An Iranian "no" vote is meaningless

Submitted by Kenneth Besig (Israel), Aug 20, 2015 at 07:03

!Your argument, Dr. Pipes, that the Iranian leadership might well reject the Vienna surrender because they fear it would bring popular discontent to a head and thus might threaten their religious fundamentalist dictatorship is well thought out and quite reasonable. My feeling, however, is that the Iranians will reject the deal because it would run contrary to their radical religious thinking, that is it would be signing a pact with Satan himself. This might seem silly to our cynical Western minds, but let me assure you that these people take their religion seriously, especially in this regard.

Besides, the Iranians do not even need this treaty any more. The mullahs in Teheran know that no serious military or economic sanctions will ever be applied to them, no matter what they do. Indeed, already US, EU, China, and Russia are signing economic agreements worth billions of dollars with Iranian companies and governmental institutions, whether Iran has the dollars, today, to pay for anything or not! Perhaps the Iranians really, really, need the promised 150 billion dollars, but I doubt it, all the Iranians wanted was a Western surrender, which they got, relief from the sanctions regime, which they got, and recognition of their nuclear program as legitimate, which sadly, they also got. And all these Iranian achievements remain even if the mullahs reject the accord.

Frankly, Israel and the Sunni Arabs have been officially cut loose from the US and the EU, and we are now on our own and our policies vis a vis Iran will be based on our assessments, not those of our former Western allies.

Now as to your remarks regarding the Palestinians, the same sort of thinking applies as the Iranian, the Palestinians regard Israel as the embodiment of Satan and absolute cruelty and wickedness. For them to sign off on a peace treaty with "Satan" Israel would abnegate everything they stand for. And to seal the Palestinian rejection, if the treaty mandated the end for all time all Palestinian hostilities, all Palestinian demands for compensation, all forms of Palestinian boycott, and any hostile comments by the Palestinians, then there is not a chance in Hades of the Palestinian signing!

But you remark, the Palestinians could just sign any document, and build up their forces for a little while, then kick the treaty into the garbage, sneer at Israel, and start another guerilla war against us Israelis.

So why don't the Palestinians just do it? Partly because of the "Satan" as Israel stuff, but largely because it would mean the Palestinian cause would cease to exist and so would the reason for a Palestine. Why, because the last thing the world wants or will accept is another oppressive, cruel, ineffective, economically non viable, rogue, Asian, Muslem Arab state.

What would probably happen would be the annexation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt, and the annexation of the Judea/Samaria areas left to the Palestinians by Jordan.

That is in a perfect world, given the refugee problem caused by the Syrian civil war, the Iranian sponsorship of civil wars in Yemen and Saudi Arabia as well as other places, the Sinai terrorist war, and the breakdown of Pax Americana in the Middle East, horrific death and destruction is all we can expect for the next several years. The region is changing as I write, populations are transferring themselves, killing is going on at an almost industrial scale, the atrocities committed by all the fighting parties borders on the incredible, and no end is in sight. Frankly, we Israelis are very worried, the US has just picked up it's stuff and left us hanging, and abandoned all the other good guys here, it is very sad and frustrating.

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