First up was the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, who declared open season on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. A day later, the United Nations Security Council beclowned itself with a moment of silence for Iranian butcher Ebrahim Raisi. Finally, Ireland, Norway, and Spain embraced the two-state solution Netanyahu opposes. All these events strengthen the terrorist regime in Iran. None would have been possible without tacit Biden administration assent.
Pressured for months by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to drag PM Netanyahu into the ICC on phony genocide charges, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan faced a dilemma. Khan was aware of Ramaphosa’s responsibility for actual genocide of white South African farmers, so as the ICC’s anti-Netanyahu messenger, Ramaphosa wouldn’t do. Enter “human rights” lawyer Amal Clooney, a godsend for Khan who brought the glamour and saintliness that genocide-tolerant Ramaphosa lacks. Clooney is now the face of Iran’s proxy attack on Israel at the ICC.
Tehran has another reason to be grateful to Mrs. Clooney and Prosecutor Khan. Behold, who was not named for prosecution, together with Netanyahu, by Khan and Clooney: none other than Iran’s Butcher-in-Chief, Ali Khamanei. Instead, the Khan and Clooney team will pursue Tehran’s blood-soaked Hamas stooges, effectively exonerating Iran for its role in the October 2023 attack on Israel. Another huge win for Tehran.
A day after the ICC-Clooney extravaganza, it was revealed at the United Nations in New York that Russia, China, and Algeria suggested a moment of silence at the UN Security Council to honor mass-murderer Raisi. At the Council’s May 21st meeting, it fell to Mozambique’s luckless delegate, current occupant of the rotating Council presidency, to call on the Council’s fifteen members to stand and honor the dead Raisi.
And so they did. Not one delegate walked out. Not even senior U.S. Foreign Service Officer Robert Wood, sitting in the United States chair occupied over the years by U.S. permanent representatives Henry Cabot Lodge, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John Bolton, and Nikki Haley. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, another career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and our current UN permanent representative, was nowhere to be seen when the Security Council and its members publicly debased themselves.
Wood and Thomas-Greenfield have been in the Foreign Service long enough to have known survivors of Iranian or Iranian-inspired attacks on their U.S. government colleagues. Attacks on places like our Marine Barracks and Embassy in Beirut, in Nairobi, in Dar es Salaam, and in Benghazi. Or attacks on our people in Iraq and Afghanistan with Iranian-supplied .50 caliber sniper rifles and explosively formed penetrators.
The craven U.S. performance at the United Nations was disgusting. But it was almost certainly not spontaneous. Rather, it’s a safe bet that the “moment of silence” spectacle was vetted in advance with every Security Council delegation, including ours. In turn, the delegations would have sought instructions from home governments, including our own, about how to respond to the toxic initiative. The result? Thomas-Greenfield vanished, and Wood stood up for Raisi. A humiliating defeat for the United States, and a massive diplomatic victory for Tehran.
Finally, we come to the May 22nd decisions of Ireland, Norway, and Spain to publicly embrace the “two state solution” in the Holy Land that Netanyahu has condemned. Younger readers may not recall Spain’s 1992 formal public apology for its brutal expulsion of Spanish Jews from their homeland in 1492, or the 2004 al Qaeda bombing of Madrid’s Atocha Railway Station. Apparently, the current Spanish Government doesn’t recall these events either.
Beyond rank appeasement of Iran, only Oslo, Dublin, and Madrid know for sure what led to this patently anti-Israel step. The rest of us, however, understand it as a transparent effort to cripple Netanyahu’s pursuit of a vital Israeli national interest, and as a significant diplomatic victory for Iran.
Iran’s big week could be cast as a massive failure of American diplomacy. In reality, however, the Biden administration appears to be intentionally standing aside rather than engaging to derail events which unmistakably strengthen Iran. If more proof of this toxic policy is needed, look no further than the U.S. Senate, whose majority is controlled by the president’s party. On May 20th, Senate Chaplain Barry Black disgraced a Congress once distinguished by the presence of Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos by publicly mourning Raisi’s death in his morning prayer. Senate chaplains and other officials work for the Senate majority leadership. Chaplain Black was most assuredly speaking for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his president.
Muscular U.S. diplomacy led by a Trump, a Pompeo, or even a Moynihan, could have stopped the ICC, the UN Security Council, and the European appeasers cold. Instead, Iran had a good week, because of the Biden administration’s lunatic policy, not in spite of it.
The author is a Navy veteran of submarines and Iraq. He was also a Foreign Service Officer, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and a senior U.S. Senate staff lawyer.
image, Pixabay license.
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