Barack Hussein Chamberlain
We kept hearing during the long series of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program that no deal was better than a bad deal, and that Secretary of State John Kerry acting on behalf of the appeaser in chief, President Obama, would only agree to a good deal. And you know what? I do have to admit that the framework just reached ahead of the final agreement is a good deal. A very good deal. In fact, it’s an excellent deal. For the Iranians.
Desperate to create for himself some kind of foreign policy legacy, considering all his failures to date, Obama gave up more and more, backed away from his own promises more and more, again ignored his own red line if you will (as another example, see Syria and its use of chemical weapons), so he could credulously announce a beneficial arrangement, as did former UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to the British people after appeasing Adolph Hitler. “Peace for our time,” exclaimed the hapless prime minister. We all know how that turned out.
In his full-of-lies remarks announcing the framework agreement with Iran last Thursday, President Obama said, “…skeptics argued that Iran would cheat, that we could not verify their compliance, and the interim agreement would fail. Instead, it has succeeded exactly as intended. Iran has met all of its obligations. It eliminated its stockpile of dangerous nuclear material, inspections of Iran’s program increased, and we continued negotiations to see if we could achieve a more comprehensive deal.”
Just to mention a few lies: Late last year, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano said the Iranians were continuing to deny IAEA access to a sensitive military complex suspected of being a site of nuclear activities. Access had been denied for years. Also, last November, the US complained to the UN that Iran was cheating on the interim agreement by acquiring components for a heavy water reactor that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium. And if Iran had eliminated its stockpile of dangerous nuclear material, not only is that not known by the IAEA, why would the framework agreement say, Iran “will limit its stockpile of enriched uranium…?”
Another lie: “…we only have three options for addressing Iran’s nuclear program. First, we can reach a robust and verifiable deal, like this one… The second option is we can bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities… Third, we could pull out of negotiations…” False. The best option, an option not considered, was making a better deal unlike the one negotiated – ramping up sanctions and forcing Iran who came to the table because of sanctions, to change its behavior before giving any relief, not just with its secretive nuclear program but with its ballistic missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, its proxy incursions around the Middle East, and its threats to Israel.
Libelous lie: “It’s no secret that the Israeli prime minister and I don’t agree about whether the United States should move forward with a peaceful resolution to the Iranian issue.” The Israeli PM doesn’t want a peaceful resolution? For years, Benjamin Netanyahu had been begging for the kinds of non-military mechanisms such as biting sanctions that would specifically prevent any need for military action. And last month when he spoke to the US Congress, the PM outlined definitive non-military ways for the P5+1 mediating entities to bring about a better deal than what was being negotiated.
But Obama couldn’t tell the truth (“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”) if the security of the world depended on it, because it does and he doesn’t.
As the editorial board of the Washington Post critically pointed out last week after the framework was announced, Obama reneged on a critical goal he outlined in a presidential debate against Mitt Romney that Iran had to end its nuclear program, end it. The Post also noted that Iran had to abide by UN resolutions calling for the suspension of uranium enrichment, but that enrichment will actually be allowed to continue for 10 years with all restraints lifted in 15 years. So if Iran doesn’t cheat, and does any sane person think they won’t try, they are still in the nuke business anyway, and in 10 – 15 years they can accelerate the program.
Excess centrifuges (19,000 minus the 5,060 allowed to keep spinning) and enrichment infrastructure don’t even leave the country! They are stored and monitored. After the timeline, they go back to Iran. And for what? Growing vegetables and flowers? Maybe that’s what Obama and Kerry believe about the secretly started underground Fordow facility which will now supposedly be used for peaceful purposes only. And the breakout timeline goes from 2 – 3 months instead of a year. Whoopie! So it takes them 9 to 10 months longer. For only 10 years when it’s back to 2 – 3 months!
Also, Iran was vehemently against snap (surprise) inspections and of course, the agreement leaves those words out. And inspectors cannot go anywhere in the country leaving open the possibility Iran builds more facilities in secret, nor can military installations be inspected at all.
So the deal doesn’t honestly scale back Iran’s nuclear program, it delays the inevitable and legitimizes that they will become a nuclear power. Obama had promised deterrence of Iranian nuclear weaponization; now he doesn’t even require containment.
Iran’s bad behavior actually gets rewarded as sanctions get lifted well before the inevitable anyway, allowing the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism to fill its coffers so it can continue to crush dissent, build ballistic missiles, and continue to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad regime, the Yemeni Houthis, and whatever other abominable proxy Iran may decide to support.
And does anyone really think that should Iran be caught violating the agreement, sanctions that have been lifted, will “snap back” into place? You think Russia and France and others will agree to terminate any new huge business deals with Iran. And who adjudicates an Iran-denied cheating accusation? The UN along with Putin and China?
To add to the insulting negotiations injury, mortified Sunni Arab states will now look to develop their own nuclear capabilities beginning a Mideast nuclear arms race.
There are many more issues I could have mentioned.
In his remarks, Obama said, “Presidents like Nixon and Reagan struck historic arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, a far more dangerous adversary, despite the fact that that adversary not only threatened to destroy our country and our way of life, but had the means to do so.” He failed to mention that the Soviet Union, as tyrannical as it was, understood the concept of “mutually assured destruction” ensuring nuclear deterrence. The Soviet Union wasn’t run by fanatical, Islamic Jihadist nut-jobs only too willing to embrace death and destroy themselves as they try to destroy others.
Obama also quoted these John F. Kennedy inaugural speech words, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” As his immediately preceding words represented, JFK was speaking about the Soviet Union, not out-of-control, Islamic terrorists And Obama failed to mention JFK’s other words in that same speech, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Obama has it all mixed up. He isn’t willing to pay any price or bear any burden or meet any hardship to oppose any foe. And not only does he not support our friends, he forces them to pay the price and bear the burdens of his naïve and dangerous, damn the common sense, full-speed ahead, give away the store, punish our allies while rewarding our enemies, foreign policy.
As has been the case with Neville Chamberlain, if this deal is implemented, history will not be kind to Barack Obama.