John Bolton is so enamored with the status quo, he wrote
(for the second time that I know of) disapprovingly about something that has
the potential to change it. He makes his point in the article that came under
the title: “The Iran Deal's Dangerous Precedent," published in the New York
Times on August 3, 2015.
However, he does not make the point till he gets near to the
end of the article because he loves something else more urgently than he does
the status quo. That would be to run the world not by the force of reason but
the force of the whip. It is a gigantic whip that is made of warplanes,
warships and war-everything else he would crack to threaten and discipline
those who violate America 's
dictates … Jewish America, that is.
And so, he begins the article by lamenting: “Had anyone
believed the mantra that 'all options are on the table,' the Vienna
agreement might have emerged less advantageously for Tehran ;” all options being euphemism for
'listen to the crack of my whip.' But because he believes that a credibility
gap has developed, he sees the threat as being moot if not meaningless at this
time.
This brings him to the verification regime that will
ascertain whether or not Iran
is cheating on the nuclear deal, and what to do if that nation is caught
transgressing. He says that Mr. Obama's plan is not to use the whip, “but to
apply snapback sanctions.” This will not work, says Bolton, because unless Tehran knows it will
suffer greatly if it cheats, it will cheat ... and most likely get away with
it. This will happen, in his opinion, because the Vienna
deal offers Iran
a way out.
He explains that if America
snaps back the sanctions, Iran
will have the right to declare the deal abrogated and resume its nuclear
program, having pocketed the economic benefits that came with the signing of
the deal. Not only that, but Iran will do so knowing that no one else will join
America in snapping the sanctions because they will all want to continue doing
business with Iran.
But even if Iran
decides not to call the agreement abrogated – invoking the provisions that deal
with the dispute resolution mechanism instead – it will have so many ways to
obfuscate, it can prolong the dispute indefinitely, says Bolton .
And this is where the weakness of his logic comes to the fore. The question is
this: Why would Iran
want to obfuscate? To cheat some more? Pile up cheating on top of cheating?
Well, that would be the best way to demonstrate it is trying to build the bomb
... a move that everyone agrees is a no no. And everyone will join in the
effort to stop it from achieving that goal. Iran will have hung itself with a
rope of its own making.
With the monumental dissolution of his logic regarding that
issue, John Bolton shifts his attention to tackling the status quo issue. He
mentions the provision that prevents Russia
or China from casting a veto
in case America
brings a snapback resolution to the Security Council. What they will have to
do, instead, is convince the Council it is better not to reinstate the
sanctions. If they fail to do so within 30 days, America will get things done its
way. Otherwise, the lifting of the sanctions will remain in force.
What bothers John Bolton in all this, is that a precedent
has been set for a process of veto-nullification that may someday come around
and haunt America .
He explains that the use of the veto is what protected America for 70
years. But come to think of it, this is no explanation given that he failed to
give a single example as to when America was in danger, and when it
used the veto to protect itself.
But wait a minute, wait a minute. America has used the veto like a
drunken sailor uses whiskey to quench his thirst. How and why did America do
that? It did it to protect Israel
from the wrath of a world that has had it up to here with that entity's savage
behavior and its criminal conduct in continuing its occupation of Palestine , its repeated war crimes against Palestine and Lebanon , and its use of prohibited
weapons.
Again, Bolton has conflated America
and Israel to heap on the
little fart that is Israel ,
the deference that the world would have normally heaped on superpower America .
Well, Bolton may or may not have realized it, but the sad
result is that America has
been dragged down to Israel 's
level rather than Israel
being raised to America 's
level.