Iran: Secrets and Betrayal

Telltale clues to identify ally betrayal…..

Here’s how to tell:

1. Conduct secret negotiations with your ally’s mortal enemy, based upon wrongly presumed common interests & hence goals, including back-channel talks going back five years, even one found to be conducting one or another form of war on you & your ally, on a matter viewed as existential by your ally.
2. When asked by your ally if negotiations–concealed even from your own legislative body charged with oversight of executive branch actions–are underway, lie and deny–especially if the negotiations play into your enemy’s geopolitical strategy, and operate to legitimate your enemy’s harmful, unlawful conduct.
3. When your ally learns of secret talks, lie as to what is being considered, such as terming a deal interim when there is little assurance a final pact will be reachable.
4. Spring on your ally with minimal or no notice an agreement manifestly contrary to your ally’s interest, one your enemy hails as protecting its own interests, with instant up-front concessions and which substantially lessens pressure on an enemy who has conceded little of value, and which morally inverts a formerly close alliance partnership, and which undermines stronger international pressure–from a normally recalcitrant body (here: the UN).
5. Threaten to penalize your ally–including possibly notifying the enemy if a preventive strike is underway–if it attempts to get out of the box your actions put it in, which actions buy time for your enemy to arm while shortening time for your ally to prevent it.
6. Prepare to blame your ally if it acts anyway, instead of yourself for putting your ally in such a box to begin with.
7. Treat mortal adversaries better than your own close allies foregoing any prospect of regime change, thus encouraging your ally to troll independently for new potential allies, including possible high-end technology transfer, and infuriating the leader of your close ally.

One report includes the worst of the above, the threat to tip off the enemy if a strike is underway:

Israeli personnel in recent days were in Saudi Arabia to inspect bases that could be used as a staging ground to launch attacks against Iran, according to informed Egyptian intelligence officials.

The officials said Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and other Arab and Persian Gulf countries have been discussing the next steps toward possible strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

The officials said the U.S. passed strong messages to Israel and the Saudis that the Americans control radar capabilities over the skies near Iran and that no strike should be launched without permission from the Obama administration.  (Emphasis added.)

This is without precedent.  Why would the US do this?  The inescapable inference is that specifically mentioning radar impliedly threatens disruption of an Israeli-Saudi strike against Iran’s facilities.  Put simply, there is no other reason why such mention would be made.  Israel & Saudi know the US monitors military traffic in the Mideast.  Giving allies a reminder would be unnecessary if the US intended to act only after a strike against the enemy was conducted.

Bottom Line.  Having initiated withdrawal from traditional alliance relationships, President Obama has completed the circle by establishing ties with mortal enemies & legitimating their adversarial policies.  Out of this disaster can easily come–more likely than not–catastrophes, geopolitical, nuclear, military, economic and societal.