Kerry Doubts Iran Wants to Destroy Israel
Iran may not mean it when it says it wants to destroy Israel—that's the shocking statement that Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview published yesterday. And his reason for thinking that the Iranian regime is nicer than its calls for genocide make it seem? Because Iran hasn't tried it yet.
The telling exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg is as follows:
"Goldberg: Do you believe that Iranian leaders sincerely seek the elimination of the Jewish state?
Kerry: I think they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that translates into active steps to, quote, “Wipe it,” you know...
Goldberg: “Wipe it off the map.”
Kerry: I don’t know the answer to that. I haven’t seen anything that says to me—they’ve got 80,000 rockets in Hezbollah pointed at Israel, and any number of choices could have been made. They didn’t make the bomb when they had enough material for 10 to 12. They’ve signed on to an agreement where they say they’ll never try and make one and we have a mechanism in place where we can prove that. So I don’t want to get locked into that debate. I think it’s a waste of time here."
If the Iranian regime doesn't believe in destroying Israel, then why does it say it when the regime gains nothing from it? If the regime's tyrants are fundamentally no different than other tyrants, then why not drop the calls to genocide and open the doors to better satisfying their power-hungry, selfish desires?
See Related Story: Ayatollah Khamenei Publishes Book on How to Destroy Israel
The Israeli Prime Minister made the point that the deal creates a "more difficult path to one or two bombs today and a much easier path to hundreds of bombs tomorrow." Agreeing to the deal—and even complying with the deal—is not at all inconsistent with Iran's ideologically-based grand strategy.
Kerry is mistakenly equating Iran's rational strategic thinking with having a rational ideology and rational objectives. It is true that Iran is not like the Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State terrorist groups who hold nothing back, often causing self-inflicted wounds in the process. But all that means is that the Iranian regime has a rational strategy for acting upon its irrational ideology. An irrational ideological enemy with smart, rational strategic calculations is an enemy that is much more dangerous, skilled and difficult to understand.
Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.
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