Who are you going to trust on Iran?
Who are you going to trust on Iran? Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin, February 26, 2015
It is no wonder that the administration refuses to concede a deal must be approved by Congress. With each passing day, the administration’s credibility slips deeper into the abyss and the likelihood of bipartisan rejection of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Iran diplomatic debacle increases.
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Secretary of State John Kerry ran into a bipartisan buzzsaw at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday:
California Republican Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Kerry at a hearing that members of the panel have serious concerns about the direction of the more than 1-year-old talks, which are at a critical juncture. Negotiators are rushing to try to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework agreement between Iran and the US and five other world powers.
“I’m hearing less about dismantlement and more about the performance of Iran’s nuclear program,” Royce told Kerry. “That’s particularly disturbing when you consider that international inspectors report that Iran has still not revealed its past bomb work.”
New York Rep. Elliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the committee, expressed skepticism too. Engel noted news stories claiming that negotiators are willing to ease limits on Iran’s enrichment production during the later years of an accord in order to bridge the differences between the two sides over how long an agreement should last.
“We’re hearing troubling reports on the scale and duration of the program that Iran may be allowed as part of a deal,” Engel said.
Kerry, who voted for the Iraq war, at one point said Netanyahu couldn’t be trusted because he supported the war. Aside from the unmitigated chutzpah, it is not true. Israel, as has been widely reported, had significant qualms about the war and came under Scud missile fire. Netanyahu, of course, was not prime minister at the time; Ariel Sharon was. Elliott Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush and oversaw the Israel relationship, tells me, “Senator Kerry was famously for the invasion of Iraq before he was against it. Prime Minister Netanyahu, then a cabinet member, was — like Prime Minister Sharon — worried that the United States was going after the wrong target, Iraq, when they worried more about Iran. The assertion that Israel pressed for the invasion of Iraq is wrong, and is usually heard from the loonier anti-Semitic circles. Secretary Kerry owes a lot of apologies today.” Indeed, anti-Israel fanatics on the far right and left blame Israel for pushing the war, so maybe that is where Kerry got this from. But his accusation disproves his point: Netanyahu is actually far more credible on Iran since it is his country that is immediately threatened and it is he who accurately predicted Iran’s march to acquire a bomb.
The Post’s Fred Hiatt recently listed a number of false assurances and misguided predictions by the Obama administration. He concluded, “This litany of unfulfilled assurances is less a case of Nixonian deception than a product of wishful thinking and stubborn adherence to policies after they have failed. But inevitably it will affect how people hear Obama’s promises on Iran, as will his overall foreign policy record. . . . Islamist extremists are stronger than ever; democracy is in retreat around the globe; relations with Russia and North Korea have worsened; allies are questioning U.S. steadfastness.” Indeed there is a world leader who deserves deep skepticism on his judgment about Iran; it’s President Obama.
Frankly, the administration’s snit over the Netanyahu speech has rightly been seen as abject panic. The world leader most credible on Iran from the country that 70 percent of Americans support is coming to debunk the plan to let Iran keep its nuclear infrastructure — in direct contravention of the administration’s public statements and private assurances to our allies in the region. The administration’s lame effort to discredit the prime minister and start a partisan rumpus — led by two of the least credible foreign policy officials in recent memory (Susan Rice of “it was a video” fame on the Benghazi attack and John Kerry, whose previously threatened that the United States could not protect Israel unless it made a peace deal) — is nearly as pathetic as its negotiation posture with Iran. It is no wonder that the administration refuses to concede a deal must be approved by Congress. With each passing day, the administration’s credibility slips deeper into the abyss and the likelihood of bipartisan rejection of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Iran diplomatic debacle increases.
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