Gary Samore, feels good after saying more. Good to see.
Max Fisher: Over the past year or so, as this has all played out, what do you feel you've learned about the politics of this nuclear deal?
Gary Samore: I do think that the American capacity to have a reasoned debate about national security issues has really been damaged by the polarization in Washington.
There used to be a pragmatic, moderate core in both parties that could agree on foreign policy issues. And maybe that was damaged in Vietnam, but it came back together again. I worry that we've lost that capacity, that everything in Washington seems to be so politicized. There are still experts, but their voices are really muted by the politics.
It seems like Obama has decided that it's not even worth trying. He thinks that the Republicans are determined to vote against this deal and there's no possibility of reaching a way for them to approve it.
We seemed doomed to make this into a political dogfight. Republicans seem determined to force a vote of disapproval, and we know Obama will veto that. Very likely Congress won't be able to override the veto. Not very solid ground on which to start this agreement.
There isn't much political comment these days that doesn't mention the unhealthy polarization in Washington. No one could credibly say that Obama didn't make a huge effort to get through that, in fact, he was heavily criticized for reaching across the aisle.
Coordinated Strategy Brings Obama Victory on Iran Nuclear Deal
"If Iran decides to break the agreement, it will regret breaking any promise it has made," Secretary of State John Kerry said. Credit Matt Slocum/Associated Press
By CARL HULSE and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN SEPT. 2, 2015
WASHINGTON — Just before the Senate left town for its August break, a dozen or so undecided Democrats met in the Capitol with senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia who delivered a blunt, joint message: Their nuclear agreement with Iran [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html ] was the best they could expect. The five world powers had no intention of returning to the negotiating table.
“They basically said unanimously this is as good a deal as you could get and we are moving ahead with it,” recalled Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who lent crucial support to the deal this week despite some reservations. “They were clear and strong that we will not join you in re-imposing sanctions.”
For many if not most Democrats, it was that message that ultimately solidified their decisions, leading to President Obama [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html ] on Wednesday securing enough votes to put the agreement in place over fierce and united Republican opposition. One after another, lawmakers pointed to the warnings from foreign leaders that their own sanctions against Iran would be lifted regardless of what the United States did.
But the president’s potentially legacy-defining victory — a highly partisan one in the end — was also the result of an aggressive, cooperative strategy between the White House and congressional Democrats to forcefully push back against Republican critics, whose allies had begun a determined, $20 million-plus campaign to kill the deal.
Overwhelmed by Republicans and conservatives in previous summers when political issues like the health care legislation were effectively put on trial, Democrats sought to make sure that momentum remained behind the president on the Iran agreement in both the Senate and the House.
Under the direction of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, and a team of lieutenants, House Democrats orchestrated a daily roll-out of endorsements of the Iran deal from a Capitol war room, tucked into Ms. Pelosi’s office just off the House chamber. They parceled out their statements to make clear that House members were closing ranks behind the agreement and distributed letters of support from colleagues and respected outside experts to both wavering colleagues and the news media. They pushed back against reports they believed wrongly threatened the deal.
“There was a plan, and there continues to be a plan,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview. “My goal was to have 100 by the end of the week, and we will exceed that.” She acknowledged that the memories of the previous summer health care fight were “useful because I could say to people that we have to be proactive because I know the other side will be.”
The administration, too, went all-out. At the White House, administration staff members set up their own West Wing war room and even created a separate Twitter account, @TheIranDeal, to make their case.
Cabinet members and other senior administration officials talked directly with more than 200 House members and senators. The president spoke personally to about 100 lawmakers, either individually or in small groups, and aides said he called 30 lawmakers during his August vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
One senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House strategy said Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, a nuclear physicist who helped negotiate the deal, was a “secret weapon” in selling it to lawmakers. Not only did he know the science, he could explain it clearly, persuasively and without the condescension some heard in Secretary of State John Kerry’s presentations.
Some of Mr. Kerry’s arguments, however, did resonate, especially when he quoted two prominent Israeli security experts who made favorable public comments about the Iran deal: Efraim Halevy, the former director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and Ami Ayalon [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/in-israel-some-support-the-iran-deal/ ], the former director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.
Several lawmakers said the two Israelis provided a counterbalance to the forceful speech opposing the agreement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in Congress in March. Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies may well have overplayed their hands. The campaign to kill the nuclear accord was not aimed at persuading Democrats so much as scaring them. In the end, that helped turn the debate into yet another partisan showdown without the gravity many feared it would attain.
Opponents of the agreement said they could not remember another recent policy battle where the White House and Ms. Pelosi were so driven. In tandem, they made the Iran vote a strong test of party loyalty.
Not all of the Democrats’ efforts helped their cause. Some lawmakers said they were put off by the president’s insistence that the only alternative to the Iran deal would be war. And even some supporters of the pact said they were disturbed by the administration’s criticism of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, who was one of just two in the party, along with Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, to publicly declare opposition.
Although the announcement on Wednesday [ http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/09/02/us/politics/02reuters-iran-nuclear-congress.html ] by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, that she would back the deal meant that a presidential veto could not be overridden in the Senate, critics of the agreement said they would continue to press lawmakers to oppose it. Ultimately, they said, Democrats would be held accountable for their votes.
“For pro-Israel activists, this is a once-in-a-generation vote,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, which spent more than $20 million in a national media campaign against the deal.
Other opponents predicted that Democrats would rue their votes if Iran violated the agreement. One Republican official said the campaign against it was also hurt by the intense August media focus on Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican presidential primary race and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of State Department emails.
The opponents noted the Obama victory promises to be narrow and dependent solely on Democratic votes.
“We believe that this strong opposition conveys an important message to the world — especially foreign banks, businesses and governments — about the severe doubts in America concerning Iran’s willingness to meet its commitments and the long-term viability of this agreement,” said Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Ned Price, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said Wednesday: “The president and his team continue to be deeply engaged in making sure that all those interested in the deal understand why this is the best approach to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We are encouraged by the growing number of lawmakers who have announced support for the deal in the past weeks — all echoing the same arguments the president has been making for several months.”
Some Democrats clearly agonized over the decision. But some who came out in support of the deal said the outside pressure was ineffective largely because the substance of the debate was too important and too complex.
In an interview, Mr. Casey said the unwillingness of the other five powers to renegotiate was a major factor in his decision as well as the importance of keeping America’s allies unified.
“I would want to put us in a position,” he said, “where the same kind of unity on sanctions could be brought to bear on deterrence, which ultimately could be a military strike.”
In the end, one administration official said two things broke in Mr. Obama’s favor: an absence of outrage when lawmakers went back home for the summer recess, and a failure of the opponents to develop a credible alternative to the deal as it was negotiated in Vienna on July 14.
More important, the official said, an expected Republican alternative approach — an argument that Congress should simply ignore the accord and try to keep the existing interim accord in place — “never got beyond a few talking points.”
That was not obvious in late July and early August.
R. Nicholas Burns, the former under secretary of state for policy, noted recently that at hearings where he testified in favor of the deal, “Republicans dominated the hearings. They are united, have a common position against the deal and are assertive.”
Many Democrats said they were persuaded on the merits, including a point stressed by Mr. Moniz, the energy secretary, that the International Atomic Energy Agency would have technology that could catch even the most minute trace amounts of radioactive material, and help expose any cheating on the deal by Iran.
They also heard from experts who said that a 15-year limit on fissile material, the makings of a nuclear weapon, would do more to slow Iran’s production of a nuclear weapon than a military attack, which intelligence experts said would only delay a weapons program by three years.
On Wednesday, with victory secured, Mr. Kerry still sought to reassure skeptics. “If Iran decides to break the agreement, it will regret breaking any promise it has made,” he said in an hourlong speech in Philadelphia.
The outcome left Democrats celebrating, assured of the president’s power to follow through on the deal — an outcome they said was crucial to upholding American’s international standing.
“Our ability to build coalitions, to lead, to have credibility when we enter into a negotiation was really on the line,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who organized the Iran deal strategy with Ms. Pelosi, with whom she consulted almost daily while lawmakers were scattered in their districts around the country. “To walk away now would diminish our ability to lead on future issues.”
David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting.
Secretary Kerry delivers a speech on the nuclear agreement with Iran at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Sept. 2, 2015.
*
Remarks on Nuclear Agreement With Iran
John Kerry Secretary of State National Constitution Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 2, 2015
Dick, thank you so much for a generous introduction. I’ll say more about it, but I want to say good morning to all of you here. It is great for me to be able to be here in Philadelphia. I am delighted to see so many young people with us. I know school has started and I know the choice between coming here and sitting in class was a very tough one. (Laughter.) We’re glad you made the choice you did.
I am particularly grateful that Senator Lugar chose to come here this morning in order to introduce me and to reaffirm his support for this agreement. But I’m even more grateful for his service to our country over a course of a lifetime. As a former colleague of his on the Foreign Relations Committee, which he referred to in his introduction, I can bear witness that Dick Lugar is one of the true legislative pathfinders of recent times, with a long record of foreign policy accomplishments. And what he and Sam Nunn did is a lasting legacy of making this world safer. He is also someone who has consistently placed our country’s interests above any other consideration, and he has a very deep understanding of how best to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands. He is one of our experts when it comes to that judgment.
So it is appropriate that the senator is here with us this morning, and I think every one of us here joins in saying thank you to you, Dick, for your tremendous service. (Applause.) It’s also fitting to be here in Philadelphia, the home ground of this absolutely magnificent Center to the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, and one our nation’s most revered founders, Benjamin Franklin. And I must say I never quite anticipated, but this is one of the great vistas in America, and to be able to look down and see Independence Hall there is inspiring, I think, for all of us here.
I would say a quick word about Ben Franklin. In addition to his many inventions and his special status as America’s first diplomat, Franklin is actually credited with being the first person known to have made a list of pros and cons – literally dividing a page in two and writing all of the reasons to support a proposal on one side and all of the reasons to oppose it on the other.
And this morning, I would like to invite you – all of you, those here and those listening through the media – to participate in just such an exercise.
Because two months ago, in Vienna, the United States and five other nations – including permanent members of the UN Security Council – reached agreement with Iran on ensuring the peaceful nature of that country’s nuclear program. As early as next week, Congress will begin voting on whether to support that plan. And the outcome will matter as much as any foreign policy decision in recent history. Like Senator Lugar, President Obama and I are convinced – beyond any reasonable doubt – that the framework that we have put forward will get the job done. And in that assessment, we have excellent company.
Last month, 29 of our nation’s top nuclear physicists and Nobel Prize winners, scientists, from one end of our country to the other, congratulated the President for what they called “a technically sound, stringent, and innovative deal that will provide the necessary assurance … that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.” The scientists praised the agreement for its creative approach to verification and for the rigorous safeguards that will prevent Iran from obtaining the fissile material for a bomb.
Today, I will lay out the facts that caused those scientists and many other experts to reach the favorable conclusions that they have. I will show why the agreed plan will make the United States, Israel, the Gulf States, and the world safer. I will explain how it gives us the access that we need to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program remains wholly peaceful, while preserving every option to respond if Iran fails to meet its commitments. I will make clear that the key elements of the agreement will last not for 10 or 15 years, as some are trying to assert, or for 20 or 25, but they will last for the lifetime of Iran’s nuclear program. And I will dispel some of the false information that has been circulating about the proposal on which Congress is soon going to vote.
Now, for this discussion, there is an inescapable starting point – a place where every argument made against the agreement must confront a stark reality – the reality of how advanced Iran’s nuclear program had become and where it was headed when Presidents Obama and Rouhani launched the diplomatic process that concluded this past July.
Two years ago, in September of 2013, we were facing an Iran that had already mastered the nuclear fuel cycle; already stockpiled enough enriched uranium that, if further enriched, could arm 10 to 12 bombs; an Iran that was already enriching uranium to the level of 20 percent, which is just below weapons-grade; an Iran that had already installed 10,000-plus centrifuges; and an Iran that was moving rapidly to commission a heavy water reactor able to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for an additional bomb or two a year. That, my friends, is where we already were when we began our negotiations.
At a well-remembered moment during the UN General Assembly the previous fall, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had held up a cartoon of a bomb to show just how dangerous Iran’s nuclear program had become. And in 2013, he returned to that podium to warn that Iran was positioning itself to “rush forward to build nuclear bombs before the international community can detect it and much less prevent it.” The prime minister argued rightly that the so-called breakout time – the interval required for Iran to produce enough fissile material for one bomb – had dwindled to as little as two months. Even though it would take significantly longer to actually build the bomb itself using that fissile material, the prime minister’s message was clear: Iran had successfully transformed itself into a nuclear threshold state.
In the Obama Administration, we were well aware of that troubling fact, and more important, we were already responding to it. The record is irrefutable that, over the course of two American administrations, it was the United States that led the world in assembling against Tehran one of the toughest international sanctions regimes ever developed.
But we also had to face an obvious fact: sanctions alone were not getting the job done, not even close. They were failing to slow, let alone halt, Iran’s relentless march towards a nuclear weapons capability. So President Obama acted. He reaffirmed his vow that Iran would absolutely not be permitted to have a nuclear weapon. He marshaled support for this principle from every corner of the international community. He made clear his determination to go beyond what sanctions could accomplish and find a way to not only stop, but to throw into reverse, Iran’s rapid expansion of its nuclear program.
As we developed our strategy, we cast a very wide net to enlist the broadest expertise available. We sat down with the IAEA and with our own intelligence community to ensure that the verification standards that we sought on paper would be effective in reality. We consulted with Congress and our international allies and friends. We examined carefully every step that we might take to close off each of Iran’s potential pathways to a bomb. And of course, we were well aware that every proposal, every provision, every detail would have to withstand the most painstaking scrutiny. We knew that. And so we made clear from the outset that we would not settle for anything less than an agreement that was comprehensive, verifiable, effective, and of lasting duration.
We began with an interim agreement reached in Geneva – the Joint Plan of Action. It accomplished diplomatically what sanctions alone could never have done or did. It halted the advance of Iran’s nuclear activities. And it is critical to note – you don’t hear much about it, but it’s critical to note that for more than 19 months now, Iran has complied with every requirement of that plan. But this was just a first step.
From that moment, we pushed ahead, seeking a broad and enduring agreement, sticking to our core positions, maintaining unity among a diverse negotiating group of partners, and we arrived at the good and effective deal that we had sought.
And I ask you today and in the days ahead, as we have asked members of Congress over the course of these last months, consider the facts of what we achieved and judge for yourself the difference between where we were two years ago and where we are now, and where we can be in the future. Without this agreement, Iran’s so-called breakout time was about two months; with this agreement it will increase by a factor of six, to at least a year, and it will remain at that level for a decade or more.
Without this agreement, Iran could double the number of its operating centrifuges almost overnight and continue expanding with ever more efficient designs. With this agreement, Iran’s centrifuges will be reduced by two-thirds for 10 years.
Without this agreement, Iran could continue expanding its stockpile of enriched uranium, which is now more than 12,000 kilograms – enough, if further enriched, for multiple bombs. With this agreement, that stockpile will shrink and shrink some more – a reduction of some 98 percent, to no more than 300 kilograms for 15 years.
Without this agreement, Iran’s heavy-water reactor at Arak would soon be able to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium each year to fuel one or two nuclear weapons. With this agreement, the core of that reactor will be removed and filled with concrete, and Iran will never be permitted to produce any weapons-grade plutonium.
Without this agreement, the IAEA would not have assured access to undeclared locations in Iran where suspicious activities might be taking place. The agency could seek access, but if Iran objected, there would be no sure method for resolving a dispute in a finite period, which is exactly what has led us to where we are today – that standoff. With this agreement, the IAEA can go wherever the evidence leads. No facility – declared or undeclared – will be off limits, and there is a time certain for assuring access. There is no other country to which such a requirement applies. This arrangement is both unprecedented and unique.
In addition, the IAEA will have more inspectors working in Iran, using modern technologies such as real-time enrichment monitoring, high-tech electronic seals, and cameras that are always watching – 24/7, 365. Further, Iran has agreed never to pursue key technologies that would be necessary to develop a nuclear explosive device.
So the agreement deals not only with the production of fissile material, but also with the critical issue of weaponization. Because of all of these limitations and guarantees, we can sum up by saying that without this agreement, the Iranians would have several potential pathways to a bomb; with it, they won’t have any.
Iran’s plutonium pathway will be blocked because it won’t have a reactor producing plutonium for a weapon, and it won’t build any new heavy-water reactors or engage in reprocessing for at least 15 years, and after that we have the ability to watch and know precisely what they’re doing.
The uranium pathway will be blocked because of the deep reductions in Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity, and because for 15 years the country will not enrich uranium to a level higher than 3.67 percent. Let me be clear: No one can build a bomb from a stockpile of 300 kilograms of uranium enriched only 3.67 percent. It is just not possible.
Finally, Iran’s covert pathway to a bomb will also be blocked. Under our plan, there will be 24/7 monitoring of Iran’s key nuclear facilities. As soon as we start the implementation, inspectors will be able to track Iran’s uranium as it is mined, then milled, then turned into yellow cake, then into gas, and eventually into waste. This means that for a quarter of a century at least, every activity throughout the nuclear fuel chain will receive added scrutiny. And for 20 years, the IAEA will be monitoring the production of key centrifuge components in Iran in order to assure that none are diverted to a covert program.
So if Iran did decide to cheat, its technicians would have to do more than bury a processing facility deep beneath the ground. They would have to come up with a complete – complete – and completely secret nuclear supply chain: a secret source of uranium, a secret milling facility, a secret conversion facility, a secret enrichment facility. And our intelligence community and our Energy Department, which manages our nuclear program and our nuclear weapons, both agree Iran could never get away with such a deception. And if we have even a shadow of doubt that illegal activities are going on, either the IAEA will be given the access required to uncover the truth or Iran will be in violation and the nuclear-related sanctions can snap back into place. We will also have other options to ensure compliance if necessary.
Given all of these requirements, it is no wonder that this plan has been endorsed by so many leading American scientists, experts on nuclear nonproliferation, and others. More than 60 former top national security officials, 100 – more than 100 retired ambassadors – people who served under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, are backing the proposal – as are retired generals and admirals from all 5 of our uniformed services. Brent Scowcroft, one of the great names in American security endeavors of the last century and now, served as a national security advisor to two Republican presidents. He is also among the many respected figures who are supporting it. Internationally, the agreement is being backed, with one exception, by each of the more than 100 countries that have taken a formal position. The agreement was also endorsed by the United Nations Security Council on a vote of 15 to nothing. This not only says something very significant about the quality of the plan, particularly when you consider that 5 of those countries are permanent members and they’re all nuclear powers, but it should also invite reflection from those who believe the United States can walk away from this without causing grave harm to our international reputation, to relationships, and to interests.
You’ve probably heard the claim that because of our strength, because of the power of our banks, all we Americans have to do if Congress rejects this plan is return to the bargaining table, puff out our chests, and demand a better deal. I’ve heard one critic say he would use sanctions to give Iran a choice between having an economy or having a nuclear program. Well, folks, that’s a very punchy soundbite, but it has no basis in any reality. As Dick said, I was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when our nation came together across party lines to enact round after round of economic sanctions against Iran. But remember, even the toughest restrictions didn’t stop Iran’s nuclear program from speeding ahead from a couple of hundred centrifuges to 5,000 to 19,000. We’ve already been there. If this agreement is voted down, those who vote no will not be able to tell you how many centrifuges Iran will have next year or the year after. If it’s approved, we will be able to tell you exactly what the limits on Iran’s program will be.
The fact is that it wasn’t either sanctions or threats that actually stopped and finally stopped the expansion of Iran’s nuclear activities. The sanctions brought people to the table, but it was the start of the negotiating process and the negotiations themselves, recently concluded in Vienna, that actually stopped it. Only with those negotiations did Iran begin to get rid of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium. Only with those negotiations did it stop installing more centrifuges and cease advancing the Arak reactor. Only then did it commit to be more forthcoming about IAEA access and negotiate a special arrangement to break the deadlock.
So just apply your common sense: What do you think will happen if we say to Iran now, “Hey, forget it. The deal is off. Let’s go back to square one”? How do you think our negotiating partners, all of whom have embraced this deal, will react; all of whom are prepared to go forward with it – how will they react? What do you think will happen to that multilateral sanctions regime that brought Iran to the bargaining table in the first place? The answer is pretty simple. The answer is straightforward. Not only will we lose the momentum that we have built up in pressing Iran to limit its nuclear activities, we will almost surely start moving in the opposite direction.
We need to remember sanctions don’t just sting in one direction, my friends. They also impose costs on those who forego the commercial opportunities in order to abide by them. It’s a tribute to President Obama’s diplomacy – and before that, to President George W. Bush – that we were able to convince countries to accept economic difficulties and sacrifices and put together the comprehensive sanctions regime that we did. Many nations that would like to do business with Iran agreed to hold back because of the sanctions and – and this is vital – and because they wanted to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. They have as much interest in it as we do. And that’s why they hoped the negotiations would succeed, and that’s why they will join us in insisting that Iran live up to its obligations. But they will not join us if we unilaterally walk away from the very deal that the sanctions were designed to bring about. And they will not join us if we’re demanding even greater sacrifices and threatening their businesses and banks because of a choice we made and they opposed.
So while it may not happen all at once, it is clear that if we reject this plan, the multilateral sanctions regime will start to unravel. The pressure on Iran will lessen and our negotiating leverage will diminish, if not disappear. Now, obviously, that is not the path, as some critics would have us believe, to a so-called better deal. It is a path to a much weaker position for the United States of America and to a much more dangerous Middle East.
And this is by no means a partisan point of view that I just expressed. Henry Paulson was Secretary of Treasury under President George W. Bush. He helped design the early stages of the Iran sanctions regime. But just the other day, he said, “It would be totally unrealistic to believe that if we backed out of this deal, the multilateral sanctions would remain in place.” And Paul Volcker, who chaired the Federal Reserve under President Reagan, he said, “This agreement is as good as you are going to get. To think that we can unilaterally maintain sanctions doesn’t make any sense.”
We should pause for a minute to contemplate what voting down this agreement might mean for Iran’s cadre of hardliners, for those people in Iran who lead the chants of “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and even “Death to Rouhani,” and who prosecute journalists simply for doing their jobs. The evidence documents that among those who most fervently want this agreement to fall apart are the most extreme factions in Iran. And their opposition should tell you all you need to know. From the very beginning, these extremists have warned that negotiating with the United States would be a waste of time; why on Earth would we now take a step that proves them right?
Let me be clear. Rejecting this agreement would not be sending a signal of resolve to Iran; it would be broadcasting a message so puzzling most people across the globe would find it impossible to comprehend. After all, they’ve listened as we warned over and over again about the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program. They’ve watched as we spent two years forging a broadly accepted agreement to rein that program in. They’ve nodded their heads in support as we have explained how the plan that we have developed will make the world safer.
Who could fairly blame them for not understanding if we suddenly switch course and reject the very outcome we had worked so hard to obtain? And not by offering some new and viable alternative, but by offering no alternative at all. It is hard to conceive of a quicker or more self-destructive blow to our nation’s credibility and leadership – not only with respect to this one issue, but I’m telling you across the board – economically, politically, militarily, and even morally. We would pay an immeasurable price for this unilateral reversal.
Friends, as Dick mentioned in his introduction, I have been in public service for many years and I’ve been called on to make some difficult choices in that course of time. There are those who believe deciding whether or not to support the Iran agreement is just such a choice. And I respect that and I respect them. But I also believe that because of the stringent limitations on Iran’s program that are included in this agreement that I just described, because of where that program was headed before our negotiations began and will head again if we walk away, because of the utter absence of a viable alternative to this plan that we have devised, the benefits of this agreement far outweigh any potential drawbacks. Certainly, the goal of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon is supported across our political spectrum and it has the backing of countries on every continent. So what then explains the controversy that has persisted in this debate?
A big part of the answer, I think, is that even before the ink on the agreement was dry, we started being bombarded by myths about what the agreement will and won’t do, and that bombardment continues today.
The first of these myths is that the deal is somehow based on trust or a naive expectation that Iran is going to reverse course on many of the policies it’s been pursuing internationally. Critics tell us over and over again, “You can’t trust Iran.” Well, guess what? There is a not a single sentence, not a single paragraph in this whole agreement that depends on promises or trust, not one. The arrangement that we worked out with Tehran is based exclusively on verification and proof. That’s why the agreement is structured the way it is; that’s why sanctions relief is tied strictly to performance; and it is why we have formulated the most far-reaching monitoring and transparency regime ever negotiated.
Those same critics point to the fact that two decades ago, the United States reached a nuclear framework with North Korea that didn’t accomplish what it set out to do. And we’re told we should have learned a lesson from that. Well, the truth is we did learn a lesson.
The agreement with North Korea was four pages and only dealt with plutonium. Our agreement with Iran runs 159 detailed pages, applies to all of Tehran’s potential pathways to a bomb, and is specifically grounded in the transparency rules of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which didn’t even exist two decades ago when the North Korea deal was made because it was developed specifically with the North Korea experience in mind. Lesson learned.
The reality is that if we trusted Iran or thought that it was about to become more moderate, this agreement would be less necessary than it is. But we don’t. We would like nothing more than to see Iran act differently, but not for a minute are we counting on it. Iran’s support for terrorist groups and its contributions to sectarian violence are not recent policies. They reflect the perceptions of its leaders about Iran’s long-term national interests and there are no grounds for expecting those calculations to change in the near future. That is why we believe so strongly that every problem in the Middle East – every threat to Israel and to our friends in the region – would be more dangerous if Iran were permitted to have a nuclear weapon. That is the inescapable bottom line.
That’s also why we are working so hard and so proactively to protect our interests and those of our allies.
In part because of the challenge posed by Iran, we have engaged in an unprecedented level of military, intelligence, and security cooperation with our friend and ally Israel. We are determined to help our ally address new and complex security threats and to ensure its qualitative military edge.
We work with Israel every day to enforce sanctions and prevent terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah from obtaining the financing and the weapons that they seek – whether from Iran or from any other source. And we will stand with Israel to stop its adversaries from once again launching deadly and unprovoked attacks against the Israeli people.
Since 2009, we have provided $20 billion in foreign military financing to Israel, more than half of what we have given to nations worldwide.
Over and above that, we have invested some 3 billion in the production and deployment of Iron Dome batteries and other missile defense programs and systems. And we saw how in the last Gaza War lives were saved in Israel because of it. We have given privileged access to advanced military equipment such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; Israel is the only nation in the Middle East to which the United States has sold this fifth-generation aircraft. The President recently authorized a massive arms resupply package, featuring penetrating munitions and air-to-air missiles. And we hope soon to conclude a new memorandum of understanding – a military assistance plan that will guide our intensive security cooperation through the next decade.
And diplomatically, our support for Israel also remains rock solid as we continue to oppose every effort to delegitimize the Jewish state, or to pass biased resolutions against it in international bodies.
Now, I understand – I understand personally there is no way to overstate the concern in Israel about Iran and about the potential consequences that this agreement – or rejecting this agreement – might have on Israel’s security. The fragility of Israel’s position has been brought home to me on every one of the many trips I have made to that country.
In fact, as Secretary of State, I have already traveled to Israel more than a dozen times, spending the equivalent of a full month there – even ordering my plane to land at Ben Gurion Airport when commercial air traffic had been halted during the last Gaza War; doing so specifically as a sign of support.
Over the years, I have walked through Yad Vashem, a living memorial to the 6 million lost, and I have felt in my bones the unfathomable evil of the Holocaust and the undying reminder never to forget.
I have climbed inside a shelter at Kiryat Shmona where children were forced to leave their homes and classrooms to seek refuge from Katyusha rockets.
I visited Sderot and witnessed the shredded remains of homemade missiles from Gaza – missiles fired with no other purpose than to sow fear in the hearts of Israeli families.
I have piloted an Israeli jet out of Ovda Airbase and observed first-hand the tininess of Israel airspace from which it is possible to see all of the country’s neighbors at the same time.
And I have bowed my head at the Western Wall and offered my prayer for peace – peace for Israel, for the region, and for the world.
I take a back seat to no one in my commitment to the security of Israel, a commitment I demonstrated through my 28-plus years in the Senate. And as Secretary of State, I am fully conscious of the existential nature of the choice Israel must make. I understand the conviction that Israel, even more than any other country, simply cannot afford a mistake in defending its security. And while I respectfully disagree with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the benefits of the Iran agreement, I do not question for an instant the basis of his concern or that of any Israeli.
But I am also convinced, as is President Obama, our senior defense and military leaders, and even many former Israeli military and intelligence officials, that this agreement puts us on the right path to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. The people of Israel will be safer with this deal, and the same is true for the people throughout the region.
And to fully ensure that, we are also taking specific and far-reaching steps to coordinate with our friends from the Gulf states. President Obama hosted their leaders at Camp David earlier this year. I visited with them in Doha last month. And later this week, we will welcome King Salman of Saudi Arabia to Washington. Gulf leaders share our profound concerns about Iran’s policies in the Middle East, but they’re also alarmed by Iran’s nuclear program. We must and we will respond on both fronts. We will make certain that Iran lives up to its commitments under the nuclear agreement, and we will continue strengthening our security partnerships.
We’re determined that our Gulf friends will have the political and the military support that they need, and to that end, we are working with them to develop a ballistic missile defense for the Arabian Peninsula, provide special operations training, authorize urgently required arms transfers, strengthen cyber security, engage in large-scale military exercises, and enhance maritime interdiction of illegal Iranian arms shipments. We are also deepening our cooperation and support in the fight against the threat posed to them, to us, and to all civilization by the forces of international terror, including their surrogates and their proxies.
Through these steps and others, we will maintain international pressure on Iran. United States sanctions imposed because of Tehran’s support for terrorism and its human rights record – those will remain in place, as will our sanctions aimed at preventing the proliferation of ballistic missiles and transfer of conventional arms. The UN Security Council prohibitions on shipping weapons to Hizballah, the Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen – all of those will remain as well.
We will also continue to urge Tehran to provide information regarding an American who disappeared in Iran several years ago, and to release the U.S. citizens its government has unjustly imprisoned. We will do everything we can to see that our citizens are able to safely return to where they belong – at home and with their families.
Have no doubt. The United States will oppose Iran’s destabilizing policies with every national security tool available. And disregard the myth. The Iran agreement is based on proof, not trust. And in a letter that I am sending to all the members of Congress today, I make clear the Administration’s willingness to work with them on legislation to address shared concerns about regional security consistent with the agreement that we have worked out with our international partners.
This brings us to the second piece of fiction: that this deal would somehow legitimize Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. I keep hearing this. Well, yes, for years Iran has had a civilian nuclear program. Under the Nonproliferation Treaty, you can do that. It was never a realistic option to change that. But recognizing this reality is not the same as legitimizing the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. In fact, this agreement does the exact opposite. Under IAEA safeguards, Iran is prohibited from ever pursuing a nuclear weapon.
This is an important point, so I want to be sure that everyone understands: The international community is not telling Iran that it can’t have a nuclear weapon for 15 years. We are telling Iran that it can’t have a nuclear weapon, period. There is no magic moment 15, 20, or 25 years from now when Iran will suddenly get a pass from the mandates of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – doesn’t happen. In fact, Iran is required by this agreement to sign up to and abide by the IAEA Additional Protocol that I mentioned earlier that came out of the North Korea experience. And that requires inspections of all nuclear facilities.
What does this mean? It means that Iran’s nuclear program will remain subject to regular inspections forever. Iran will have to provide access to all of its nuclear facilities forever. Iran will have to respond promptly to requests for access to any suspicious site forever. And if Iran at any time – at any time – embarks on nuclear activities that are incompatible with a wholly peaceful program, it will be in violation of the agreement forever. We will know of that violation right away and we will retain every option we now have to respond, whether diplomatically or through a return to sanctions or by other means. In short, this agreement gives us unprecedented tools and all the time we need to hold Iran accountable for its choices and actions.
Now, it’s true some of the special additional restrictions that we successfully negotiated, those begin to ease after a period – in some cases 10 or 15, in others 20 or 25. But it would defy logic to vote to kill the whole agreement – with all of the permanent NPT restrictions by which Iran has to live – for that reason. After all, if your house is on fire, if it’s going up in flames, would you refuse to extinguish it because of the chance that it might be another fire in 15 years? Obviously, not. You’d put out the fire and you’d take advantage of the extra time to prepare for the future.
My friends, it just doesn’t make sense to conclude that we should vote “no” now because of what might happen in 15 years – thereby guaranteeing that what might happen in 15 years will actually begin to happen now. Because if this agreement is rejected, every possible reason for worry in the future would have to be confronted now, immediately, in the months ahead. Once again and soon, Iran would begin advancing its nuclear program. We would lose the benefit of the agreement that contains all these restrictions, and it would give a green light to everything that we’re trying to prevent. Needless to say, that is not the outcome that we want, it is not an outcome that would be good for our country, nor for our allies or for the world
There is a third myth – a quick one, a more technical one – that Iran could, in fact, get away with building a covert nuclear facility because the deal allows a maximum of 24 days to obtain access to a suspicious site. Well, in truth, there is no way in 24 days, or 24 months, 24 years for that matter, to destroy all the evidence of illegal activity that has been taking place regarding fissile material. Because of the nature of fissile materials and their relevant precursors, you can’t eliminate the evidence by shoving it under a mattress, flushing it down a toilet, carting it off in the middle of the night. The materials may go, but the telltale traces remain year after year after year. And the 24 days is the outside period of time during which they must allow access.
Under the agreement, if there is a dispute over access to any location, the United States and our European allies have the votes to decide the issue. And once we have identified a site that raises questions, we will be watching it continuously until the inspectors are allowed in.
Let me underscore that. The United States and the international community will be monitoring Iran nonstop. And you can bet that if we see something, we will do something. The agreement gives us a wide range of enforcement tools, and we will use them. And the standard we will apply can be summed up in two words: zero tolerance. There is no way to guarantee that Iran will keep its word. That’s why this isn’t based on a promise or trust. But we can guarantee that if Iran decides to break the agreement, it will regret breaking any promise that it has made.
Now, there are many other myths circulating about the agreement, but the last one that I’m going to highlight is just economic. And it’s important. The myth that sanctions relief that Iran will receive is somehow both too generous and too dangerous.
Now, obviously, the discussions that concluded in Vienna, like any serious negotiation, involved a quid pro quo. Iran wanted sanctions relief; the world wanted to ensure a wholly peaceful nature of Iran’s program. So without the tradeoff, there could have been no deal and no agreement by Iran to the constraints that it has accepted – very important constraints.
But there are some who point to sanctions relief as grounds to oppose the agreement. And the logic is faulty for several reasons. First, the most important is that absent new violations by Iran the sanctions are going to erode regardless of what we do. It’s an illusion for members of Congress to think that they can vote this plan down and then turn around and still persuade countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, India – Iran’s major oil customers – they ought to continue supporting the sanctions that are costing them billions of dollars every year. That’s not going to happen. And don’t forget that the money that has been locked up as the result of sanctions is not sitting in some American bank under U.S. control. The money is frozen and being held in escrow by countries with which Iran has had commercial dealings. We don’t have that money. We can’t control it. It’s going to begin to be released anyway if we walk away from this agreement.
Remember, as well, that the bulk of the funds Iran will receive under the sanctions relief are already spoken for and they are dwarfed by the country’s unmet economic needs. Iran has a crippled infrastructure, energy infrastructure. It’s got to rebuild it to be able to pump oil. It has an agriculture sector that’s been starved for investment, massive pension obligations, significant foreign reserves that are already allocated to foreign-led projects, and a civilian population that is sitting there expecting that the lifting of sanctions is going to result in a tangible improvement in the quality of their lives. The sanctions relief is not going to make a significant difference in what Iran can do internationally – never been based on money. Make no mistake, the important thing about this agreement is not what it will enable Iran to do, but what it will stop Iran from doing – and that is the building of a nuclear weapon.
Before closing, I want to comment on the nature of the debate which we are currently engaged in. Some have accused advocates of the Iran agreement – including me – of conjuring up frightening scenarios to scare listeners into supporting it. Curiously, this allegation comes most often from the very folks who have been raising alarms about one thing or another for years.
The truth is that if this plan is voted down, we cannot predict with certainty what Iran will do. But we do know what Iran says it will do and that is begin again to expand its nuclear activities. And we know that the strict limitations that Iran has accepted will no longer apply because there will no longer be any agreement. Iran will then be free to begin operating thousands of other advanced and other centrifuges that would otherwise have been mothballed; they’ll be free to expand their stockpile of low-enriched uranium, rebuild their stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium, free to move ahead with the production of weapons-grade plutonium, free to go forward with weaponization research.
And just who do you think is going to be held responsible for all of this? Not Iran – because Iran was preparing to implement the agreement and will have no reason whatsoever to return to the bargaining table. No, the world will hold accountable the people who broke with the consensus, turned their backs on our negotiating partners, and ignored the counsel of top scientists and military leaders. The world will blame the United States. And so when those same voices that accuse us of scaremongering now begin suddenly to warn, oh, wow, Iran’s nuclear activities are once again out of control and must at all costs be stopped – what do you think is going to happen?
The pressure will build, my friends. The pressure will build for military action. The pressure will build for the United States to use its unique military capabilities to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, because negotiating isn’t going to work because we’ve just tried it. President Obama has been crystal clear that we will do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But the big difference is, at that point, we won’t have the world behind us the way we do today. Because we rejected the fruits of diplomacy, we will be held accountable for a crisis that could have been avoided but instead we will be deemed to have created.
So my question is: Why in the world would we want to put ourselves in that position of having to make that choice – especially when there is a better choice, a much more broadly supported choice? A choice that sets us on the road to greater stability and security but that doesn’t require us to give up any option at all today.
So here is the decision that we are called on to make. To vote down this agreement is to solve nothing because none of the problems that we are concerned about will be made easier if it is rejected; none of them – not Iran’s nuclear program, not Iran’s support for terrorism or sectarian activities, not its human rights record, and not its opposition to Israel. To oppose this agreement is – whether intended or not – to recommend in its policy a policy of national paralysis. It is to take us back directly to the very dangerous spot that we were in two years ago, only to go back there devoid of any realistic plan or option.
By contrast, the adoption and implementation of this agreement will cement the support of the international community behind a plan to ensure that Iran does not ever acquire or possess a nuclear weapon. In doing so it will remove a looming threat from a uniquely fragile region, discourage others from trying to develop nuclear arms, make our citizens and our allies safer, and reassure the world that the hardest problems can be addressed successfully by diplomatic means.
At its best, American foreign policy, the policy of the United States combines immense power with clarity of purpose, relying on reason and persuasion whenever possible. As has been demonstrated many times, our country does not shy from the necessary use of force, but our hopes and our values push us to explore every avenue for peace. The Iran deal reflects our determination to protect the interests of our citizens and to shield the world from greater harm. But it reflects as well our knowledge that the firmest foundation for security is built on mobilizing countries across the globe to defend – actively and bravely – the rule of law.
In September 228 years ago, Benjamin Franklin rose in the great city of Philadelphia, right down there, to close debate on the proposed draft of the Constitution of the United States. He told a rapt audience that when people of opposing views and passions are brought together, compromise is essential and perfection from the perspective of any single participant is not possible. He said that after weighing carefully the pros and cons of that most historic debate, he said the following: “I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.”
My fellow citizens, I have had the privilege of serving our country in times of peace and in times of war, and peace is better. I’ve seen our leaders act with incredible foresight and also seen them commit tragic errors by plunging into conflicts without sufficient thought about the consequences.
Like old Ben Franklin, I can claim and do claim no monopoly on wisdom, and certainly nothing can compare to the gravity of the debate of our founding fathers over our nation’s founding documents. But I believe, based on a lifetime’s experience, that the Iran nuclear agreement is a hugely positive step at a time when problem solving and danger reduction have rarely been so urgent, especially in the Middle East.
The Iran agreement is not a panacea for the sectarian and extremist violence that has been ripping that region apart. But history may judge it a turning point, a moment when the builders of stability seized the initiative from the destroyers of hope, and when we were able to show, as have generations before us, that when we demand the best from ourselves and insist that others adhere to a similar high standard – when we do that, we have immense power to shape a safer and a more humane world. That’s what this is about and that’s what I hope we will do in the days ahead.
U.S. Remains the ‘Great Satan,’ Hard-Liners in Iran Say
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran arrived on Tuesday at a session of the Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of appointing and supervising the supreme leader. Credit Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Video [embedded] Iranian General Speaks of U.S. Enmity The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, referred to the United States as “the Great Satan” and said its hostility toward the Islamic Revolution had grown. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date September 2, 2015. (0:30) [ http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000003887198/iranian-commander-on-us-enmity-to-iran.html ]
By THOMAS ERDBRINK SEPT. 1, 2015
TEHRAN — Flexing their muscles, some of the toughest anti-American voices in Iran said on Tuesday that the United States remains their country’s top enemy, guilty of “uncountable” crimes. Their remarks hinted at a developing struggle over domestic influence because of the nuclear deal with world powers.
General Jafari criticized advocates of improved ties, led by the government of President Hassan Rouhani, who has repeatedly said that his administration wants a better relationship with the United States.
“We should not be cheated by the new slogans of this country,” General Jafari said, referring to the United States, during a speech at the Tehran Sarallah military base, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
His remarks were echoed by Mohammad Yazdi, the head of an influential clerical council, who warned that the nuclear agreement should not portend any broader political reconciliation with the United States, which broke relations with Iran 35 years ago.
“We should not change our foreign policy of opposition to America, our No. 1 enemy, whose crimes are uncountable,” Mr. Yazdi said in a speech opening an annual meeting of the council, the Assembly of Experts, an 86-member group that in theory has the power to dismiss the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
And, no, Iran’s 79 million consumers are not opening up to the United States, Mr. Yazdi said.
“The U.S. will take this dream of coming to the market of Iran and getting the income it used to make before the revolution to its grave,” he was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Their remarks were publicized as police officers in Tehran took to the streets, arresting distributors selling clothes featuring American and British symbols, like the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack.
Tehran’s police chief, Gen. Hossein Sajedinia, was quoted by the semiofficial Islamic Students News Agency as saying that garments imprinted with “satanic symbols” had been seized from stores in Tehran.
The fiercest criticism aimed at the government, which negotiated the nuclear deal, came from General Jafari, Iran’s most important military figure.
Not directly addressing President Rouhani’s administration at first, the general was quoted by Fars as saying that the “assumptions by some,” thinking the enmity of the United States has ended, are a “main reason for concern.”
“What causes even greater concern is that with this simple-minded attitude these people believe that we need to choose another path and should change our behavior,” he was quoted as saying.
The nuclear agreement, reached in July between Iran and six world powers including the United States, will end most sanctions on Iran in exchange for verifiable guarantees that Iranian nuclear activities remain peaceful.
For hard-liners in Iran like General Jafari, the agreement represents a loss of power to supporters of Mr. Rouhani’s government. Iran has scheduled parliamentary elections for February 2016 and the government is still riding a wave of success over the prospect of sanctions relief.
Attention in Iran is starting to turn to domestic politics, with supporters of Mr. Rouhani expecting him to proceed with more economic changes and personal freedoms. Hard-liners seem intent on trying to block him.
General Jafari, in his quoted remarks on Tuesday before a group of military figures, told them to prepare for new American threats, and he advised the government of Mr. Rouhani to do the same.
“The enemy has now resorted to using soft political and economic power,” he said of the United States, alluding to the sanctions and the nuclear deal. “The answer to these kinds of threats after the deal could be for the government of the Islamic Republic to adopt a revolutionary and clearer stance.”
Mr. Jafari and military commanders have shown concern over possible constraints on Iran’s missile program, under a provision of the nuclear agreement. In line with earlier United Nations Security Council sanctions, the agreement calls for limits on the missiles, which are regarded as vital to Iran’s military strategy.
Mr. Jafari said the range of missiles — now 2,000 kilometers, about 1,242 miles — would be increased. He also announced 20 military drills, but did not mention whether those would involve new missile tests. He also stressed that the Revolutionary Guards would stay involved in the economy as well.
“After over 20 years of engagement in civilian projects, the Revolutionary Guards Corps has enough experience in and we will continue our projects,” he said.
The public display of military defiance was not unexpected, given the influence the Revolutionary Guards have amassed over the decades of anti-American animosity.
“Our commanders will refuse any influence by the United States in our country,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, a hard-line analyst. “Today they showed the enemy will never be able to limit our capabilities and resolve.”
Iranian media reports say that the leader of the newly established reformist National Unity Party has been released after being detained for several hours in Tehran.
The state news agency IRNA on August 31 cited a member of the party’s central council as saying that Ali Shakouri-Rad was released on bail.
The reason for his detention was not clear.
IRNA said Shakouri-Rad had been summoned to court in connection with his travel ban.
Earlier on August 31, the hard-line Fars news agency, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, quoted an unnamed judiciary source as saying his detention was related to a previous criminal case against him.
Shakouri-Rad was detained for several weeks in 2012.
Before his detention on August 31, Shakouri-Rad spoke at his party’s first press conference, criticizing the powerful Guardians Council’s vetting of candidates for public office and discussing the party's plans for next year’s parliamentary elections.
He said their priority is to first prevent “radicals” from entering the future parliament, and then to ensure that reformists gain seats in the parliament, which is currently controlled by conservatives and hard-liners.
He also said that to counter a possible disqualification by the Guardians Council, reformists should run for office en masse.
Hard-liners have criticized the National Unity Party, saying that most of its members are from the Islamic Participation Front, which was banned following the 2009 unrest over the disputed presidential vote.
During the press conference, Shakouri-Rad said the “sensitivities” over his party are unfounded.
He said that key members of the Participation Front, including the brother of Iran’s former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are not members of the National Unity Front that was established last month.
Iran’s reformists, who have been sidelined and repressed in recent years, are trying to organize themselves for a potential political comeback in the February 2016 parliamentary elections.
Guardians Council members and other hard-line officials in recent months have warned that "seditionists" -- a term commonly used to describe opposition members who protested former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection in 2009 -- will not be allowed to win seats in the future parliament.
In his press conference, Shakouri-Rad dismissed the use of the term “sedition,” saying that it does not have legal relevance.
He said the approach of his party is to look toward the future rather than looking back at “bitter” past issues.
“While the president may be able to sustain a veto with the tepid, restricted and partisan support of one-third of one house of Congress over Americans’ bipartisan opposition,” said Senator Mitch McConnell [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mitch_mcconnell/index.html ], Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, “it will require a bipartisan Congress to strengthen our defenses in the Persian Gulf and to stand up to the inevitable Iranian violations of the agreement that will need to be addressed after he has left office.”
Republicans have been thinking through alternatives for months, knowing that Mr. Obama would probably be able to fend off efforts to override his veto of a resolution scuttling the accord. The agreement’s implementation seemed assured Wednesday when Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, came out in support, the 34th Democrat to do so, providing Mr. Obama with enough votes to prevent an override of a resolution of disapproval of the deal.
For its part, the House will also consider the disapproval resolution next week when Congress returns. Democrats hope to assemble enough votes to sustain a veto in that chamber, as well. A veto override must pass both the House and Senate by a two-thirds vote.
Approving new sanctions, even many set to be lifted as part of the accord, is one possible path, said several aides to lawmakers, because it would both send a message to Tehran and the White House and put Democrats in a difficult position.
The White House has repeatedly said the lifting of current sanctions would not lessen Washington’s resolve to counter Iranian aggression in the Middle East. But approval of additional sanctions could undermine the legitimacy of the United States with its negotiating partners.
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alluded to the strategy just before Congress left for its August recess.
But additional options could be in the offing. They include a stand-alone measure to provide more support to Israel, a provision that would approve the use of military force in the region and perhaps a resolution to approve, rather than disapprove, the Iran accord, which could peel away more Democratic support. The House and Senate also are working to reconcile each chamber’s defense bill, which could be a vehicle for these or other options.
At the same time, many Republicans and Democrats are working to assure that several components of the deal hold up.
Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, wrote a letter to Mr. Obama in consultation with several other Democrats expressing concerns about the security of Israel, the role of Europe in maintaining sanctions going forward, assurances that Iran would not be able to spend its new pile of cash on supporting terrorism and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear energy.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been tasked to complete a report this year on secret military efforts by Iran to convert its nuclear energy research into weapons work. Under an agreement between the agency and Iran, Iranian scientists are allowed to collect soil samples from a military site called Parchin for analysis by scientists at the agency, an arrangement critics have mocked. But because the details of the agreement have remained secret, supporters of the nuclear accord have had difficulty refuting that criticism.
In his reply to Mr. Coons, Mr. Obama said he is confident the energy agency’s arrangements to inspect Parchin “are technically sound, consistent with long-established I.A.E.A. practices, and will provide the information necessary to clarify past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program.”
Mr. Coons said he was also pleased with the section of Mr. Obama’s letter that said, “We will maintain powerful sanctions targeting Iran’s support for terrorism, its human rights abuses, and destabilizing activities in the region.” Mr. Coons said this addressed “a legitimate concern I heard over and over is that with tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief going to Iran, some portion would likely be used to fund terrorism.”
The nod to all concerns raised “played a role in my vote,” Mr. Coons said.
While most lawmakers understand the need to have legal authority to “snap back” any sanctions that are lifted, Republicans would most likely move to enforce those sanctions, putting Democrats in a bind in an election year by pushing for a vote on legislation to punish Iran for killing Americans and Israelis, and for supporting Hezbollah, leaving the president little choice but to veto because if he signed it, the Iranians would say they are no longer bound by broader agreement.
Even if these sanctions are never reimposed, Republicans could use the issue in an effort to divide Democrats in 2016.
President Obama has dangerously surrendered the nation’s global leadership, but it can be ours again—if we choose his successor wisely.
By Dick Cheney And Liz Cheney Aug. 28, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET
In 1983, as the U.S. confronted the threat posed by the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan explained America’s unique responsibility. “It is up to us in our time,” he said, “to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.” It was up to us then—as it is now—because we are the exceptional nation. America has guaranteed freedom, security and peace for a larger share of humanity than any other nation in all of history. There is no other like us. There never has been.
Born of the revolutionary ideal that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,” we were, first, an example to the world of freedom’s possibilities. During World War II, we became freedom’s defender, at the end of the Cold War, the world’s sole superpower. We did not seek the position. It is ours because of our ideals and our power, and the power of our ideals. As British historian Andrew Roberts has observed, “In the debate over whether America was born great, achieved greatness or had greatness thrust upon her, the only possible conclusion must be: all three.”
No other nation, international body or “community of nations” can do what we do. It isn’t just our involvement in world events that has been essential for the triumph of freedom. It is our leadership. For the better part of a century, security and freedom for millions of people around the globe have depended on America’s military, economic, political and diplomatic might. For the most part, until the administration of Barack Obama, we delivered.
Since Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed us the “Arsenal of Democracy” in 1940, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have understood the indispensable nature of American power. Presidents from Truman to Nixon, from Kennedy to Reagan, knew that America’s strength had to be safeguarded, her supremacy maintained. In the 1940s American leadership was essential to victory in World War II, and the liberation of millions from the grip of fascism. In the Cold War American leadership guaranteed the survival of freedom, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the defeat of Soviet totalitarianism. In this century it will be essential for the defeat of militant Islam.
Yet despite the explosive spread of terrorist ideology and organizations, the establishment of an Islamic State caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and increasing threats from Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, President Obama has departed from this 75-year, largely bipartisan tradition of ensuring America’s pre-eminence and strength.
He has abandoned Iraq, leaving a vacuum that is being tragically and ominously filled by our enemies. He is on course to forsake Afghanistan as well.
He has made dangerous cuts to America’s military. Combined with the sequestration mandated in the Budget Control Act of 2011, these cuts have, according to former Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, left the Army as unready as it has been at any other time in its history. Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert has testified that “naval readiness is at its lowest point in many years.” According to Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh, the current aircraft fleet is “now the smallest and oldest in the history of our service.”
For seven decades, both Republican and Democratic presidents have understood the importance of ensuring the supremacy of America’s nuclear arsenal. President Obama seems not to. He has advocated cutting our nuclear force in the naïve hope that this will persuade rogue regimes to do the same. He has imposed limits on our ability to modernize and maintain nuclear weapons. He has reduced the nation’s missile-defense capabilities.
He says that he is committed to preventing nuclear proliferation. For more than 45 years, presidents of both parties have recognized that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is vital in this effort. Signed by 190 countries, including Iran, the NPT has been arguably the single most effective multilateral arms-control agreement in history. President Obama stands ready to gut it. Among the many dangerous deficiencies in his nuclear deal with Iran is the irreversible damage it will do to the international nonproliferation regime contained in the NPT.
Allowing the Iranians to continue to enrich uranium and agreeing to the removal of all restraints on their nuclear program in a few short years virtually guarantees that they will become a nuclear-weapons state, thus undermining the fundamental agreement at the heart of the NPT. President Obama is unraveling this international structure as part of an agreement that provides a pathway for the world’s worst state-sponsor of terror to acquire nuclear weapons.
Nearly everything the president has told us about his Iranian agreement is false. He has said it will prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, but it will actually facilitate and legitimize an Iranian nuclear arsenal. He has said this deal will stop nuclear proliferation, but it will actually accelerate it, as nations across the Middle East work to acquire their own weapons in response to America’s unwillingness to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
President Obama told us he would never accept a deal based on trust. Members of his administration, including his secretary of energy and deputy national-security adviser, said the nuclear deal would be verifiable with “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Instead, the Obama deal provides the Iranians with months to delay inspections and fails to address past clandestine work at military sites. Inspections at these sites are covered in secret deals, which is historic, though not in the way the president claims. Under the reported provisions of the secret deals, the Iranians get to inspect themselves for these past infractions. Inevitably these provisions will be cited by the Iranians as a precedent when they are caught cheating in the future.
The president has tried to sell this bad deal by claiming that there is no alternative, save war. In fact, this agreement makes war more, not less, likely. In addition to accelerating the spread of nuclear weapons across the Middle East, it will provide the Iranians with hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which even the Obama administration admits likely will be used to fund terror. The deal also removes restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program; lifts the ban on conventional weapons sales; and lifts sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, on the Quds Force, and on Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. Under Mr. Soleimani’s leadership, the Quds Force sows violence and supports terror across the Middle East and has been responsible for the deaths of American service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A vote for the Obama nuclear deal is not a vote for peace or security. It is a vote for an agreement that facilitates Tehran’s deadly objectives with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States and our allies.
The Obama nuclear agreement with Iran is tragically reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement in 1938. Each was negotiated from a position of weakness by a leader willing to concede nearly everything to appease an ideological dictator. Hitler got Czechoslovakia. The mullahs in Tehran get billions of dollars and a pathway to a nuclear arsenal. Munich led to World War II. The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The U.S. Congress should reject this deal and reimpose the sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place. It is possible to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon, but only if the U.S. negotiates from a position of strength, refuses to concede fundamental points and recognizes that the use of military force will be required if diplomacy fails to convince Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.
As America faces a world of rising security threats, we must resolve to take action and shouldn’t lose hope. Just as one president has left a path of destruction in his wake, one president can rescue us. The right person in the Oval Office can restore America’s strength and alliances, defeat our enemies, and keep us safe. It won’t be easy. There is a path forward, but there are difficult decisions to be made and very little time.
We are living in what columnist Charles Krauthammer has called “a hinge point of history.” It will take a president equal to this moment to lead us through. America needs a president who recognizes that everything the nation must do requires having a U.S. military with capabilities that are second to none—on land, in the air, at sea, in space and in cyberspace. The peace and security of the world and the survival of our freedom depend on it. We must choose wisely.
As citizens, we have another obligation. We have a duty to protect our ideals and our freedoms by safeguarding our history. We must ensure that our children know the truth about who we are, what we’ve done, and why it is uniquely America’s duty to be freedom’s defender.
They should know about the boys of Pointe du Hoc and Doolittle’s Raiders, the battles of Midway and Iwo Jima. They should learn about the courage of the young Americans who fought the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and the Japanese on Okinawa. They should learn why America was right to end the war by dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and about the fundamental decency of a nation that established the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They need to know about the horror of the Holocaust, and what it means to promise “never again.”
They should know that once there was an empire so evil and bereft of truth it had to build a wall to keep its citizens in, and that the free world, led by America, defeated it. They need to know about the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, the courage of the first responders and the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93. They should understand what kind of world militant Islam will create if we don’t defeat it.
They should learn about great men like George C. Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. We must teach them what it took to prevail over evil in the 20th century and what it will take in the 21st. We must make sure they understand that it is the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces who defend our freedom and secure it for millions of others as well.
Our children need to know that they are citizens of the most powerful, good and honorable nation in the history of mankind—the exceptional nation. They must know that they are the inheritors of a great legacy and a great duty. Ordinary Americans have done heroic things to guarantee freedom’s survival. Now, it is up to us. Speaking at Omaha Beach on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings, President Reagan put it this way, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”
Mr. Cheney, former vice president of the United States, and Ms. Cheney are the authors of “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America [ http://www.amazon.com/Exceptional-World-Needs-Powerful-America/dp/1501115413 ],” from which this article was adapted; the book is being published Sept. 1 by Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions.
Both Cheneys accused Obama of lying about the Iran nuclear deal and said that the agreement would lead to the first use of a nuclear weapon since 1945.
"Nearly everything the president has told us about his Iranian agreement is false. He has said it will prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, but it will actually facilitate and legitimize an Iranian nuclear arsenal," they wrote. "The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"He has abandoned Iraq, leaving a vacuum that is being tragically and ominously filled by our enemies. He is on course to forsake Afghanistan as well," the Cheneys wrote.
“I remind everybody that us leaving at the end of 2011 was negotiated in 2008 by the Bush administration. That was always the plan, we had promised them that we would respect their sovereignty,” Odierno said at a press conference earlier this month.
The Cheneys' book, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, will be available Sept. 1.
In an exclusive interview, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz, sit with correspondent Lee Cowan to discuss their new book, "Exceptional: Why The World Needs a Powerful America"; the criticisms they have for President Obama's foreign policy; and the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.
Dick Cheney Still Has 'No Apologies' For Going Into Iraq
"It was the right thing to do then."
By Igor Bobic Posted: 09/02/2015 08:52 AM EDT | Edited: 09/02/2015 09:01 AM EDT
WASHINGTON -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney has no regrets over his administration's decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.
"It was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now," Cheney said Tuesday in an interview on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."
"No apologies," he added.
The Iraq War became an issue in the presidential campaign earlier this year, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of Cheney's former boss, George W. Bush, struggled to elucidate his position on the costly mission. After a week [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/13/politics/jeb-bush-iraq-2016/ ] of bungled answers, Jeb Bush finally said that "knowing what we know now, ...I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq."
Here is a side by Side comparison of the SHOCKING TRUTH with Dick Cheney from 1992 to 2015 on his views on Iraqi From Then to Now. A clear example of the hypocrisy and irony in a governmental party that uses fear to get a desired result.
All rights reserved for each news company that these clips were borrowed to state the comparison.
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck to rally at U.S. Capitol against Iran nuclear deal
Image from Tea Party Patriots
By Jennifer Harper Monday, August 31, 2015
Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck. The star power of two presidential hopefuls and an independent media maven alone will draw major news coverage at the increasingly noisy and potentially massive “Stop the Iran Deal Rally” on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. All three are now on the growing speaker’s roster for the September 9 event now being hammered into shape by the Tea Party Patriots, the Center for Security Policy and the Zionist Organization of America. Imagine Mr. Trump speaking to a giant crowd in front of the Capitol. What a backdrop. The press will go crazy.
Organizers predict the evolving event could be a historic humdinger — “a true citizen-led bipartisan event like America hasn’t seen in years,” they say. Strong emotions are already in play. “Our national security is at stake. President Obama is trying to sell us out to the Iranians, and we have a legitimate chance of stopping his plan dead in its tracks,” proclaims the outreach materials.
Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Patriots, advises, “Every day, more Americans are learning this deal ignores our Constitution by avoiding the treaty process and makes the world a more dangerous place by undermining both our national security and the security of our allies in the Middle East. The rally will ensure those millions of voices are heard by everyone inside the U.S. Capitol.”
Glenn Beck to join Trump, Cruz at anti-Iran deal rally
Getty Images
By Kristina Wong - 08/31/15 04:48 PM EDT
Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck is joining 2016 presidential contenders Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Stop the Iran Deal Rally at the Capitol on Sept. 9.
The rally, organized by the Tea Party Patriots, Center for Security Policy, and Zionist Organization of America, takes place a day after lawmakers return from their recess and ahead of a vote on the nuclear deal.
“Glenn Beck’s decision to speak on September 9th at the Stop the Iran Deal Rally underlines the momentum behind the movement to stop President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran,” said Tea Party Patriots CEO and co-founder Jenny Beth Martin in a statement.
The appearance of both Trump and Beck comes as deal opponents pressure Democratic lawmakers on the fence to vote against the deal.
Rabbis from around the country are planning to hand-deliver a letter to those lawmakers, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also plans to organize meetings between activists and lawmakers the same week that they return.
Republicans are planning to introduce a resolution of disapproval of the deal, which would prevent U.S. sanctions from being lifted on Iran. In order to pass, they would need the support of six Democrats in the Senate. Only two Democrats in the upper chamber, though, Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Bob Menendez (N.J.), have publicly opposed the deal.
The president has also vowed to veto any such resolution blocking the deal, and both sides concede a two-thirds vote to override him would be difficult to obtain. Proponents are hoping to head off the need for a veto and are threatening to filibuster the resolution if they secure enough Democratic support.
A number of top Democrats are said to be undecided.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) is planning to announce his decision on the deal on Tuesday, at the University of Delaware.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, who has expressed skepticism about the deal, has yet to declare his stance. He is one of several senators being lobbied hard by both the administration and deal opponents.
Martin said Beck's appearance would help "give voice to the millions of Americans who oppose this dangerous nuclear deal with Iran."
"Every day, more Americans are learning this deal ignores our Constitution by avoiding the treaty process and makes the world a more dangerous place by undermining both our national security and the security of our allies in the Middle East," she said.
"The Stop the Iran Deal Rally will ensure those millions of voices are heard by everyone inside the U.S. Capitol."
Cruz May Reject Rivals’ Requests to Join Trump at Iran Deal Rally
by Joel Gehrke August 31, 2015 6:22 PM
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has invited Donald Trump to attend a September 9 rally against the Iran deal, but other 2016 presidential candidates who want to join might not receive the same courtesy. “Two other presidential candidates called me — they didn’t call me directly, their top aides called me — asking if they can speak and I simply referred it to Ted Cruz. It’s really not appropriate for me to make that decision since they’re all competitors,” says Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, which is helping organize the rally at the U.S. Capitol, when reached for comment Monday.
Cruz announced that he had invited Trump to speak at the September 9 rally on Thursday, whereupon representatives from two of “the most prominent of the people running” asked Klein if they might also attend. Klein says he passed the requests to the senator and his senior staff. If Cruz declines to allow his other rivals to speak at the rally, it would be another indication that he’s attempting to cultivate a special relationship with Trump, presumably because he hopes to attract Trump’s supporters in the event the real-estate mogul flames out. It could also give oxygen to complaints that Cruz is willing to sacrifice party unity to boost his presidential prospects — an accusation that GOP critics have lodged against the Texas freshman almost since he took office.
The organizers haven’t yet decided on a final list of speakers, and the famously vindictive Trump [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/15/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-donald-trump-quotes.html ] could also influence the lineup. “There’s discussion internally in the Cruz camp about that, there’s discussion in the Trump camp, and the [activists] camp,” a Cruz campaign spokesman told NR on Friday. “There’s no consensus by anybody about what the agenda is going to be, and so we’re working on that right now.”?
Klein “personally would want more presidential speakers,” but the idea of the rally grew out of a meeting between Cruz and other activist groups — the Tea Party Patriots and the Center for Security Policy are also sponsoring the event — and so he will defer to Cruz’s decision. “I would be inclined, although I don’t know, to think that they would maybe not feel comfortable to bring another presidential candidate in,” he says. In any case, the rally will not be devoid of hatchet-burying. Glenn Beck, perhaps Trump’s biggest critic in conservative media, will speak at the rally. “Just found out this minute that Beck has accepted,” Klein says.
The number is even more stark among those who indicated that they support 2016 GOP front-runner Donald Trump. Among those voters, 61 percent said Obama was not born in the U.S., while a mere 21 percent concede that he was American born.
The poll also found that a 54 percent of Republican voters believe the president is a Muslim, versus just 14 percent who believe him to be a Christian — a claim even debunked [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4 (next below)]
by his 2012 Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Next week, Glenn Beck will be joining Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump at a "Stop the Iran Nuclear Deal" rally outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C. On his radio program today, Beck said that he agreed to participate in the rally because now is the time that he, and all Americans, must be seen by God taking a stand for life...
Clip from the Wednesday, September 2nd 2015 edition of The Kyle Kulinski Show, which airs live on Blog Talk Radio and Secular Talk Radio monday - friday 4-6pm Eastern.
Ted Cruz does a 'Scarface' impression over the Iran nuclear deal
By David Siegel, CNN Updated 2:37 PM ET, Wed September 2, 2015
Washington (CNN)—Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tried out his best Tony Montana impersonation this week in an effort to illustrate his staunch rejection of the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaking to a full room in Houston, Cruz spent much of Tuesday afternoon berating the deal; comparing its element of Iranian inspection to a self-inspecting, fictional, drug kingpin.
"Have any of y'all seen the movie 'Scarface?'" Cruz asked. "This is the equivalent of law enforcement picking up the phone and calling Tony Montana and saying, 'Hey Tony, you got any drugs?' 'I don't got no drugs.' 'Thank you, Tony.' That is essentially the Iranian nuclear inspection regime."
This is not the first time the Texas senator has vocalized his opposition to the deal. In July, Cruz made headlines, claiming that the Obama administration would become "the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism" if the deal was consummated.
Cruz was among the earliest of Republicans to oppose the deal, even before the its terms were announced.
The Republican presidential hopeful lobbied for support from across the aisle, even offering kind words for New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
"I have been effusively praising Chuck Schumer; something I don't do often but in this instance he's doing the right thing and it is my hope and prayer that in the coming weeks we see more and more Democrats who make the decision to put the national security of the United States of America, to put standing with our friend and ally the nation of Israel, and to put the safety and security of millions of Americans above partisan loyalty to the Obama White House," Cruz said.
Only two Democratic senators have publicly stated their opposition to the deal. With Wednesday's commitment from Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-votes-sustain-veto/index.html ], it appears that Cruz' efforts were too little, and too late. The White House secured the final vote they needed to preserve the deal through a presidential veto.
"Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."
Ben “Mookie” Thomas, a former Navy Seal and spokesman for Spike’s Tactical, told the Orlando Sentinel he wanted a rifle that no devout Muslim would touch.
The Florida chapter of the Council for Islamic Relations points out there have been more than 250 mass killings in the United States this year, and only one involved a self-proclaimed Muslim.
"Sadly, this manufacturer’s fancy new gun won’t do anything to stop the real threat in America [ http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/local/2015/09/02/florida-man-creates-tactical-crusader-rifle/71594036/ ]: the escalating problem of gun violence," the organization said in a statement cited by WTSP. "This is just another shameful marketing ploy intended to profit from the promotion of hatred, division and violence."
Illustration credits: Alex Wong/Getty Images (Bush); Associated Press (Reagan); Getty Images (biceps); Massoud Hossaini/Associated Press (drone); Pete Souza (Obama); Hasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press (Khamenei); Getty Images (flag); Mike Blake/Reuters (eagle); Ivan Sekretarev/Associated Press (Putin).
G.O.P. presidential candidates are struggling to craft a foreign policy that can please the gung-ho and win in 2016 — without overpromising military force.
By ROBERT DRAPER SEPT. 1, 2015
The first sign that the Republican Party’s 17 presidential candidates might have trouble explaining what a conservative foreign policy should look like — beyond simply saying that it should not look like Barack Obama’s — emerged on May 10. That’s when the Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Jeb Bush a rather predictable question about the Iraq war: ‘‘Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?’’
Bush said yes. Shortly after that, he said that he had misheard the question; later, that the question was hypothetical and thus unworthy of an answer; and finally, upon further review, that he in fact would not have authorized the invasion. The jittery about-face suggested that Bush had spent little, if any, time digesting the lessons of the war that defines his older brother’s presidency.
The shadow that George W. Bush’s foreign policy casts over Jeb Bush’s quest for the White House is particularly prominent. But it also looms over the entire G.O.P. field, reminding the candidates that though Republican voters reject what they see as Obama’s timid foreign policy, the public has only so much appetite for bellicosity after more than a decade spent entangled in the Middle East. At some point, even the most conservative of voters will demand an answer to the logical corollary of Megyn Kelly’s question: How does a president project American strength while avoiding another Iraq?
Among the many advisers recruited to help Jeb Bush answer that question is Richard Fontaine, the president of the Center for a New American Security, a policy group based in Washington. Fontaine was a senior foreign-policy adviser for Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, where he first learned that winning over voters was a radically different task from those he navigated during his career in the Bush administration. ‘‘Diplomacy is about minimizing differences,’’ he told me. ‘‘?‘Pol Pot and the Pope — surely there’s something they can agree on.’ A political campaign is exactly the opposite. It’s about taking a minor difference and blowing it up into something transcendent.’’
Watching Jeb Bush flub the Iraq question confirmed a theory about that war and its unheeded lessons that Fontaine had been nurturing for several months. In February, he co-wrote an essay in Politico Magazine arguing that Congress should not authorize Obama to use military force against ISIS until it had done the kind of due diligence that Congress utterly failed to do before authorizing Bush to invade Iraq in 2002. In response to the essay, Fontaine said, many of his peers acknowledged to him ‘‘that there actually hasn’t been a lot of thinking on this from the entire foreign-policy establishment other than the knee-jerk ‘Well, we’re never gonna do that again.’?’’
Fontaine, who is 40, Clark Kentish in appearance and wryly self-deprecating in conversation, has been doing quite a bit of thinking on the matter of Iraq. He worked in the State Department as well as the National Security Council during the first year of the Iraq war before signing on as McCain’s foreign-policy aide in 2004. Over the next five years, he and McCain traveled to Iraq 10 times. His boss had been one of the loudest advocates of toppling Saddam Hussein and then one of the most candidly chagrined observers when the war effort began to crumble before his eyes. ‘‘We’d been running this experiment from 2003 to the end of 2006 of trying to make political changes in Iraq and hoping this would positively influence the security,’’ Fontaine recalled. ‘‘It only got worse and worse. Things got to the point where there was no political or economic activity in the country, because the violence was so bad.’’
The troop surge in 2007 succeeded in stabilizing the country. By then, however, Americans were weary of military aggression. In 2008, they elected president a one-term U.S. senator who had consistently opposed the war in Iraq and vowed to end it so he could devote most of his attention to a foundering economy. Four years later, the electorate awarded Obama a second term, with the same priorities in mind. Exit polls showed that 60 percent of voters regarded the economy as the predominant issue in 2012, while a mere 4 percent cited foreign affairs as their chief voting issue.
Three years later, this has changed — especially for Republican voters, who, according to several polls, now say national security rivals the economy as a foremost concern. Several factors explain this. While the economy has continued to improve, the Obama administration has watched with seeming helplessness as ISIS dominates swaths of Iraq and Syria while beheading American hostages; as Iran threatens to make good on its nuclear ambitions unless the United States agrees to lift sanctions; as Vladimir Putin reasserts Russian primacy by invading the Crimean Peninsula; and as China spreads its influence across Asia and Africa. These and other developments have revived concerns that the United States has become dangerously weaker under a Democratic president, one whose first secretary of state happens to be the apparent favorite for that party’s presidential nomination.
The swaggering rhetoric of Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, seems deftly calibrated to reflect the mood of a G.O.P. base spoiling for fights abroad. According to a Quinnipiac University poll in July, 72 percent of registered Iowa Republican voters (where the first contest for presidential delegates will be held early next year) favor sending American ground troops into Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS. In August, Quinnipiac found that 86 percent of all Republicans opposed the Iran nuclear deal.
Fontaine is among the conservative foreign-policy thinkers who argue that the Obama administration has overlearned Iraq’s lessons. ‘‘Their core belief was ‘We’re here to wind these wars down, and the risks in doing so are manageable,’?’’ he said. ‘‘The instinct was to limit our investment, whether diplomatically or in terms of blood and treasure. That’s caused a willful disregard for the realities at hand. You hear it all the time: ‘This is the Iraqis’ fight,’ or ‘The Syrians should be fighting.’ Yes, they should. But if they’re not, then we have a national interest, and we should be doing something.’’
Eventually, each G.O.P. candidate will be called upon to define exactly what that ‘‘something’’ is and determine whether Americans have an appetite for it. To that end, for the next 14 months, it will fall to advisers like Fontaine to help the candidates craft a post-Bush/post-Obama foreign-policy vision, one that simultaneously projects more muscle than Obama and less reckless use of muscle than Bush. The tricky part, as their advisers — avowed hawks whose careers were shaped by Iraq — know all too well, will be to demonstrate that an aggressive foreign policy can somehow avoid becoming a reckless one.
***
In the weeks and months following the announcement of a presidential candidacy, the ‘‘invisible primary’’ ensues: a wooing and hoarding of assorted campaign specialists and policy experts to convince the donor community that the candidate in question is for real and lacks only money to make the whole operation hum. During this season, men and women who have lived lives of bookish reserve and who are thoroughly unknown to the general public become, for a brief time, objects of considerable desire.
As a national-security expert who worked with politicians but had no political agenda of his own, Fontaine received multiple inquiries. He declined to work with the campaigns of Scott Walker and Marco Rubio but agreed to join the Bush foreign-policy team after Bill Simon, a former Wal-Mart chief executive and now the Bush campaign’s policy-team recruiter, asked him to come aboard as an informal outside adviser. Simon had heard about Fontaine through other recruits, including the former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, who had been a consultant for several campaigns before Bush prevailed upon him to pledge his fidelity.
Zoellick and Fontaine belong to a nomadic tribe of worldly Republican technocrats who migrate from academia to government to nonprofit policy centers to the private sector. Nearly all are hawks who abhor not only Obama’s posture of caution but also the old-style, consensus-building internationalism espoused by officials who served in the first Bush administration, like Richard Burt and Lorne Craner, who are now on Rand Paul’s foreign-policy team. Among the conservative intelligentsia, a few — Meghan O’Sullivan, Kristen Silverberg and Elbridge Colby — are comparatively moderate alumni of the second Bush administration who now advise his brother’s campaign. Others have made their names on the Hill as forceful interventionists: Robert S. Karem, who advised the House majority leaders Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy before directing Jeb Bush’s foreign-policy team; Jamie Fly, formerly Rubio’s aide in the Senate and now in his campaign; and Michael Gallagher, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member who now runs Scott Walker’s foreign-policy shop. In addition, advisers like Vance Serchuk, who was Senator Joe Lieberman’s foreign-policy aide and now works in a geopolitical-strategy unit for the global investment firm KKR, and Christian Brose, the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are not committed to a particular campaign but are routinely called by campaign aides for their thoughts on foreign policy. What most of them have in common is that they are under 45 and have been influenced far more by the fall of the twin towers than by the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The candidates are pulled toward experience as well, creating an odd dissonance within these teams as they are taking shape. For example, Jeb Bush’s team includes not just a new generation of foreign-policy thinkers but also Paul Wolfowitz, a prominent 71-year-old neoconservative. Wolfowitz’s long career in the national-security arena reached both its peak and its nadir when he served as George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of defense and pushed aggressively for the invasion of Iraq just after 9/11, assuring skeptics that the Iraqis would ‘‘welcome us as liberators’’ and that the indigenous oil revenues would largely finance the country’s reconstruction. In no small measure because of Wolfowitz’s erroneous predictions, the neocon brand came to be ridiculed during the early stages of the Iraq war, only to be vindicated somewhat by the triumph of the 2007 troop surge, which quelled Sunni violence and stabilized the Shia-dominated government.
Throughout that period, not every hawk self-identified as a neocon, including Fontaine, who told me, ‘‘Where I come down on this is I believe in the promotion of human rights and democracy, but there are times when you have to have pragmatic relationships with autocracies.’’ And today there are fewer still who call themselves neocons, the moniker being generally viewed as an epithet. Its basic principles, however — among them, a belief in the aggressive promotion of American values throughout the world, an unapologetic distrust of international institutions and the conviction that a more democratic world is a less belligerent one — are abiding specters in conservative foreign-policy thought.
The persistence of a chesty, exceptionalist view of America’s place on the world stage is, of course, also abetted by today’s nuance-free zone of political dialogue. ‘‘The discourse in Washington just becomes like a self-licking ice cream cone of maximalist foreign policy,’’ Obama’s deputy national-security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told me. ‘‘That’s what gets you on television. That’s what gets your think-tank paper read.’’
But conservative voters far from the Beltway are also clamoring for a return to a more muscular foreign policy, and there is almost certainly one major reason for this: It would be very different from the current foreign policy. Obama’s worldview, seven years into his presidency, is aptly reflected by something else that Rhodes said to me: ‘‘There’s such an extreme vanity that everything happening in the world is an extension of our agency. There are just forces happening. They’re happening all across the Middle East. And our narrative of what’s supposed to happen in these places has never been right, because they’re at different stages of development and have different politics. And where we succeed in foreign policy is when we patiently and methodically incentivize better behavior, and you give space for that to occur. It’s very hard to completely impose a system on a country. The last time it worked was in postwar Japan.’’
***
When I shared Rhodes’s sentiment with Jim Talent, one of Scott Walker’s foreign-policy advisers, he winced before replying: ‘‘Obama doesn’t accept as a basic principle that we should lead in the forefront of events, particularly in the Middle East. I’m not sure the president believes the U.S. can do that. And there I disagree. We can’t control the world. No way. But we do have influence. If you want to call me a neocon for that, go ahead.’’
Talent, a placid-faced 58-year-old Midwesterner, was a congressman from St. Louis when he won a special election to the U.S. Senate in 2002 with heavy backing from President Bush, whose desire for congressional authorization to invade Iraq Talent heartily endorsed. By 2006, when Talent was up for re-election, the war had taken a disastrous turn. Talent nonetheless insisted that ‘‘the mission is going well’’ and further declared that the invasion was justified even when no weapons of mass destruction were found. He lost to Claire McCaskill and has been out of electoral politics ever since.
Kevin Wolf/Associated Press
A second career soon awaited him — that of national-security guru. While serving on congressionally established advisory commissions, Talent also became a national-security adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. It was commonly speculated that a President Romney would tap Talent to be his secretary of defense. Today the same can be said for Talent under a Walker presidency.
If Bush, the candidate being advised by Richard Fontaine, is challenged by the need to distinguish his foreign-policy vision from that of his brother, Talent’s candidate — a Wisconsin governor with no experience on international issues — is obligated to come up with a vision from scratch. Talent asserts that Walker, the man who dismantled Wisconsin’s public-employee unions, will face down enemies abroad with equal fortitude. On Aug. 28 at the Citadel, Walker laid out his own foreign-policy approach, emphasizing the need for strong executive leadership, much as Rubio’s foreign-policy address in May made the case that America must ‘‘lead with strength and principle,’’ and Jeb Bush’s speech in August cited America’s need to ‘‘lead again’’ in the Middle East — all of them stopping short of Lindsey Graham’s pledge to send 10,000 troops to Iraq.
To assist in constructing Walker’s foreign policy, Talent says that he is urging the candidate to articulate what he also ‘‘hammered on Mitt’’ to put forward: an encompassing vision with strategic clarity that the public, Congress, allies and enemies can all understand. ‘‘The real lesson of Iraq,’’ he said, ‘‘is that you always have to ask, ‘O.K., what are we trying to achieve and how does it fit into our broader goals?’?’’ He continued, ‘‘We can’t spend the next term with everybody pointing fingers about what went wrong with Iraq.’’
Arguably, however, ‘‘what went wrong with Iraq’’ was that there was a strategically clear vision in play. It was called the Bush Doctrine, a post-9/11 articulation of neoconservatism. Among its central tenets, as enunciated frequently by Bush himself, was the determination to ‘‘take the fight to the enemy overseas before they can attack us again here at home.’’ Walker has employed nearly identical rhetoric in describing how he would fight ISIS: ‘‘We need a leader who will look the American people in the eye and say, ‘We will do whatever it takes — whatever it takes — to make sure that radical Islamist terrorism does not wash up on American soil.’ I’d rather take the fight to them.’’
I asked Michael Gallagher, the coordinator of Walker’s foreign-policy team, what distinguished his own philosophy from that of the neoconservatives. He replied that such distinctions weren’t meaningful, given that all Republicans favored a robust alternative to Obama’s seeming reluctance to lead: ‘‘I think lost in this debate between isolationism and neoconservatism is the fact that there is a striking amount of consensus within the party.’’ When I asked if there was anything in his experience — Gallagher was a Marine captain deployed to Anbar Province in late 2007 — that would make him question the neoconservative worldview, he paused at great length before finally saying, ‘‘I don’t have anything to offer on that.’’
Republicans like Walker have criticized Obama’s incursion into Libya on the front end (‘‘leading from behind’’) as well as the back end (failing to prevent the free-for-all of warring militias that currently prevails there). But they have been far more reticent in explaining how they would have responded to the popular uprising against Qaddafi or to the Arab Spring in general. When I asked Talent, he thought for a moment before replying. ‘‘Well, I’ll tell you as Jim Talent — I don’t think Governor Walker has opined on this topic yet,’’ he said. ‘‘The question of when purely humanitarian goals, assuming there is such a thing, should be an object of American policy is one that I think reasonable people can really debate over.’’
Prodded to specify what he would have advised the president to do in Libya, Talent mentioned ‘‘two reasonable options.’’ One would have been to limit American activity to humanitarian aid, on the grounds that the circumstances did not significantly affect our national interests. The other recourse would have been to drive Qaddafi out of power but then ‘‘continue to be involved post-conflict, to help ensure that the government that emerges is a partner.’’ In Talent’s view, ‘‘Either of those options would have been better than overthrowing him and seeing what happens next. Now we have a much worse humanitarian disaster and elements on the ground that are enemies of America.’’ Of course, as Talent conceded, he did not warn against such scenarios in real time, before the Libya bombing, just as many Republicans did not forecast the complications that would arise from invading Iraq in 2003.
In May, Walker offered a textbook case of how a Republican presidential candidate can reframe the failures of the Iraq war: Skip past the first four years of chaotic bloodshed and focus instead on President Bush’s decision in 2007 to send another 20,000 troops into Iraq. Bush, Walker said, deserved ‘‘enormous credit for ordering the surge, a courageous move that worked,’’ and then lamented that Obama ‘‘threw away the gains of the surge,’’ with brutal consequences. And in his foreign-policy address last month, Jeb Bush also glossed over the questionable decision to invade Iraq and instead lavished praise on the surge as the ‘‘turning point we had all been waiting for,’’ one that was then squandered by Obama with a ‘‘premature withdrawal’’ of troops that constituted ‘‘the fatal error, creating the void that ISIS moved in to fill, and that Iran has exploited to the full as well.’’
***
The only Republican candidate who has expressed disagreement with this point of view is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Regarding the surge, Paul has offered measured praise: ‘‘It was a military tactic and it worked.’’ But he has flatly stated that ‘‘invading Iraq was a mistake.’’ Paul’s blunt assessment of the Iraq war has won him some peculiar bedfellows — among them, Elise Jordan, who served in Bush’s National Security Council’s communications team in Washington and Afghanistan and also traveled to Iraq while serving as a speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She is now on the foreign-policy team of Paul, the least interventionist candidate in the Republican field. Jordan, who is 33, has often been asked variations of: ‘‘Wait. You work for Rand Paul? And you were in Iraq?’’ To which her reply has been: ‘‘Yes. Exactly.’’
As a Bush staff member, Jordan watched Iraq degenerate into turmoil — observing at close hand, she said, ‘‘a really clear disconnect between what we were telling ourselves and what was happening on the ground.’’ The surge revived her hopes in America’s ability to quell sectarian violence by military means. But after leaving the White House, she worked as a freelance journalist, visiting Afghanistan in 2010 to embed with U.S. troops for an article about the military’s counterinsurgency efforts against the Taliban. This was during a troop surge modeled after the maneuver in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, the tactic proved ineffectual. Jordan began to question the value of the war there and, more broadly, the neoconservative notion that America can impose its values on other nations. ‘‘While I still believe that all people deserve freedom, it’s paternalistic to think we can bring it to them,’’ she told me.
She met Paul in March 2013 — days after his nearly 13-hour filibuster [ http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/rand-paul-does-not-go-quietly-into-the-night/ ] relating to Obama’s drone program, and three months before her husband, the acclaimed Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings, was killed in an automobile accident. Echoing what Paul’s other advisers would tell me, Jordan was struck by how thoughtful and well read he seemed, belying the caricature of him as an isolationist. Since signing on, she has been surprised by the vigor with which the other candidates, particularly Marco Rubio, Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham, have attacked his foreign-policy views. ‘‘The fact that so many are threatened by him is a sign of how the Republican Party can’t deal with some deviations from conventional thought,’’ she said.
Those attacks have dwindled of late, no doubt because Paul has struggled to raise money, mount a disciplined campaign and break through the primal roar of the Trump movement. Still, it remains the case that Paul is the only candidate committed to designing a post-neocon Republican foreign policy. As another of his advisers, the Carnegie Mellon University international-relations professor Kiron Skinner, says, ‘‘He’s trying to provide a corrective to both the Bush and Obama administrations, in which we use American military power responsibly and when there’s a clear understanding of what’s needed.’’
That feat has been difficult for Paul to pull off as he attempts to placate both the libertarian followers of his father, Ron Paul, and the conservative G.O.P. base. He has hedged on his commitment to eliminate all foreign aid, gone out of his way to show his support for Israel and adopted more confrontational language toward Syria and Iran. Paul has also said that if he were president, he would ‘‘seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily.’’ Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper to clarify what this would entail, he said that he meant ‘‘Arab boots on the ground.’’ The candidate has yet to elaborate on how he would be the first American president to inspire an Arab army to ‘‘destroy’’ an Islamist extremist group.
Of course, presidential campaigns don’t tend to be incubators of complex foreign policy. Throughout the 2008 campaign cycle, Obama the candidate was fond of declaring on the stump that Al Qaeda grew stronger because the Iraq war had caused the Bush administration to ‘‘take our eye off the ball’’ instead of ‘‘refocusing our attention on the war that can be won in Afghanistan.’’ Today the president is at pains to explain why this refocusing has not come close to fulfilling his campaign declarations.
***
Today’s foreign-policy thinkers must also test their idealistic notions of American possibility on a geopolitical landscape littered with the wreckage of ideals past. As Richard Fontaine explained to me: ‘‘In Iraq, we toppled the government and did an occupation and everything went to hell. In Libya, we toppled the government and didn’t do an occupation and everything went to hell. In Syria, we didn’t topple the government and didn’t do an occupation and everything went to hell. So, broadly, this is the Middle East. Things go to hell. And we’ve got to make our way through that fact to protect our national interests, on the back of a war-weary public that doesn’t want to invest our treasure in this.’’
Each debate team featured two national-security officials from the Bush and Obama administrations. One team, Philip Zelikow, a former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Michèle Flournoy, Obama’s former defense undersecretary of defense for policy, argued that ISIS should be defeated, including through military means. The other team, Dov Zakheim, Bush’s former Defense Department comptroller and foreign-policy adviser, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Obama’s director of policy planning for the State Department, argued that it should be contained until it collapsed under the weight of its own failed ideology, as occurred with the Soviet Union. Among the 200 spectators were the retired general David Petraeus, the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Jeb Bush’s outside adviser, Richard Fontaine.
The debate was spirited and replete with unintended ironies. There was Flournoy, the former Obama official, arguing the traditional neocon position that the only way to give the lie to ISIS’s ideology was to ‘‘take territory away from ISIS.’’ And there was Zakheim, the former Bush official, sounding decidedly noninterventionist: ‘‘The issue is, can you and are you willing to send in hundreds of thousands of troops? Do you think this country wants to do that? Do you think we even want to spend money to do that?’’
Zakheim’s realpolitik warning hit the audience like a bucket of cold water. Even the nation’s most intellectually rigorous foreign-policy thinkers seemed struck by the challenge of convincing the American public that war against ISIS would not entail a horrific reprise of the Iraq war. Surveyed before the debate began, 52 percent of attendees believed that ISIS should be destroyed, with 27 percent saying it should be contained and another 21 percent being undecided. After the debate, the audience underwent a reversal: 59 percent were now convinced that the proper course of action was to contain ISIS rather than to pour blood and treasure into an attempt to destroy it.
But Fontaine was not won over. ‘‘Their argument — don’t roll them back, hold them in place and they’ll defeat themselves through their internal contradictions — has never happened to a terrorist group,’’ he said later. ‘‘And I think we can roll them back. We’ve already shrunk their territory by a third. Containment, if you stop there, is a recipe for endless bloodshed.’’ That was his distinctly minority, stubbornly hawkish opinion. And if Fontaine had his way, it would soon become Jeb Bush’s as well.
That argument was from Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, the retired former vice commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, who said of the nuclear accord: “What I don’t like about this is, the number one leading radical Islamic group in the world is the Iranians. They are purveyors of radical Islam throughout the region and throughout the world. And we are going to enable them to get nuclear weapons.”
Sorry, General, but the title greatest “purveyors of radical Islam” does not belong to the Iranians. Not even close. That belongs to our putative ally Saudi Arabia.
When it comes to Iran’s involvement in terrorism, I have no illusions: I covered firsthand the 1983 suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, both believed to be the handiwork of Iran’s cat’s paw, Hezbollah. Iran’s terrorism, though — vis-à-vis the U.S. — has always been of the geopolitical variety: war by other means to push the U.S. out of the region so Iran can dominate it, not us.
I support the Iran nuclear deal because it reduces the chances of Iran building a bomb for 15 years and creates the possibility that Iran’s radical religious regime can be moderated through more integration with the world.
But if you think Iran is the only source of trouble in the Middle East, you must have slept through 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Nothing has been more corrosive to the stability and modernization of the Arab world, and the Muslim world at large, than the billions and billions of dollars the Saudis have invested since the 1970s into wiping out the pluralism of Islam — the Sufi, moderate Sunni and Shiite versions — and imposing in its place the puritanical, anti-modern, anti-women, anti-Western, anti-pluralistic Wahhabi Salafist brand of Islam promoted by the Saudi religious establishment.
It is not an accident that several thousand Saudis have joined the Islamic State or that Arab Gulf charities have sent ISIS donations. It is because all these Sunni jihadist groups — ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Nusra Front — are the ideological offspring of the Wahhabism injected by Saudi Arabia into mosques and madrasas from Morocco to Pakistan to Indonesia.
And we, America, have never called them on that — because we’re addicted to their oil and addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.
“Let’s avoid hyperbole when describing one enemy or potential enemy as the greatest source of instability,” said Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, who is an expert on Islam at the Hudson Institute.
“It is an oversimplification,” he said. “While Iran has been a source of terrorism in supporting groups like Hezbollah, many American allies have been a source of terrorism by supporting Wahhabi ideology, which basically destroyed the pluralism that emerged in Islam since the 14th century, ranging from Bektashi Islam in Albania, which believes in living with other religions, to Sufi and Shiite Islam.
“The last few decades have seen this attempt to homogenize Islam,” claiming “there is only one legitimate path to God,” Haqqani said. And when there is only one legitimate path, “all others are open to being killed. That has been the single most dangerous idea that has emerged in the Muslim world, and it came out of Saudi Arabia and has been embraced by others, including the government in Pakistan.”
Consider this July 16, 2014, story in The Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/world/middleeast/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-iran.html ] from Beirut: “For decades, Saudi Arabia has poured billions of its oil dollars into sympathetic Islamic organizations around the world, quietly practicing checkbook diplomacy to advance its agenda. But a trove of thousands of Saudi documents recently released by WikiLeaks reveals in surprising detail how the government’s goal in recent years was not just to spread its strict version of Sunni Islam — though that was a priority — but also to undermine its primary adversary: Shiite Iran.”
Or consider this Dec 5, 2010, report on BBC.com [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11923176 ]: “U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned last year in a leaked classified memo that donors in Saudi Arabia were the ‘most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.’ She said it was ‘an ongoing challenge’ to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. The groups funded include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, she added.”
Saudi Arabia has been an American ally on many issues and there are moderates there who detest its religious authorities. But the fact remains that Saudi Arabia’s export of Wahhabi puritanical Islam has been one of the worst things to happen to Muslim and Arab pluralism — pluralism of religious thought, gender and education — in the last century.
Iran’s nuclear ambition is a real threat; it needs to be corralled. But don’t buy into the nonsense that it’s the only source of instability in this region.
"He's moving too quick, too fast, too hard, with too much money," says one respected foreign policy expert. “He could become someone you don’t want to take to the party.” (Photo by Andrew Harrer / Getty Images)
Otaiba with National Security Advisor Susan Rice. (Photo by Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo)
Otaiba's home in McLean, Virginia. (Courtesy of Bing Maps)
Mohammed bin Zayed, or MBZ, (center) with Republican senators Bob Corker, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Democratic senators Ben Cardin and Jack Reed. (Photo by Saul Loeb / Getty Images)
Yousef Al-Otaiba is the most charming man in Washington: He's slick, he's savvy and he throws one hell of a party. And if he has his way, our Middle East policy is going to get a lot more aggressive.
By Ryan Grim and Akbar Shahid Ahmed 09/03/15
Last September, as Islamic State militants rampaged through Syria and Iraq, the Pentagon hosted a top-secret meeting to debate strategy. At the invitation of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the secretary of defense, a small group of foreign policy eminences, including former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, gathered in a conference room in the E-ring of the building.
The assembled experts were trying to make sense of a Middle East in greater turmoil than it had been since World War I. Starting in 2010, the Arab Spring had toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. A protest movement in Syria had morphed into an armed revolution, while sectarian violence in Iraq split the country apart. The Islamic State, or ISIS, surged to fill the resulting power vacuums, exploiting long-held resentments and capturing an extraordinary amount of American-provided weapons and equipment. In June, it swept across Syria, claimed Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and declared a global caliphate.
And so the group assembled at the Pentagon played out multiple scenarios and weighed policy options that ranged from awful to slightly-less-awful. Bombing ISIS in Syria meant effectively coming to the aid of dictator Bashar al Assad. Arming Syrian rebel groups against Assad risked empowering ISIS and other extremists, either directly or indirectly. Attacking both ISIS and Assad would essentially mean fighting on both sides of the same conflict.
The policymakers were split between those who wanted to intervene aggressively in Syria in support of moderate rebels against Assad, and those who hewed more closely to President Barack Obama's position that there is no military solution to the conflict. There was one proponent, however, for wiping Assad off the map entirely. He made a curious participant at a private gathering on U.S. strategy, as one of only two foreign officials at the meeting (the other, predictably, was the British ambassador). Yousef Al-Otaiba, the ambassador for the United Arab Emirates, was known to be a forceful advocate for an aggressive U.S. military intervention in Syria. A bald, handsome 40-year-old with an extravagant air of self-assurance, he argued that the hands-off approach had only emboldened ISIS and other extremist groups.
But Otaiba was prepared to help the U.S with its predicament. At another private meeting with Wendy Sherman, a top State Department official, he struck a dramatic tone. "Our F16 is ready, Madame Sherman. Tell us what time you need them," he said, according to one participant and confirmed by others briefed on the meeting.
Within days of the Pentagon gathering, a photogenic female Emirati fighter pilot, Major Mariam Al Mansouri, led a UAE bombing strike on ISIS, in coordination with U.S. forces. It was the perfect PR move. "That's awesome," said Joe Scarborough when Otaiba appeared on "Morning Joe" to confirm the pilot’s identity. "You can't do this without us, and we can't do this without you," Otaiba replied, referring to the anti-ISIS effort. “I love it. I absolutely love it," Scarborough replied.
In just a few years, Otaiba has acquired an extraordinary influence in the capital. He can often be spotted dining with members of the media, Congress and the administration: the Four Seasons in Georgetown is a favorite power-breakfast spot. ("He doesn't work the tables. People come to him," says one regular.) He makes the perfect Washington dinner guest: A Muslim who’ll raise a glass and offer inside insights on the volatile politics of the region. “He is incredibly savvy,” says a former White House aide. “He throws great social events. He understands how Washington works, how the Hill works, which a lot of these countries don’t. He knows the dynamics and how to pit different entities against each other when he needs to.” Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says, “I’ve spent probably more time with Yousef than I have anybody.”
It’s not uncommon to hear him compared to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who reigned as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington for decades, forging a bond between Gulf and Washington elites. Otaiba himself privately bristles at the comparison—and he has certainly carved out his own style. “Bandar had a reputation as being brilliant. [Otaiba] has a little bit more of a bro-ish, frat-boy vibe to him,” says one person who has dined at his mansion. He often schedules meetings at the café inside his gym (the Equinox at the Ritz Carlton). On the lower floors of the State Department, among some, he's known simply as "Brotaiba."
Above all, Otaiba’s rise as a powerful foreign policy operator reflects the ways in which the Arab Spring has upended the traditional power dynamics of America’s Middle East policy. Once-reliable U.S. allies, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have seen their regional power and their clout in Washington erode. New enemies, like the Islamic State, have emerged. And now a major adversary, Iran, is ever so slightly coming in from the cold. In the midst of these historic shifts, the UAE, led by Otaiba in Washington, has become a key ally for the U.S.—and an increasingly aggressive influence on U.S. foreign policy. Michael Petruzzello, the longtime representative of the Saudi diplomat-turned-foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir, observed that Otaiba does not fit the model of a typical ambassador. "What he understands is that the traditional way of conducting diplomacy, just getting close to a few key people in Washington, isn't enough any longer," he says. "You need to approach it like a public campaign, with everything that entails—media, philanthropy, the Hill, the White House, all of it."
* * *
During the last half-century, the discovery of oil in the Gulf region has transformed the UAE from a poor tribal desert society into a fantastically wealthy tribal desert society. A government-owned wealth fund that the UAE established to manage the oil money is one of the two largest pools of investment capital in the world.
In the mid-2000s, a UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World, moved to buy a British firm that managed a handful of American ports. The sale had already been approved by the Bush administration when it was spotted by Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer, who was eyeing Senate leadership, painted the UAE as an infamous sponsor of terrorism. Fox News mentioned the deal at least 70 times during a space of two months; politicians on both sides of the aisle reacted as if Osama bin Laden himself would be working the cranes. Hillary Clinton, then a New York senator and the presumed frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, sponsored legislation to bar companies owned by foreign governments from buying U.S. ports. Humiliated, the UAE pulled out of the deal.
The UAE’s ruling bin Zayed Al-Nahyan family had long prided itself on the country’s reputation as a moderate Arab partner of the United States. Inside the government, the Dubai Ports World episode was seen as a crisis—and it was one that Otaiba was particularly well-suited to meet.
Otaiba was born into a wealthy and well-connected merchant family. His father was the UAE's first oil minister and had at least twelve children with four wives [ https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08ABUDHABI392_a.html ], including Otaiba's Egyptian mother. He got a first-rate liberal arts high school education at the Cairo American College, and, while there, introduced himself to Frank Wisner, then the U.S. ambassador to Egypt. Wisner recalls being impressed by his seriousness. "He wasn't off to university to chase girls, drink beer, play football,” he says. “He wanted to prepare himself for the life that lay in front of him." After graduating, with Wisner’s encouragement, Otaiba studied international relations at Georgetown, and later went on to Washington's National Defense University. This left him with an understanding of the U.S. so intuitive that sometimes people who encounter him in Washington forget that he is not American. A 2008 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks emphasized Otaiba’s “American demeanor” and noted that he is “very much in tune with American culture and politics.”
In 2000, Otaiba became the director of international affairs for Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Bin Zayed, commonly referred to in Washington as MBZ, handles the UAE’s defense issues, including its military relationship with the United States and a multi-billion dollar weapons budget that makes it one of the leading consumers of U.S. arms. As MBZ's right hand, Otaiba became the point of contact for the U.S. military and intelligence community. “One of his great people that kind of put him under his wing was the former CENTCOM Commander, General Anthony Zinni,” says Bret Baier, then the national-security correspondent for Fox News and who is now a good friend. “He was plugged in with that entire retired military crowd.”
After the Dubai Ports World scandal, Otaiba worked hard to boost the UAE’s military cooperation with the U.S. In 2007, the Bush administration embarked on its surge strategy in the Sunni areas of Iraq. "Before I was introduced to him, the way he was described to me was the guy MBZ trusts most on foreign issues and one of the smartest people in the UAE," says one American intelligence operative who worked closely with him in the region at the time.
Otaiba was instrumental in getting other countries in the region to back the surge, the source said. His most significant contribution was "persuading other Gulfies to support the political components of the surge (e.g. the Anbar awakening), and helping 'translate' the general strategy into something they would support," he says. Without the support of the Sunni-dominated Gulf states, the strategy would have had little chance of success. When asked about Otaiba’s role in the surge, Burr, the intelligence committee chairman said, "I think he's been a very active partner, not just for the UAE but for the Gulf States." (Otaiba declined to be interviewed for this story, although his Washington-based representative, Richard Mintz, confirmed Otaiba's role but noted, “It wasn't like he was the architect.”)
In March 2008, Otaiba was named the UAE’s ambassador to Washington. Upon arriving in town, Otaiba hired one of the most plugged-in people in the Bush administration's office of protocol, Amy Little Thomas, (who became the UAE embassy's chief of protocol). "She opened every door he could possibly need. The guy was everywhere. He'd go to an envelope opening," says one source on the social scene who watched his rise. And it didn’t take long before people started to register his presence. Howard Berman, then the Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, worked closely with him on an agreement that would allow the UAE to obtain nuclear materials from the U.S. for a civilian program. This required some deft diplomacy, since the agreement was entered into by the Bush administration but had to be certified by the incoming Obama administration. "He's a remarkable diplomat," says Berman, who is now with Covington & Burling LLP, a D.C. lobby shop. Matt Spence, who was the top Defense Department adviser on Middle East policy, explained, “He's been remarkably effective for two reasons: it's clear he's speaking on behalf of the government when he's talking and he's very accessible.”
Otaiba’s entrée to D.C. was aided by the UAE’s willingness to pour astronomical sums of money into improving its public standing in the U.S. It now spends more money on lobbying than any other foreign government ($14.2 million dollars in 2013). That’s in addition to hundreds of millions in philanthropic giving (UAE entities have given at least $3 million to the Clinton Foundation alone), as well as billion-dollar investments in U.S businesses. In a 2010 Aspen appearance, Otaiba made a point of remarking that the U.S. “is actually a beneficiary of our oil revenues," by way of at least $10 billion that the UAE had invested in various US projects just that year. One Washington operative who has the UAE as a client even created a video mashup of Dubai Ports World news footage, which he shows to wealthy Emirati to remind them of the importance of D.C.-oriented giving.
Since Otaiba’s arrival, the UAE has made sizeable donations to a wide range of think tanks and policy centers, including the Center for American Progress, the Aspen Institute, the EastWest Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies—all institutions populated by former and soon-to-be-again government officials who formulate foreign policy conventional wisdom. (The Pentagon meeting Otaiba attended, which caught the attention of The Washington Post’s defense reporter [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/think-tank-chiefs-inviting-of-foreign-envoys-to-classified-meeting-on-iraq-is-questioned/2014/09/17/109a6e7e-3e76-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html ], was organized by John Hamre, the CEO of CSIS.) This year, a UAE-based research institute also partnered with the Saudi Embassy in D.C. to launch the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank that has hired numerous recent administration officials as scholars and fellows (Otaiba's mentor, Wisner, serves as chairman of the board). "[The UAE] are a potential gravy train for them when they leave government, and so there's a lot of incentive to kind of have that relationship intact,” says one senior U.S. government official. “When you take your sabbatical from government you could head out to the UAE twice a year to give a speech or appear at a conference or something."
In his early years in D.C., it soon became clear that Otaiba, like MBZ, was driven by two key concerns: a deep antipathy for political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, and what the Wikileaks cable described as “a forceful and at times aggressive” stance on Iran. Thanks to Otaiba's understanding of the U.S., he is adept at interpreting American policy and communicating it to other Arab leaders. “He more than anybody helps explain the U.S. position not only back to the UAE but to others in the region,” says Mintz. But when it came to his tactics in wooing official Washington, what people really noticed were the parties.
* * *
There is a group of powerful women in Washington who hold a private luncheon at the end of each year that can run up a pricey tab. The gathering includes lobbyists, publishers and women with philanthropic foundations named after them. The group always seeks someone to foot the bill, and after Otaiba arrived in D.C., he soon popped up on its radar. One member of the group recalls someone asking, "Who's the new person in town? Maybe Yousef will sponsor this." She adds, "He was very quickly known as an easy source of money with no strings attached.”
And when Otaiba throws a party, he doesn’t take half-measures. He’s headlined a cancer research gala in New York that featured performances by Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Ludacris; when he threw a surprise 50th birthday bash for Joe Scarborough, it led the next edition of Playbook, the tipsheet of the D.C. establishment.
Last spring, Otaiba co-hosted the 2014 Children's Ball at the Ritz Carlton with Baier of Fox News, the network that caused the UAE so many headaches during the Dubai Ports World episode. One society veteran called the gala the “most over-the-top, insane event I've ever been to." Baier, whose son required open-heart surgery as an infant, has dedicated himself to fundraising for the Children's National Health System, and in Otaiba, he found a willing supporter. In 2009, the UAE donated an eye-popping $150 million to Washington Children’s Hospital. (Several years later, Otaiba and his wife had a child who also needed critical surgery at the facility.)
The 2014 gala was attended by National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Rahm Emanuel, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, all of whom observed the "black tie/white dress" code specified in the invitation. "It looks like a roomful of vestal virgins, but it's anything but," quipped one lawmaker, who was annoyed at having to locate a white dress. Jennifer Hudson serenaded the guests, and on a video screen, George W. Bush and Pharrell Williams praised Otaiba and Baier for their work. The event netted more than $10.7 million, with contributions from numerous defense contractors Otaiba had dealt with as MBZ’s military adviser—Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and others—plus banks, lobby shops and assorted Gulf entities. The UAE’s two top political figures, MBZ and the UAE foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed , kicked in a million dollars each.
One prominent society figure, who throws a high-profile annual event connected with fundraising for disease research, said that sometimes major gifts of this nature are made after a hospital saves the child of a fantastically wealthy person. More often, she says, the agenda is utilitarian. "The other reason people do it in general—other than the philanthropic and the bigger picture and blah blah blah—is you can sit at that Children's Ball and you've got every congressman and senator in the world, and every White House aide there, and you can have a conversation and get something done that you couldn't get [otherwise]," she says. (Baier describes Otaiba as “a tremendous person.” When asked why the Gulf might make such generous donations to a hospital in Washington, he said, “I don’t know the motivations of why they do what they do.”)
Otaiba also often invites members of Congress, staffers, White House aides and other influential Washingtonians to dinner at the UAE's monumental embassy off Van Ness Street or at his home, a mansion on the Virginia bank of the Potomac. White House spokesman Josh Earnest, pre-disgraced congressman Aaron Schock; Betsy Fischer Martin, the longtime executive producer for NBC’s Meet The Press, the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin; and CNN’s Jessica Yellin are among those who’ve dined at his house. The guests make themselves at home, Otaiba told the glossy D.C. magazine Washington Life in 2012. “Often that means having a Cabinet secretary stepping carefully over [his son] Omar’s lego set, or an admiral scratching the ears of our dogs Coco and Marley, or shooting a game of pool with a member of Congress,” he said. A reporter for a national publication who attended one of these private dinners recalls journalists, top politicians and aides being led by Otaiba in substantive, if stilted, conversation about policy and politics that would be periodically interrupted when Wolfgang Puck popped out from the kitchen to announce the next course. After dinner, the group adjourned to Otaiba’s basement, possibly the most impressive man-cave in the entire metro region, to watch basketball. “He had the largest television I’ve ever seen in my life,” the reporter recalls.
These gatherings can sometimes serve as an audition. “If they come and they engage, what often follows is an invitation to travel to the UAE," says a former Hill staffer who was glad to land such an opportunity. An especially prized junket is the annual trip that Otaiba organizes to Abu Dhabi for the Formula One Grand Prix, a racing spectacle watched by some half a billion people around the globe. Guests have included Liz Cheney, retired Gen. John Jumper, D.C. philanthropist Adrienne Arsht and the Baiers. (Baier says he flew separately on his own dime and made it a work trip: He interviewed Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE foreign minister who donated a million dollars to the Children’s Ball.)
This year, most guests were flown to the event in a private 747; once on the ground, BMWs ferried them to the Emirates Palace Hotel, where there is a gold bullion machine in the lobby. Over the course of five days, they enjoyed falcon-hunting excursions, performances by Jay-Z and Depeche Mode and, at the Formula One race itself, royal-level passes that gave them access to the pit. Most of the travelers come away impressed. “They have freedom of the press, to a point. The only rule is you can’t criticize the monarchy,” says one. “But why would you want to? I met the sultan, or what do you call him—the emir. He was a totally great guy.”
* * *
There is a point, of course, to all of this socializing. The Arab Spring created a schism among the Sunni Gulf states. Qatar threw its weight behind the protesters, arguing that repressing political Islam was a self-defeating strategy. Its Al Jazeera network gave a platform to advocates of the uprising. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, however, wanted nothing to do with it. "Qatar has placed this long bet that in the end, political Islam is going to be the next big thing in the region,” says Cole Bockenfeld, advocacy director for the Project on Middle East Democracy. “The UAE and Saudi have been pushing back, leading a kind of counterrevolution."
Otaiba saw the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an existential threat to the future of the UAE, whose prosperity is predicated on economic stability and the suppression of any form of political dissent. Frank Wisner, the former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, was tasked by the White House with helping to negotiate the end of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak’s reign. He recalls Otaiba being deeply skeptical of the Arab Spring. "Yousef said the United States should be very careful before over-interpreting political changes in the region and calling them changes in favor of human rights," Wisner says. “Once you lifted the strong hands of governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, a lot of things would come out, including the Muslim Brothers, who have very little time for the traditional rulers of the Gulf."
As protests spread in Egypt, Otaiba pushed the White House hard to support Mubarak, without success. After the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in a democratic election, he filled the inbox of Phil Gordon, the White House's top Middle East adviser, with missives savaging the Brotherhood and its backers in Qatar. (Gordon declined to comment.) “He’d robo-email people,” says the former White House aide. “You can be sure when Yousef has something to say on a topic like that, high-level people throughout the State Department and in the White House are going to hear it, in very similar if not identical emails.”
In July 2013, the elected leader, the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, was overthrown amid major demonstrations in a coup by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, a former general who has attacked civil liberties even more harshly than Mubarak did. In response, top U.S. policymakers delayed the delivery of a number of big-ticket military shipments that Egypt had bought. Otaiba pressured the White House so relentlessly for those purchases to go ahead that he became known as "Sisi’s ambassador," according to multiple people on the receiving end of his lobbying. Not for the first time, he found himself on the same side of an argument as AIPAC, which also pushed for the sales to proceed. Eventually, in April of this year, the U.S. tacitly accepted the new status quo in Cairo and lifted the hold.
At the same time, the UAE’s aggressive support of military operations against ISIS in Syria has made it an indispensable U.S. ally. As The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-the-uae-the-united-states-has-a-quiet-potent-ally-nicknamed-little-sparta/2014/11/08/3fc6a50c-643a-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html ] reported last fall, more air strikes against ISIS have been launched from the UAE’s Al-Dhafra air base than any other location in the region. UAE pilots have also flown more missions than any of the United States’ other partners in the effort against the Islamic State. The article noted that the UAE had divulged these details to the Post out of concern that its role was being under-appreciated by the U.S. “We’re your best friends in this part of the world," Otaiba was quoted as saying.
The close relationship has seen the UAE become increasingly assertive. In August 2014, the UAE and Egypt launched secret bombing raids in Libya to aid anti-Islamist forces. The White House was furious. In December, the UAE publicly suspended its cooperation with the U.S in Syria, complaining that the U.S. needed to improve its search-and-rescue efforts for downed Arab pilots. The U.S. accordingly ramped up its capabilities, and the UAE came back onboard.
All of this, though, pales next to a quiet diplomatic achievement that has been unfolding in the Northeast’s tech manufacturing corridor. Otaiba often touts the fact that a UAE-owned firm named GlobalFoundries made a multi-billion-dollar bid to take over several plants in upstate New York and Vermont that are responsible for IBM’s entire microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing business. The acquisition was so sensitive that it had to be cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, since it would mean that one of the Department of Defense’s most trusted providers of semiconductors for weapons systems, aircraft and other government technology would be replaced by a foreign-owned entity. The deal won approval on June 30, less than a decade after the Dubai Ports World debacle. There was no outrage on Fox News, no protests in Congress—least of all from the UAE's onetime nemesis, Chuck Schumer, who has praised GlobalFoundries’s takeover of the plants as “great news about the Capital Region and its economic future.”
* * *
In the summer of 2010, Otaiba appeared at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival. He was interviewed on stage by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who asked if he thought the U.S. should launch a strike on Iran in order to stop its nuclear progress. "Absolutely, absolutely," Otaiba said. The audience quickly realized something unusual was happening. In an attempt to be sure that Otaiba hadn't misspoken, Goldberg phrased the question several different ways and got the same answer. The Aspen comments became global news, and Iran publicly called for the UAE to remove Otaiba from his post. His friends recall it as a low moment.
And yet Otaiba had merely stated in public what Gulf leaders were saying in private, as cables released by Wikileaks would later show. The UAE has always seen Iran as the most powerful threat to its existence—it is the major Shiite power in the region and sits only 35 miles away from Dubai across the Strait of Hormuz. In recent years, the UAE has become far more active in pushing this position in Washington.
This has become increasingly conspicuous during the years-long debate over the Iran nuclear agreement. The role of Israel and AIPAC in opposing the Iran agreement is well known. But Otaiba has played a critical role in casting doubt on the administration’s efforts to engage with Iran rather than isolate it. “He's influential with certain parts of the Hill, making them doubt what this administration is doing with regard to Iran. And it feels less partisan because it's not Israel but an Arab country,” says the second senior U.S. official. The first U.S. senior official added that Otaiba and Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer are very close. “They agree on just about everything,” he says. (Excluding the Palestinians, he clarified.)
A high-level official with the Israeli embassy confirms the value of this strategic alliance. "Israel and the Arabs standing together is the ultimate ace in the hole. Because it takes it out of the politics and the ideology. When Israel and the Arab states are standing together, it’s powerful," he says.
This year, Dermer invited Otaiba to attend Netanyahu’s speech on Iran to Congress, but Otaiba declined due to political sensitivities back home. Through a spokesman, Otaiba denied that he and Dermer are personal friends. And there are limitations to the relationship on the Israeli side, too. When Netanyahu met Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in July to discuss the Iran issue, he grumbled about how the U.S. had cornered itself into selling sophisticated weapons systems to Gulf Arabs, according to Israeli reports confirmed by a senior U.S. official. The skepticism goes both ways. “This Gulf-Israel detente is not real,” says the official. “If they are such close friends, maybe they could start by recognizing Israel.” In the spring, Obama held a Camp David summit with Gulf state leaders (Otaiba was conspicuous in his Western suit), and since then the UAE has refrained from publicly opposing the deal.
This summer, President Obama invited a handful of foreign policy journalists to the Roosevelt Room in the White House for a conversation about the Iran agreement. At the end of the briefing, Obama was asked how lopsided political spending played into the current debate (Iran is prohibited from lobbying in Washington due to political sanctions). “Welcome to my world,” Obama said, comparing the imbalance to the dynamics surrounding health care reform and climate change. “What we have to rely on are grassroots networks and me being able to get on the horn with a bunch of rabbis and hopefully they’re paying attention," he explained. "You work with what you got.”
(Afterwards, a Huffington Post reporter told Obama that the question had been prompted by this profile of Otaiba and the UAE’s investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to influence foreign policy. "Oh, I know it, it's crazy," Obama said. “Look, that's a whole big set of challenges that cuts horizontally across our system and is evident in the Republican primary, and in the fact that you get one rich sugar-daddy and you're off to the races no matter how wacky you are.")
Otaiba’s positions on Iran and Syria align him closely with the Republican foreign policy establishment. “He goes way out of his way to cultivate relations with members of Congress, and I think he represents his country very well,” says Republican Sen. John McCain. “It’s not just a normal representative of a nation. This is a nation that is literally conducting warfare against [the Islamic State].”
And Otaiba has also become openly more critical of the Obama administration. This year, Wisconsin Governor and Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker reached out to Otaiba for a briefing on the Middle East. Walker has repeatedly referenced the meeting to beat up Obama for "disengaging" with the region. In the fall, Foreign Policy magazine published a scathing indictment of Obama's foreign policy by editor David Rothkopf. The story led with a quote from “a thoughtful man” and "top diplomat from one of America’s most dependable Middle Eastern allies" who said of the U.S. "You're still a superpower—but you no longer know how to act like one." In case there was any doubt about the identity of the thoughtful man, Otaiba handed out copies of the issue at the Four Seasons when it appeared, a slight that quickly was relayed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. "We knew it was Yousef," says the first senior U.S. official.
Otaiba continues to talk frequently to Secretary of State John Kerry, Susan Rice and many commanders at the Pentagon. But his jabs at Obama have frayed relationships. “Here's the piece of the puzzle that he's missing, and that he frequently misses, which is that the American people aren't Washington," says the first senior U.S. official. "At the Four Seasons everybody's for bombing people and no deal with Iran, but Congress ultimately does have to be wary of public opinion." One respected foreign policy expert said he was worried that Otaiba was essentially trying to create “an Arab secular version of AIPAC.” "He's moving too quick, too fast, too hard, with too much money," he added. “He could become someone you don’t want to take to the party.”
And yet it’s more likely that Otaiba’s influence will only continue to grow. Either a Republican or a Hillary Clinton administration would share his saber-rattling approach to the region. And as the former White House aide explained, the UAE is now too important to U.S. policy for Otaiba to lose his standing in Washington, no matter who occupies the White House. These days, the aide went on, discussions about Otaiba within the administration tended to resemble conversations about Newman on Seinfeld. “You’ll open up a newspaper or you’ll hear about a conversation that happened on the Hill. Your [legislative] people will be like, 'This senator said this, and they’re against us because of X, Y and Z.' And you’re just like: 'Yousef!' You know that’s the source of it. And it’s just kind of like: ‘The man is good.’”
Additional reporting - Jessica Schulberg and Ali Watkins
Cardin's decision — which came the same day a 38th Senate Democrat, Michael Bennet of Colorado, declared his support for the deal — has been one of the most anticipated among lawmakers. Not only is Cardin a key foreign relations committee member, but he's also Jewish and helped author a bill that gave Congress review power over the agreement.
The Maryland Democrat told POLITICO that he thought long and hard, and weighed concerns raised by both supporters and opponents, including conservative pro-Israel organizations that have spent millions lobbying against the deal. In making the decision he described as in the "best interest of the country," Cardin said it came down to his belief that the deal would strengthen Iran in the long run while allowing it to keep too much nuclear capacity.
"It allows Iran to have too much of [a uranium] enrichment program that takes them too close to a nuclear program under a legal path that, with the enhanced resources, will make re-imposing sanctions less likely to be effective," he said.
Cardin added that he, with the backing of lawmakers on both sides of the issue, was planning to introduce legislation next week that would make clear the steps the United States will take against Iran if it violates the nuclear deal. The bill will include provisions such as regular reports from the administration on how Iran is spending resources it obtains thanks to sanctions relief as well as a new security package for Israel, Cardin said.
President Barack Obama has already secured the 34 Senate votes he needs to ensure that a resolution to kill the Iran deal would withstand a veto. He's now been looking for the 41 votes needed to allow for a filibuster that would keep the vote from happening.
Asked about Cardin's decision, a senior administration official said: "We never expected to get him."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a group that supports the deal, said the draft he'd seen of Cardin's proposed legislation was deeply problematic. He said the bill would allow the U.S. to transfer the bunker-busting "massive ordnance penetrator," a weapon that could in theory destroy Iran's best-protected nuclear facilities, to Israel. The only aircraft known to be able to carry MOPs are B-2 or B-52 bombers.
The bill "seeks to reinterpret the terms of the nuclear deal itself, and thus it needs to be recognized as an effort by someone who’s voting no to undermine the implementation of the deal," Kimball said. As far as the MOP aspect, "Sen. Cardin should clarify whether he is also suggesting the transfer of U.S. B-52 or B-2 bombers to Israel, which would violate U.S. New START Treaty commitments prohibiting the transfer of strategic nuclear delivery systems, subject to the treaty, to other states."
Republicans, meanwhile, praised Cardin. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who chairs the foreign relations committee, said Cardin had approached the issue in an "incredibly deliberate and thoughtful way."
Although Cardin is rejecting the Iran deal, the White House secured another key Democratic vote in favor of the nuclear accord in Bennet.
"Our primary objectives are to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, make sure Israel is safe and, if possible, avoid another war in the Middle East," Bennet said in a forthcoming statement, according to the Denver Post. "This agreement represents a flawed, but important step to accomplish those goals."
Bennet’s support is particularly notable because he is the only vulnerable incumbent Democratic senator running for re-election, and Republicans are sure to attack his “yes” vote heavily during the campaign.
"It's disappointing but not surprising that Senator Bennet chose to support President Obama's dangerous deal with Iran over the national security interests of Colorado families,” said Andrea Bozek, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The remaining undecided Senate Democrats include: Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Gary Peters of Michigan and Maria Cantwell of Washington. If three of them declare their support for the Iran deal, Senate Democrats will have enough votes to filibuster the disapproval measure of the nuclear agreement.
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