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Above is President Obama's speech yesterday announcing a framework for an agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program. This framework is a disaster.
It's impossible to fathom just what is motivating President Obama to seek out and make a deal with the mad mullahs of Iran that would allow them to keep an operational nuclear program that has but a single purpose -- the creation of nuclear weapons. It is no secret that Iran's theocracy is a rogue regime; that they are at war with the U.S. and have been since 1979; that they are the world's leading sponsor and central banker of terrorism; and, because the made mullahs believe that to die in jihad is a sure ticket to an endless heavenly sex orgy and because they have an apocalyptic vision of the Second Coming of their savior, the Mahdi, that requires chaos throughout the world, they are not likely to be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons by the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. It is a regime that is every bit as bloody and expansionist as Hitler and the Nazis, and one that recognizes no moral strictions on its goal to export the Khomeinist revolution. They are an existential threat to every nation in the Middle East, to America, to Israel, and quite literally every other nation in the world.
There is only one possible acceptable solution to the Iranian nuclear program -- it must end and end completely, whether that be voluntarily on Iran's part or brought about by force of arms. Anything else is sheer suicide and every day we wait, the potential cost in gold and blood to accomplish this necessity rises.
Since word leaked to the world in 2002 that Iran had a covert nuclear program, the U.S. policy has indeed been that Iran must end its uranium enrichment program, period. President Bush built an international coalition that demanded an end to Iran's uranium enrichment and backed up that demand with ever more restrictive economic sanctions. When Obama ran for the Presidency in 2008 and 2012 he sounded these same calls, indicating that he would back them up by force if necessary. But after his election in 2012, Obama immediately sought to loosen Congressionally imposed sanctions on Iran that were really starting to bite the Iranian economy and, if kept in place for the long term, would have left the regime with a choice between economic disaster or its nuclear weapons program. Obama began secret negotiations with the regime that have ended in the disaster we see before us today.
So let's take a look at the framework for agreement that the Obama administration is now touting. You can find a State Dept. Fact Sheet on the agreement here.
Note at the outset two points. One, Iran has already contested the accuracy of the fact sheet being presented to our nation. Iran claims that the Obama administration has already agreed to lift all sanctions immediately upon inking a final agreement, no waiting for verification of Iran's compliance. Two, this deals contains sunset provisions, as Obama indicates in his statement at the top of this page. That means that, in reality, this agreement does worse than nothing. It allows Iran to continue their nuclear program and experimentation, and then emerge on the threshold of a nuclear arsenal in ten or fifteen years with the approval of the U.S. government. Here is how the Washington Post describes this abortion:
THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.
That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years. . .
Even if this agreement went on in perpetuity and actually stood a chance, on paper at least, of stopping Iran from getting a nuclear arsenal, it still suffers from fatal defects. One, it involves the UN Security Council directly in issues of our national security. Anyone who remembers the perfidy of Russia and China in the leadup to the second Gulf War, as well as the incredible treachery of France, will immediately grasp that the UN Security Council is not concerned with U.S. national security and should not be able to insinuate itself in any way into our national security decisions. Two, the inspection regime, which looks quite detailed and complete on paper, is far too unwieldy to allow for timely and aggressive response to cheating by Iran. That is the point made forcefully by former CIA Director Michael Hayden, Olli Heinonen, formerly of the IAEA, and Iranian expert Ray Takeyh in a Washington Post op-ed yesterday.
This agreement, best case scenario with Iran meticulously complying with every provision, will accomplish the following.
1. It will leave Iran with an operational nuclear program and a clear path to nuclear weapons development in fifteen years. It is in essence a sure path to war in the Middle East, but one which gives the mad mullahs a fifteen year breathing space in which to prepare. Hitler should have been so lucky.
2. It will remove sanctions from the Iranian economy, allowing them to become far more secure even as they promote war and terrorism across the globe.
3. It will leave Iran the strongest power in the Middle East and directly threaten the survival of our allies in the region, not least of which is Israel.
4. It will not touch Iran's development of ICBM's to deliver their eventual nuclear payloads to any spot in the world, including our nation.
5. It will touch off nuclear proliferation in some, if not most, of the Middle Eastern nations threatened by Iran. The only thing more frightening than Iran with a nuclear capability is Saudi Arabia, the nation whose Wahhabist form of Islam has been the wellspring for virtually every Sunni terrorist group, from al Qaeda to ISIS.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but how is any single one of those outcomes in the interests of our nation. Bottom line, this agreement is a recipe for disaster and it must be stopped before its foreseeable costs in blood and gold come due.
Udpate: Charles Krauthammer's opinion of the framework:
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