(Previously published in The Jerusalem Post.)

If the Arab world could come to terms with the existence of a Jewish state with a Muslim minority in its midst, then it might offer enough cover for the Palestinian Arabs to move forward.

I recently had the privilege of being the keynote speaker for the Defense Industry Offset Association, an organization of American defense contractors doing business in the Middle East. The members were well informed and receptive to a presentation of a multifaceted Middle East that does not fit into a 140-character tweet.

I discussed “Understanding the Complexities of the Middle East: America’s Challenge for the 21st Century.”

I shared my view that American foreign policy experts still seem to be out of step with the reality of a Middle East where American compromise and outreach are perceived as weakness, and are unilateral. One need look no further for evidence of our diplomatic naiveté than Iran’s masterful manipulation of the American negotiators.

My talk was a journey into the ever-changing Middle East, where today’s accurate analysis may become obsolete before the sun sets.

I spoke about:

1. The war between the Sunnis and Shi’ites, led respectively by the Saudis and Iran.

2. The security implications for America and her allies if a final deal with Iran leaves it as a nuclear threshold state.

3. The root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

4. The war for Sunni supremacy between Turkey and Qatar on one side, and the more American-oriented Saudis, Egyptians and Gulf States on the other.

I tried to disabuse them of the simplistic analysis of many “mainstream experts” who think Israel is the primary obstacle, and that Israeli acquiescence is all that is needed for regional stability.

Middle East pundit Fareed Zakaria of CNN is a case in point: “First, there is the disappearance of the Arab threat [to Israel]… it’s gone….Of course, there is Iran’s nuclear program, though it has significantly slowed for now… [Israel] has built a wall that reduced terrorist attacks against Israel to virtually zero… [And] with so many stars aligned in Israel’s favor… it is a golden opportunity…staring Netanyahu in the face.”

Where shall I begin? It is certainly true that some Sunni Arab nations are more preoccupied with killing Shi’ites rather than Jews for the time being. But the “golden opportunity” is a two-way street; the Sunni nations must come to terms with the existence of a Jewish state living securely within the greater Arab and Muslim world.

Israel has been willing to meet with the greater Arab world to negotiate a regional agreement, although not the “take it or leave it” Arab Peace Initiative that would leave Israel with indefensible borders, and would leave unresolved the Palestinian right of return. After years of anti-Jewish incitement, the conservative Gulf States are afraid that a public initiative for normalization of relations with Israel could threaten the stability of their regimes.

Last week, Israel Radio reported that Israeli and Gulf State diplomats met in Jordan to discuss common security interests. This is a golden opportunity for US President Barack Obama to facilitate reconciliation between Israel and the Sunni Arabs, and to encourage them to emerge from the shadows and publicly meet with Israeli officials.

Zakaria ignores the fact that up until now the only thing that has united the Shi’ites and Sunnis is their hatred of Israel. Sunni governments need to distance themselves from Sunni non-state radical actors, and reconcile with Israel for their own long-term economic prosperity.

In Iran, while the ayatollah pragmatically has decided to pause some of the nuclear activity, this cannot blind Zakaria to the fact that Iran has hoodwinked the Obama administration into accepting its right for nuclear enrichment, accepting the buried nuclear enrichment facility of Fordow, and convincing the American negotiators to ignore the continued transgressions of the 2013 Joint Plan of Action.

When the president signs a final agreement with Iran this summer, Israel and the Gulf States will have to deal with a “nuclear threshold” Iran that may or may not be rational. Its supreme leader wants to “raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground” and “annihilate” Israel. He also wants Mecca and Medina in Shi’ite hands. (Even President Obama last week told The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg that the supreme leader is an anti-Semite.) Zakaria also incorrectly believes that Israel’s security fence, which he inaccurately describes as a wall, is the primary reason why Israel has sustained so few terrorist attacks from the West Bank.

In fact, it is Israel’s physical presence within the West Bank and the human intelligence it gathers because it controls the disputed territory that, according to many Israeli military officials with whom I have spoken, explains the decline in terrorist activity.

Zakaria seems oblivious to the fact that Israel has tried multiple times to return the vast majority of the territory to the Palestinian Arabs at great risk to its own security.

But Zakaria is as silent as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was to an Israeli offer in 2008, or to an American initiative in 2013 to restart talks.

Ironically, the last two people who want Israel to withdraw from the territories are President Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan. Both know that without Israel in the West Bank, Hamas will take over the West Bank, and Jordan will likely fall to a terrorist entity. That does not mean Israel cannot withdraw from some territory, but it does mean that any immediate withdrawal will depend on a strong Israeli presence – not only for the Israel’s sake, but also for the survival of the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.

There truly is a window of opportunity, but it is not up to Israel alone. Somehow, Zakaria and his ideological fellow travelers must abandon their belief that the tiny state of Israel is all-powerful against 400 million Muslim Arabs, whose landmass and population dwarf the minuscule Jewish state. If, however, the Sunni Arabs conclude that acceptance of a Jewish state in their midst will not crumble the edifice of the 1,400-year history of the Islamic religion, they will receive overwhelming reciprocity from Israel, while immediately advancing their economic vitality by integrating with the advanced Israeli economy.

If the Arab world could come to terms with the existence of a Jewish state with a Muslim minority in its midst, then it might offer enough cover for the Palestinian Arabs to move forward, ending incitement, and actually responding to realistic conflict resolutions.

How’s this for the headline of Zakaria’s next article: “Will the Arab World Miss its Golden Opportunity To Make Peace with Israel?”

The author is the director of MEPIN (Middle East Political and Information Network), a Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, journalists and organizational leaders. He regularly briefs members of Congress on issues related to the Middle East.

(Previously published in The Jerusalem Post.) 

While Israel stays the course, the Obama administration has turned American foreign policy on its head.

“The US-Israeli alliance now contributes more than ever to American security”
– Michael Eisenstadt and David Pollock, The Washington Institute

The Obama Doctrine on foreign affairs is not only to nurture a new relationship with Iran, but also to find opportunities to weaken the longstanding bonds between America and Israel.

For years, Israeli and American interests were virtually identical: stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Muslim world, fighting Iranian hegemonic ambitions and opposing state sponsorship of terror. The president’s new vision for an Iranian-dominated Middle East certainly will come at Israel’s expense.

While Israel stays the course, the Obama administration has turned American foreign policy on its head.

The Obama Doctrine of engaging our enemies and distancing ourselves from reliable allies may defy logic, but does fit with the president’s progressive worldview of an America that has done more harm than good in the world. President Obama offers carefully chosen words of support to those who care about the US-Israel relationship, but his words are constantly betrayed by his policies and actions regarding the Jewish state.

As Sohrab Ahmari, editorial-page writer for The Wall Street Journalin London, opined in Commentary, “The worse the White House’s treatment of Jerusalem gets, the more ardent its pro-Israel rhetoric becomes…The Jewish state now faces a White House that is oblivious to regional realities, is disdainful of the Israeli body politic, and is flirting with the lexicon and tactics of delegitimization…To radically alter the US-Israel relationship, the White House also needed the backing of a domestic lobby (J Street) to counterbalance the pro-Israel establishment…The administration’s bet all along has been that it can degrade the alliance from within while maintaining an outward narrative of stalwart support for Israel.”

The president and his advisers have repeatedly acted as if Israel were the main obstacle to regional stability and American interests. His plan since taking office has been to realign the Middle East with the anti-American Islamic Republic, while treating Israel as a liability, not a strategic security asset.

So the question Americans should ask is, “Is Israel an indispensable national security asset that the president is abandoning, or is it a dispensable ally?”

Let’s start with intelligence sharing. Many American analysts believe that Israel provides significant and vital information to our country, often more than our NATO allies. Turkey is a perfect example. They are the eastern flank of NATO, but are an untrustworthy partner aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a State Department-designated terrorist organization. In an article titled, “Turkey Breaks From the West on Defense,” the Wall Street Journal last week reported that Ankara chose a Chinese missile defense system which “threatens intelligence cooperation” among the NATO allies.

So who is the reliable intelligence ally, Israel or Turkey? Intelligence is a difficult game. With the American withdrawal from many theaters of operation in the Middle East, Israel’s vital strategic location and human intelligence have become indispensable for our security. We can use all the help we can get.

Our own CIA and National Intelligence Estimates are often flawed or politically manipulated. One only has to look at the CIA’s 1978 analysis before the overthrow of the Shah that stated, “Iran is not in a…pre-revolutionary situation,” or in October 2002 when the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that Iraq “could make a nuclear weapon,” or the 2007 NIE report, which falsely claimed that Iran had stopped its nuclear weaponization program.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Israel “is providing significant intelligence support in the US-led campaign against…ISIS [Islamic State]. Israeli satellites overfly the battle area at angles and frequencies unavailable to American satellites.”

If Israel did not exist, America would have to create it. That would be nearly impossible; creating a liberal democracy that serves as a fail-safe ally in the region is nearly impossible today. Our history of alignment with Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes, who do not share our values and whose indigenous populations are decidedly anti-American, has at best a checkered history.Israel is a nation surrounded on all sides by enemies who want to annihilate it.

Because of the repeated wars of self-defense, Israel has unfortunately become a test tract for American munitions, and treatment of those wounded in combat. American’s armed services have utilized this live battlefield experience that has saved our soldiers lives, while increasing the chance of success of future American military missions. American anti-missile defense is greatly enhanced by the Israeli experience, and the forward positioning of American arms in a stable nation is vital to American military planning.

According to the Washington Institute, “Israel’s military research and development complex has pioneered many cutting-edge technologies that are transforming the face of modern war, including cyber weapons, unmanned vehicles (land robots and aerial drones, sensors and electronic warfare systems), and advanced defenses for military vehicles.”

The morality and professionalism of the Israel Defense Forces are unique in the Middle East, and are closely aligned with our national values. America has learned from the Israeli military experience how to fight an ethical war against non-state actors that use human shields in urban areas. At home, our homeland security and counter-terrorism efforts would be dramatically weaker in strategy and effectiveness if we did not have the Israeli experience and know-how.

The chaos of today’s Middle East and the threats to American interests would be exponentially greater if Israel hadn’t destroyed the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors. Imagine Islamic State today with captured nuclear material. My meetings with top Israeli defense and political leadership unanimously show a profound appreciation of America’s generosity in supplying military aid. But it is not a one-way street. Most of the military aid allocated to Israel is spent in the United States, creating nearly 70,000 jobs in America.

Americans are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel because of our shared values and Western outlook.

Americans know instinctively who our friends are, and whom we should not trust. They know that President Barack Obama’s realignment with the worlds’ leading state sponsor of terrorism at Israel’s expense is against American interests. Just look at the polls.

Americans do not want their country to legitimize a nation (Iran) that a hangs homosexuals and imprisons American journalists and priests. Americans want our country to support Israel, as clearly evidenced by Congress’ bipartisan support for the Jewish state and its people.

Finally, there are the Israeli medical, scientific and innovative breakthroughs that have enriched all of our lives. From voicemail to the USB, American computer and tech companies gravitate to Israel for its research and development. In medicine, from developing devices that enable the paralyzed to walk, to cures for previously untreatable diseases, to cutting edge scientific breakthroughs, Americans are happier and healthier because of Israel. Israel needs America for its friendship, diplomatic protection, shared military development and foreign aid. But America also needs a strong Israel for our own national security interests.

The author is the director of MEPIN (Middle East Political and Information Network), a Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, journalists and organizational leaders.

(Previously published in The Jerusalem Post)

This is not a war of financial resources; it is a battle of power and determination.

How do you fight a war against an enemy who loves death more than they love life? How do you fight a war against a people who, in the name of religion, deliberately kill, enslave and torture innocent children, women and men? How do you maintain a moral compass while confronting an enemy with no respect for the rules of war? To begin to answer these questions, we must start with an honest examination of our security interests.

In this “war,” military operations will likely be choices of last resort, but our chance for success will be drastically limited unless we confront this enemy as if we were in a full-scale military confrontation. Our current ad-hoc military operations, i.e. drone strikes, will be ineffective over the long term unless they are part of a comprehensive strategy with a clear vision for success.

Seventy-nine years ago, we faced an enemy that was pure evil, and it was known as Nazism. But then, unlike now, we knew that absolute evil had to be extinguished by one means or another.

In the case of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the answer was their unconditional surrender.

In the case of Communism during the Cold War (remember Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire”?), there was no quick exit. There were many military battles and diplomatic skirmishes fought over decades, with no end in sight, until the very end. Yet the non-wavering vision in each case was to bring home as complete a victory as possible, knowing that America and the West were in the right, and the enemy was beyond the civilized pale.

Today’s “evil empire” is radical jihadist Islamism, the 21st century version of Nazism. The jihadists of all sectarian stripes, i.e. Sunni and Shi’ite, expect victory, because their (accurate) assessment of the West is that it does not have the willpower to fight an enemy without a clear exit strategy, or one that may not be vanquished in their lifetime. So we need to ask ourselves: • Are we willing to map out an effective and flexible strategy to destroy, or at least profoundly weaken, radical Islamism, knowing many obstacles and setbacks lie ahead? • Is there a visionary Western leader on the horizon in the 21st century who can look beyond our need for instant gratification and explain that we must confront the menace of jihadism because over time it could destroy and threaten all that we hold dear? • Does the West in the era of 24/7 instantaneous news coverage have the “stomach” to fight a war where all of its actions will be under a magnifying glass, and withstand the inevitable accusations of war crimes for killing civilians purposely embedded within terrorist operating bases? • Can the West fight an enemy that measures success in centuries, has infinite patience, and has tens of millions of adherents and supporters? • Is it too late for America and the West to act? The answer to that last question is no, but it seems that only the Israelis understand the existential dangers posed by radical Islamism. Perhaps that is because it is their survival that is most obviously threatened by it.

There is no appeasement or placation that can satisfy radical Islamism. Until America realizes that our way of life is endangered by the growing radical threat of jihadists, we will be fighting with two hands behind our back.

How does one define radical Islamists? Today’s flavor of the day is the Sunni Islamic State. However, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, Arab or Persian, radical Islamists should be viewed by the West as sides of the same jihadist coin. We must not be confused by the fact that sometimes they are at each other’s throats as mortal enemies, and sometimes cross sectarian lines to work together against the greater evils, i.e. America, Israel and the West.

The next American president must abandon the idea that there are good and bad radical Islamists. The Sunni Islamic State must be defeated, but the danger of radical Iranian Shi’ite Islamism is more likely to be a greater threat to America and Western interests over the long term.

The Obama administration mistakenly believes that Shi’ite Islamist Iran needs to be embraced as part of the solution against radical Islamism. Nothing could be further from the truth. It also mistakenly embraced the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood as the face of moderate Islamism. American allies like Jordanian King Abdullah knew better, and chastised America by stating that the Muslim Brotherhood is simply a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Muslim nation-states must, for their own self interest, become the leaders in this war against radical Islamism.

This is anti-Islamist, not anti-Islam. This can only happen if the strategy has the buy-in of the Sunni nation-states, i.e.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf States, and includes the Kurds, the Turks and Shi’ites who do not support the Iranian regime. Getting into bed with allies like the Wahabi Sunnis of the Arabian Peninsula is certainly distasteful, but it is necessary for success at this point.

The complexity of this overwhelming grand vision should be self-evident. Different theaters of action against differing radical Islamist groups will require different strategic partners and ever-changing strategies. The tools will include support of allied nation-states, recruitment of dissidents, diplomatic pressure, economic incentives and disincentives, clandestine actions, counterterrorism, effective use of social media, and, yes, military operations, among many other possibilities.

The potential length of this conflict makes this war much more analogous to the Cold War than WWII, but even that analogy is a stretch, as this conflict will be profoundly different. This is not a war of financial resources; it is a battle of power and determination.

As was the case for WWII and the Cold War, the war against radical Islamism is a fight against ideologies that want to destroy our freedoms and our way of life.

The author is the director of MEPIN (Middle East Political and Information Network), a Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, journalists and organizational leaders.

(Previously published in The Jerusalem Post)

Dr. Jasser and the AIFD are trying to lead the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood and its network of American Islamist organizations and mosques, which seek to control organized Islam in America.

I recently emceed an event in New York City featuring Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), and Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The event was organized under the aegis of the pro-Israel advocacy and educational organization StandWithUs. Full disclosure: I am the Northeast Regional co-chair of StandWithUs in the United States.

Jasser and AIFD are trying to lead the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood and its network of American Islamist organizations and mosques, which seek to control organized Islam in America. Jasser, a devout Muslim- American, asks how can America fight against radical political Islam if the United States refuses to acknowledge Islamism as a threat. He says we are treating the symptoms of Islamism, but political correctness prevents us from diagnosing Islamism as the disease, i.e., an aversion to associating terrorism with anything Islamic.

Why are we afraid to associate terrorism with radical Islam? Dorothy Rabinowitz, opining in The Wall Street Journal, is incensed by the army’s description of the 2009 terrorist attack in Fort Hood, Texas, by Major Nidal Malik Hasan as an incident of “workplace violence,” avoiding the more accurate description of Islamist terrorist attack. This despite Major Hasan’s association with terrorist groups and his screaming “Allahu Akbar” during his murderous rampage.

When President Barack Obama assumed office in 2009 and decided to reset relations with the Muslim world, he also decided to end America’s “War on Terror” and to avoid relating terrorism to Islam. President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” was understood as a euphemism for the war against radical political Islam. In 2012 a senior State Department official announced, “The war on terror is over… Now that we have killed most of al-Qaida… people who once might have gone into al-Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

But is there a moderate Islamism? The administration believed that fair elections that empowered Islamists would reconcile Islam with democracy.

They misunderstood that the true elements of democracy, such as rule of law, tolerance and freedom of the press, were never present or respected by any of the elected Islamists. They couldn’t wrap their head around the idea that Islamists can win fair and free elections, but democracy could be farther away than ever. It was hard for them to understand that a fair election in a closed culture, where incitement and illiberalism had been instilled for generations, could produce only Islamists, not democrats.

Our State Department failed to recognize that there is no “legitimate Islamism.” In our Orwellian, politically correct world, condemning Islamism is construed as being anti-Islamic.

In truth, fighting Islamism is the most pro-Muslim action an individual, leader or nation can take to promote freedom for Muslims in the Middle East, who live in the most illiberal, intolerant and authoritarian nations in the world.

The absurdity of this political correctness reached its nadir recently when the president said Islamic State’s cold-blooded beheadings of “infidels” had nothing to do with Islam! How can America fight a war against radical Islam if it fails to acknowledge the enemy? Is political correctness so powerful that it blinds even a president to the danger it poses? Whether America realizes it or not, the primary enemy of the United States in the early 21st century and for the foreseeable future is radical Islamism, not Islam. It up to brave Muslims like Dr. Jasser to take back their religion from the significant minority of Muslims who have sullied the reputation of their faith.

You should not be derided as an Islamophobe just because you want to fight a radical religious movement that wants to destroy your way of life. As Jasser points out, the translation of the name of the radical group Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin.”

Could the Muslim world, if freed from the threat of radical Islam, partner with the West and embrace some Western ideals of democracy? Unfortunately, our influence in the Muslim and Arab world is small, and our goals must be realistic. Therefore, our focus should be on America and its growing American Muslim population.

• We cannot continue to ignore the radicalization of our universities’ Middle East Studies departments, funded by the most illiberal Gulf States, poisoning the minds of our students, who are the future leaders of our country.

• We have ignored for over a quarter of a century the radicalization of prison imams who are trained in the most extreme Wahhabi Islamism. It is no wonder that prisoners who convert to Islam in the American prison system become radicalized, and possibly lie in wait as future terrorist cells.

• In the name of toleration, American politicians of both major parties have embraced groups with associations to the Muslim Brotherhood, like CAIR and the Muslim American Society.

Is it too late to change course? Why can’t we both embrace Muslim Americans who want to live the American dream, while still fighting radical political Islam? We can only do this if we follow Dr. Jasser’s prescription: diagnose the problem as radical Islamism and avoid political correctness. As Dorothy Rabinowitz once wrote, we must end being “terrorized by fear of offending Muslim sensitivities.”

As the miracle of Hanukka is upon us we should be inspired by the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: “Throughout history, people have hated in the name of the God of love, practiced cruelty in the name of the God of compassion, killed in the name of the God of life, and waged war in the name of the God of peace. None of the world’s great religions has been exempt from this at one point or another. The time has come to say – enough.”

The author is the director of MEPIN™ (Middle East Political and Information Network), a Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, journalists and organizational leaders.

(Previously published in The Jerusalem Post)

The ‘Magazine’ sits down with Washington-based public policy scholar Aaron David Miller for Part I of his assessment on the Middle East – a focus on Iran.

When I travel to Washington, I always try to find time to speak with Ambassador Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and a former US Middle East negotiator.

Miller has the ear of the administration, as an analyst with particular insight into the American perspective on the Middle East. His image and writings have become ubiquitous to the American public, as he is often seen in The New York Times, CNN, CBS, BBC, The Los Angeles Times and Al Jazeera, among many other media outlets.

Eavesdropping on one of our conversations will hopefully be informative and illuminating for readers.

Part I is about Iran and the greater Middle East; Part II will be about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and internal Israeli issues.

What is your overall assessment of the region?
The region is complex, angry, broken and dysfunctional.

There are no good solutions for any of the problems the US confronts in the Middle East or, for that matter, that Israel confronts.

The question is: Can the outcome be shaped in a way that would be advantageous and productive for US interests? The Israelis will have to make their own decisions based on their own needs and requirements, which many times coincide with American policy.

As the situation in the region gets more dangerous, the US has to figure out what is in its interests. There will be a reluctance on the part of the administration to confront its friends like Israel.

As for the Palestinian national movement, it is divided along the lines of Noah’s ark – two sets of patrons, and two constituencies.

In this kind of environment, with civil wars everywhere and the rise of Islamic State, it is very difficult to create functional, coherent and cohesive nation-states.

The US needs to be pretty sober about what it can achieve and who its friends are, even when those friends come with liabilities.

Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies said that since signing the interim agreement with Iran, the US negotiating position has been “eroded.” Do you agree?
No. The Joint Plan of Action was a response to a certain reality that neither the US, Iran, nor for that matter Israel, wanted to face. It was essentially a moment of truth if diplomacy won’t work. The default position is some kind of kinetic military action, and no one wants to face up to or be confronted with that reality.

It is not about a good agreement or a bad one; it is about an agreement or no agreement.

We [America] have long given up the hope of a realistic prospect of ending Iran’s capacity to produce a weapon.

We need to constrain, preempt, undermine and delay Iran. The Iranians have not given up the goal of a nuclear weapons capacity.

I don’t think our leverage has been reduced because I don’t think we – nor anyone in the international community, not even the Israelis – are prepared to push this process to the point where it breaks apart, leaving the default position… [pointed] towards confrontation, which would be either a preemptive strike by the Israelis, or a preventive strike of a much greater character by the US.

Whatever agreement is produced, let’s be clear. It should not make anyone, anywhere in the international community sleep easier at night, because they think they have somehow solved or prevented Iran’s acquisitive character.

If I were running Iran, if I were one of the mullahs, I would absolutely want to remain acquisitive – because I know the US wants me, and the regime, out… The Arab states are nothing more than tribes with flags.

[On the other hand,] I [Iran] am a real country, and I have regional aspirations. I had a real revolution, not like this so-called Arab Spring, which fundamentally changed Iranian society and its structure.

If I were the ayatollah, I would say there are only three real consequential countries in the region right now, the three non-Arab countries – Iran, Israel and Turkey, those are the ones to be feared.

All these roads lead to Iran keeping the possibility of a robust nuclear infrastructure alive and well. We gave up the ability to stop an Iranian bomb; the Iranians have not given up.

Do you believe the US made a negotiating mistake in the interim agreement, in allowing Iran to retain the right to enrich uranium in a final deal, and also in agreeing to a sunset deal where all Iranian obligations will expire?
You have to consider what the options were, and must realize this is not an end-state; there is no endgame in which you can reasonably expect Iran to give up its acquisitive capacity for a nuclear infrastructure. They have the capacity; they can, if they want breakout or sneak-out.

The reality is: The only way to stop Iran is to change the nature of the acquisitive regime. You basically have to eliminate the regime, but nobody I know believes this possible… Therefore, if these are in fact the emerging rules of the game, then your only choice is to buy time – which in fact is what everybody is doing on this and on every other issue in this region.

It is not that this nuclear issue is idiosyncratic; you have to understand there are no solutions to any of these problems in the region.

If I would leave the leaders in the US and the West with one thought, it would be that there are no end-states or endgames which we will be comfortable with. There are no endgames to ultimately defeat Islamic State. There is no democratization process that is going to turn the Syrian or Iraqi “Humpty Dumpty” into functional democratic polities with respect for human rights, gender equality, transparency and accountability.

Was the US’s failure to support the Green Revolution a missed opportunity?
You are looking for ways to link our incompetence and lack of judgment to somehow fixing these solution-less problems. In only one area among Democratic and Republican administrations have we truly succeeded: Keeping America attack-free – the one and most important metric that is positive.

That is why, when people look at US President Barack Obama’s strategy on Syria and Iraq, they fundamentally miss the point. He is not interested in putting Humpty Dumpty back together again in Syria and Iraq. He is interested in doing everything possible to prevent another attack against the US, which means spending a lot of time occupying Islamic State, which means additional strikes against them.

I do not believe training Iraqi forces will defeat Islamic State. Islamic State is a response to the regional environment that is out of control and melting down; we don’t want to face up to that fact.

I refuse to shackle the US for its fair share of responsibility for the mess out there. We have not had any sense of strategy in the region since president George H.W. Bush.

This is a Republican failure and a Democratic failure; that’s why it will not change if a “D” or “R” wins in 2016.

We are stuck in a region; we cannot leave it, and we cannot transform it. Therefore, when you cannot extricate and you cannot transform, you do the only thing you can – transaction. You identify what your interests are, you don’t get involved in extraneous enterprises and you focus on what the core issues are to the US.

There are probably three American core issues: 1. Keeping America attack-free.

2. Continuing the North American energy revolution, which frees us from Arab hydrocarbons while weakening OPEC.

3. Preventing game-changers at all costs – and Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would be a game-changer.

Although the best we can do is put time on the clock, you can preempt, you can prevent, but you cannot stop Iran – yet you can buy time and delay.

There are no solutions, there is no end to defeat Islamic State or make Iran stop its nuclear program.

After 25 years of Iranian deception and obfuscation of its nuclear program, do you think it is possible to craft an agreement that Iran will respect, and can be enforced for years to come? Possible, but not likely. If I had to bet on the outcome next spring, I would say there will not be a comprehensive agreement unless some fundamental changes occur in the “mullahocracy.”

The president has indicated that he is offering Iran a return to the family of nations, if it will sign a final agreement. Yet how can America accept Iran as a member of the world community in good standing, while it remains a leading human rights abuser and one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terror?
That ain’t going to happen. A nuclear agreement is not going to fundamentally transform the Washington-Tehran relationship. There will be embassies and “happy talk” between the parties, but there are fundamental differences we have with Iran that are not going away.

The nuclear negotiations are an outcome agreement, not a solution. You need to differentiate between the two.

Outcomes are not transformative, they are transactional.

I have grown comfortable with uncertainty; the problem is governments are driven by politics, and are not comfortable with uncertainty. We [America] are managing as best as we can. We are not succeeding; that would be way to positive.

On balance, the US is doing the best it can based on the hand we have been dealt in the world today.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently tweeted that Israel has “no cure but to be annihilated,” along with nine key questions on “how Israel can be eliminated.” Do you believe Israel’s existential fear of a nuclear Iran is justified, or is the ayatollah’s bark worse than his bite?
I don’t live in Israel; I live in Chevy Chase, Maryland – and Benjamin Netanyahu and Yitzhak Rabin reminded me of this fact in the past. I understand I am not an Israeli, I am not sitting in downtown Tel Aviv. Our threat perceptions are different, so I won’t trivialize Israeli concerns or say Iran will never use its nukes. I don’t know.

I do know Israelis in the security establishment for a long time who don’t take Iran destroying Israel seriously, because it “infantilizes” Israel. If you impart to another nation [Iran] the capacity to destroy you, that is a very bad thing, because you then become the object victim.

Jews worry for a living because of their dark past, and their very turbulent present compels them to do so.

If I were an Israeli, would I worry about Iran? Yes, but I would be worried about Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, too.

The writer is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political and Information Network, a regional research analysis read by US congressmen, their foreign policy advisers, MKs, journalists and organizational leaders.