High Frontier l Less than Meets the Eye...

“The Framework Agreement announced on 2 April 2015 is concerning on a number of counts, but in fact merely kicks the can down the road to additional negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran, gifting Iran with more time to complete its drive to deliverable nuclear weapons. . . . The entire world took a step closer to Armageddon this week, which as Bernard Lewis has said, is no deterrent to the apocalyptic Shi’ite regime in Tehran but rather an inducement.” ~ Clare M. Lopez, Former CIA Operations Officer

The last sentence above, attributed to Clare Lopez, is most important—and often forgotten as some folks review the details of the April 2^nd “deal” with Iran—which at best is, as Clare noted, a “framework” to reach a real agreement by the end of June. As anticipated in my message last week, this is probably little more than another successful Iranian effort to “kick the can” down the road while persistently pressing its nuclear weapons agenda. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s strategy is working again, as was intended by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But I digress . . .

Clare’s last statement above indicates that the deterrence theory that dominated the West’s policies and strategy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and their client states cannot be expected to work in our standoff with Iranian leaders—or other Islamic leaders, whether of Shia or Sunni persuasion, who seek to end Western Civilization.

In particular, Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) won’t work with the Iranian Shia Mullah’s and their followers—they are happy to die in retaliation of a nuclear attack on the West if that will hasten the return of the Mahdi.

Background from the Reagan Years.

Full disclosure for judging the pertinence of the following comments this week: I was pleased to serve as President Ronald Reagan’s Chief Negotiator in the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the former Soviet Union—during which it was my main job to find creative ways to say “Nyet” to the Soviets who wanted to kill President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), while we achieved the deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces that Reagan wanted.

For years we held firm, against much pressure from the Soviets, the American political elite and many allies who wanted us to compromise on SDI. However, SDI was our main source of negotiating leverage as demonstrated in the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit, when President Reagan walked out because Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev demanded that SDI’s space defense programs be limited to the laboratory. Many, including yours truly, believe that was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” and we soon were on our way to the first arms control treaties ever to actually reduce nuclear arms—while continuing our SDI efforts.

President Reagan wanted to move beyond MAD, our “mutual suicide pact” with the Soviet Union. MAD meant that we bet the Soviets would be deterred from attacking the West because if they did, we would destroy them with our nuclear deterrent forces. He wanted truly effective defenses and deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces to provide a secure strategic relationship. And he was prepared to share the benefits of truly effective defenses to underwrite that more secure relationship. He wanted “mutual assured survival” instead.

We were on our way in subsequent talks, and I was privileged to lead the SDI efforts during President George H.W. Bush administration, which continued to pursue Reagan’s objective of providing truly effective defenses for the American people and our allies and friends around the world—including Russia and other states of the then dissolving former Soviet Union. Our long term goal was to replace MAD as the dominant strategy of some of our most important global relationships. Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin bought into this approach in early 1992, but President Bill Clinton and his administration dropped Reagan’s agenda and reversed course in early 1993.

As I previously discussed in some detail (Click here and here.), it took Democrat leaders in Congress and the Clinton administration to kill Reagan’s SDI effort—and reinstate MAD as the mainstay of our strategy, while ignoring all efforts to build truly effective defenses.

That regrettably is where we remain today. Although many would try to persuade you that we are building the most effective ballistic missile defenses possible, I assure you that claim is simply not true. The sad fact is we are not even close to Reagan’s original vision—or mine in 1993 when I passed the baton to the Clinton administration, and then Defense Secretary Les Aspin “took the stars out of Star Wars” by killing the most effective defense technologies that had been produced by the $30 billion dollars invested during the SDI decade (1983-93).

Then maturing programs to employ most important technologies remain dormant today—and are not even mentioned in the lament of Sunday’s Los Angeles Times article, “The Pentagon’s $10 Billion Bet Gone Bad,” which keyed off the plight of a large sea-based radar system—an easy target for advancing threat missile systems.

We are paying the price for prematurely curtailing our most important SDI programs when time and technology was on our side.

So What for Dealing with Iran?

Persistent advocacy of SDI was our most important leverage in our negotiations with the Soviets—and that leverage was instrumental in achieving the historic Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START) Treaties in 1987 and 1991. It brought the Soviets back to the negotiating table in March 1985 (They had walked out of all negotiations in October 1983.); induced them to negotiate seriously; and eventually led to the first real reductions in nuclear arms in history. And except for its premature demise during the Clinton administration SDI could have produced truly effective defenses long before now.

Sanctions on Iran, pressed on the Obama administration by congress, have provided our most important leverage in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran. (P5+1 = the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China—plus Germany.)

In my opinion, the most harmful concessions by the P5+1—of many harmful ones elaborated by press reports this past week—are those that could lead to a premature removal of sanctions on Iran. Notwithstanding the claims of President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, once removed they will not be easily reinstated—they are not likely to “snap-back” as Obama administration spokesmen claim.

Such concessions would be analogous to Reagan agreeing to restrict to the laboratory the testing of SDI space defense technology. In that event, we would have given Gorbachev what he most wanted—and before nailing down the deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces that we wanted, especially in a way that also met Reagan’s demand for effective verification.

No doubt, there would have been much cheering in Moscow had Reagan traded away SDI at Reykjavik, though perhaps not with the large crowd that welcomed home Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as illustrated below. Click here for an April 4^th Aljazeera report of this “happy homecoming” and a brief summary of Zarif’s accounting of why this framework is good for Iran.

By the way, I doubt President Obama’s claim that his deal with Iran includes “unprecedented” verification measures. As best I understand them, they do not measure up to Reagan’s standard. Again, I refer you to last week’s message for a discussion of the implications of that failure.

For further discussion of stark differences between the overarching “dangerously naïve” Obama negotiating strategy and Reagan’s successful approach, consider the April 3^rd National Review article by Bob Joseph and Eric Edelman, “Here’s the Difference Between How Reagan and Obama Handled Nuke Negotiations.”

Bottom Lines.

In my opinion, no deal at this time would be better for the West than a bad deal that at best delays Iran’s progress in achieving a deliverable nuclear weapons capability—especially when the Obama negotiators have traded away our greatest leverage in the talks that have not actually reached agreement, now due by the end of June. Iran already has delivery systems for such weapons to attack the “Great Satan” America as well as the “Little Satan” Israel—and Iran’s highest authorities make no bones about their desire to do so.

Some of us believe Iran is already further along in gaining that nuclear capability than is generally assumed. Thus, we are very skeptical of claims that the conditions of the “framework agreement” are supposed to increase the warning time from a couple of months to a year. And in any case—under the best of circumstances, the framework only promises to delay them getting nuclear weapons—whether from a couple of months to a year or a decade or so.

Comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday’s Meet the Press are entirely consistent with my concerns. He again emphasized his concerns about this “historically bad deal” with the Shia Islamic leaders of Iran, which he called “the preeminent terrorist state of our time.” He noted that, unless improved, this deal would spark a nuclear arms race among the Sunni nations of the Middles East—and a Middle East crisscrossed with nuclear trip wires “is a dream deal for Iran and a nightmare for the world.”

Note the consistency of this vision with Clare Lopez’s statement quoted at the beginning of this article. Events last week support the Iranian mullah’s interest in hastening Armageddon. And there’s direct, explicit evidence of this interest by Iran’s leadership.

Netanyahu illustrated his understandable position by referring to an Iranian general, who on the eve of the framework deal said that “the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable.” He was referring to an event as reported by April 1 Israel Radio, the day before the deal was announced. Apparently, Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Basij (volunteer) militia, said on the occasion of Islamic Republic Day in Tehran that “wiping Israel off the map is not up for negotiation.”

Perhaps even more pertinent to Americans was that as the “deal” approached its conclusion, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insisted that sanctions be lifted, while his audience chanted “Death to America.” His response, “Of course, yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure” of the sanctions. (Click here.)

Neither the “framework” nor the eventual “deal” will change these conditions anytime soon. And giving up the sanctions accelerates the process toward a nuclear Iran and a likely nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

Recommended Next Steps.

In the remaining time leading up to the “real deal” now alleged to be reached by the end of June, we should find a way to “ratchet up the sanctions” to gain pressure and get a better deal for curtailing the Iranian nuclear program.

Since the Obama administration seems unlikely to take this approach, it is up to congress to do so—in spite of the President’s claim that they will be blamed for scuttling the negotiations. Congress was the primary source of the sanctions that have given us the key leverage in the first place, so this would not be an unprecedented initiative.

In addition, we should do all we can to assure that we have effective missile defense programs that can defeat an Iranian attack—especially from vessels off our coasts, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, and from satellites approaching America from over the South Polar regions. We are especially vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack strategy that we know Iran understands—and for which we are ill prepared. The consequences could shut down the electric power grid for an indefinite period—and without electricity most Americans would likely perish within a year.

Currently, counters to this existential threat are not apparent among the Pentagon’s approved programs. If the administration continues to ignore these issues, congressional initiatives should “provide for the common defense.”

Near Term High Frontier Plans.

We will continue our focus on informing state and local authorities about the EMP threat and expanding our work with the National Guard to help them gain knowledge and workable plans to help harden the electric grid and counter the EMP threat. This work should go hand in hand with the efforts to gain support from State legislators to expand on the excellent work in Maine and Virginia, which have passed legislation requiring serious studies of the EMP threat and the needed countermeasures to protect the electric power grid.

In particular, we will continue working with South Carolina folks to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to this serious threat. We will expand this effort to neighboring and other states. We expect support from Cong. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) whose district includes my SC farm—who is a member of the Congressional EMP Caucus seeking legislation to counter the EMP threat. Our next meeting will be at the Palmetto Panel Conference at Clemson University on 17 April. (See www.PalmettoPanel.com.)

We will be working with members of the EMP Coalition and others who are seeking to take our message across the country—especially with Bob Newman, a former Adjutant General of Virginia to help us link our SC plans more broadly and especially into the National Capital region.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage, www.highfrontier.org for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages. Click here to make your tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it to 500 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.

E-Mail Message 150407