Black Man Thinkin'

The U.S. and Iran – along with China, France, Russia, the U.K., and Germany – reached an “agreement” regarding the Iranian Nuclear Program. For Iran, the agreement is as historic as it is beneficial. By simply signing the document, Iran receives:

• Relief from financial and economic sanctions, a move opposed by the Saudis and other Arab states in the region,

• Relief – with Russian and Chinese support, and over the objections of the outgoing Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff – from the arms embargo that currently keeps Iran from being even more powerful in the region, and

• Virtually no restrictions on its nuclear program after 15 years.

More money, more weapons and, in just a little while, no hindrances. In addition, Iran has already taken over four governments, while negotiating the nuclear treaty with Obama; their imperial intentions in the region are widely known. Since Obama took no strong action opposing Tehran’s ambitions, while negotiating a weak nuclear agreement with them, the U.S. also cedes control of the Middle East to Iran.

As Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said in a televised address, after the agreement’s announcement, “the prayers of Iranians had ‘come true'”.

For their part, the U.S. and its allies receive…well, that is hard to say.

How weak is the agreement that the U.S. president insists be implemented? Let’s talk assurances… Obama insists that the limiting aspects, on Iran, of the agreement are not matters of trust, but matters of verification:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En977tH_0ns[/youtube]

So, why did no one first verify that Iran yet complied with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) it signed in 1968? Iran is currently nuclear weapon capable, an NPT violation so obvious that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote an Op-Ed piece to say how important a new agreement would be to ensuring Iran had not violated, or would not continue to violate, the old NPT.

(When you need a new agreement simply to verify compliance with an earlier agreement…odds are there will never be either compliance or agreement.)

And the president chose not to mention that, under this new agreement, Iran can challenge inspection access requests – for as long as 24 days – and deny inspectors access to any military facilities inside the country. So, Iran can delay any U.N. inspection, long enough for them to move anything suspicious to a facility where inspections are not allowed. So, unless you can trust Iran to allow the U.N. and Western powers to verify their compliance, there will be no verification…and who trusts Iran?

The U.S. did not gain international prestige with the deal. Arab commentators supported Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position when he addressed a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress in March 2015; Netanyahu has called the agreement an “historic mistake”. The Arab heads of state who snubbed Obama back in May 2015 in response to the Iran deal framework, are not praising today’s “done deal”. Even the Europeans, who generally laud the deal have reservations; Marietje Schaake, a Dutch MEP from the ALDE group, warned that Iran had largely contributed to the current civil war in Syria by strengthening the government in Damascus and militia on the ground, and “must now choose to be part of the solution and the end of the war instead.”

Neither did the U.S. gain any credible deterrent to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, should Tehran not wish to wait 15 years for an all-clear. Neither the sanctions that continue to lift, nor the arms embargo now set to fade, prevented Iran from pursuing its nuclear program or destabilizing one government after another in the region before…what is different now?

Nor did the U.S. gain the freedom of its four citizens being held or tortured by the Iranian government. So, Obama missed a chance to change his image from being the American president who leaves American citizens behind – whether in Iran, in Benghazi, in Yemen, in Mexico…

Again, what did anyone, not named Iran, receive from this agreement?

The president indicates that alternatives to this deal are either continuing Iran’s nuclear program, or war. Those are disingenuous alternatives. Regarding Iran’s nuclear program, it continues unabated since its 1982 post-Islamic Revolution restart, and this agreement lets Iran hide any portion of it that they wish to conceal. War is an option manufactured by this president, to garner support for talks with Iran: Obama undermined what could have forced Iran to capitulate by consistently relieving sanctions on Iran, since June 2013. Iran was not forced to the table; Obama removed viable alternative paths for the U.S.

So, the president dismantled what could have, without negotiation, ended Iran’s nuclear program, thereby ensuring negotiations with Iran on how to continue their nuclear program. How does that scenario benefit the U.S.? Why would anyone believe a deal, emerging from that scenario, is good for the United States of America? Now Congress has 60 days to review what took nearly two years to craft, under threat of veto if they do not rubber-stamp it.

Obama says, “no agreement means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.” But there are numerous wars in the region and this agreement impacts none of them. To say it keeps the U.S. out of new Middle East wars is specious; will the U.S. defend Israel or another ally only if they suffer nuclear attack? How many nuclear weapons did Iran use to co-opt Yemen, Syria, or Iraq? The agreement does nothing to reduce the likelihood of future U.S. military involvement in that area of the world; it does not impact even our current military presence, else the troops recently deployed to fight Islamic State would come home, now that the Iranian nuclear deal is complete.

Finally, you have the mixed message of Americans, who want an agreement, do not trust Iran to abide by it.

America is not war-weary, as you suppose; she is weary of “leaders” who spend the precious capital of her sons’ blood pursuing questionable goals. For those who consider Bush guilty of this sin, they should note nearly 4 times as many military members died in Afghanistan under Obama than under his predecessor.

This agreement does not prevent war as much as it sets a future date for it, giving the enemy time to grow stronger, both militarily and financially – increasing the likelihood of an American defeat.

The America that was a great nation, seeing that threat, might already bear a bloodied sword. If she remained “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, then Iran would know her displeasure, likely by direct means. As it is, the “fundamental transformation” of America is almost complete, and “a people of the government, by the government, and for the government” have lost, not only the will to fight, but also the ability to know a bad deal when it’s about to kill them.