KEY EXTRACTS below; Read the full piece HERE.
I share the legitimate concerns of center-right critics over the gravely delusive and dangerous concessions the Obama Administration appears hell-bent to agree upon in its nuclear negotiations with Iran:
- giving an international imprimatur to Iran’s so-called “right” to enrich uranium, with the maintenance of ~6500 centrifuges, including perhaps 600 in the concrete-reinforced, 300 foot subterranean Fordow facility;
- simultaneous “quick” economic sanctions relief, and even a partial lifting of existing embargoes on arms sales to the Islamic Republic;
- the exclusion of Iran’s robust ballistic missile (BM) program, which, per mid-March Senate testimony by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Director, Navy Vice Admiral James Syring, could have intercontinental (IC) capability this (i.e., 2015) calendar year; [note: a satellite image published January, 2015 purports to show a 27-meter tall Iranian ICBM just outside Tehran]
- the steadfast refusal by Iran—despite repeated, ongoing International Atomic Energy Agency demands—to reveal its record of putative military nuclear development/ weaponization experiments
It has also become axiomatic, however, that each center-right tocsin of looming calamity regarding the apparent disastrous essence of the Obama Administration’s hotly pursued Iran nuclear deal, will invoke the alleged panacea of Iranian “regime change.” Invariably, truculent reminders of President Obama’s failure to support what I have termed the Soylent Green Movement (see here; here; here), during the summer of 2009, accompany the regime change chorus. While certainly not as damaging as the nuclear weapons-abetting Obama Administration “Iranian diplomacy,” the incessantly repeated “alternative” notion of Soylent Green Movement-inspired regime change, is another corrosive delusion, particularly when championed in lieu of near-term, targeted, concerted destruction of Iran’s four known major nuclear materials production facilities.
… While Mousavi remains the “transformative” Iranian Green Movement political icon for such analysts, the late Ayatollah Montazeri (d. December, 2009) represents the Green Movement’s eternal “spiritual” inspiration.
… A thorough evaluation of Montazeri’s recorded modern opinions—entirely concordant with traditionalist Iranian Shiism during the Safavid-Qajar eras, and since the retrograde Khomeini “revolution,” following Iran’s 20th century dalliance with Western secularism under the Pahlavi Shahs (from 1925-1979)—does not comport with the conservative eulogies of the late Ayatollah, referenced above.
Montazeri’s copiously documented views—his Shiite Islamic juridical writings, memoirs, interviews, and speeches—reveal, unequivocally:
- Full-throated support for open-ended, aggressive jihad warfare to destroy Israel, fight the U.S., and establish global Islamic suzerainty, and the universal application of Sharia
- Application of an ugly, najis (non-Muslim infidel spiritual and physical “impurity”)-inspired Islamic order within Iran, openly antithetical to Western conceptions of individual liberty, religious freedom (i.e., including advocacy of the death penalty for “blasphemy”), and democracy.
- Continued (per interviews Montazeri gave in 2003 and 2006) support for Sharia supremacism, sharing the current Iranian regime’s opinion about (and negotiating tactics for procuring) the Islamic Republic’s “right” to pursue “peaceful” nuclear technology, and re-affirming his bigoted, strident opposition to Israel’s existence.
… An objective assessment of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s opinions demonstrates his great fidelity to Montazeri’s Weltanschauung. Across the gamut of critical issues—jihadism/Sharia-supremacism, violent anti-Americanism and annihilationist anti-“Zionism” (i.e., Jew-hatred), and (active; see below) support for Iran’s nuclear aspirations—Mousavi’s views mirror those of Montazeri.
… Sadly, many conservative analysts continues to blithely disregard, or ignore altogether, the voluminous public evidence assembled herein. Far worse, they remains bent on persuading others to promote their bowdlerized assessments as the basis for policymaking decisions, which may have the tragic effect of further delaying requisite, urgent military action against Iran.
Alarmed by this dangerously misguided policy advice, I queried nuclear proliferation expert, Professor Matthew Kroenig (in early November, 2014) about the possibility of imminent Israeli airstrikes. Kroenig’s A Time to Attack argues persuasively about the limitations of such an Israeli campaign, Israel lacking any known capability, for example, to penetrate the deeply embedded fortifications of Iran’s Qom/Fordow uranium enrichment facility. Professor Kroenig considers a targeted, but devastating, single evening of combined U.S. cruise missile and massive ordnance penetrator strikes on all four of Iran’s known facilities—the Arak plutonium producing reactor, the Isfahan uranium ore processing facility, and the uranium enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow—as his strongly preferred military—and moral—pre-emptive first option. Nevertheless, given what is truly needed two-years from now, hope against hope—a complete U.S. political and policymaking class “regime change”—I offer Professor Kroenig’s temporizing solution until the U.S. regains its geostrategic and moral bearings….
… Regardless of the attitudes of current political leadership and policymaking elites, across the political spectrum, polling data strongly suggests that an overwhelming majority of Americans are fully cognizant of Iran’s intentions, and the unacceptable security threat posed by an Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons. Perhaps such gimlet-eyed Americans will elect equally astute political leaders also endowed with the courage necessary to authorize targeted military strikes which complete a task Israel will have initiated by 2015: destroying, or severely damaging the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current nuclear development facilities, forestalling, and perhaps even preventing long term, a nuclear weapons-armed Iran.
