Date: Thursday, October 3, 2019
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary L. Bauer, Director

Iran's Second Front

Jonathan Spyer of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis has an informative column in the Wall Street Journal explaining how Iran is aggressively encircling Israel and creating a second front in Syria just a few miles from Israel's border.

Of course, Iran's first front is Hezbollah in Lebanon. But the ayatollah exploited the Syrian civil war to expand Iran's influence. In addition to propping up the Assad regime, an ally of Tehran, the civil war provided an excuse to move Iranian forces throughout Syria and ever closer to Israel's border.

According to Spyer, elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah are operating out of bases controlled by the Syrian Army. In other cases, they are working with local Syrians and have woven themselves into villages near the Israeli border.

For example, Spyer cites a base in Quneitra, just "three miles from the Israeli border." The base is part of the Syrian Army's 90th Brigade but also includes militias "established by Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani."

Keep in mind that Iran's increasing entrenchment in Syria is not a new phenomenon. Much of it occurred while Iran was receiving sanctions relief under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Moreover, it has been reported that the reason President Obama did not enforce his "red line" on the use of chemical weapons in Syria was because Iran threatened to withdraw from talks on the nuclear deal.

The purpose of Tehran's alliance with Damascus has always been to surround Israel. In fact, one IRGC commander recently bragged, "Iran has encircled Israel from all four sides."

Greenblatt Talks Peace

Jason Greenblatt, President Trump's special representative for international negotiations, recently spoke with the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat news service. They discussed the Trump Administration's approach to the peace process and various key decisions the administration has made. As always, I was impressed by the moral clarity Greenblatt brings to the debate.

Below are some excerpts of his interview. Please share them with friends and family members.

On criticism that the Trump Administration is too pro-Israel:

"I think people conflate the issues. All those decisions . . . were not made only through a peace process lens. Of course, we consider the potential impact on the peace process, but that's only one lens that we put on it.

"We made those decisions because they are the right decisions for the United States. Jerusalem was done because of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, a law in the United States since 1995; the same thing is true with the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

"Golan was an essential decision for Israel's security and had nothing to do with the Palestinian issue. Imagine what could have happened to Israel if Syria had control of the Golan.

"Closing the PLO office was based on a law triggered when President Abbas threatened to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court. Cutting funds to UNRWA was done because UNRWA is a horribly broken system that only perpetuates bad lives for Palestinians who live in refugee camps, and provides them with no future. . .

"I think people have to view the decisions separately. We made them and we stand by them. If we did not make these decisions, we would be no closer to peace. With these decisions, we might achieve peace- peace can only be built on truth."

On suspending U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority:

"Palestinians are among the largest recipients of donor assistance per capita in the world today. Yet despite decades of work [and] billions of dollars . . . life continues to get worse for Palestinians. The world can't continue to throw money and resources at this problem in the same way; when they do, we get the same results we've gotten for decades, which is just continued suffering for Palestinians. . . everyone can plainly see that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are squandering the opportunities [and resources.]"

On preconditions for peace:

"I can't imagine a world in which a peace agreement is signed where issues like the Palestinian Authorities' 'Pay to Slay' program remain -- a program that rewards terrorists who murder or attack Israelis. It's a basic concept that you cannot encourage people to kill and expect a peace deal that works.

"I can't imagine the Israeli government ever signing such an agreement. It would make no sense and it's completely antithetical to the concept of peace.

"To deal with that abhorrent program, the USA has cut all funding to the PA and we continuously raise awareness of this issue to other donor countries. I cannot understand how donor countries continue to donate funds knowing that some of their taxpayers' money is used to fund terrorism and the murder of Israelis."