No cozying up to Iran, Mr. President

Give credit where credit is due. When all eyes are focused on the Islamic threat and some are advocating at least a tacit alliance with Iran (!) it took Henry Kissinger to remind us:

There has come into being a kind of a Shia belt from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut. And this gives Iran the opportunity to reconstruct the ancient Persian Empire — this time under the Shia label.
From a geo-strategic point of view, I consider Iran a bigger problem than ISIS. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a geo-strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS — important as it is — is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.

Well, the Islamic State is an easier nut to crack — if the president shows leadership and the will to act.

Whether we consider its quest for nuclear weapons, its attempt to meddle in Iraq, its support for terrorist groups including Hamas, its support for the butcher of Damascus or its efforts to undermine Sunni neighbors, Iran poses a threat to the region, especially to Israel, and beyond. Former ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker cautions: “We should avoid any appearance of cooperation with Iran and the extremist militias they support. Otherwise, we would further alienate Iraq’s Sunnis, already disaffected by the sectarian policies of the government of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It also would estrange key regional allies such as Saudi Arabia. Similarly, we must also avoid giving the impression that military action in Syria is intended to support the regime of Bashar Assad.” Needless to say, it would be disastrous if in a vain attempt to curry Iran’s favor in addressing the Islamic State threat, the administration failed to confront a much larger danger, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

The concern should run both ways. In the vain search for a nuclear deal with Iran (which shows 0 interest in giving up its nukes), we cannot allow Iran free rein in the region. Former adviser and now critic of the Obama administration Dennis Ross last June cautioned:

Both the Israelis and our key Arab friends believe that we are anxious for a nuclear deal, and they are not taking seriously the administration’s declarations that no deal would be better than a bad deal. They see active Iranian efforts to change the balance of power in the region and, fairly or not, little sign that we are prepared to compete with the Iranians as they do so. That has led to a perception among our regional friends that we attach such importance to a deal on the Iranian nuclear program that we turn a blind eye to Iranian behavior in the region. The administration argument that it is simply separating the nuclear issue from the other Iranian challenges in the area has not altered the impression of many in the region that our concerns about the Iranian nuclear program trump everything else.

In short, President Obama has brought about the worst of all worlds. Our Sunni allies and Israel don’t trust us, Iran doesn’t believe we are serious about blocking its nuclear ambitions and the Islamic State is growing in intensity. It is nearly inconceivable that any responsible U.S. official would see a detente of sorts with Iran as a positive. Former national security adviser Elliott Abrams has put it this way: “The Iranians wish us ill. The Iranians don’t want the same thing we do in Iraq, not really, they want to control Iraq … the Ayatollah hates the United States, the Iranians are enemies of the United States. This is [an] Islamic Republic.” And of course they seek to wipe Israel off the map and enlist terrorists to aid in this goal. Trying to enlist or mollify Iran therefore amounts to empowering our enemy and endangering our closest allies in the region.

It is not only Egyptians, who saw Obama’s enthusiastic embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood government and who suspect Obama is intent on cozying up to the Iranians. Michael Doran of Brookings has written that “the president is dreaming of an historical accommodation with Iran. The pursuit of that accommodation is the great white whale of Obama’s Middle East strategy, and capturing it is all that matters; everything else is insignificant by comparison. The goal looms so large as to influence every other facet of American policy, even so seemingly unrelated a matter as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.” He continues:

No wonder, then, that Obama’s policies are in a shambles. It is impossible to succeed in the Middle East without partners, and so long as he remains bent on empowering Iran and its proxies (who, for their part, continue to make no secret of their loathing for the United States), America’s traditional allies will withhold their own support for Washington’s initiatives. This fact raises a question: when it finally becomes obvious not only that the president’s policy will never work but that it has, in fact, contributed to producing ever greater mayhem and carnage in the region, will he reverse field?

We will get some indication Wednesday night. But, to be clear, engaging our real allies (e.g. Egypt), using military power against the Islamic State, helping the Kurds and Iraqis to defeat the Islamic State and helping to organize Sunni tribes to push back against the Islamic State do not necessitate any alliance with Iran. To the contrary, to the degree we allow Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions, ship arms around the region and attempt to dominate Iraq, the less willing will be our Sunni allies to cooperate with us. Thanks to the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy, we now have two dangerous foes in the region — the Iranian axis and the Islamic State. We will need to confront both, not give one a free pass.

The Washington Post