Middle East

Every geopolitical shift offers opportunities and dangers. The escalating war in the Middle East is no exception.

At the moment the world is focused on the dangers. But the opportunities are there as the major players realise the need to step back from the brink and consider measures that were hitherto unthinkable in order to avoid a catastrophe nobody wants.

The biggest opportunity could involve Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

There is a strong body of opinion in the US and Israel that the best way to deal with Iran’s nuclear weapons programme is to destroy it. The problem with that is three-fold:
1- You cannot destroy the know-how
2- the necessary installations are deep underground, heavily protected and would probably require direct American involvement and
3- Destruction of Iran’s nuclear installations would only increase hatred of Israel and the US.

Many Israelis and Americans also fear that a religiously-zealous Iran would use nuclear weapons against Israel—and possibly the US—as soon as they acquire them.

Rubbish. The Iranians may be religious extremists, but they are not stupid. They know that they would be wiped out in any nuclear exchange.

To them a nuclear weapon is a deterrent against an Israeli—or possibly joint US-Israeli—nuclear or overwhelming conventional attack.

However, nuclear weapons do give Iran greater flexibility in any conventional scenario as any potential enemy would think twice about attacking a nuclear-armed Iran. This would mean a serious movement in the Middle East goalposts.

So how can the US (with Israel looming large in the background) and the Mullahs avoid escalation and a nuclear Iran. From the Iranian side, Washington would expect Tehran to immediately stop refining and testing missiles and enriching U-235 and converting it to fissile material. From the US-Israeli side, Iran would expect guarantees that Iran would not be attacked by either Israel or the US.

Iran is reckoned by the CIA to be seven months away from having THE bomb. An agreement could freeze development at the current level—or slightly more advanced– so that if it was attacked, Iran could quickly move to a nuclear capable position.

The above scenario is not impossible. According to intelligence sources, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini has not given the final go-ahead for nuclear weapons. He has also told newly-elected President Masoud Pazeshkian that he can resume nuclear negotiations with the five members of the Security Council and Germany.

There are other important tangential issues including: Iranian support for Russia’s war in Ukraine; Iranian support for Hezbollah and the Houthis; Israeli attacks on Hezbollah; Saudi and UAE attacks on the Houthis; the Syrian civil war; Western sanctions against Iran and Iran and China’s growing economic co-dependency.

All of —or some of—these issues could be dealt with as part of nuclear talks. Or nuclear talks could open the door to separate discussions on these problems.

European Union

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has called it the “EU Reset.” It started this week with Lammy attending a regular meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The Foreign Office has promised more of the same.

The talks were on big global security issues—China, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, US elections—all those things on which it is very easy for the UK and EU to agree. Not on the agenda was the EU-UK 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) which continues to bedevil or threaten to bedevil EU-UK relations.

The main sticking point is over fish. The fishing industry is not vital to the success of the British economy. It represents only .01 percent of the GDP. But  It is an emotive issue that conjures up sea shanties, picturesque Cornish fishing villages and a simple if harder back to nature life. Because of the emotional content, British trawlermen were at the heart of the Brexit debate and have remained there.

British fishermen have a good deal under the TCA. After 2026 they will have the exclusive rights to all the fish in Britain’s Exclusive Economic Zone. That is 200 miles from the shore or the median line between Britain and its neighbours. Until 2026, EU countries can fish in British waters under licenses issued by the British authorities.

But the French in particular are unhappy. They are constantly trying to renegotiate the TCA to allow continued access to British waters and claim that the British authorities make it unnecessarily difficult for French trawlers—especially the small fishing boats—to obtain the necessary licenses during the transition period.

Fish are not the only outstanding problems involving the TCA. The British financial industry is unhappy about its lack of access to European financial markets. Police and both sides of the English Channel want to improve cooperation. The EU is worried that British industry will undercut their costs by lowering labour and environmental standards or introducing subsidies. EU red tape and customs checks are a problem for exporting Britons. And the Westminster Agreement has merely papered over the cracks in the Northern Ireland Protocol.

An established diplomatic ploy is to find an issue on which two sides can agree and work together. Build a sense of trust in working together and then use that trust to sort out the sticker problems. Global security, and possibly defense cooperation, is an area where Britain and Europe can and need to work together. It could lead to creating the trust needed to sort out the myriad of other problems created by Brexit.

United States

Immigration is a hot topic in the US presidential elections. Trump is calling for military action to forcibly deport up to 20 million immigrants. They are, he asserts, drug dealers, rapists and murderers and claims that the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed 13,000 convicted murderers to enter the US as illegal immigrants.

Trump is deploying a common political trick of telescoping statistics. Yes, 13,000-plus murderers have entered the United States as illegal immigrants. But according to the Department of Homeland Security, they have taken 40-plus years to do so.

He also claims that the Biden-Harris Administration is letting these 13,000-plus murderers roam American streets to kill innocent native (White) Americans. As proof he claims that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (aka ICE) is not monitoring these murderers. He is right. They are not.

That is because—as ICE has subsequently explained—the 13,000-plus do not come under the agency’s jurisdiction. They have either been deported or are locked up in federal or state prisons.

The actual facts are that according to the Cato Institute, the American Council on Immigration and scores of independent studies, there is a lower instance of criminality among illegal immigrants than among native-born Americans. There is a good reason for it. Illegal immigrants live on a knife edge. They know that if they commit a crime they will be sent to prison and when released they will be deported back to the life they fled. Native-born Americans will simply go to prison.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”