Joe Biden’s not in the White House yet, but already America’s enemies are jostling to take advantage of what they clearly see as a more easily-bullied new administration.
In 2016, Iran tested then-president Obama’s mettle when it seized two US Navy boats and their crews. Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry immediately jumped onto the phone to apologise. While Obama and Kerry hailed the subsequent release of the sailors as a victory for diplomacy, Iranian leaders gleefully rubbed the administration’s nose in America’s humiliation, parading the captured troops on national TV and bragging that it was the first time US troops had been captured since WWII.
From then on, Iran knew it had Obama’s number. The pathetic Iran nuclear deal – which included secretive plane drops of literal pallet-loads of cash to Tehran in the dead of night – showed just how much so.
They’re at it again.
Iran has begun enriching uranium up to 20 per cent at an underground facility and seized a South Korean-flagged oil tanker in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, further escalating tensions in the Middle East between Tehran and the West.
The announcement of enrichment at Fordo came as fears rose that Tehran had seized the MT Hankuk Chemi. Iran later acknowledged the seizure, alleging the vessel’s “oil pollution” sparked the move. However, hours earlier, Tehran said a South Korean diplomat was expected to visit in the coming days to negotiate the release of billions of dollars in its assets now frozen in Seoul.
Remember when the nuclear deal enthusiasts assured us that there was no way, no how, that Iran would be able to enrich uranium? Iran is reverting to old-fashioned gangster type by blatantly extorting South Korea.
But while Tehran might think it can call the bluff of a weak-kneed incoming Biden administration, it still has to reckon with Israel.
Iran’s decision to begin enriching to 20 per cent purity a decade ago nearly triggered an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that only abated with the 2015 atomic deal. A resumption of 20 per cent enrichment could see that brinksmanship return as that level of purity is only a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.
From Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear weapons program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised Iran’s enrichment decision, saying it “cannot be explained in any way other than the continuation of realising its goal to develop a military nuclear program”.
“Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Like North Korea, Iran is trying the old pay-us-money-or-else gambit.
Iran’s move comes after its parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at hiking enrichment to pressure Europe into providing sanctions relief. It also serves as pressure ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he is willing to re-enter the nuclear deal.
Sydney Morning Herald
Consider this a sign of things to come. No doubt Beijing is keeping a gleeful eye out as well.
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