While you were voting

By the time you read this column, you are probably recovering from a post-elections hangover – either because on Tuesday night you were either celebrating what, in your opinion, was a “great” election result”…or were trying to drown a “terrible one”. 

Either way, believe it or not, while everyone here was focusing on the elections, events in Israel and the Middle East continued to develop and make headlines.

So for the benefit of our readers – here is a summary of this past week.

1.  The “chickenshit” affair: 

• I’m still digging on this and will do a full analysis in a future column. All I can say at this time (Nov 4) is that the more information I uncover, the worse it looks.

2.  The peace process: 

• Following numerous rumors that the US is preparing to present new and innovative proposals to Israel and the Palestinians to resume negotiations, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Monday: "It's up to the parties to take steps. We know what the issues are. We know what the conditions would be. But it's up to them." "We're obviously having a range of discussions and conversations with them privately, but there are no plans to introduce a peace plan.” 

3,  Iranian Nukes:

• According to the interim agreement signed last November between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, France, UK and Germany), in exchange for a gradual and reciprocal easing of sanctions, Iran was to take specific measures, under supervision of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would delay its ability to “break-out” into nuclear weapons production.
• During this time negotiations were to be conducted toward signing a final agreement, on November 24, 2014, that would verifiably end Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. 
• An IAEA report published last week said that Iran had not fulfilled its obligations according to the November 2013 agreement, and remains today at, or very close to, “breakout” stage, with the ability to build  bombs within 1-2 months.
• The negotiations on the final agreement have stalled, though are scheduled to renew in Oman next week. 

The Israelis and Sunni Arab states, including; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, The Emirates, Turkey and others are very concerned that recent reports from highly reliable Washington sources indicate that in an effort to get Iran to join the coalition against the Islamic State (ISIL), the US administration is willing to make major concessions to Iran (“A Bad Deal”), or even worse – agree to postpone the November 24 deadline. Either will ease the UN Security Council imposed sanctions and enable Iran to effectively become a nuclear power. 

Ray Taqey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in Tuesday’s Washington Post:  “As the Nov. 24 deadline approaches, Iran has finally come to the crossroads, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many hardline elements seem ready to forge ahead with their nuclear ambitions…hard-liners believe that isolation from the international community can best preserve Iran's ideological identity. This siege mentality drives Iran's quest f or nuclear arms and their deterrent power.” 

So if the Iranian leadership has made the decision to “break-out” to nuclear weapon status – doesn’t that cross the original US “red line”? Isn’t that, according to promises made to Israel and the Saudis over a year ago, when the US was supposed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities to “degrade and destroy” them? If that is the case then why is the US seemingly bending over backwards to sign a bad deal? 

Or is the US relying on Israel’s “red line” vis-à-vis Iranian nukes? But that brings us back full circle to the “chickenshit” affair…   

As you can see – Middle East dynamics don’t have time to pause for American elections.