By Alan Caruba
Only fools express any trust in Obama
these days or the Iranians who have made him look the fool when no one in their
neighborhood or the world trusts a thing they say or do.
After more than six years of listening
to President Obama’s unremitting lies, when he says of the latest “accord” with
Iran, “It’s a good deal” and standing in the Rose Garden declares that the U.S.
and Iran have reached “an historic understanding” the only history being made
his own ignominy and idiocy.
It would be historic if anyone could
extend either President Obama or the Iranians any trust. Indeed, since the U.S.
created its first atomic bombs to end World War II, one nation after another has
secured their own nuclear weapons, starting with the then-Soviet Union who built
theirs with plans stolen from us!
We have been down this road before. On
April 1st Wall Street Journal
columnist Daniel Henninger offered an abridged look at the quarter-century of
negotiations with North Korea which agreed to all manner of terms, signed all
kinds of agreements, and joined various international organizations to assure
everyone of their peaceful intent. He warned that “No agreement is going to stop
Iran. Agreements, and a lot of talk, did not stop North
Korea.”
“Iran,” said Henninger, “knows it has
nuclear negotiators’ immunity: No matter how or when Iran debauches any
agreement, the West, abjectly, will request—what else?—more talks. Iran’s
nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs will go forward as North Korea’s
obviously did, no matter what.”
All the back-and-forth between the
White House and Congress about the “accord” is essentially meaningless. It is
mostly a debate about the treaty-making powers the Constitution extends to the
executive branch and, at the same time, limits with legislative “advice and
consent” of the Senate. For now the Senate can only wait for whatever is decided
by June 30, but it is unlikely Obama will send it the text of the agreement.
To influence the outcome, Congress
talks of the sanctions it has imposed on Iran and says it will impose again, but
Obama has no legal authority to lift those sanctions, only Congress does.
The same day the President made the
announcement, Javad
Zarif, the Iranian counterpart to Secretary of State John Kerry made his own
announcement. The U.S. and Iran, he said, had agreed in principle to let Iran
continue running major portions of its nuclear program. “None of those measures”, intended to slow
Iran’s progress, “include closing any of our facilities. We will continue
enriching; we will continue research and development.”
This is the result of 18 months of
“negotiations” with Iran. In the same way the U.S. caved to North Korea since
the 1990s, it has caved to Iran and it has done so with the blessing of the
European Union and the other members of the P-5+1, France, Great Britain,
Russia, China, and Germany.
For good measure, to show how
wonderfully warm the relations between Iran and the U.S. are, within hours after
Obama’s announcement, Foreign Minister Zarif accused the U.S. of lying
about the details of the tentative framework—“the historic
understanding”—saying that the U.S. had promised the immediate termination of
sanctions.
The notion that we would know if Iran
was continuing its nuclear program because the United Nations’ International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be inspecting its facilities is about as
credible as similar inspections in North Korea when, in 2002, it cut the IAEA
seals on its nuclear factories and withdrew from the non-Proliferation treaty,
starting a nuclear reactor. It has pursued its nuclear weapons and missile
programs ever since.
In the same fashion as the Soviet Union, China, and Israel, we didn’t know that either Pakistan or India had acquired nuclear capability until after they tested theirs. That’s how we will know when Iran has nuclear weapons. It already has intercontinental missiles with which to deliver them.
As quoted in an April 3 article by
Mark Dubowitz, executive director, and Annie Fixler, policy analyst, of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, they cite an unnamed “senior State
Department official” as saying “The truth is, you can dwell on Yemen, or you can
recognize that we’re one agreement away from a game-changing, legacy-setting
nuclear accord on Iran that tackles what everyone agrees is the biggest threat
to the region.”
Unless one believes in unicorns and
other fantasies, this latest “accord” and what we are being told about it by the
President and the State Department is not a great achievement. It is doomed to
failure because Iran has had no intention of doing anything other than getting
economic and other sanctions removed. Time is on their side as they work to
develop their own nuclear weapons.
When Iran tests its first nuclear
weapon, Obama should return his Nobel Peace Prize.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
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