Dear Friend of FLAME:

Perhaps you read last week in the Guardian or the New York Times the account of a former general of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who called supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's claims of a peaceful nuclear program a "sheer lie."

The former military man said in a letter that "The inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency are fooling themselves if they believe that the nuclear facilities on and under the ground are only for peaceful purposes." He also asserted that Iran is paying Russia and China billions of dollars so that these nations will support Iran in its international nuclear negotiations.

What many in the West, apparently including President Obama, fail to understand is that this struggle of wills over Iran's nuclear weapons development mean completely different things to the negotiating parties---which creates a fatal flaw in U.S. strategy. The goal of Western powers' economic sanctions is to create such hardship on Iran that internal pressure causes a change in policies or in leadership. Iran, however, sees the sanctions as an attempt to prevent the spread of the Iranian model and to show to the world that the Islamic Republic is a failed example.

In short, if Iran gives in to Western pressure, this will demonstrate a failure of the regime and of the Islamist dream in the region. Thus Khamenei and his government will suffer virtually any economic hardship in order to preserve themselves and their mission. They will endure until they actually acquire nuclear arms or until circumstances in the region change. In other words, as Iran's hard refusal to yield on its nuclear arms development plainly demonstrates, Khamenei believes it's worth the price they are paying.

This week's FLAME Hotline article is a brilliant update on why negotiations with Iran can bring no satisfactory solution in the foreseeable future, written by John Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations during 2005-06 and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

This piece gives you powerful facts and arguments you can use to explain why some other solution---most certainly the force of arms by the U.S. or Israel---must be used to stop Iran's nuclearization. You'll find it useful in preparing colleagues, fellow congregants and friends for this eventuality.

I hope you agree that this article helps clarify why the negotiations with Iran have failed and why another, more forceful approach must now follow. I also hope you'll take two minutes to help the United States' and Israel's cause by passing this week's issue along to your email list. Just use the "send to a friend" button at the bottom of this email, or use the buttons above to share it via social media.

Thanks for your continued support of FLAME, and thank you for your support of Israel.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
Vice President, FLAME

P.S.

FLAME has been warning of Iran's deadly threat to Israel, the United States and the entire world for some years now. That's why we wrote our hasbarah (public relations) effort---"The Deadly Threat of a Nuclear-Armed Iran: What can the world, what can the USA, what can Israel do about it?"---which we published in media reaching more than 10 million people, as well as in mailings to all U.S. Senators and Representatives. It's one more example of FLAME's determined efforts to tell the truth about the enemies of Israel (and the U.S.). Ask yourself: If FLAME doesn't tell the truth in the mainstream media about the threat of Iran and the need for more forceful response, who else will do it? If you agree that these kinds of outspoken advocacy efforts on behalf of Israel and the U.S. are essential, I urge you to support us. Remember: FLAME's ability to influence public opinion comes from individuals like you, one by one. I hope you'll consider giving a donation now, as you're able---with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online, just go to http://www.factsandlogic.org/make_a_donation.html. Now more than ever we need your support to ensure that Israel gets the support it needs---from the U.S. Congress, from President Obama, and from the American people.

P.P.S.	As of today, nearly 10,000 Israel supporters receive the FLAME Hotline at no charge every week. It keeps them up to date on the top news of the week and gives them greater confidence in discussing Middle East issues with friends and colleagues. Won't you join us to start receiving these timely updates: Just go to free subscription.

The Negotiation Delusion
Iran talks fail again.

by John Bolton, The Weekly Standard, July 11, 2012

The ongoing failure of talks concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program, most recently in Istanbul on July 3, is no surprise. This latest negotiation charade between Iran and the Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany (P5+1) is the culmination of 10 years of innumerable diplomatic endeavors. These efforts rested on the erroneous premise that Iran could be talked out of its decades-long effort to build deliverable nuclear weapons.

Now, almost no one argues there is light at the end of the negotiation tunnel. The most they hope for, especially President Obama, is that the plain futility of diplomacy's latest pretense will not lead Israel to attack Iran's nuclear program before our November 6 election. Obama fears such an Israeli strike more than he fears Iran actually fabricating nuclear weapons because of his dangerous misperception that a nuclear Iran could be contained and deterred. Even worse, Iran fully understands Obama's thinking, and sees no reason to believe it will change if he's reelected.

We are well past the point where sanctions against Iran's nuclear program achieve more than making their proponents feel good about "doing something." They neither restrain Iran's nuclear program nor effectively advance the goal of replacing the mullahs with a regime that would truly forswear nuclear weapons. Combined with material assistance to Iran's extensive opposition, sanctions could help destabilize Tehran, but unfortunately both the Obama and Bush administrations have failed on that score.

And even Team Obama does not believe sanctions will stop Iran's weapons program. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on June 30, for example, that "the pressure track is our primary focus now, and we believe that the economic sanctions are bringing Iran to the table." That is a far cry from actually terminating the weapons program. Moreover, what would a negotiated deal look like? Our goal is to deny Iran nuclear weapons; Tehran manifestly wants the opposite. What is the compromise? Iran gets to keep a small nuclear weapons program? Not even the most effervescent Obama supporters (publicly) endorse such a result.

The fundamental problem today is that there simply is no effective, enforceable sanctions regime that will compel Iran to abandon its nuclear aspirations. It may once have been possible, a decade ago or more, but even then would have required full, active cooperation from Russia, China, and others; comprehensive sanctions, not the ad hoc structure actually created; armed enforcement; and checkmating Iran's highly successful cheating and evasion efforts. That theoretical chance has long since disappeared.

Instead, Obama surrogates argue that Iran would renounce nuclear weapons if permitted to keep a "peaceful" nuclear program under international monitoring. In theory, such a deal should be easy, since Iran already loudly contends it has no weapons ambitions. But both Bush and Obama erred by conceding that Iran has any right even to "peaceful" nuclear activities without fundamental regime change. No nation that has so egregiously violated its treaty obligations (as Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by seeking nuclear weapons) has a right to claim benefits under the same agreement. Tehran has no credibility here. The mullahs will never agree to an intrusive verification mechanism that could actually detect systematic cheating; indeed, they reject it for a more fundamental reason: Exposing such impotence against foreign governments could spur Iran's domestic opposition to challenge and endanger the regime itself.

Many who agree diplomacy has failed still support sanctions, computer virus attacks, and even targeted killings, hoping thereby to stop the nuclear program without resorting to military force. In fact, such efforts have been underway for years with no evidence they have materially slowed Iran's program. There is a reason. All these steps are simply tactical responses, thrown in over time, against Iran's passion to achieve what it feels is a strategic imperative. Just as military commanders learn through training or sad experience that deploying their reserves piecemeal will lose both the battle and the reserves, the piecemeal deployment of antinuclear tactics has simply provided Iran space to adjust and deploy countermeasures.

If commentators and the press had longer attention spans, they would recall the history of nearly 10 years of sanctions imposed on Iran, unilaterally by America, Japan, and others, more broadly by the European Union, and even more broadly by the Security Council. The net effect is that Iran continues to plow ahead. As Obama's director of national intelligence, Lt. General James Clapper, testified in January, "the sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [the Iranians] to change their behavior or their policy."

Iran has been anticipating sanctions for years, not starting yesterday. Advance planning has defeated some measures before they were even imposed. Sanctions advocates once stressed, for example, prohibiting exports of refined petroleum products to Iran, taking advantage of the curious reality that, though a major petroleum exporter, Iran had inadequate domestic refining capabilities. In anticipation, Iran attracted substantial capital from China and elsewhere to build new refining capacity; dramatically scaled back domestic gas subsidies, driving up prices and effectively reducing current demand; and took steps toward using its enormous natural gas reserves to fuel public-vehicle fleets like urban mass transit and military vehicles. Today, refined-petroleum sanctions are effectively no longer under consideration.

We are told the latest round of oil and financial sanctions is different, but already analysts see them failing, because of extensive Obama administration waivers, lax EU enforcement, and massive fraud, deception, and misinformation by Iran. Iran took advantage of the oil price runup starting in the early 2000s to accumulate huge foreign currency reserves. It has designed and deployed worldwide money-laundering capabilities, creative but entirely false statistics, and oil-smuggling techniques that would make drug cartels envious. Perhaps most important, Tehran's mullahs have the will to prevail, certainly in any contest with the Obama administration.

However much economic pain sanctions are causing (a reasonable debating point), no one has produced a scintilla of evidence, despite the hosannas greeting the newest sanctions, that they have actually changed Iran's behavior since Clapper's January testimony. The only corroboration is Iran's early July missile tests, general saber-rattling, and smug attitude about the P5+1 negotiations. There is much administration talk about "Perm Five unity," but in fact Russia and China have a strategic national interest in preventing us from succeeding. Even if Moscow and Beijing truly oppose a nuclear Iran, they will not, for their own broader reasons, let the West bend Tehran to its will. Just as they continue to protect Syria's Assad regime, an Iranian satellite which has neither substantial oil nor its own nuclear weapons program, Russia and China see Iran as a test case in limiting American power. And they are succeeding.

Focusing on half-steps simply provides more time for Iran's nuclear efforts. If we make the appropriately humble assumption that our Iran intelligence is not perfect, then we must acknowledge that Iran may be even closer to weaponization than we believe. And every additional day simply increases Tehran's advantage.

In the race between the West's sanctions/negotiations track and Tehran's nuclear weapons track, the nuclear effort is much closer to the finish line. Since all other options have failed repeatedly, we must at some very near point face a basic question: Are we prepared to use force at a time of our choosing and through means optimal for us rather than for Iran's air defenses, or will we simply allow Iran to have nuclear weapons under the delusion it can be contained and deterred? The clock is ticking, and the centrifuges are spinning.