US: Don’t Get Too Involved

The "secret" letter sent by President Obama last month to Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, proposes an American-Iranian alliance in combating the Islamic State group, while ceasing fire against the Assad regime, the Tehran regime's protegé. According to several reports, Khamenei also sent a secret letter of his own to Obama, though it is unclear if this was indeed the case, and if so, what it contained. But the "open response" according to appeasers in Washington soon followed: Khamenei called for the physical destruction of the state of Israel, along with other invectives, which, were this a different era, would certainly reserve him a central spot on the Nuremberg trial dock.

This was not Obama's first letter to Khamenei, but in fact his fourth since 2009. Back in his first days in the White House, the president was already calling for an end to the hostility existing between the U.S. and the regime of ayatollahs since the American embassy takeover in 1979. In his first letter, he had already mentioned a vision of "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" between the two nations. Obama is therefore continuing the approach he articulated back when he began his term of office, and the "common" war against the Islamic State group serves as a convenient link to try to accomplish this in practice.

But the pressing question that arises in relation to this is whether it will affect the nature of the nuclear agreement, the official deadline of which is Nov. 24. In other words, will the American government stipulate cooperation concerning the Islamic State group upon Iran's acceptance of the conditions required from it, or will the U.S. be the one to be lenient toward Iran in order to reach an agreement, even if it is less than perfect, just so it can declare an "achievement"? The worrying part for Israel and Middle Eastern nations, traditional U.S. allies, is that there are hints in American and Western media that unilateral American flexibility is, apparently, the preferred option.

One of the justifications raised in this context is "the world has time to wait" — namely, the West can wait for a more effective agreement in regards to the nuclear program — or to see how Iran behaves. In the meantime, however, the government claims that it is determined to reach an effective agreement regarding the Iranian nuclear program, but not everyone is convinced. In this regard, the fact should be noted that as of this coming January, Republicans who do not share this complacency will be in control of both houses of Congress; therefore, there is reasonable concern that the government will try to establish facts in the meantime.

The administration claims that renewed pressure on Iran, as demanded by Republicans and some Democrats, may distance it from the negotiations table and drag America into war, while the American public is presumably more concerned about the Islamic State group threat than the Iranian nuclear threat. However, there are doubts surrounding this too: Not only is Iran itself one of the main factors in global terrorism, but in the war against the Islamic State group America has actually teamed with other organizations that can be defined as terrorist organizations, besides Iran — from Shiite Hezbollah to Sunni al-Qaida and Jabhat al-Nusra. The question may be asked: With all of the danger — real or exaggerated — posed by the Islamic State group, would it not be preferable, in light of the equally severe threat from Iran’s extremist leadership, to let them fight among themselves without America having to overly favor either side, especially when the price involves endangering world peace for generations to come?