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Back in 2015, then President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry were
frantic to have the United States join with other western nations in signing an agreement with Iran to terminate
that country’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Obama’s time in office was nearing an end and both he and Kerry
were desperate to leave some major foreign policy achievement as a legacy of his 8 years in office. The “Iran Deal”
would achieve this goal. Whether or not it was a good deal was of secondary consequence – the most important issue
was to reach some deal, any deal! So the president rushed to sign a nuclear agreement with Iran.
But, on 8 May 2018, President Donald Trump’s decision – “less than 3 years after Obama
announced his acceptance of the Iran nuclear agreement - to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal struck a
fatal blow against Obama’s foreign-policy legacy.” (Ref. 1)
In 2015, Obama and Kerry had a very serious problem. The problem was that members of the
U.S. Senate, including members of Obama’s own Democratic party, were balking at signing off on Obama’s highly
flawed “Iran Deal”. Remember, the constitution of the United States requires the U. S. senate to ratify all
treaties. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, of the Constitution, states that the President shall have the
power, “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the
Senators present concur.” Unfortunately for President Obama and his Secretary of State, the consent of
2/3 of the senators was unobtainable. Several senators recognized a bad deal when they saw it. Some Democrats saw
the proposed deal as so onerous that they refused to bow under the political pressure of their own party leaders.
As a result, the President signed an “executive agreement”, committing America to join in the “Iran Deal”. NOTE:
THERE IS NO FORMAL TREATY, RATIFIED BY 2/3 OF THE SENATE, THAT COMMITS THE U.S. TO THE “IRAN DEAL”! In addition,
the “Iran Deal” contains provisions requiring the President to certify on an annual basis that Iran is in compliance
with the agreement. President Trump was well within his right to withdraw from the agreement if he determined that
Iran was non-compliant. This President Trump has done.
Back in 2015, the “Iran Deal” was a bad deal, and, as Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu put it, “No deal is better than a bad deal!” It was true then and it’s still true today.
President Trump’s actions in backing out of the “Iran Deal” are legitimate and justified, in spite of the howls from
Iran, “the primary sponsor of global terrorism”, and from the western nations that have been drooling over the
profits they stand to make with sanctions against Iran lifted.
“The Iran deal was the signature achievement of Obama’s second term, and it is now gone.
In truth, though, Obama’s legacy was disappearing long before Trump made his announcement. Obama’s legacy, like much
of his self-presentation, was a mirage, a pleasing and attractive image that, upon closer inspection, loses
coherence.
“Because he governed so extensively through executive order and administrative fiat,
because he was so contemptuous of criticism and had a ‘my way or the highway’ approach to negotiations with
Republicans (though not with Iranians), the longevity of Obama’s agenda depended heavily on his party’s winning a
third consecutive term in the White House. As Tom Cotton warned the Iranians years ago, an agreement entered into by
a president and not submitted to the Senate as a treaty can be abrogated by the next man who holds the office.
Hillary Clinton’s failure doomed the Iran deal and the reputations it had established. It was Barack Obama and John
Kerry who allowed Donald Trump to exit the deal by rejecting longstanding procedure. . .”
(Ref. 1)
“Back in 2015, there were loud calls — not least from senators — for President Barack Obama
to ask the Senate to ratify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, calling it a ‘treaty.’
Instead, he chose to enter into an executive agreement . . . “ (Ref. 2)
Preceding President Obama’s decision to join in the “Iran Deal” by executive order rather
than with a formal treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate, the debate over the pro’s and con’s of the agreement brought
to light a number of reasons not to enter into the agreement. Many of these arguments are covered in
Reference 3, What are Obama and Kerry Smoking?.
As part of the “Iran deal”, certification that Iran was complying with the deal had to be
sent to Congress every 90 days. The first certification under the Trump administration noted that Tehran was in
compliance. Then, in October 2017, “Trump decertified the nuclear deal under U.S. law, saying the sanctions relief
was disproportionate to Iran's nuclear concessions. He contended the arrangement was contrary to America's national
security interests.” (Ref. 4)
As president Trump declared, "The fact is this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should
have never, ever been made," Trump said. "It didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will."
(Ref. 5) Trump went on to say that, “the Iranian regime is a ‘leading sponsor of
terror.’ . . . that ‘no action of the {Iranian} regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear
weapons,’ and that the current deal ‘allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium.’ “ (Ref. 6)
. All of these issues were brought out during the initial debate over entering into the agreement, but they
were ignored by Obama and Kerry in their desperate rush to implement an “Iran Deal” – any deal!
The Trump action will hopefully end the growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. “The
deal financed several years of Iranian expansion through Shiite proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. By
reimposing sanctions, President Trump will weaken an already ailing Iranian economy. The Iranian currency, the rial,
has plummeted in recent weeks. Inflation is rampant. The financial system is corrupted, dysfunctional. Strikes are
proliferating and often turn into displays against the government. This is a situation the United States should seek
not to mitigate but to exacerbate.” (Ref. 1)
Was the “Iran Deal” a bad deal? For a scathing explanation of why the
“Iran Deal” was a very bad deal, read “Obama's Unforgivable Betrayal, Reference
7. Indeed, immediately following the Obama Administration’s signing on to the “Iran Deal”, many of
the flaws in the agreement were pointed out. It was said that, “The more we find out about the Iran nuclear deal,
the worse it looks. Each new day Congress reviews this deal, we discover more information and more reasons why this
deal is simply unacceptable” (Ref. 8) Among the reasons for saying that the deal was
a bad one, are the following: [8]
- Though the deal was originally being negotiated to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, in its final form
the agreement would allow just that when it sunsets in 10-15 years.
- This deal would accelerate regional nuclear proliferation.
- The deal would give Iran hundreds of billions of dollars to fuel their terror and military regime.
- Sanctions relief wasn’t tied to Iran complying with the deal, meaning Iran would get massive amounts of relief
before they demonstrated strict adherence.
- The money Iran would get couldn’t be taken back once it got it.
- The financial relief Iran got could be (and has been) used to expand Iran’s destabilizing influence in the Middle
East.
- The money could be (and has been) used to further fund Iran’s terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad, and
Houthis in Yemen.
- Iran’s Supreme Leader said that Iran would not change its anti-American policy (and it has not).
- To enforce the deal, world powers would first have to know if Iran had violated the deal, but the process of
determining if there was a violation could be delayed for weeks while Iran would be able to hide such banned
activities during that span of time.
- Iran didn’t have to come clean on its past nuclear activity, leaving world powers little ability to verify
future illegal advances.
- Iran interpreted the deal very differently from what the Obama Administration claimed the deal meant.
- Iran believed that the scale of foreign investments would effectively prevent the world from re-imposing
sanctions on Iran, making the “snapback” provision of the deal effectively meaningless.
- Iran claimed it could deny inspectors access to nuclear and military sites under the deal.
- Iran said it would not be violating the deal if it broke the UN resolution prohibiting the purchase of
conventional arms and missiles because the arms embargo was implicitly out of the scope of the nuclear
agreement.
- Even if Iran adhered to the arms embargo, the embargo was to be lifted 5 years after the start of the agreement,
giving Iran access to conventional arms to further fuel terrorism and their drive for regional dominancy.
- 8 years after the start of the agreement, the missile ban was to be removed, allowing Iran to acquire missiles
that could carry nuclear payloads.
- Iran would be allowed to conduct advanced research and development that would pave the way for centrifuges that
were modern and efficient. They would be able to enrich huge amounts of Uranium that would shorten their breakout
time for a bomb.
Has Iran been cheating? The president and others are indeed saying that
Iran has lied about its nuclear program. According to former CIA Director Porter Goss, “I do know that Iran has
cheated. I think I can say that safely. But I can't tell you how I know or what I know exactly,”
(Ref. 9) Certainly, Iran, under the Ayatollahs, has a long history of lying and
cheating about its missile and nuclear programs, as well as about its support of terrorism around the world. Let us
not forget that Islam does not discourage lying and cheating when they are done to further the cause of Islam – that
of establishing a global Islamic caliphate and eliminating all opponents. “Muslims lie when it is in their
interest to do so and ‘Allah’ will not hold them accountable for lying when it is beneficial to the cause of Islam.
They can lie without any guilt or fear of accountability or retribution. A lie in the defense of Islam is approved
even applauded in their ‘holy’ books.” (Ref. 10)
“In a speech in Tel Aviv on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that
Israeli intelligence had acquired tens of thousands of files, which, he said, proved that Iran had lied about its
nuclear weapons program.
“The files also reportedly prove that Iran has been secretly continuing its program under
the nose of international inspectors.” Reference 11 Let us not forget that Israeli
intelligence gathering is respected as among the best around the world. “Netanyahu said that the files proved four
things:
1) Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program;
2) Even after the deal, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons for future use;
3) Iran lied again in 2015 when it didn’t come clean to the IAEA as required by the nuclear deal;
4) The nuclear deal is based on lies.” (Ref. 11)
Perhaps the re-imposition of biting economic sanctions by the United States will force the
religious Islamic fanatics in Tehran to cease their recent missile attacks on Israel, will force the Ayatollahs to
terminate their aid to Islamic terrorists, stop their funding and propping up Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in
his murderous war against his own people, and terminate the Iranian funneling of rockets and other weapons to
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza with which to carry out their attacks against civilians in Israel. Perhaps,
most importantly, the U.S. backing out of the “Iran Deal” and the re-imposition of sanctions may convince
Tehran to re-negotiate a better – rather than a bad – deal. According to Trump, "Iran’s leaders will
probably say they refuse to negotiate a new deal," . . . "That’s fine. I probably would say the same thing if I
were in their position. The fact is they will want to negotiate a new deal." (Ref. 12)
So, no deal is better than a bad deal. Those countries - such as Israel, Saudi Arabia,
the Gulf States, etc. - with the most to lose from Iran’s belligerency, from its support of terrorism, from its goal
of establishing and leading a radical and extremist Islamic caliphate, from its ruthless elimination of all
opposition, and from its
objective of acquiring nuclear tipped missiles to achieve these ends support Trump’s decision to back away from a
bad deal. Other countries that stand to benefit from turning a blind eye to Iran’s transgressions have adopted the
Munich Agreement Syndrome – ignoring the obvious and accepting the lies spouted by the Ayatollahs in Tehran while
signing on to a very bad agreement that will not bring us peace in our time. In their eyes, money is more
important that principle and a bad deal is better than no deal.
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References:
- Donald Trump Ends the Obama Mirage, Matthew Continetti, National Review,
8 May 2018.
- If the Iran deal had been a Senate-confirmed treaty, would Trump have been forced to stay in? Nope.,
Andrew Rudalevige, The Washington Post, 9 May 2018.
- What are Obama and Kerry Smoking?, David Burton, Son of Eliyahu; Article 233,
17 August 2015.
- Iran nuclear deal: What is it?, Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Fox News, 8 May 2018.
- Behind the scenes of Trump's decision to abandon Iran deal, Josh Lederman, Fox News,
10 May 2018.
- Trump Ends "Defective" Iran Nuclear Deal, Reinstates "Powerful" Economic Sanctions, Benjamin Rains,
Zacks, 8 May 2018.
- Obama's Unforgivable Betrayal, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U. S. News,
17 April 2015.
- 21 Reasons the Iran Deal is a Bad Deal, Kevin McCarthy, www.majorityleader.gov,
22 July 2015.
- Former CIA director backs Trump's decision to pull out of Iran deal, Dave Elias,
count on 2 first, 9 May 2018.
- Islam Permits Lying to Deceive Unbelievers and Bring World Domination!, Don Boys, Ph.D.,
http://muslimfact.com, Accessed 10 May 2018.
- Netanyahu reveals evidence that Iran lied about its nuclear weapons program,
Mike Ciandella,
theblaze, 30 April 2018.
- U.S. withdraws from Iran nuclear deal, a set-up for Trump's ultimate goal, Oren Dorell,
USA TODAY, Accessed 8 May 2018.
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