Keeping our Eye on the Right Ball

Yes - Ebola is very scary.  And ISIS (ISIL), which the US and a bunch of coalition partners are currently dropping a few bombs on, even though it does not pose an immediate threat to the U.S. – or even Israel, is also scary.

The Al-Qaeda affiliated Khorasan group, which is feverishly recruiting and training radicalized, non-Mideastern looking young American and European passport holders for another mass- casualty 9/11 style strike against the U.S. is way above the two previous groups on the what-should-we–be-afraid-of list. But it’s not at the top – not by a long shot.

That honor goes to Iran, which with all the news about everything else going on in the world, seems to have fallen out of the headlines. And that can prove but fatal.

Just 12 months ago, before the Gaza war, Isis, Khorasan and Ebola in the U.S., the world’s focus was on the latest reports that Iran was close to break-out stage in the development of nuclear weapons. According to reports from both the UN’s watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and David Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security, Iran was between 4-10 months away from building its first nuclear bomb.

That fact, coupled with almost daily calls by various Iranian leaders for the destruction of the US and Israel led to economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.

At a conference in Geneva last November between Iran and the “G5+1” countries (US, UK, France, Russia, China + Germany), a tentative and time-limited verbal agreement was reached that was supposed to cool off tensions and enable talks aimed at reaching a permanent arrangement that would prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons while continuing “peaceful” nuclear research.

During this period Iran was to stand-down its Uranium enrichment process, dismantle several hundred centrifuges, reduce already enriched Uranium both in quantity and level, halt all construction on a new heavy water nuclear reactor (that could produce weapons-grade Plutonium) and allow IAEA inspectors to enter and monitor all suspected nuclear weapon program facilities.

In exchange there would be some lifting of the sanctions, based on the IAEA confirming Iran’s fulfilling its requirements.

The carved-in-stone date for the signing of the final and permanent agreement is November 24, just one month from today. So is the final agreement almost ready? Not by any account!

• The latest IAEA report claims that Iran has not honored most of its obligations from the November deal. 
• It also says that IAEA inspectors have not been given access to the highly secret Parchin facility, where nuclear weapon trigger testing and other nuke weapon related activities are suspected to be taking place, and had limited access to others. 
• Iran has not dismantled centrifuges as it was required, but has actually installed new, faster "next generation" ones that will shorten the "break out" stage once a decision to build a bomb is made.

In the meantime many of the sanctions have been breached and the Iranian economy is certainly not on the ropes at the moment.

As for the P5+1 talks – very little seems to have been achieved despite constant new concessions being made to the Iranian negotiators (who are described as “charming”, “attentive” and “sincere”), while getting nothing in return.

Israel’s minister of intelligence, Yuval Steinitz, wrote on October 19^th in an Op-Ed in the New York Times titled: “Don’t make a bad deal with Iran”:  “Israel is deeply concerned about the trajectory of the ongoing negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. The talks are moving in the wrong direction, especially on the core issue of uranium enrichment.”

And the Los Angeles Times, quoting the Iranian Mehr news agency, reported on Tuesday that “The Obama administration has sweetened its offer to Iran in ongoing nuclear negotiations, saying it might accept Tehran operating 4,000 centrifuges, up from the previous 1,300.” And that “Abbas Araqchi, a deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator, told the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs committee that the U.S. "made concessions."

So why should Iran come to an agreement in November, when it can drag on the “talks”, continue enrichment and weapons development, while getting more and more “pot sweetening” concessions from the US and Western powers? 

I’m willing to bet that come November 24^th, we’ll see a flurry of diplomacy that will end with an extended deadline, more sanction concessions…and Iran ever closer to being a nuclear power.   

So while, Ebola, ISIS, and Khorasan are very scary, they are not existential. 

However there is no doubt in my mind that the fanatically led, revenge driven Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran remains today’s most foremost and immediate threat to the US, Israel and the world. We must guarantee that it never gets even close to obtaining nuclear weapons.

 And that is the only ball we should be keeping our eyes on.