One of the main talking points for apologists for Iran recently has been the claim that Supreme Leader Ali Khameini banned the production of nuclear weapons as a sin. This is supposed to calm the nerves of those who fear allowing the Islamist regime nuclear capability and has been accepted by President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and other world leaders as a fact. But as Ruthie Blum points out in her column in Israel Hayom, the fatwa is a fake.
Blum reports that the indispensable Middle East media monitoring group MEMRI.org has examined the assertion that Iran has foresworn the development of nukes as a religious imperative and found that the fatwa is a myth. Khameini never issued such a ruling, and there is no record of it ever having been published except in a statement issued in 2005 by the Iranians during a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This story has been revived recently–largely by Turkey, Iran’s off and on Islamist ally–but:
MEMRI’s investigation reveals that no such fatwa ever existed or was ever issued or published, and that media reports about it are nothing more than a propaganda ruse on the part of the Iranian regime apparatuses – in an attempt to deceive top U.S. administration officials and the others mentioned above.
This is not a minor point because, as Blum points out, the talk about the fatwa facilitates a dead-end P5+1 negotiating process that will “ make Western leaders feel better about letting precious time run out while the Islamic Republic races to reach nuclear hegemony.”
The Iranians are past masters at playing Western diplomats for suckers with negotiations that never come to fruition and reassurances about their good intentions only a fool would trust. As Blum rightly notes, Islamist theorists such as Khameini see this sort of deception as a legitimate tactic of self-defense. But there is no excuse for the Obama administration to take any of it seriously.
While the president continues, as I noted earlier today, to say the right thing about Iran, the real test of his conduct is not rhetorical. Current U.S. policy supports a diplomatic process that seems certain to not merely fail to stop the Iranians but to actually facilitate their ongoing nuclear development. Myths such as the fake fatwa help feed the rationale for the president’s position. The State Department and the White House need to understand that the consequences for buying into this lie are potentially catastrophic.
I believe Obama's intent is to (a) allow Iran to become an unclear nuclear weapons power, sort of like Israel, (b) correctly claim that as long as Iran does not actually have a fully assembled bomb, then it won't have crossed his red-lines (he has been careful on this) and (c) allow Iran to bully Israel and use that pressure to force Israel into absurd concessions that it will feel compelled to accept by the fig leaf of the US nuclear umbrella. n nEnd result: Iran effectively gets the bomb; Obama claims his second Noble Prize since Iran does not literally get the bomb; Obama claims this third Noble Prize for forcing Israel to knuckle under to virtual nuclear blackmail; and Israel is left in the cold, with only vague assurances from the US. Finally, every major Jewish group claims this is a great result.
But Israel really really literally has the bomb and even has a submarine nuke force. So, if Iran never actually assembles its bombs and Israel has its own (hundreds) how does Israel lose out? How can Iran pressure Israel with nukes it never quite puts together? If you have two hundred Uzi's and I have scattered pieces of an Uzi in a shoebox under my bed why will my on-the-verge Uzi affect your behavior? And if Obama tells you that you have to disassemble your Uzis so I will keep mine in the shoebox all you have to do is say, "no". And that "no" will stick, because, after all, you have 200 Uzis.
Because a capability can easily and quickly be converted into an actual bomb before you know it. Therefore, Israel must assume that if Iran has a capability, then it has an actual bomb. And Israel must also assume that Iran means it when they say they would be willing to suffer nuclear attack in order to wipe out Israel. Therefore, having a capability is a huge and debilitating problem for Israel which its own nukes does not fix. n nBut don't take it from me: Netanyahu has clearly said that his red line is capability, not actual possession of a working bomb. This is the key policy difference between Israel and the US (if you believe Obama even would stop a bomb, which I don't). It is a big deal, because it allows Obama to claim victory while Israel is faced wtih nuclear blackmail.
Even if there was a fatwa, why would anyone take it seriously? A tenet of Islam is that its adherents can lie to the infidel (anyone not a Muslim). Consequently, the fatwa would not be worth the paper it's printed on.
I wonder what the Iranians promised Obama for taking such a willfully obtuse position. In his own words recorded without his knowledge, in the presence of The Russian Pwesident M, his ..”last election…” So I guess we get a few months of decresaing gas prices in exchange for helping the iranians attain their nuclear bomb building capability, for which we apparently have no choice..??? Great. What would be even better would be Netayahu precipitating a coalition crisis at the same time, over settlements, allowing his gov’t to fall and establishing a new coalition with Kadima and all of the leftist parties with the exception of Shas, got to have a portfolio for Airy Dairy, not to mention my favorite /Israeli hypocrit Shitstreet, did I spell it right? Maybe we can have a Palestinian State all ready to by the the mullahs roll out their nuclear tipped ballistic missiles capable of reaching Ground Zero.
“Wow, like far out, Mr. G.”.