Despite Nuclear Deal, US and Iran Locked in Regional Shadow War

From the land of unintended consequences due to the Iranian deal-----notice the Israeli use of the term---our Sunni Arab allies----

July 29, 2015 5:01pm

NEW YORK (JTA) – The director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called the Middle East’s Sunni Arab nations “Israel’s allies.”

Gold used the term twice in a presentation Wednesday in New York focused on the shortcomings of the Iran nuclear deal.

“What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East,” Gold said of Iran, “and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbors — and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.”

Bill C--and that strategy was again exactly what.......?

.@Martin_Dempsey says at no point did he advise @POTUS that the only alternative to his Iran deal is war.

Telling that @Martin_Dempsey wouldn’t answer question when he was informed about US collapse on conventional weapons embargo.

Bill C--does the following sound like "legacy", strategic strategy and simply absolutely no strategy?????

Kerry: I haven't personally seen the implementation agreement on the IAEA roadmap.
Wow.

Can it get any worse?!

"Iran may take own samples at alleged nuclear site."
From managed access to no access in 2 weeks.

Now is taking own samples control and or no control????

So now the well known criminal in the neighborhood is allowed to define what is a crime and or what is not a crime--and that is strategy?

Outlaw:

Regarding my suggestions of a role-reversal (from containment to expansion) for US foreign policy post-the Cold war -- and the implications of this -- going forward -- for such things as our consideration of "political warfare" today,

Consider this 1993 speech ("From Containment to Enlargement") from National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, which addresses the post-Cold War sea-change/the about-face re: America's national security mission; a change that was going to be made to be so-clear and so-distinct that -- as NSA Lake believed -- everyone could understand it.

"During the Cold War, even children understood America's security mission; as they looked at those maps on their schoolroom walls, they knew we were trying to contain the creeping expansion of that big, red blob. Today, at great risk of oversimplification, we might visualize our security mission as promoting the enlargement of the "blue areas" of market democracies."

http://fas.org/news/usa/1993/usa-930921.htm

Thus,

a. If we could not equate the Soviet's/the communists worldwide promotion of their values and associated way of life, back-in-the-day, to something called "globalization."

b. Then it would seem difficult to equate the United States/the West's worldwide promotion of its values and associated way of life -- today -- to something called "globalization."

This being the case, then I must, respectfully, return to my question of what are the implications of this "role-reversal" for such things as our "political warfare" thoughts and efforts -- today and going forward?

Bill C--right now the US FP is being driven only by "legacy" and has no strategy other than this "legacy".

I am not the only one seeing this.

Appears that the US/Obama is in fact throwing the Ukraine under the bus for Russian assistance in Iran and Syria---by making unilateral moves with no reciprocal demands on Russia.

Basically a new Munch 1938 appeasement in the name of "legacy".

AND this is not isolationism??

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_...b#.VbKl2OoVhMs

Obama Administration Undercutting Ukraine’s Position in the Minsk Armistice Negotiations

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 12 Issue: 139

July 24, 2015 02:00 PM

By: Vladimir Socor

Quote:
Urged by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in Kyiv last week, Ukraine took a first step toward legalizing the secessionist authorities in the country’s constitution (see EDM, July 20). Concurrently, US Vice President Joseph Biden asked Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to accept local elections being held and possibly validated in the secessionist territory (Ukrinform, White House press release, July 17). In the Contact Group, in Minsk this week, Ukraine faced similar pressure to legitimize the Donetsk and Luhansk authorities through local elections there (UNIAN, July 22).

Russia, Western Europe generally, and the Barack Obama administration each seem to favor “freezing” this conflict as fast as possible, on terms acceptable to Russia, since these are the only terms presently available. But there are two possible ways of freezing this conflict.

One way, the Russian “classical,” is seen with local variations in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Karabakh and Crimea. There, the secessionist authorities receive no international legitimacy, no status, no subsidies from the aggressed country, and no chance to subvert the latter’s political system.

The other way to freeze is Russia’s latest innovation, using Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine’s east. This kind of freeze—still not resolving the conflict—would legalize the secessionist authorities and re-insert their entities into Ukraine’s political system, with prerogatives that would ensure instability, Russian influence and even Ukrainian subsidies to the legalized secessionist authorities.

The Obama administration is now pushing for the second version, the one even more detrimental to Ukraine. The United States’ push tips the balance decisively. Berlin and Paris failed on their own to persuade Kyiv to move in that direction, but Washington apparently wields stronger leverage.

The White House has reordered its policy priorities toward working with Russia on the Middle East, correspondingly becoming more accommodating to Russia’s position on implementing the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. From May 12 (Secretary of State John Kerry’s overture to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi) to July 14 (signing of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program), the rapprochement with Russia looks rewarding to the Obama administration. The latter now hopes for Russia’s “help” on Syria; while the European Union feels that it “needs” Russia on Libya. With or without direct tradeoffs over Ukraine, as Lilya Shevtsova observes, Putin has put Washington “on the debtor’s roll” (Kasparov.ru, July 16).

The administration portrays Russia again as a partner, a difficult but necessary, indeed “indispensable” partner to help “jointly resolve” common problems. It no longer describes Russia as “isolated,” nor as “merely” a regional power. The White House treats Putin as a desirable interlocutor again. Presidents Obama and Putin have conducted two long, detailed telephone conversations focusing on the Middle East. In their June 25/26 conversation, Obama did mention tangentially that Russia ought to remove its forces from Ukraine’s territory. Putin parried, as usual, that Russia has no forces in Ukraine, hence nothing to withdraw. In the July 15 Obama-Putin conversation, Ukraine was left unmentioned (White House and Kremlin readouts, cited by Interfax and RFE/RL, respectively, July 16).

Washington and Moscow have established an unprecedented, bilateral format of negotiations on Ukraine, but in which Ukraine is not represented. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Grigory Karasin and US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland are in charge of this channel. The United States, as leading Western power, had recused itself from both of the existing formats, namely the Minsk Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe—OSCE) and the Normandy Quartet (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, where Ukraine is often isolated but at least represented). Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov had discussed Ukraine intermittently and inconsistently, never in a dedicated “format.”

Kerry proposed a bilateral US-Russia channel in Sochi (see above). In that location, fronting on the Russian-occupied Abkhazia on one side and on Russian-annexed Crimea on the other side, Kerry mentioned neither. Instead, taking his hosts’ bait at the news conference, Kerry warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko preemptively, lest he breaches the armistice (State.gov, May 12).

Putin readily agreed with Kerry’s proposal on the Nuland-Karasin channel. This bilateral format excludes Ukraine while operating without publicity, below the principals’ level. Second, it equalizes Russia with the US in a superior league, above the European powers, while blindsiding these (Berlin in particular). Third, it enables Moscow to play this channel off against the “European” Normandy Quartet. Fourth, and of determinant significance, Moscow insists that the US alone could (if it only would) pressure Ukraine into concessions to Russia, e.g., by changing Ukraine’s constitution and legitimizing the Donetsk-Luhansk authorities.

Nuland and Karasin met several times during May and June on an exploratory basis. The chief of Russia’s presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, declared the bilateral Russia-US format to be more effective than the Normandy format (Rossiya 1 TV, June 20). In that vein, Lavrov urged Kerry “to influence Ukraine to establish a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk, which is key to the implementation of the Minsk agreements” (Interfax, July 1).

On June 25/26, Putin called Obama to discuss some details of “helping” the United States in the Middle East (see above). The Nuland-Karasin channel was fully activated as a direct by-product of that telephone call. On July 2, Nuland told a Russian interviewer that Kerry had proposed, and Putin agreed, on the Nuland-Karasin channel “to help facilitate the implementation of the Minsk agreements” (Ekho Moskvy, July 3).

The US, however, had never been a party to the Minsk Two document (February 12), nor to the accompanying declaration by the Normandy group, which pledged to facilitate that document’s implementation. In early July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande pressured the Ukrainian leaders to meet Russia’s main current demand, namely to start legalizing the secessionist authorities in Ukraine’s constitution (see EDM, July 9, 10). They failed momentarily; but, within days, Nuland scored a first success where Merkel and Hollande had failed (see EDM, July 20).

Washington had retained flexibility by keeping its distance from the deeply flawed Minsk process. The US, with commendable insistence, calls on Russia to remove its forces from Ukraine’s territory, citing the Minsk armistice, although that document stipulates nothing about Russia. The US had not, until now, asked Kyiv to legalize the secessionist authorities in Ukraine’s constitution, or to accept secessionist local “elections” in that territory. But Nuland’s visit to Kyiv and Biden’s phone call from Washington (see above) have shifted that position brusquely (see accompanying article).
UNQUOTE

Outlaw:

Let's look at these "regional shadow wars" in a more comprehensive manner:

To move the discussion forward a little further, let us say that it is, as you suggest, all about values, it is the Cold War Version 2.0, and that differing/rival globalization(s) do play a key role.

My question, however, is how do we account for the fact that:

a. During Cold War Version 1.0, and re: various lesser nations then, we viewed (generally speaking) as our "natural allies," the more-conservative individuals, elements and institutions of these states and societies?

b. While currently, in Cold War Version 2.0, re: we view these same individuals, elements and institutions as our "natural enemies?"

The answer to this question seems to be clear, to wit:

a. That during Cold War Version 1.0, and generally speaking, we were doing "containment" (of Soviet/communist values and associated ways of life, etc.).

b. While today, in Cold War Version 2.0, and again generally speaking, we are doing "expansion" (of our Western values and associated ways of life, etc.).

Thus, in Cold War Version 1.0 we were doing "defense." While in Cold War Version 2.0 we are doing "offense."

So my primary question remains:

How does this "role reversal" -- from Cold War Version 1.0 (primarily about defense and containment) to Cold War Version 2.0 (primarily about offense and expansion) -- effect our ability to do such things as "political warfare?"

Example:

a. In Cold War Version 1.0, the United States/the West might easily be seen and/or easily be portrayed (in the face of Soviet/communist attempts at expansion) as the defender of less powerful peoples; as defenders of their time-honored values, attitudes and beliefs; and the champions of their unique states, societies and civilizations.

b. In Cold War Version 2.0, and re: the United States/the West's attempts at expansion today, it is our enemies, it would seem, that can (1) be portrayed in such a manner and/or (b) make such a claim.

The Soviets/the communists demanded radical, comprehensive and complete state and societal "change" -- throughout the world -- in the Cold War Version 1.0. This put them, during this period, at odds with the conservative elements of virtually all populations worldwide. We used this, tremendously, to our advantage during the Cold War Version 1.0.

Today, in Cold War Version 2.0, the United States/the West is the one that is demanding, worldwide, radical, comprehensive and complete state and societal "change." This put us, in many cases, at odds with the same conservative elements of populations, throughout the world, that the Soviets/the communists faced in their expansionist era. Our enemies have -- and I believe will continue to throughout Cold War Version 2.0 -- use this to our tremendous disadvantage.

Bill C--based on what Khamenei has said over the last five days about the deal and this article from Bloomberg--tends to sum up what I had commented on--this President in his drive towards isolation has absolutely no strategy and has turned the ME into shambles.

Even Kerry was stunned by the Khamenei comments--why I am not sure as everyone else was not surprised in the least bit.

Mideast Allies Ask 'What’s Going On?' as U.S. Sells Iran Accord

by David J Lynch

July 23, 2015 — 1:00 AM CEST

Any doubt that U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has a tough job selling the Iran nuclear deal to Mideast allies was probably erased by an exasperated question from Jordan’s top military officer.

“Sometimes it’s difficult for us to know what the U.S. strategy is,” General Mashal al-Zaben told Carter in remarks overheard by reporters during a photo opportunity Wednesday evening in Amman. “What’s going on?”

Carter is traveling through the Middle East this week trying to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to traditional allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. His tour, however, only underscores the depth of discontent over an accord that is upending an already tumultuous region.

“Despite our best efforts, most of the region sees this deal as a glass half empty for them,” says Vali Nasr, a former senior adviser to the State Department. “There’s a very clear disjuncture between the way we see it and the way the rest of the region sees it.”

With much of the Arab world mired in conflict or chaos, the prospect of an Iran unfettered by international economic sanctions and exercising greater regional influence explains the disquiet that greeted Carter Wednesday in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Al-Zaben’s confusion is shared across the Arab world, though it’s felt perhaps most acutely in Saudi Arabia. Forces aligned with the Saudis confront Iranian allies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

‘We Feel Targeted’

This regional contest has both sectarian and historic overtones -- pitting the Sunni Muslims of the kingdom of Saud against Iran’s Shiites in a battle that recalls the ancient rivalry of the Arab and Persian empires.

“We feel targeted,” says Jamal Khashoggi, former media adviser to Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal. “Iran’s campaign and expansionism is aimed at us.”

Carter arrived in Jeddah, the Saudi kingdom’s second-largest city, after getting an unfiltered dose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the deal during talks in Tel Aviv.

“The prime minister made it quite clear that he disagreed with us on the nuclear deal with Iran,” Carter said later.

In Jeddah, Carter met with King Salman and his defense minister and son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to discuss improved military cooperation, including on counterterrorism, special forces, cyber security, and air and missile defense.

Unleashing Funds

U.S. officials argue that by preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the agreement will make Israel and the Arab states more secure. In the U.S. view, the allies’ fears that the sanctions relief encompassed in the pact will unleash Iran to provide additional support for terrorism -- and eventually replace the Arab states at the center of the U.S. Middle East strategy -- are exaggerated.

“Even with this deal, we’ll continue to have serious differences with the Iranian government, its support of terrorism, proxies that destabilize the Middle East,” President Barack Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars this week. “So we can’t let them off the hook.”

Likewise, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to continue opposing U.S. policies, which he described as “180 degrees” away from those of Iran.

Despite such talk from both Washington and Tehran, Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says the Iran agreement is forcing Israel and much of the Arab world to recalculate long-standing balance-of-power assumptions.

‘Seismic Event’

“Bringing a country the size of Iran, and with its broad regional ambitions and broad regional purview, out from the cold is a seismic event,” says Nasr. “It completely rearranges the chessboard.”

In Iraq, Iranian and American military forces already operate in a tacit partnership in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. A broader U.S.-Iranian rapprochement could facilitate a political settlement of the Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 210,000 people and made refugees of an additional 4 million.

The nuclear accord, which begins to reverse more than 35 years of open hostility between the U.S. and Iran, comes as the Middle East already is immersed in multiple armed conflicts and profound historic change.

Century-old borders have been erased by the rise of Islamic State, leaving open the question of whether Iraq and Syria will stay intact. Elsewhere, largely ungoverned spaces in Libya and Yemen offer sanctuary for terror bands.

Frozen Funds

While congressional opponents of the nuclear deal focus on the prospect of Iran cheating, “the region is worried about what happens if Iran abides by it,” said Suzanne Dimaggio, director of the Iran Initiative at New America in New York.

A primary focus for critics is the more than $100 billion in Iranian funds held in restricted accounts outside the country. As Iran complies with provisions of the agreement, that frozen money will be returned to the Islamic Republic.

Netanyahu says Iran will use the added funds to arm regional proxies. The U.S. has branded Iran a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 and just last month described Iran’s support in 2014 for groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Jihad as “undiminished.”

Some Israeli national security officials are less alarmed about any potential financial windfall. While more Iranian money may go to helping Iran’s allies, including the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, says “this is not the major issue to believe that the deal is good or bad.”

Saudi Spending

U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, note that the Arab states far outspend Iran on defense.

The Saudi military budget alone is almost six times that of the Islamic Republic. The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries collectively outspend Iran almost 10 to 1, according to an April report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“If they organize themselves correctly, all of the Arab states have an untapped potential that is very, very significant,” Kerry said in an interview with Al-Arabiya.

Any financial infusion also will challenge the Iranian government to balance its citizens’ desire for a better life against the regime’s regional ambitions.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013 on an economic reform platform. With parliamentary elections scheduled for February, and his own re-election bid expected one year later, he faces popular demands to boost spending on domestic needs.

Economic Hole

Iran will start its post-agreement life in a deep economic hole. The economy shrank by 9 percent over the two years that ended in March 2014. Years of international financial and oil-related sanctions have left gross domestic product 15 percent to 20 percent smaller than it otherwise would have been, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in April.

Investment withered under sanctions, falling from about $30 billion annually to roughly $6 billion, said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech University.

“We had almost no investment for three years in a row,” he said. “You have hundreds of development projects, government-owned projects that are in a standstill, and the government owes private contractors -- the engineers who do all the work -- $30-to-$50 billion.”

Rouhani doubled investment in his first year in office, but Salehi-Isfahani says the remaining backlog could absorb perhaps $35 billion.

Managing Inflation

As Iran’s funds return, officials must keep the 16.5 percent inflation rate from soaring, says economist Heydar Pourian, editor-in-chief of Iran Economics magazine. The central bank will need to sell government securities to avoid an unhealthy expansion of the money supply, a “sterilization” process it lacks experience with.

Whatever eventually happens inside Iran, the Middle East is undergoing a slow-motion earthquake. For the U.S., the challenge is how to balance reassurance for uneasy allies against preserving the option for a better relationship with Iran.

COL Maxwell below, I believe, suggests that the problem lies with:

a. Iran (also China and Russia?), post-the Cold War, pursuing its interests rather well and via political warfare. While

b. Post-the Cold War, the United States/the West, in comparison and in stark contrast, seems to have sat on its laurels and took a breather.

There is, however, an important difference/feature, I believe, that we should consider -- re: our use of political warfare in the past (during the Cold War) -- and our lack of use of political warfare presently (during post-the Cold War).

This such difference/feature may best be described by Colin Grey in his 2005 article, "How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War." Therein, Grey notes that:

" ... the past 15 years comprised principally a postwar, or interwar, period. The political and strategic behavior of those years reflected the temporary context provided by a world abruptly deprived of its balance-of-power architecture. The US superpower found itself tempted to intervene around the world in wars of discretion, rather than necessity."

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/05sp…

Thus, should we say that:

a. The primary reason why the United States/the West adopted a political warfare strategy during the Cold War was because we were, then, involved in a "war of necessity?" While,

b. The primary reason why the United States/the West failed to adopt a political warfare strategy, post-the Cold War, was because there was, in our eyes, no such compelling reason to do so?

Why is it that social media pointed this out immediately after the deal was done and yet it took a number of days for Congress to wake up.

This is a massive attack against the principles of how treaties have been done in US in the last 150 or so years.

There is always for a President risks involved when he submits them for approval--THIS simply depicts just how much this President "wants his legacy to be" at the cost of everything else--how can that be?????

THIS is the exact reason Clinton did not submit the 1994 Budapest memorandum to Congress AND it is exactly why the US is digging itself out of a self made ditch in the Ukraine.

For the want of a great "legacy" a President undermines US democracy in ways that have never been done before him-THAT is why there is no strategy--as he simply makes decisions by whim not strategy.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/07/17/obama-lights-firestorm-…

The Iran Deal and the UN

Obama Lights Firestorm on Capitol Hill
Walter Russell Mead

President Obama seems determined to do an end-run around Congress by taking the Iran deal to the UN first. This is undoubtedly the wrong way to proceed.

The Obama administration’s determination to take the Iran deal to the UN Security Council before Congress votes on the agreement has set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill, with leading Democrats joining Republicans in calling on the President to wait. On Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry boasted that by having the Iran deal incorporated in a UN Security Council resolution, President Obama could tie the hands of future presidents, legally obligating them to abide by the Council’s resolution.

From Foreign Policy:

“If Congress were to veto the deal, Congress — the United States of America — would be in noncompliance with this agreement and contrary to all of the other countries in the world. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters Tuesday.

Congress isn’t happy. Late Thursday, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee joined the Republican chair of the committee, Senator Bob Corker, in calling on the White House to hold its horses at the UN until Congress votes. As The Hill reports, Cardin told the press that:

“Acting on it at this stage is a confusing message to an independent review by Congress over these next 60 days. So I think it would be far better to have that vote after the 60-day review, assuming that the agreement is not effectively rejected by Congress,..”

On Friday, the House leadership spoke up as well. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (also of Maryland) issued the following statement:

I agree with Senators Cardin and Corker that the U.N. Security Council should wait to move ahead with a resolution implementing parts of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action until after Congress has completed its review of the agreement with Iran. I believe that waiting to go to the United Nations until such time as Congress has acted would be consistent with the intent and substance of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.

Neither Cardin nor Hoyer is considered part of the liberal wing of the Congressional Democrats, and the President can still count on significant Democratic support. But if the Administration decides to press forward at the Security Council before the 60 day review period mandated in the carefully crafted bipartisan compromise that Cardin and Corker worked out last spring, the White House could face a serious revolt.

Dissing Congress is a risky move for American presidents. There have been widespread reports that many Democrats on Capitol Hill would like to support the President’s Iran policy, but are worried about the political fallout among voters back home. In the end, many of these waverers would probably support the President on the Iran deal in a straight up Congressional vote, but if the President does an end run to the Security Council, the waverers could—and many will—oppose him on procedural grounds. Both the Senate and the House are jealous of their Constitutional prerogatives, and voting to uphold the powers of Congress is a much easier vote for Democrats than voting against the President on an important foreign policy issue.

This is not likely to end well.

President Obama was stretching both his Constitutional powers and his political mandate when he decided to short circuit the treaty process for one of the most important decisions that American foreign policy has taken in many years. There is precious little doubt that the Founders would have considered this a threat to the system of checks and balances they wrote into the Constitution. In modern times, presidential authority has expanded, largely because American foreign relations have become so complex and the world moves so quickly that it would be impractical to subject every significant agreement between the United States and other countries to the treaty process. But given the length of this negotiation process and the enormous stakes involved, the Iran agreement really ought to have been framed as a treaty. The President, to be fair, knew very well that he could never get a two thirds vote in the Senate for this agreement, and, believing as he does that this step is necessary to the safety of the United States, he framed the deal as an executive agreement to avoid exactly the scrutiny and vote that the Constitution requires.

Congress grudgingly went along with that, passing the Corker-Menendez law as a way of regularizing the President’s irregular choice. This tilted the playing field toward the President, as opponents would need a two thirds majority in both houses (instead of only a one third majority in the Senate) to block the deal for good.

That the President is blowing off this concession by Congress is a serious matter—more serious perhaps than the White House realizes. He is really requiring Congress to accept a permanent and significant diminution in its power for the sake of an Iran deal that few members view with enthusiasm. The precedent he is setting changes the Constitution, essentially abrogating the treaty power of Congress any time a President can get a Security Council resolution to incorporate the terms of an executive agreement.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the Iran deal, this is the wrong way to proceed. If President Obama chooses to go this route, he is provoking a constitutional crisis in order to get sanctions relief to Iran sixty days faster than would otherwise happen. The Congressional Democrats calling on President Obama to refrain from this mischievous and foolhardy course are quite right; this is a bridge too far.

We have no strategic strategy for Russia, China, IS and especially not in the ME with Iran other than "legacy".

Just further proof of that.

Foreign Policy-online

Why Asia Should Fear the ‘Persian Pivot’

By Daniel Twining
July 17, 2015 - 5:36 pm

Why Asia Should Fear the ‘Persian Pivot’

In defending the nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama likens his outreach to Tehran to President Nixon’s opening to Beijing in the 1970s. But at the time, China was a weak and defensive power, seeking an alliance against a stronger Soviet Union that was pursuing a revolutionary foreign policy that was destabilizing its region and the world. The president’s analogue to today’s Iran is not correct: it is Iran that is pursuing a revolutionary foreign policy that is destabilizing its region and the wider world. The U.S.-China rapprochement in the 1970s did help create a balance of power against the Soviet Union, while the U.S.-Iran rapprochement today creates an imbalance of power in the greater Middle East — tilted toward the regime that has done more than any other to violently destabilize it.

This points to one reason why Asian allies concerned about China’s regional ambitions are worrying about the precedent the Iranian nuclear agreement sets for U.S. leadership in their region.

Energy-starved countries such as Japan and India may welcome the opening of Iran’s oil and gas markets. But the U.S. U-turn in the Middle East, from a policy of working with allies to contain Iran to one that facilitates Iranian leadership at their expense, should make its Asian friends anxious.

The deal lifts tough international sanctions immediately, in return for long-term pledges of Iranian nuclear restraint — pledges whose sincerity and verifiability are both in doubt. The effect will be to unshackle constraints on Iran’s military power and regional influence, enabling it to pursue its designs for primacy in the Middle East more aggressively.

Meanwhile, President Obama has pledged to employ stronger military alliances and new economic coalitions, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to constrain China’s ability to pursue parallel designs for Asian primacy.

In Asia, Obama pledges that the United States will stand by its friends and cede leadership to no other power. In the Middle East, he has broken with our friends, striking a deal that will facilitate Tehran’s accumulation of military and economic strength in ways that will undercut the security of allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, and of pivotal states like Iraq. The fact that President Obama is already preparing to veto a bipartisan congressional resolution disapproving the agreement suggests that his judgment of U.S. interests is less-than-fully convincing.

Obama’s approach would be less problematic if Iran were not so aggressively pursuing policies that have destabilized the Middle East. It is the chief sponsor of President Bashar al Assad in Syria, whose war on his own country has caused its collapse and led to the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Authorities such as General Jim Mattis, the former top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, say that Assad’s regime would have fallen several years ago had Tehran not deployed forces to fight on his behalf.

The Syrian fire fanned by Iran has indirectly spurred on the rise of the Islamic State — an enemy of Iran — and the spread of its villainy across the region. Iran is also the chief sponsor of the Houthi rebels, who have ushered the collapse of Yemen. It is the dominant external power in Iraq, where its forces filled the vacuum created by Obama’s withdrawal of all military forces in 2011 — securing for Iran the gains that had previously accrued to the United States and Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iran is also the sponsor of Hezbollah, which has helped to construct a violent “Shia crescent” across the Middle East, turning much of it into an Iranian sphere of influence and igniting proxy wars between Iran and U.S. allies there.

This week’s agreement in Vienna between Iran and the U.S.-led negotiating coalition, which also includes the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, will nullify previous U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran, including some that are unrelated to the nuclear issue such as those concerning support for terrorism and Tehran’s proliferation of ballistic missile technologies. The deal will also lift an international arms embargo on Iran, including one on its ballistic missile program.

The deal calls for a complex regime of inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. But Iran has the right to object, with conflicts between Tehran and international inspectors ultimately refereed by the Security Council, where they will be subject to Russia’s veto. The agreement also includes a “snapback” mechanism to reimpose sanctions should Iran violate its terms. But the re-imposition would need to be negotiated between many countries whose corporations are preparing to invest in Iran, creating domestic lobbies that will oppose any renewal of sanctions in the face of Iranian noncompliance.

Most importantly, in return for the partial (but not total) and time-limited (not permanent) suspension of Iran’s production of nuclear fuel, the agreement will open Iran’s economy, after biting sanctions had largely closed it off to the world and undercut the standing of its leaders among a young population hungry for change. Removing economic sanctions will produce rapid growth and bring in waves of foreign investment. This influx of capital and technology could give a new lease on life to the regime in Tehran, providing substantial new resources for it to use to further its aggressive foreign policies.

In Asia, nuclear deals with North Korea in the 1990s and 2000s, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, offered sanctions relief that enabled the Pyongyang regime to consolidate power and resources, only to reject elaborate international inspection mechanisms and push on to test and deploy a growing number of nuclear weapons. In Iraq, it was Saddam’s expulsion of nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency that precipitated repeated Security Council condemnation, followed by the invasion of that country by the United States and its allies in 2003.

This points to the danger that the United States and its friends are setting themselves up not for a new era of peace and harmony with Tehran, but for a potentially escalating series of confrontations over nuclear inspections by international monitors, leading to conflicts rising from the current agreement.

In Asia, American allies such as Japan worry that a U.S.-China agreement could produce a separate peace that would undercut the interests of other regional powers — just as the Iran nuclear deal has been met by opposition in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States threatened by Washington’s “Persian pivot.” They see a U.S. government that has tired of maintaining a regional military posture to balance Iranian power, and has instead chosen to do a deal with its primary strategic competitor to ease the burden on Washington — allied concerns notwithstanding.

Asian friends worry that Washington may ultimately make the same calculation in their region, striking a bargain with China that leaves U.S. allies exposed to that country’s unchecked power without an American counterweight.

Obama and his team believe that a nuclear settlement with Iran will allow the United States to focus its diplomatic and strategic energies on Asia, a region that will do more to determine the history of this century than the morass in the Middle East. But if the deal liberates Iran to cause more regional mayhem, the United States will have less time and energy, not more, to manage its intensifying strategic competition with China in Asia.

Japan, India, and other regional states will take note, and will make their own arrangements, just as America’s allies in the Middle East are now doing. The results may produce exactly the proliferation, proxy wars, and great power conflicts that the Iran deal is designed to prevent.

First results of the Obama "hoped for Iranian moderation"????

REMEMBER--Khamenei has been ill for a long time and there is talk he will be replaced in the coming months--"often mentioned successor" is a Khomeini version 3 hardliner--so I am not sure just where the President got his "hope"???

Seems the hardliners have not clearly made up their minds on whether the deal is worth it AND together with the IRGC they rule Iran-and they are definitely not "moderates"?

Notice the comment about "revolutionary principles"--Khomeini's voice from the past still rules.

DUBAI/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei withheld his verdict on Iran's nuclear deal on Saturday but in a fiery address vowed enduring opposition to the United States and its Middle East policies, saying Washington sought Iran's 'surrender'.

In an speech at a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", Khamenei said he wanted politicians to examine the agreement to ensure national interests were preserved, as Iran would not allow the disruption of its revolutionary principles or defensive abilities.

An arch conservative with the last word on high matters of state, Khamenei repeatedly used the phrase "whether this text is approved or not", implying the accord has yet to win definitive backing from Iran's factionalized political establishment.

"Whether the deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change," he said.

Under the agreement reached on Tuesday, sanctions will be gradually removed in return for Iran accepting long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West has suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb. Iran denies it seeks a nuclear bomb.

Khamenei's combative remarks about U.S. policies in the Middle East may sit awkwardly with a diplomatic offensive Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif plans in coming days in the wake of the deal.

"INSULT"

Iran regards its nuclear program as an emblem of national dignity and dynamism in the face of what it sees as decades of hostility from Western countries that opposed its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Khamenei did not echo criticisms of the deal made on Friday by a top cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who said in an address broadcast on radio that it reflected excessive demands by world powers that were an "insult".

My biggest concern about this accord is precisely what this post alludes to: this is a technical agreement, rather than any substantive resolution of long-standing political disputes. Iran's nuclear program is quite obviously aimed at producing a nuclear weapon, and that impulse on Iran's part - thus far, at great political and financial expense to the regime - stems from longstanding political anxieties with both the West and its neighbors, rather than some trailblazing drive to research new technologies as Iranian propaganda perpetually claims. This accord does nothing to settle that political impasse. A review of what did and didn't work when the United States was negotiating arms control treaties with the Soviet Union in the 1970's and '80's would have been helpful, but that doesn't appear to have happened. Quite perplexing.

Seems the KSA is now joining the ranks of political warfare strategists---maybe the Iranian deal that the US assumed was great has unleashed some rather interesting "unintended consequences" that will ripple is US politics for decades to come as this President fully does not understand UW nor political warfare.

http://news.yahoo.com/nuclear-deal-saudis-signal-theyll-act-iran-gets-1…

QUOTE
DIPLOMATIC SHIFT

Concerns that Saudi Arabia has communicated privately to the United States have been enough to prompt US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to announce a trip to Riyadh designed to allay the House of Saud’s fears and avert any military escalation.

However, observers say the visit will not be enough to prevent a fundamental shift in Saudi foreign policy. Analysts say Riyadh will now put substantial resources and effort into its own diplomacy to expand its influence beyond the US and Europe – namely with Russia and China.

“You have heard the word ‘diversify’ recently in relation to Saudi foreign relations, and the Obama administration has brought home the thought that Saudi must branch out and see the support of other powers,” says Salman Sheikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center.

“With this deal, Saudi by necessity will reach out to other world powers,” he says. “Now the only question is how Russia and China will respond.”

READY TO GO ALL-IN?

The shift began in the lead-up to the nuclear deal, with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman making a high-profile visit to St. Petersburg in June and inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to Riyadh.

Now, rather than sending a “warning signal” to the US, officials say Riyadh is preparing to go all-in, embarking on a full diplomatic push to build alliances with Moscow and Beijing. The hope, Saudi officials say, is that in return for oil supplies as well as trade and investment opportunities – such as the government’s $10 billion investment in the Moscow-controlled Russian Direct Investment Fund this month – Russia and China would lessen their support for Iranian-backed Shiite proxies in Syria and Yemen.
UNQUOTE

There is a far larger war coming in the next few months--all triggered by the US deal and that is not "unintended consequences"?

“After four decades, we are finally realizing the importance of world powers beside the US – and this is the key to ending the Iranian-supported conflicts in the region,” the Saudi military official said.

“If Iran can expand its influence in the region through diplomacy and negotiations, so can we.”

Perhaps an example of one side conducting unconventional and political warfare and the other side not playing it or not playing it very well..

Political Warfare: George F. Kennan defined political warfare as “the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace.” While stopping short of the direct kinetic confrontation between two countries’ armed forces, “political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command… to achieve its national objectives.” A country embracing Political Warfare conducts “both overt and covert” operations in the absence of declared war or overt force-on-force hostilities. Efforts “range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures…, and ‘white’ propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.” See George Kennan, "Policy Planning Memorandum." May 4, 1948.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm

Here is an excerpt from the USASOC SOF Support to Political Warfare from March 2015 that describes in a little more detail Iran's asymmetric, political, and unconventional warfare (http://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2015/03/sof-support-to-political-warfare-…):

Iran is distinct from Russia and China. Nevertheless, it practices a mode of continual warfare indicative of the emerging and future operating environments characterized by asymmetry, the pursuit of political goals, and the avoidance of large-scale conflict. Conceived by its developers as defensive, Iran’s military doctrine combines the use of conventional, guerrilla, and special operations forces, in order to “deter an attack, survive an initial strike, retaliate against an aggressor, and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities while avoiding any concessions that challenge its core interests.”20 While fielding more capable ballistic missiles to counter threats from Israel and other actors in the region and developing the capability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles,21 Iran has sought anti-access and area denial capabilities through asymmetric means, to include “hit and run attacks with sea and land-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, mines, mini-subs and suicide boats,"22 as well as cheaply-produced fast attack craft amounting to little more than speed boats—able to endanger much more expensive and slow moving U.S. vessels.23

A major element of Iranian asymmetric warfare involves covert support to proxy forces in the region and beyond, whose activities support Iranian national objectives. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is funded through an annual military budget of $5 billion as well as through funds based on widespread legal and illicit economic enterprises estimated at $13 billion per year.24 The IRGC provides material support to terrorist or militant groups whose goals are broadly aligned with Iranian interests—including countering U.S. regional engagement. 7 These include HAMAS, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, and Iraqi Shia groups.25 The IRGC has also enabled targeted execution operations in the U.S. and European capitals.

Along with the UW mission of support to proxy forces, IRGC and other regime-affiliated elements have provided funding to Shiite educational initiatives and political dissident groups in the Arab Gulf region, and have perpetuated an influence campaign seeking to discredit regional rulers on religio-ethical grounds.

Finally, Iran has rapidly developed its defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. Part of this effort seeks to keep Iranians from encountering Western ideas and content, which would contribute to the development of a “soft revolution” that would harm the stability of the regime.26 Iranian asymmetric warfare is thus directed against domestic, regional, and global perceived threats, and clearly mobilizes resources beyond the traditional military sector.

Locked in a shadow war?

In Iraq, Iran and the U.S. are supporting forces against ISIL.

In Syria, Iran and the U.S. are supporting forces against Al Qaeda and ISIL.

That's not much of a "lock".

What the writer doesn't seem to grasp is that reducing tensions with Iran offers the potential to bring Tehran into conflict resolution efforts for the region as a whole. While this may not currently be perceived by allies KSA and Israel as being in their interest, it can be argued to be in the interests of the United States. Surely it offers the possibility of better results than that rendered the past 14 years.