David Frum: A country can reject Israel, or it can enrich uranium, but not both

I came across this over at RaceForIran and thought I'd leave it here in case I want to find it later. It does not need too much explanation or comment.

MR. SADJADPOUR: Ray, you made a reference to domestic politics in the conclusion of your comments. And there’s a quote from David Frum, who was President Bush’s former speechwriter, that I think really captured the conundrum of U.S. policy toward Iran. And he said that – he said, a country can enrich uranium and it can reject Israel’s existence, but it can’t do both at the same time. This is the reality of domestic American politics.

This is Karim Sadjadpour, a relatively mainstream member of the US foreign policy community claiming to have heard a quote from David Frum. I did not find the quote in a google search myself. I am confident that Sadjadpour did not make this quote up out of any hatred of Jews or of Israel. Far more likely either he's paraphrasing in a way that caused the quote to elude the first few pages of google's results or Frum made the statement in a forum that was not archived in text form on the internet.

Americans typically just simply lie about the relationship between Israel and the US demand that Iran not enrich and the US' broader demand that Iran not have capabilities that it admits are legal for other countries such as Japan and Brazil. So it is refreshing to see it expressed openly here.

I'll note of course, that the NPT does not say anything about rejecting Israel as a basis for denying technology. It instead says that nuclear technology is to be available to signatories "without discrimination". Sadjadpour also quotes former US official Henry Kissinger telling the type of lie that Americans like to tell about the Middle East.

Kissinger said, quote,"There are few nations in the world with whom the United States has more common interests and less reason to quarrel than Iran."

No. Kissinger knows better. He's just used to speaking to very naive and self-deluded audiences. Very quickly I'll present a poll that shows the reason the US has a quarrel with Iran:

18. Level of agreement - The state of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist.

Strong Agreement: 51.9%
Mild Agreement: 14.6% (total agree, 66.5%)
Neutral: 21.1%
Mild Disagreement: 4.6%
Strong Disagreement: 3.9% (total disagree 8.5%)

A poll of US citizens would produce a drastically opposed result. This is pretty much the entire dispute between the United States and Iran. The United States is committed to attempting to weaken, to any degree that it can, any government of Iran that reflects the values of the Iranian people.

Similarly the United States, including under Barack Obama, is committed to preventing, to any degree that it can, control of foreign policy in the current US colonies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait and others, from falling under the control of bodies accountable to the values of the people of those countries.

There is really little question that if he could, Barack Obama would restore an unrepresentative colonial-style dictator like the Shah to power in Iran. That being impossible, he'll gladly break the letter and the spirit of the NPT for Israel's benefit. He represents what can only be described as an evil colonialist nation. A nation very similar in effective terms to the British Empire of 200 and 100 years ago, especially regarding the Middle East.

But back to Frum and to Sadjadpour's analysis of the US political system. They are both right, though neither seems to have thought through the implications of their statements. If they had, it is doubtful that they would have made the statements quoted above. Kissinger seems as if he does understand what Sadjadpour calls the conundrum of US policy toward Iran, a conundrum which extends to non-Jewish countries throughout Israel's region. Kissinger in a typically American way, would rather say things he knows are not true than face implications of the role the US is committed to play in the Middle East on Israel's behalf.