Obama Aiming at Israel's Nuclear Weapons?

Allen Z. Hertz was senior adviser in the Privy Council Office serving Canada's Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. He formerly worked in Canada's Foreign Affairs Department and earlier taught history and law at universities in New York, Montreal, Toronto and Hong Kong. He studied European history and languages at McGill University (B.A.) and then East European and Ottoman history at Columbia University (M.A., Ph.D.). He also has international law degrees from Cambridge University (LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (LL.M.). This article was first published in the Times of Israel on February 19, 2014.


Mideast "linkage" is the notion that more distant issues like the Syrian civil war and/or Iran's race to nuclear weapons could in some significant sense be related to important questions touching Israel, such as the current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

With respect to linkage, recently published is Aaron David Miller's Wilson Center essay entitled: "It's Iran, Stupid: The real, unspoken reason America won't get involved in Syria." Miller's piece turns on insights offered by President Obama in a valuable January 27, 2014 New Yorker article by David Remnick. But, President Obama there refers, not to linkage between matters involving just Iran and Syria, but rather to a connection among his top three Mideast issues, namely some problems relating to Israel, Syria, and Iran:

Obama told me that in all three of his main initiatives in the region — with Iran, with Israel and the Palestinians, with Syria — the odds of completing final treaties are less than fifty-fifty. “On the other hand,” he said, “in all three circumstances we may be able to push the boulder partway up the hill and maybe stabilize it so it doesn’t roll back on us. And all three are connected."

Astonishing is President Obama's assessment that there's less than a 50% chance of success for the three sets of now separate negotiations about Iran, Israel and Syria respectively. Equally striking is his assertion that these three persistent problems are somehow interwoven.

Really? Are they substantially linked? If so, how are they connected? Or is it that President Obama might be signaling that he might take steps to connect them? The potential link could be that, in each of these three instances, President Obama might perhaps soon try to make Israel foot the bill.

Maybe this is what President Obama is now thinking in terms of "next steps" after the predicted failure of the three sets of separate negotiations? And, perhaps there might be a fair chance of "success" for his hinted strategy of addressing the three issues as one problem in a single negotiation. This might work, principally because Russia, China and Iran could perhaps perceive that his plan might enhance their own interests -- including by weakening the USA, which President Obama peculiarly wants out of the Mideast.

With respect to his expectation that the current negotiation with Iran would likely fail, President Obama is perhaps planning for an early diplomatic crisis. He might want this to coincide with the expected collapse of the bilateral peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Specifically, President Obama seems to want the three issues of Iran, Israel and Syria to align in the short term -- and in any event, before newly elected USA Senators and Representatives take their seats in early January 2015, after which Congress might be more determined to block him.

With references to "international peace" and also some empty threats to use force against Iran, President Obama might perhaps first posture dramatically, but then move quickly to exploit the perceived crisis in order to get Iran to solemnly agree to go no further than "threshold nuclear State," just like Japan.

For this (likely worthless) commitment from Iran, he might try to pay in gold coin, i.e. by denuclearizing Israel's defense. Namely, President Obama is perhaps planning to trade off Israel's nuclear weapons for a piece of paper promising that Iran would stop short of actually building a nuclear bomb. If so, this would dovetail with the President's strong emphasis on gradually creating "a world without nuclear weapons" and the relevant regional reference in his June 2009 Cairo speech.

Shafting Israel in the cause of "international peace"? Sounds like something that would be wildly popular in the Muslim World and among left-liberals in the USA and globally. Though Gallup continues to show that Israel is the Mideast country that Americans view most favorably (72%), President Obama's gambit would have that angle of peace-loving plausibility likely to appeal to some USA independents. Such a "peace" policy would also help him continue his stubborn efforts to divide Jewish Americans from Jews in Israel. And, it might even win him a second Nobel Prize.

In this same diplomatic constellation, President Obama might perhaps try to compel Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights to buy Iran's consent to some sort of a peaceful outcome in Syria. If so, the measure could be proposed by the USA and agreed by the other countries currently negotiating with Iran. These are collectively called the P5+1, i.e. the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany.

Part of this ambitious package might perhaps also be creation of a new Palestinian State in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). But, we should also recall that President Obama has several times specifically promised a "contiguous" Palestine. Thus, there might be an attempt to equip the new Arab country with a land bridge linking Gaza with the West Bank; or Israel might even lose all the Negev. If so, this radical truncation might perhaps be imposed to "preserve the peace of the world," via agreement of Iran and the P5+1.

Once the fate of the Jewish State is to be decided entirely by foreigners, who knows what would happen and where it would end? For example, with an eye to the safety of the citizens of Tel Aviv, remember that controversial references to “international peace and security” were also used to justify extraordinary NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999. That strange military operation was designed to force the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia) to surrender multi-ethnic Kosovo to Muslim Albanians. Pertinent to the Jewish People's longstanding claim to Judea and Samaria, Kosovo was during the Middle Ages the hallowed homeland of the Serbian People. Perhaps the prospect of helping Muslim Palestinians by applying similar military pressure to Israel was exactly what motivated President Obama to choose, as Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel who was widely known as cold to the Jewish State.

Despite the camouflage, President Obama really is making every effort to do to Israel in 2014, what was done to Czechoslovakia in 1938. This message was already a subtle subtext in his June 2009 Cairo speech. From his first day in office, President Obama was tenaciously targeting Israel not Iran. In essence, President Obama always intended to spin the Iran crisis into a device for rendering Israel virtually defenseless -- just as in 1938 Czechoslovakia was strategically crippled by the cession of the Sudetenland.

If so, there is cynical dissimulation in President Obama's frequent trumpeting of both Israel's "right to exist" and a promise to always back the "security" of the Jewish State. Such sly equivocation would be fully consistent with the existence of nothing more than a truncated Israel, the security of which then would really have to depend mostly on USA mercy.

Is there a better explanation for President Obama's stunning assessment that the three separate negotiations are likely to fail and for his curious claim of interconnection of the substantive matters touching Syria, Iran and Israel? If so, I would be relieved to know it. But if not, this word to the wise should suffice.

Does Attack on Iran Mean Attack on South Korea?

Watch for Simultaneous Crises in Far and Mideast! 

Allen Z. Hertz was senior adviser in the Privy Council Office serving Canada's Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. He formerly worked in Canada's Foreign Affairs Department and earlier taught history and law at universities in New York, Montreal, Toronto and Hong Kong. He studied European history at McGill University (B. A.) and then East European and Ottoman history at Columbia University (M. A., Ph.D.). He also has international law degrees from Cambridge University (LL.B.) and the University of Toronto (LL.M.). An earlier version of this article was published on April 14, 2013, in American Thinker.

Matching threats to Iran and South Korea? 

There is perhaps a key message in the current Korean crisis -- namely, a threat of a USA strike on Iran might be matched by threat of a North Korean attack on South Korea. Could this be an indirect way for the People's Republic of China (PRC) to go mano-a-mano with the USA?

Connection between the Far and Mideast gains credence from a recent review of relevant Chinese-language literature by a USA scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. Lora Saalman observes: "Chinese discourse tends to link the Iranian nuclear question with North Korea."

North Korea, China's junkyard dog?

As in the past, the PRC is allied with North Korea which has 24.5 million people and an economy smaller than that of Nepal, but larger than Cote d'Ivoire. According to the Financial Times:

China is estimated to account for nearly 90% of North Korea’s overall exports and imports, but North Korea accounts for less than 0.2% of China’s exports and imports.

Relevant PRC players sometimes regard North Korea as analogous to a backward part of China. And, as is frequently the case, the master-servant nexus generates keen resentment. Thus, "Pyongyang detests Beijing’s high-handed treatment of the North akin to that of a poor Chinese province," as said by area expert Victor Cha in April 2011 testimony to a USA Congressional Commission.

Even in China, little is known about the PRC-North Korea relationship and even less about the military ties between their armies. Thus, there is the logical possibility that North Korea might really be, in some respects, a PRC proxy. If so, Beijing's sway need not be uniform across all subject matter. For instance, the PRC might choose to exercise decisive influence with respect to nuclear weapons, but not with regard to concentration camps.

The stark truth is that Beijing has the practical ability to force the North Koreans -- leader, party, government, army -- to comply with PRC wishes via promise or performance of any number of countermeasures, were that even necessary.

PRC government privy to PLA secrets?

What about the hypothesis that North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles might somehow really be controlled by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)?  If so, only a handful of people in China and North Korea would need to know about it.

The PLA is not subordinate, but rather coordinate to the PRC Government. The PLA reports only to the Communist Party of China. Thus, much goes on inside the PLA that is unknown to the PRC Government, and certainly unknown to the PRC Foreign Affairs Ministry which dares not tangle with the PLA. China's policy with regard to North Korea is made by the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee together with the PLA, whose special interest in North Korea is acknowledged and respected.

PRC dissimulation?

Why should we believe that the PLA is really unhappy with North Korea's behavior? Recently Lignet reported that additional PLA units had moved to the border with North Korea. If so, those reinforcements are perhaps more likely a warning to the USA than to North Korea. The same is true of some recent ambiguous statements by the PRC's new President Xi Jinping, which some Western media rushed to interpret as a rebuke to North Korea. However, within the PRC some of those same statements were seen as aimed at the USA.

Cutting USA down to size!

Though the PRC has become starkly pragmatic and the USA more ideological, the two countries are willy nilly still playing "the great game" of the world powers. In this context, cutting the USA down to size is one of the fundamental goals of both PRC and Russian foreign policy.

Without reference to ideology, North Korea remains an important strategic asset for the PRC. For example, North Korea is a buffer between the PRC and South Korea, which is a USA ally.

It is also possible that the PRC sees North Korea's nuclear-weapons and missile programs as an effective way to persistently challenge the USA presence in Northeast Asia. The point is to demonstrate to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan that the USA is no longer able to guarantee their security.

And those like the USA, who now once again turn to Beijing in the hope of moderating North Korea's bizarre words and conduct are actually bending to a strategy that seeks to have China's neighbors recognize that they are now in a PRC sphere of influence.

PRC, a nuclear proliferator?

North Korea is an adjacent state, where the PLA might perhaps one day wish to deploy without local authorization. Therefore, theorists of nuclear proliferation would find it difficult to understand why the PRC would have wanted to help North Korea advance nuclear weapons and long-range missiles there.

Pakistan is also contiguous to the PRC which probably gave Pakistan some nuclear-weapons technologies that were in turn passed on to North Korea. From a PRC strategic perspective, can the case of North Korea be distinguished from that of Pakistan?

The PRC-Pakistan border runs along some of the world's highest mountains. In 1896, eye-witness traveler Lord Curzon wrote about "the amazing military strength of the frontier."  Thus, even without nuclear weapons, Pakistan was likely always able to stop an army coming from China.

By contrast, the PRC-North Korea border is militarily penetrable. Without nuclear weapons, North Korea is probably unable to prevent the PLA from deploying across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. Thus, it is hard to imagine that the PLA would ever permit the North Korean army to get and keep nuclear-armed missiles capable of being aimed and fired, independently of the PLA.

This particular point is strengthened by considering the stern PRC warnings against any suggestion of Taiwan ever acquiring nuclear weapons. The PRC has explicitly identified that specific contingency as one of the several factors likely to prompt the PLA to use force to take the island.

PLA ties to North Korea a "black hole"

Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the PRC has probably always been in a unique position to curb North Korea. If so, why did Beijing further (or, at the very least, acquiesce with respect to) North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles?

The answer might be in details of the intimate relationship between the North Korean military and the PLA. For sure, these are secrets about which almost nothing is known. However, it is commonly said that the PLA has close ties to its North Korean counterpart and that the PLA has projects and activities in North Korea.

"All warfare is based on deception" says Sunzi in The Art of War, an ancient text still revered by PLA strategists. In the same spirit is the well-known Chinese adage, "use a borrowed knife to strike your enemy." Thus, it is readily understandable why perhaps there are some PLA fingerprints on key aspects of North Korea's nuclear-weapons and missile programs.

Checkmate!

North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the PRC seem to have left fingerprints on various aspects of Iran's nuclear-weapons and missile programs. And, Iran and North Korea now appear to be collaborating with an eye to "playing" the USA.

The likely goal is to challenge the USA with simultaneous crises in both the Far and Mideast. If so, this result would probably be welcome to both the PRC and Russia as part of their continuing effort to counter USA global influence. And this is precisely why both the PRC and Russia have probably to some extent furthered Iran's race to nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

USA "missed the boat" on Iran?

So far, the USA is playing its hand without much intelligence or skill. And in this regard, we should turn to Henry Kissinger's March 2013 comments at the Council on Foreign Relations. There, Kissinger implied that governments around the world neither trust President Obama nor know where he is heading internationally.

From day one, the USA leader wasted much of his first term pointing a finger at Israel and peculiarly "reaching out to the Muslim World," notably including the Islamic Republic of Iran. Instead, USA interests might have been better served had the new President early on used some force to stop or slow Iran's drive toward nuclear weapons. Now, current developments hint at linkage between the Far and Mideast. This may signal that the cost of taking on Iran may perhaps have become too high.