

tell iran to launch one,tell israel to stop counting on us to back them.get rid of obama.

But it should be a factor, but not the driving force. The locus of the decision should center around the FACT upwards of 40% of the world's oil flows through the straits and Iran poses a clear and present danger to the collapse of the west should that source abruptly end. BTW, there are many ways of fighting, including FULL sanctions, full support of the resistance (oops too late we effed that one) and of course, blockade. Bottom line is we should PREVENT Iran from acquiring nuclear capability. Just my opinion,

Yep, very true Sam. The West, and especially the USA, seems to be the only common denominator that these two groups can agree on and focus their hatred and violence. Most Muslims (like Christians and Jews) are non-violent, but there is the radical violent element that causes most of the world's problems.

I think we should drop an FAE on Tehran just to even things up for the Embassy takeover,THEN we talk.

fight, fight now

Unfortunately, this may not be a viable option currently. Our military is tired, it's equipment worn-down and, our nation is tired of war. Given budget deficits and a tight-fisted Congress, I doubt this route will be taken - UNLESS, the US is directly attacked, as on 9/11.

Iran vs the U.S. - should we fight?

Yes.

Right after Israel agrees to become our 51st star.