More than two years after Secretary of State John Kerry and his European Union counterpart Federica Mogherini acquiesced to the last Iranian demands and signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, has the threat from Iran actually diminished?
Iran’s ballistic missile program continues to expand rapidly. Yesterday, Iran inaugurated its new launch facility by sending a rocket into low earth orbit. The same technology could be used to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
For those living in the Middle East, the idea that the Iranian threat has diminished is laughable. Tehran continues to eviscerate Lebanon from the inside out through its proxy, Hezbollah. More than 1,000 Iranians have died fighting in Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Iran has stepped up its efforts to undermine both Yemen and Bahrain.
Rather than show any indication that it seeks rapprochement with the West, Iran increasingly appears to be using its relationship with China and Russia to stymie the West. Consider the following from the Iranian press: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ special airborne unit is training in China with Chinese special forces, who are drilling the Iranians on artillery as well as parachuting and jumping from Chinese Z8KA helicopters.
Given the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in projecting Iranian power, as well as training proxy forces and terrorist groups, it’s not a leap to believe that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might take the lessons learned in China and transmit them to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.
Kerry myopically viewed diplomacy as a compromise to resolve conflict. He never understood—and his aides were too ambitious to warn him—that countries like Iran, China, and Russia often use diplomacy insincerely as an asymmetric strategy to advance their own power while hamstringing the United States. That does not mean that diplomacy is not valuable; it remains a tool of statecraft. But to enter into it naively severely undercuts the security of the United States and its allies.
