Obama says one thing, Iran another, and this 'deal' looks worse every day: Kevin O'Brien
By Kevin OBrien, The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: "If the sanctions removal depends on other processes, then why did we start the negotiations?"Office of Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Man, this Iran thing is a tough one, isn't it?
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I mean, who are you going to believe? A regime that has, throughout its history, never blushed at lying to achieve its goals? That has a proven track record of denying the obvious when it gets caught? That hides what it is doing whenever it can and that survives on a strategy of shameless duplicity?
Or Iran?
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At least the mullahs have been candid about what they want. They want nuclear weapons. They want to erase Israel from the map. They want to run things in the Middle East. They want "death to America."
They have said all of that, time and time again, in public, where everyone could hear it.
The Obama administration, by contrast, is all about secrecy and subterfuge. What little Congress knew about the Iran "deal," in advance of the announcement of the Unwritten Framework for More Diplomatic Blather in the Plainly Idiotic Hope That Iran Doesn't Mean What It Has Been Saying All These Years, came from Israel's intelligence service.
All Americans need to know about it is that they can keep their doctor, that our ambassador to Libya was assassinated because of an Internet video and that it's just a weird repeating coincidence that terrorism and militant Islamists keep turning up in tandem.
In short, the Obama administration couldn't make a sound judgment -- or even just tell the truth -- if our lives depended on it.
When the White House put out its list of items agreed to so far with Iran, the Iranians laughed at it.
The remaining sanctions will be lifted gradually, over a long period, the White House boldly stated. No, Iran replied. The sanctions will disappear the instant a final agreement is signed.
Their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated the point on Thursday: "If the sanctions removal depends on other processes, then why did we start the negotiations?"
Oh, come on, Ali. Ask us a harder one: You started the negotiations because the sanctions were strangling your economy and your sizable middle class was chafing under the yoke. Just saying you'd talk was worth $11 billion in lifted sanctions in 2013. You figured you could outwit John Kerry and Barack Obama, so -- centrifuge pun alert -- why not give it a whirl? And you were so right: Now you're on the brink of getting the rest of the sanctions removed, which will allow you to ramp up funding for terrorism. And you're guaranteed a nuclear weapon. Such a deal!
Our side -- I use the term casually -- has a really different take on the sanctions. Obama says they weren't working, so we had to go in a different direction. But if that were true, which it isn't, doesn't total capitulation to a sworn enemy seem like the wrong course change?
Obama now says that if Iran cheats once the final accord is signed, we'll just snap those sanctions right back into place. Why would we bother? He hasn't explained how he thinks it would help to re-institute sanctions that he claims don't work. Maybe the Mossad knows. Congress should ask.
Obama also tells us that international inspectors "will have unprecedented access not only to Iranian nuclear facilities, but to the entire supply chain that supports Iran's nuclear program."
On Wednesday, Iran called shenanigans on that. Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan termed Western media reports that military facilities would be on the inspection list "a lie." The Iranians, who have shown that they love a good game of hide-and-seek, will show the inspectors only what they want the inspectors to see.
But the president who never knows anything until he reads it in the newspaper assures us that we will somehow know if they're cheating. Is The New York Times hiring nuclear weapons inspectors?
Fortunately, the deal will keep Iran from using higher-performing centrifuges to refine weapons-grade uranium for 10 years. Obama says so.
The Iranians, however, say they're going to spin up their new IR-8 centrifuge the very day an agreement is signed. The Institute for Science and International Security, an anti-proliferation nonprofit, reports "a long-term nuclear agreement with Iran should limit research and development work on centrifuges to those less capable than the IR-8."
So much for good advice.
Well, it will probably all work out fine in the end, right? We'll find out that Iran was just kidding around with all of the "death to Israel," "death to America" stuff. Everyone will have a good laugh and we'll all beat our advanced centrifuges into turntables and spin some 45s.
But let's say Iran does pull a fast one. The Obama administration says the terms of the deal -- which aren't yet written, much less agreed to -- will give nations that are worried about Iran a whole year to do something to keep the mullahs from nuclear triumph. This from the same administration that said a year ago that Iran was capable of producing enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon in just two months.
Not sure how we figure we'll get a year now, unless, while Iran has been building centrifuges, Obama has been tinkering with a time machine.
Maybe the Obama administration is actually making this Iran thing tougher than it needs to be. We still have options:
We can get used to the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran calling the shots in the Middle East, right up until the day it fires the big shot. (And what will we do then? Impose sanctions? Engage in diplomacy? Lie to ourselves some more?)
Or Congress can scuttle a deal that's diametrically opposed to U.S. interests. The West can reimpose the sanctions lifted in 2013 and then some. We can get back to treating Iran like the implacable enemy it is. And when the Iranian people have had enough of being squeezed by us and repressed by their own leaders, we can help fix their problem -- and ours. |
