JINSA in the Washington Post on Looming Iran Deal
Obama confirms worst fears
By Jennifer Rubin
Obama confirms worst fears
By Jennifer Rubin
For seven years critics of the president have claimed he is out to appease Iran, allowing it a nuclear-weapons capability and eventual entree into the nuclear weapons club. Liberals insisted this was Obama Derangement Syndrome. In fact Obama admitted in essence yesterday that his critics were right in an interview in which he declared, “If in fact Iran is . . . willing to agree to double-digit years of keeping their program where it is right now and in fact rolling back elements of it that currently exist . . . If we’ve got that and we’ve got a way of verifying that, there’s no other steps we can take that would give us such assurance that they don’t have a nuclear weapons.” First, that’s false since dismantling what they have is the better course, and second this is plain capitulation. Iran in 10 years has unrestricted ability to build all the bombs it wants. It is a complete repudiation of the administration’s stated policy against containment and, if it ever went into effect, would set off a nuclear arms race in the region.
To make matters worse Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, gave perhaps the worst speech by anyone in the history of AIPAC policy conferences. She falsely repeated the president’s claim that the joint plan of action has “already succeeded in halting Iran’s nuclear program.” It has not. Low-level enrichment continues, its ICBM research continues and its development of advance centrifuges goes forward. She proceeded to tell the attendees it was unrealistic to deny Iran nuclear-enrichment capability (well, since the threat of military action has all but disappeared), and they’d be foolish to let something “totally unachievable” get in the way of a “good” deal. Then with unintentional hilarity she announced, “Sound bites won’t stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” Yes, that would be a sound bite. And neither is it the case that Obama will stop Iran.
The president appears to have taken Iran’s “no” as final and has not the skill nor the wherewithal to deploy the leverage we actually have (economic sanctions, the threat of force) to cause them to budge. Instead he gives in. The Iranians can keep what we said they could not have (a nuclear weapons infrastructure), they can conceal what we said they must reveal (to the International Atomic Energy Agency, all their past activities) and they can do what we said we would never allow (after 10 years join the club of nuclear powers.
Michael Makovsky, chief executive of the pro-Israel nonprofit organization JINSA, remarked to me, “Further, this concession and looming deal will likely lead the Saudis and our other Sunni Arab allies to pursue their own nuclear weapons, which Obama had years ago stated he was seeking to avoid. Obama also claims any deal will be verifiable but the interim deal he considers a success excludes the issue of Iran coming clean on the possible military dimensions of its facilities, precluding proper verification.” He noted, “By belittling the potential effectiveness of military action by either the U.S. or Israel he continues not only to undercut further our leverage in talks with Iran, but makes clear that he no longer means what he said for years – that military action would be used as a last resort. So whatever credibility Obama has left, following his non-fulfillment of his Syrian red line in September 2013, seems to be evaporating.”