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The Iran-North Korea Axis of Atomic Weapons?

August 13, 2015

The Iran-North Korea Axis of Atomic Weapons? Forbes Opinion, Claudia Rosett, August 13, 2015

(I have been beating this drum for years and this is among the best articles on the subject I have read. It is clearly past time for the Obama Administration to “come clean” on what it knows about the Iran – North Korea axis. Congress should reject the current “deal” with Iran if it does not do so, fully and promptly. — DM)

President Obama has been telling Congress and the American public that the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — “cuts off all Iran’s pathways to the bomb.” That’s not true. One of the most dangerous aspects of this deal is that it does not sever the longtime alliance between Tehran and Pyongyang. If there has indeed been cooperation between these two regimes on nuclear weapons, it’s time not only for Iran to come clean, but for the Obama administration to stop covering up.

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As U.S. lawmakers debate the Iran nuclear deal, they are rightly concerned about Iran’s refusal to disclose its past work on nuclear weapons. Not only does this refusal deprive inspectors of a baseline for monitoring Iran’s compliance; it also deprives Congress of information about the networks that Iran’s regime might most readily employ should it choose to secretly continue its quest for  the nuclear bomb.

On that note, it should also concern Congress that Tehran is not alone in hiding information on Iran’s history of developing nuclear weapons. Whatever President Obama and his negotiating team might know about such matters, they have been — to put it mildly — less than diligent about informing the American public.

An honest accounting would quite likely reveal something that many press reports have alleged, but U.S. administration officials have never publicly confirmed: A history of nuclear weapons collaboration between Iran and nuclear-proliferating North Korea.

Don’t take my word for it. Let us turn instead to an in-depth article published on August 4, 2003 by a staff writer of the Los Angeles Times under the headline “Iran Closes In on Ability to Build a Nuclear Bomb.” The reporter was no junior correspondent. The article was the product of a three-month international investigation by a veteran investigative reporter, previously a member of a Pulitzer-Prize winning team at the New York Times, Douglas Frantz.

Drawing on “previously secret reports, international officials, independent experts, Iranian exiles and intelligence sources in Europe and the Middle East,” Frantz wrote that “North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials.”

Frantz added: “So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use.”

Perhaps Frantz should recycle that article to Secretary of State John Kerry, who while testifying to a congressional panel last month was asked about its allegations by Rep. Christopher Smith, and ducked the question.

Frantz might have a better chance of getting Kerry’s attention; Frantz now works for Kerry. In 2009, then-Senator Kerry hired Frantz as deputy staff director and chief investigator of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Frantz returned briefly to newspaper work in 2012, as national security editor of The Washington Post. Frantz was then hired once again to work under Kerry, this time at the State Department, where Frantz has worked since 2013 as Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs.

At State, Frantz’s portfolio includes engaging “domestic and international media to communicate timely and accurate information with the goal of furthering U.S. foreign policy and national security interests as well as broadening understanding of American values.”

But it appears that as a State Department advocate of a free and well-informed press, Frantz himself is not free to answer questions from the press about his own reporting on North Korea’s help to Iran in designing a nuclear warhead. The State Department has refused my repeated requests to interview Frantz on this subject. Last year, an official at State’s Bureau of Public Affairs responded to my request with an email saying, “Unfortunately Assistant Secretary Frantz is not available to discuss issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.” This June I asked again, and received the emailed reply: “This is indeed an important topic for Doug, but he feels that speaking about his past work would no longer be appropriate, since he is no longer a journalist.”

The real issue, of course, is not the career timeline of Douglas Frantz, but the likelihood, past and future, of nuclear collaboration between Iran and North Korea. Frantz may no longer be a journalist, but it’s hard to see why that should constrain him, or his boss, Secretary Kerry, from speaking publicly about important details of Iran’s illicit nuclear endeavors — information which Frantz in his incarnation as a star journalist judged credible enough to publish in a major newspaper.

If Frantz needs to protect his sources, by all means let him do so. He need not name his contacts inside Iran, or the “foreign intelligence officials” who gave him his scoop. If Frantz’s story was accurate, then presumably the administration has its own sources for such information. Recall that in June, with reference to Iran’s past work on nuclear weapons — the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program — Kerry told reporters “We know what they did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in.”

So, what precisely were those activities, and Congress might want to ask Frantz, or his boss, Secretary of State Kerry, if information available to the U.S. administration supports Frantz’s story of North Korean-Iran collaboration on nuclear warheads. If so, then surely it’s time for the administration to lift the classified veil and share the blockbuster details not only with Congress, but with American voters — who deserve to know a lot more of the history that might yet shape the future of this “historic” Iran nuclear deal.

Of course, the real problem for the Obama administration is that an officially confirmed story of Iran-North Korea collaboration on nuclear warheads could spell further trouble for winning congressional approval of this nuclear deal. North Korea is a rogue state which despite sanctions has long served as a munitions back shop for Iran. If that business has included tutorials on nuclear warhead design, that is very bad news. North Korea has already conducted three nuclear tests, has been threatening a fourth, and appears to be producing bomb fuel — both plutonium and highly enriched uranium — for a nuclear arsenal which by the estimates of various experts could within a few years include dozens of warheads. Under the Iran nuclear deal, Iran would emerge with a lot more money to browse such wares.

According to public statements this year by a number of senior U.S. military officials, North Korea has also acquired the ability –untested, but dangerous — to mount miniaturized nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. In other words, North Korea is becoming a full service shop for nuclear weapons, including the materials and technology to make them and the means to deliver them.

North Korea has a long record of peddling its weapons and related technology abroad, from conventional arms to missiles to the notorious caper in which North Korea helped Iran’s client state, Syria, build an entire clandestine nuclear reactor for no apparent use except to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons (that reactor was nearing completion when it was destroyed in 2007 by an Israeli air strike). Iran and North Korea are longtime allies, veteran smugglers and since the early days of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution have been prolific partners in weapons traffic.

Nor has Frantz been the only journalist to report that Iran and North Korea have worked together on nuclear weapons. For years, there have been reports in the media of Iranian officials attending North Korean nuclear tests, and North Koreans turning up at nuclear weapons research facilities in Iran. In testimony July 28th at a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a former Congressional Research Service specialist on Asia, Larry Niksch, provided a list of respected news services that have published stories on Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation. Among them were Reuters, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Suddeutsche Zeitung, Japan’s Kyodo News and Sankei Shimbun. and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. Broadly, these stories have cited sources such as foreign intelligence agencies and Iranian defectors.

The staple element missing from this picture is any official U.S. confirmation that Iran and North Korea have worked together on nuclear matters. The Obama administration has confirmed dealings between Iran and North Korea in conventional arms and missiles. But, as Niksch stated, “On nuclear collaboration there has been a virtual blackout of public information.”

When asked about allegations of Iran-North Korea nuclear ties, Obama administration officials either retreat behind the classified veil, or deflect the question. A standard response is that they take such allegations “seriously” and will look into them. From that process, to date, no significant public information has emerged.

The likely reason for this cone of silence is that for more than two decades, American presidents have tried to defang first North Korea’s nuclear program, and now Iran’s, by concocting nuclear deals that don’t hold up. In the process, Presidents Clinton, Bush (in his second term) and now President Obama, have each in turn tried to minimize disclosures that could derail their various nuclear deals. The unfortunate result is that instead of stopping nuclear proliferation, they have collectively run cover for some of the most virulent ties between Iran and North Korea. In doing so, they have deprived the American public of information important to assessing any nuclear deal with either North Korea or Iran.

Some secrecy may be necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods. That should not excuse any American president or his team from failure to alert the public to the extent of the Iran-North Korea connection, or refusal to comment in any meaningful way on allegations of nuclear weapons cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang.

President Obama has been telling Congress and the American public that the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — “cuts off all Iran’s pathways to the bomb.” That’s not true. One of the most dangerous aspects of this deal is that it does not sever the longtime alliance between Tehran and Pyongyang. If there has indeed been cooperation between these two regimes on nuclear weapons, it’s time not only for Iran to come clean, but for the Obama administration to stop covering up.

Categories: Department of Defense, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - North Korea axis, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress
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Contentions | The Iran Deal’s Evaporating Logic

August 11, 2015

Contentions | The Iran Deal’s Evaporating Logic, Commentary Magazine, , August 11, 2015

Proponents of the Iran nuclear deal are finding the justifications for compelling Congress to ratify the accord, save for preserving Barack Obama’s fragile self-image, are coming apart. As such, the accord’s supporters have increasingly turned to defending the deal with appeals to the president’s stature and authority, as well as by calling into question the motives and character of its opponents. That alone should tell you all you need to know. Though some of the Iran nuclear deal’s remaining backers do still occasionally claim that it will succeed in what was once its singular purpose: limiting Iran’s ability to produce prohibited armaments. One of most convincing precedents supporting this contention has, however, been largely disaffirmed. 

When asked to cite a model to demonstrate how the nuclear deal will not only prevent Iranian from developing a fissionable device but also produce a variety of happy byproducts like the moderation of the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing behavior, the deal’s supporters most frequently point to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with the Soviet Union.

“From the Western perspective, the nuclear deal represents the most important security agreement since the signing of the Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF) Treaty between Washington and Moscow during the twilight years of the Cold War,” Al Jazeera columnist Richard Javad Heydarian averred.

Peter Beinart took this contention an ill-advised step further. “By 1987, Reagan had signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, the most sweeping arms-control deal of the Cold War. His rhetoric toward the Soviet Union also radically changed,” Beinart wrote in The Atlantic. “Reagan, in other words, dramatically de-escalated the Cold War long before he knew Gorbachev would let Eastern Europe go free and at a time when prominent conservatives were literally calling him Neville Chamberlain for signing the INF deal.”

That’s true. Graham Allison, also writing in The Atlantic, quoted a few conservatives from the period that feared Reagan was providing the Soviets with a reprieve from the crushing obligations of the arms race. “Reagan insisted that he was capable of brokering agreements to reduce the risks of accidents or unauthorized actions that risked nuclear war with one hand, while redoubling his efforts to undermine the Soviet regime with the other,” he insisted. “And he did just that. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.”

This is a remarkable simplification of history. Beinart claims that Regan’s shifting rhetoric (he renounced his “evil empire” comment while standing in the middle of Red Square under the watchful eye of a young Vladimir Putin) provided Mikhail Gorbachev space to make the case to the Politburo that he was not capitulating to Reagan in this accord. But this is a variation of the liberal case that ideational and not material considerations led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the INF effectively marked the end of the arms race, in part because it had already been lost by the Soviets. By contrast, there has been no ideational shift in the theocratic regime in Tehran nor is there any indication in Iran’s behavior that it is desirous of rapprochement with the West. If anything, Iran has behaved in a more bellicose fashion as nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 intensified.

The USSR is long gone, but the INF remains in place. Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are advised to pay close attention to what that arrangement has become. It is no longer an arms control agreement but a political relic that serves little purpose but to shield from public scrutiny the extent to which Russia has become an irresponsible and revanchist international actor.

Writing in Politico Magazine in April, Foreign Policy Initiative scholars Eric Edelman and Tzvi Kahn outline the scope of the Russian’s efforts to game the INF. In response to Russia’s brazenness, American officials have routinely downplayed Moscow’s cheating. Despite repeatedly warning the United States that it was prepared to violate the INF over the course of the last decade, the Bush administration refused to acknowledge that reality. When Moscow did violate the terms of the INF in this decade, the Obama administration also pretended not to notice. And when this administration finally did address Russia’s violations of the terms of the INF, that acknowledgement was not followed on with any consequences.

That failure of resolve continues even today. According to the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz, a Pentagon assessment last month revealing the extent of Russia’s violations of the INF paints a damning picture of the Kremlin’s behavior. Unfortunately for anyone who would like to fully understand how Russia has undermined the INF, the White House is allegedly blocking that report’s release.

“Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation,” Gertz reported. “Rogers said the assessment was conducted by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, and noted that it outlines potential responses to the treaty breach.”

To acknowledge the treaty’s failure would provide additional political legitimacy to an effort by House Republicans that seeks to provide funding for short-range cruise missile defenses in Poland and Romania. That’s a direct repudiation of this White House, which continues to stand by its 2009 rejection of a Bush-era deal that would have provided the Czech Republic and Poland with long-range interceptor and radar technology. In short, politics is dictating American national defense planning and strategy.

“Similarly, for decades, Tehran has violated its nuclear commitments — and the United States has failed to hold it accountable,” Edelman and Kahn observed.

There is no evidence to suggest that regime as demonstrably duplicitous as Iran’s will not cheat on this arrangement. In fact, the terms of this deal would make it difficult to definitively identify cheating, much less to marshal support for an international response to it. Even if such behavior could be identified, though, it’s not entirely clear that this administration (or its successor, presuming the next administration is a Democratic one) will be predisposed to punish Iranian cheating at all. To acknowledge the fact that the nuclear deal with Iran has failed would be to invite searing criticism from the deal’s domestic opponents.

The INF is a treaty in a persistent vegetative state; it’s corporal form remains, but its spirit has long since passed on to another plane. A conventional arms race in Eastern Europe has taken its place. If the West were to acknowledge that arms race, it would be obliged to participate in it. So it simply refuses to acknowledge it. If the Iran deal fails, its proponents in Washington are unlikely to ever say as much. Not until it is too late.

Categories: Appeasement, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Russia, Russian missiles, U.S. Congress, U.S. politics, USSR
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Obama vs. the Jews

August 11, 2015

Obama vs. the Jews, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, August 11, 2015

21obama

Even in the extremely unlikely circumstance that enough Democrats would come together to veto the deal, Obama had already told the agreement’s leading Democratic opponent in the House, “If Congress overrides my veto, you do not get a U.S. foreign policy that reflects that vote. What you get is you pass this law and I, as president, will do everything possible to go in the other direction.”

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It was his birthday and Obama was grouchy.

“It’s my birthday and I’m going to be blunt,” Obama told the Jewish leaders meeting with him. When they complained that, “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he was unapologetic. 

“If you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing,” he warned.

By that he meant that if they stopped objecting to the Iran deal, he would stop accusing critics of his nuclear sellout to Iran of being money-grubbing warmongers.

Obama complained, “It’s been a really busy day. You’d think they’d be nicer to me on my birthday.”

His busy day had consisted of a meeting with the ineffectual UN Secretary General, lunch with Biden and a photo op in the East Room. But he also had reservations at Rose’s Luxury, an expensive Capitol Hill restaurant where ordinary people wait for hours to get in.

Rose’s doesn’t take reservations, but Obama was an exception.

Shortly after his meeting with Jewish leaders, he and his close Iranian-born adviser Valerie Jarrett skipped the line at Rose’s and got the party started. On the next day, Obama blasted Republican opponents as treasonous allies of those who chant “Death to America,” even though he was the one who had actually made common cause with Iran’s regime.

The day after that, Senator Schumer called Obama to tell him he would oppose the deal and asked him to let him announce it on Friday. The White House instead leaked it to the Huffington Post.  The first response to Schumer’s announcement came from MoveOn, which blew the dog whistle loudly enough to be heard in the next state over, “Our country doesn’t need another Joe Lieberman in the Senate.”

The only obvious thing that both politicians had in common was that they were Jewish.

Obama had lost the argument on the facts. The majority of Americans opposed the deal by 52 to 28 percent. Even among Democrats, support stood at only 52 percent.

His game plan for winning the debate was to get as ugly and dirty as possible.

Despite having just gotten back into Iraq, after contemplating an attack on Syria and coming off an illegal assault on Libya, any Democrat opposing him risked being accused of wanting another Iraq War. Or as White House press secretary Josh Earnest coyly put it, “This difference of opinion that emerged overnight is one that has existed between Senator Schumer and President Obama for over a decade.”

Obama allies emphasized that Schumer had voted for the Iraq War. Obama was once again rerunning his old campaign against Biden and Hillary, even though one was his VP and the other his successor.

Barack Obama had already rolled out the “lonely little guy in the White House” playbook complaining about lobbies and money. He had been irked at his representatives not getting full access to the AIPAC activists who were visiting members of Congress and was reading from Bush I’s old script. But now he began to sound more like Pat Buchanan ranting about Israel’s “amen corner” beating the drums for war.

Having forgotten the time he sent his campaign consultants to defeat Netanyahu in the Israeli election, he complained that Netanyahu was inappropriately interfering. During his speech, he rediscovered a love for the Constitution which he claimed obligated him to sideline Israel. Sadly he lacked the same love for the Constitution’s Treaty Clause which requires two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty.

The complaints about lobbies and money sounded strange coming from a guy who had his own SuperPAC with tens of millions of dollars to spend. Behind him was a network of organizations with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on hand and billionaire donors to donate on demand.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund had invested a fortune into the project. Some of the money went into the Ploughshares Fund, which did its own promotion for the deal, and funneled cash to Global Zero, which released a video promoting the deal featuring Jack Black and Morgan Freeman.  His position was backed by George Soros’ J Street, an astroturfed anti-Israel group that was bringing serious money to the party.

Once Schumer came out on the deal, he was targeted by Credo Mobile and MoveOn, among other powerful left-wing groups, determined that nothing would be allowed to interfere with Iran’s nukes.

There was no shortage of lobbies and money in Obama’s corner. The citizen activists opposed to the deal might have the support of the American people, but they were outmatched by the massive wealth and infrastructure of the Democracy Alliance and Obama’s mainstream media allies.

The teachers, mothers, engineers and small businessmen could travel to Washington D.C. and complain to their Congressman. Obama could go on the Daily Show and complain about them to Jon Stewart.

There was no comparing their respective power.

And all that was without mentioning the Iran Lobby which boasted close relationships with Joe Biden and John Kerry.

Obama continued to escalate tensions with the Jewish community, even though he faced no real risk that enough Democrats would come together to override his veto. Even Schumer’s rejection had bent over backward to praise and flatter him. The American people might disapprove of the deal, but they had also disapproved of ObamaCare and his illegal war in Libya. And he had just rolled over them.

The administration wasn’t in this fight because it worried that it might lose. Between the GOP establishment and Obama, the game had already been rigged. Everyone, including Schumer, would play their parts, get their applause and the agreement would move forward. Hundreds of AIPAC members lobbying a few members of Congress wouldn’t stop that. Neither would a few ads.

Even in the extremely unlikely circumstance that enough Democrats would come together to veto the deal, Obama had already told the agreement’s leading Democratic opponent in the House, “If Congress overrides my veto, you do not get a U.S. foreign policy that reflects that vote. What you get is you pass this law and I, as president, will do everything possible to go in the other direction.”

Obama would implement the deal no matter what Congress did. Iran would get its nukes.

But for Obama, scowling and impatiently tapping his fingers while waiting to go for his birthday dinner, musing that he could have already been there if it wasn’t for these old white men whining to him, looking forward to his round of golf and a trip to Camp David, it had become petulantly personal.

For the left, the political is often indistinguishable from the personal, and for Obama it has always been that way. Obama’s view of government is Louis XIV’s “I am the State”. All opposition is personal. All dissent is treason. Enemies have to be punished on the principle of the thing.

It didn’t matter that the Jewish leaders had zero chance of actually stopping his agreement with Iran. Most of them didn’t even want to be there. What mattered was that they had opposed him and they had to be punished for it.

Obama had compared Americans uneasy about Iran’s “Death to America” slogan to schoolyard bullies who wanted to “smack around” the “little guy” who dared to “mouth off.” But he was the one playing the bully, going out of his way to sow tension, using rhetoric condemned even by Jewish supporters of the deal, not because he needed it to win, but because he was angry and resentful.

Millions of Jews around the world saw the specter of an atomic cloud rising into the sky, but Obama had a birthday meal at Rose’s Luxury to go to, a round of golf to play and his feelings were being hurt and his birthday was being ruined by these annoying Jews who wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.

Obama isn’t even stirring up anti-Semitism to defend the Iran deal. He’s lashing out, accusing critics of being traitors and warmongers, because they ruined his birthday party.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress
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What Iran’s hostile reaction to the Parchin issue means for the nuclear deal

August 11, 2015

What Iran’s hostile reaction to the Parchin issue means for the nuclear deal, Washington Post, David Albright, August 10, 2015

The United States and Congress should clearly and publicly confirm, and Congress should support with legislation, that if Iran does not address the IAEA’s concerns about the past military dimensions of its nuclear programs, U.S. sanctions will not be lifted. To do otherwise is to make a mockery of the nuclear deal.

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Chico Marx said: “Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said over the weekend that my organization, the Institute for Science and International Security, was spreading lies when we published satellite imagery that showed renewed, concerning activity at the Parchin military site near Tehran. This site is linked by Western intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to past work on nuclear weapons. But like Chico, instead of acknowledging the concern, the Iranians chose to deny the visible evidence in commercial satellite imagery. Iran’s comments would be mirthful if the topic were not so serious.

Zarif is also calling U.S. intelligence officials and members of Congress liars. They are the original source of the information both about renewed activity at Parchin and concerns about that activity. All we did was publish satellite imagery showing this activity and restate the obvious concern.

Moreover, this information about renewed activity at Parchin does not come from opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated between the United States, five other world powers and Iran, as Zarif suggested. We are neutral on whether the agreement should be implemented and have made that position clear for weeks. The U.S. intelligence community is hardly opposed to the deal. Iran’s attempts to dismiss this concern as the work of the deal’s foes also is just wrong.

Concern about Parchin has become more urgent now that there is a debate raging over whether the IAEA will have adequate access to this site under the terms of its deal with Iran. It would be irresponsible not to worry about reports that suggest that Iran could be again sanitizing the site to thwart environmental sampling that could reveal past nuclear weapons activities there. This concern is further heightened because Iran has demanded to do this sampling itself instead of letting the IAEA do it. Such an arrangement is unprecedented and risky, and will be even more so if Iran continues to sanitize the site. In the cases of the Iranian Kalaye Electric site and the North Korean plutonium separation plant at Yongbyon, the success of sampling that showed undeclared activities depended on samples being taken at non-obvious locations identified during previous IAEA visits inside buildings. The IAEA will not be able to visit Parchin until after the samples are taken, and it remains doubtful that the inspectors will be able to take additional samples.

Some of this can be written off to Zarif’s volatility. At one point during the negotiations, he yelled so loudly at Secretary of State John F. Kerry that those outside the room could hear him. He obviously angers easily. But he is also one of the more reasonable Iranian government officials. I can remember in the late 1990s discussions with Iranian government and nuclear officials in New York where the Iranians vehemently stated, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that they did not have any gas centrifuge programs. I was presenting the evidence that they did, in fact, have a centrifuge program, one in fact aided by Pakistan, and at one of these meetings, Zarif quietly said to me that he had always told me that Iran had the entire fuel cycle — technical language admitting to an enrichment program. His willingness to admit the obvious gave me hope that the crisis over Iran’s program could be solved diplomatically. But on Parchin, his words appear to reflect Iranian government intransigence on its past nuclear weapons program. Its action is an assault on the integrity and prospects of the nuclear deal.

Iran’s reaction shows that it may be drawing a line at Parchin. Resolving the Parchin issue is central to the IAEA’s effort to resolve concerns about Iran’s past work on nuclear weapons by the end of the year, but Parchin is not the only site and activity involved in this crucial issue. The IAEA needs to visit other sites and interview a range of scientists and officials. Instead of allowing this needed access, Iran appears to be continuing its policy of total denial, stating that the concerns are merely Western falsifications and fantasies. The United States recently reasserted that it believes Iran had a nuclear weapons program and stated that it knows a considerable amount about it. So, if Iran sticks to its strategy, one can expect an impasse that includes Iran refusing to allow the IAEA the access it needs to sites and scientists within the coming months.

U.S. officials have stated that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action requires Iran to address concerns about its past work on nuclear weapons prior to the lifting of sanctions. However, Iran may argue otherwise, and one could easily conclude that its recent actions are the start of such a reinterpretation of the agreement. The United States and Congress should clearly and publicly confirm, and Congress should support with legislation, that if Iran does not address the IAEA’s concerns about the past military dimensions of its nuclear programs, U.S. sanctions will not be lifted. To do otherwise is to make a mockery of the nuclear deal.

Categories: Appeasement, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran centrifuges, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Javad Zarif, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Parchin, U.S. Congress
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MSNBC: Obama ‘stunning’ in vilifying of deal opponents

August 10, 2015

MSNBC: Obama ‘stunning’ in vilifying of deal opponents, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, August 10, 2015

 

Categories: Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran scam, Israel, Media, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, U.S. politics
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No Trust, No Verification, No Sanctions: Obama’s Humiliating Capitulation to the Mullahs

August 8, 2015

No Trust, No Verification, No Sanctions: Obama’s Humiliating Capitulation to the Mullahs, National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy, August 8, 2015

(I have been beating this drum for quite a while. So have others. The Obama administration’s position still makes no sense whatever, unless unfortunate motives are attributed to the Commander in Chief. — DM)

The sanctions regime President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry vowed to step up has already collapsed. The mullahs are already scooping up billions in unfrozen assets and new commerce, and they haven’t even gotten the big payday yet. Obama’s promises of “anytime, anywhere” inspections have melted away as Tehran denies access and the president accepts their comical offer to provide their own nuclear-site samples for examination. Senator John Barasso (R., Wyo.), a medical doctor, drew the apt analogy: It’s like letting a suspect NFL player what he says is his own urine sample and then pronouncing him PED-free.#

And now even the Potemkin verification system has become an embarrassing sham, with Iran first refusing to allow physical investigations, then declining perusal of documentation describing past nuclear work, and now rejecting interviews of relevant witnesses.

Recall that administration officials indignantly assured skeptics that there would be no agreement in the absence of Iran’s Iran’s coming clean on the “past military dimensions” of its nuclear work. As Kerry put it, “They have to do it. It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal; it will be done.”

The reason it had to be done is obvious. According to Obama, his Iran deal is built on verification, not trust — at least when the president is not trusting Ayatollah Khamenei’s phantom anti-nuke fatwa. Plainly, it would be impossible to verify whether Iran was advancing toward the weaponization of nuclear energy — whether it had shortened the “breakout time” the elongation of which, Obama claims, is the principal objective of his deal — unless one knew how far the mullahs had advanced in the first place

But now, in open mockery of an American president they know is so desperate to close this deal he will never call their bluff, the mullahs have told the International Atomic Energy Agency to pound sand — although not sand in Iran, where the IAEA is not permitted to snoop around. Tehran is steadfastly refusing to open its books, and the IAEA sheepishly admits that it cannot answer basic questions about Iran’s programs and progress.

So what does Team Obama do? Do they, as they promised, walk away from an unverifiable and thus utterly indefensible deal that lends aid and comfort to our enemies? Of course not. Now they’re out there telling Americans, “We don’t need this IAEA program to discover whether or not Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon — they were,” as Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Obamabot, told the Wall Street Journal.

Well good for you, Sherlock; Obama, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton may still be hanging on that fatwa, but you hit the bull’s-eye.

Here’s the thing, though, Senator Murphy: Yes, all of us know the Iranians, as you cheerily put it, “were” pursuing a nuclear weapon — especially all of us who oppose Obama’s Iran deal and who recognize that the jihadist regime has waged war against us since 1979, killing thousands of Americans. But you “let’s make a deal” guys told us your objective was to uncover how far along they “were” and to roll back their progress. (Actually, you used to tell us your objective was to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, period — as in “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan, period.”)

If you don’t have a baseline from which to begin verification, you can’t verify the time of day, much less the progress of nuclear research, development, procurement, and experimentation. Iran is saying we don’t get the baseline without which the Obama administration guaranteed there would be no agreement.

So in the grand deal our president describes as subjecting the mullahs to historically rigorous inspection, disclosure, and verification requirements, there is no inspection, no disclosure, and no verification.

And did I mention no sanctions?

On July 29, Kerry assured lawmakers that Iranian Quds Force commander “Qassem Soleimani will never be relieved of any sanctions.” Soleimani orchestrates the regime’s terrorist operations and, according to the Pentagon, is responsible for killing at least 500 American soldiers in Iraq.

Yet, only five days before Kerry gave that testimony, Soleimani traveled to Russia for meetings with Putin’s government — notwithstanding the vaunted sanctions that, Kerry would have us believe, confine him to Iran.

Russia, of course, is a member of the U.N. Security Council, from which Obama sought and obtained endorsement of his Iran deal before seeking congressional review. Not only has Russia rendered the current sanctions a joke; it has made Obama’s implausible promise of future “snapback” sanctions against Iran even more laughable. Russia, by the way, has also agreed to build yet another nuclear reactor for the mullahs in Busheir — which Obama’s deal obligates the United States to protect against sabotage. And Putin has also just agreed to supply the terrorist regime in Tehran with $800 million worth of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that can be used against the U.S. Air Force and have enough range to strike planes in northern Israel.

What a deal, Mr. President!

Actually, we really don’t know quite what a deal it is because key provisions remain secret. After its bold verification promises, the Obama administration was too embarrassed to reveal exactly how pathetic the agreement’s inspections provisions are. So, as I outlined in a recent column, Obama and Kerry tucked them into a secret side deal between Iran and the IAEA. It then twaddled that the details — i.e., the heart of the deal from the American perspective — are, conveniently, between Iran and the IAEA. None of our business, you see.

This message was reiterated on Capitol Hill this week by the IAEA. Understand: The IAEA could not function (to the limited extend it does function) without the United States Congress’s underwriting of 25 percent of its budget — the American taxpayer contribution dwarfs that of every other country, including Iran’s, which is tiny. Yet, the IAEA chief told lawmakers that he could not reveal the agreement between his agency and Tehran because that is “confidential” information, disclosure of which would compromise the IAEA’s “independence.” The only things the IAEA would confirm are that (a) there are verification provisions and (b) Iran is not cooperating with them.

Feel better?

Well, to further improve your mood, let’s talk the Corker bill. Remember, that’s the legislation by which the GOP-controlled Congress reversed the constitutional presumption against international agreements and virtually assured that Obama’s Iran deal — no matter how appalling it may be, no matter how much aid and comfort if provides to the enemy — will become law.

Why on earth would Beltway Republicans agree to anything so catastrophic for the national security that the Constitution’s Treaty Clause is designed to protect? Because, they proclaimed, by making this devil’s bargain, they would ensure that Congress and the American people got full disclosure of the Iran deal that Obama would otherwise shroud in secrecy.

But as I asked at the time, what possessed them to think Obama would not shroud the agreement in secrecy just because there would now be a law forbidding that?

Supporters are telling themselves that the Corker bill’s benefits [include that] the president will have to produce the agreement. . . . But this is a mirage. . . . The president is notoriously lawless, and thus Republicans can have no confidence that the agreement he produces to Congress will, in fact, be the final deal he signs off on with Iran and, significantly, submits to the U.N. Security Council for an endorsing resolution.

And so it has come to pass: Republicans forfeited their constitutional power for an unenforceable promise of transparency from an infamously duplicitous backroom dealer. Now they have no power and no idea what they’ve enabled.

The president had it backwards Wednesday when, in his repulsively demagogic speech on the Iran deal, he said that Republicans are aligned with the Iranian chanting ‘Death to America.’” It is Obama who is aiding and abetting the hardliners. Republicans have merely aided and abetted Obama.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian economy, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Soleimani, U.S. Congress
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Iran confirms trip by Quds Force Commander to Moscow to discuss arms shipments

August 8, 2015

Iran confirms trip by Quds Force Commander to Moscow to discuss arms shipments, Fox News, , , August 8, 2015

Iranian officials confirmed Friday that General Qassem Soleimani, the heavily sanctioned Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander, traveled to Russia last month and was conducting weapons deals, including discussion of the S-300 missile system, according to Reuters.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Friday the U.S. is very concerned about the development.

“Qassem Soleimani is subject to a UN travel ban and this travel ban requires all states to prohibit Qassem Soleimani from traveling to their nation and the only exception to that is if the Iran sanctions committee grants an exemption,” she said at UN headquarters in New York.

The White House did not specifically blame the Russians for hosting the Iranian general.

“I can’t confirm these specific reports but it is an indication of our ongoing concerns with Iran and their behavior,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday at the daily press briefing.

Mike Rogers, former chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, weighed in late Friday afternoon.

 “We should not underestimate what this means to our national security,” he said. “A leading general in Iran just told the world that the United States of America is irrelevant and Russia welcomed him with open arms. Not only do Russia and Iran not fear us, they do not respect us. And that, is dangerous.”

According to two separate Western intelligence sources, Soleimani arrived in Moscow on Iran Air flight 5130 from Tehran on July 24, ten days after the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers was announced that included a provision to lift the arms embargo on Iran.

Five days later, Secretary of State John Kerry testified about the Iran nuclear deal before the Senate Armed Services Committee, assuring Congress pressure would remain on Iran’s shadowy general.

“Under the United States’ initiative, Qassem Soleimani will never be relieved of any sanctions,” Kerry told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In Moscow, Soleimani met with President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s defense minister.

In June, Russia announced it would send S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran by next year, according to a top Kremlin official.

Soleimani was photographed in Iraq recently on the front lines with Iranian-backed Shia militias battling ISIS, also in defiance of the travel ban.

Soleimani is blamed for the deaths of 500 Americans in Iraq. He also is suspected of orchestrating the failed assassination attempt on the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States at a popular Georgetown restaurant in Washington.

Soleimani’s Moscow visit elicited a reference during the Republican debate Thursday night.

“He’s directly responsible for the murder of over 500 American servicemen in Iraq and part of this Iranian deal was lifting international sanctions on Gen. Soleimani — the day Gen. Soleimani flew back from Moscow to Iran was the day we believe Russia used cyber warfare against the joint chiefs,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Iran’s acknowledgement of Soleimani’s visit to Moscow indicates a possible split in Iran’s leadership: those loyal to the military are unconcerned about blazingly defying sanctions even before the nuclear deal is sealed.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran military, Iran scam, Kerry, P5+1, Putin, Russia, Soleimani, U.S. Congress
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3 U.S. Defeats: Vietnam, Iraq and Now Iran

August 8, 2015

3 U.S. Defeats: Vietnam, Iraq and Now Iran, New York Times, David Brooks, August 7, 2015

[T]he Iranians just wanted victory more than we did. They were willing to withstand the kind of punishment we were prepared to mete out.

Further, the Iranians were confident in their power, while the Obama administration emphasized the limits of America’s ability to influence other nations. It’s striking how little President Obama thought of the tools at his disposal. He effectively took the military option off the table. He didn’t believe much in economic sanctions. “Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure,” he argued.

The president concluded early on that Iran would simply not budge on fundamental things.

Economic and political defeats can be as bad as military ones. Sometimes when you surrender to a tyranny you lay the groundwork for a more cataclysmic conflict to come.

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The purpose of war, military or economic, is to get your enemy to do something it would rather not do. Over the past several years the United States and other Western powers have engaged in an economic, clandestine and political war against Iran to force it to give up its nuclear program.

Over the course of this siege, American policy makers have been very explicit about their goals. Foremost, to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Second, as John Kerry has said, to force it to dismantle a large part of its nuclear infrastructure. Third, to take away its power to enrich uranium.

Fourth, as President Obama has said, to close the Fordo enrichment facility. Fifth, as the chief American negotiator, Wendy Sherman, recently testified, to force Iran to come clean on all past nuclear activities by the Iranian military. Sixth, to shut down Iran’s ballistic missile program. Seventh, to have “anywhere, anytime 24/7” access to any nuclear facilities Iran retains. Eighth, as Kerry put it, to not phase down sanctions until after Iran ends its nuclear bomb-making capabilities.

As a report from the Foreign Policy Initiative exhaustively details, the U.S. has not fully achieved any of these objectives. The agreement delays but does not end Iran’s nuclear program. It legitimizes Iran’s status as a nuclear state. Iran will mothball some of its centrifuges, but it will not dismantle or close any of its nuclear facilities. Nuclear research and development will continue.

Iran wins the right to enrich uranium. The agreement does not include “anywhere, anytime” inspections; some inspections would require a 24-day waiting period, giving the Iranians plenty of time to clean things up. After eight years, all restrictions on ballistic missiles are lifted. Sanctions are lifted once Iran has taken its initial actions.

Wars, military or economic, are measured by whether you achieved your stated objectives. By this standard the U.S. and its allies lost the war against Iran, but we were able to negotiate terms that gave only our partial surrender, which forces Iran to at least delay its victory. There have now been three big U.S. strategic defeats over the past several decades: Vietnam, Iraq and now Iran.

The big question is, Why did we lose? Why did the combined powers of the Western world lose to a ragtag regime with a crippled economy and without much popular support?

The first big answer is that the Iranians just wanted victory more than we did. They were willing to withstand the kind of punishment we were prepared to mete out.

Further, the Iranians were confident in their power, while the Obama administration emphasized the limits of America’s ability to influence other nations. It’s striking how little President Obama thought of the tools at his disposal. He effectively took the military option off the table. He didn’t believe much in economic sanctions. “Nothing we know about the Iranian government suggests that it would simply capitulate under that kind of pressure,” he argued.

The president concluded early on that Iran would simply not budge on fundamental things. As he argued in his highhanded and counterproductive speech Wednesday, Iran was never going to compromise its sovereignty (which is the whole point of military or economic warfare).

This administration has given us a choice between two terrible options: accept the partial-surrender agreement that was negotiated or reject it and slide immediately into what is in effect our total surrender — a collapsed sanctions regime and a booming Iranian nuclear program.

Many members of Congress will be tempted to accept the terms of our partial surrender as the least bad option in the wake of our defeat. I get that. But in voting for this deal they may be affixing their names to an arrangement that will increase the chance of more comprehensive war further down the road.

Iran is a fanatical, hegemonic, hate-filled regime. If you think its radicalism is going to be softened by a few global trade opportunities, you really haven’t been paying attention to the Middle East over the past four decades.

Iran will use its $150 billion windfall to spread terror around the region and exert its power. It will incrementally but dangerously cheat on the accord. Armed with money, ballistic weapons and an eventual nuclear breakout, it will become more aggressive. As the end of the nuclear delay comes into view, the 45th or 46th president will decide that action must be taken.

Economic and political defeats can be as bad as military ones. Sometimes when you surrender to a tyranny you lay the groundwork for a more cataclysmic conflict to come.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Iran scam, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Red Lines, U.S. Congress
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IAEA chief stonewalls Congress

August 7, 2015

IAEA chief stonewalls Congress, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, August 6, 2015

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Alliance (IAEA) came to Capitol Hill yesterday to try to reassure members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Iran nuclear deal. Amano wanted to convince Senators that the private side deals between Iran and the IAEA aren’t problematic and shouldn’t lead Congress to reject the deal.

There was just one problem: Amano couldn’t provide any details about his agency’s confidential arrangement to examine Iran’s nuclear research to see if the mullahs are trying to develop a nuclear weapon. “There were many questions on this issue,” Amano reported. “I repeated that I am not authorized to share or discuss confidential information.”

Amano might therefore just as well have stayed home. According to Committee chairman Bob Corker, “most members left here with greater concerns about the inspection regime than they came in with.”

Corker’s Democratic counterpart, ranking Democrat Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, also expressed disappointment. “I think there are provisions in the document that relate to the integrity of the review,” he said, stating the obvious.

Amano’s justification for not disclosing this vital information doesn’t seem to wash. He protests that the credibility of his agency depends on confidentiality. Yet, Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator of the Iran deal, says she has seen documents relating to the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA. As Senator Corker asked, “if Wendy has been able to read it, why can’t we read it?”

But it doesn’t really matter whether Amano has good reasons for not telling Congress what’s in the side agreements. As Sen. Cardin says, these agreements go to the integrity of inspections, and the integrity of inspections goes to viability of the deal (though even under the best inspections possible, the deal doesn’t prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state in the “out years”).

It’s reasonable to suspect, moreover, that provisions pertaining to the integrity of inspections we farmed out to the IAEA because the U.S. couldn’t get Iran to accept language that (a) it considered necessary or, more likely, (b) it knew Congress would see as vital.

If Congress isn’t permitted to find out what’s in the side agreements, it should reject the deal for that reason alone.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, Yukiya Amano
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Column One: Obama’s enemies list

August 6, 2015

Column One: Obama’s enemies list, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, August 6, 2015

ShowImage (8)US President Barack Obama at the Rose Garden of the White House. (photo credit:OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO / PETE SOUZA)

[T]he real question lawmakers need to ask is whether the deal is good for America. Is Obama right or wrong that only partisan zealots and disloyal Zionists could oppose his great diplomatic achievement? To determine the answer to that question, you need to do is ask another one. Does his deal make America safer or less safe? The best way to answer that question is to consider all the ways Iran threatens America today, and ask whether the agreement has no impact on those threats, or whether it mitigates or aggravates them.

***********************

In President Barack Obama’s defense of his nuclear deal with Iran Wednesday, he said there are only two types of people who will oppose his deal – Republican partisans and Israel- firsters – that is, traitors.

At American University, Obama castigated Republican lawmakers as the moral equivalent of Iranian jihadists saying, “Those [Iranian] hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal… are making common cause with the Republican Caucus.”

He then turned his attention to Israel.

Obama explained that whether or not you believe the deal endangers Israel boils down to whom you trust more – him or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, he explained, he can be trusted to protect Israel better than Netanyahu can because “[I] have been a stalwart friend of Israel throughout my career.”

The truth is that it shouldn’t much matter to US lawmakers whether Obama or Netanyahu has it right about Israel. Israel isn’t a party to the deal and isn’t bound by it. If Israel decides it needs to act on its own, it will.

The US, on the other side, will be bound by the deal if Congress fails to kill it next month.

So the real question lawmakers need to ask is whether the deal is good for America. Is Obama right or wrong that only partisan zealots and disloyal Zionists could oppose his great diplomatic achievement? To determine the answer to that question, you need to do is ask another one. Does his deal make America safer or less safe? The best way to answer that question is to consider all the ways Iran threatens America today, and ask whether the agreement has no impact on those threats, or whether it mitigates or aggravates them.

Today Iran is harming America directly in multiple ways.

The most graphic way Iran is harming America today is by holding four Americans hostage. Iran’s decision not to release them over the course of negotiations indicates that at a minimum, the deal hasn’t helped them.

It doesn’t take much consideration to recognize that the hostages in Iran are much worse off today than they were before Obama concluded the deal on July 14.

The US had much more leverage to force the Iranians to release the hostages before it signed the deal than it does now. Now, not only do the Iranians have no reason to release the hostages, they have every reason to take more hostages.

Then there is Iranian-sponsored terrorism against the US.

In 2011, the FBI foiled an Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US capital.

One of the terrorists set to participate in the attack allegedly penetrated US territory through the Mexican border.

The terrorist threat to the US emanating from Iran’s terrorist infrastructure in Latin America will rise steeply as a consequence of the nuclear deal.

As The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote last month, the sanctions relief the deal provides to Iran will enable it to massively expand its already formidable operations in the US’s backyard. Over the past two decades, Iran and Hezbollah have built up major presences in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Iran’s presence in Latin America also constitutes a strategic threat to US national security. Today Iran can use its bases of operations in Latin America to launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US from a ballistic missile, a satellite or even a merchant ship.

The US military is taking active steps to survive such an attack, which would destroy the US’s power grid. Among other things, it is returning the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to its former home in Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs.

But Obama has ignored the findings of the congressional EMP Commission and has failed to harden the US electronic grid to protect it from such attacks.

The economic and human devastation that would be caused by the destruction of the US electric grid is almost inconceivable. And now with the cash infusion that will come Iran’s way from Obama’s nuclear deal, it will be free to expand on its EMP capabilities in profound ways.

Through its naval aggression in the Strait of Hormuz Iran threatens the global economy. While the US was negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, the Revolutionary Guards unlawfully interdicted – that is hijacked – the Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk Tigris and held its crew hostage for weeks.

Iran’s assault on the Tigris came just days after the US-flagged Maersk Kensington was surrounded and followed by Revolutionary Guards ships until it fled the strait.

A rational take-home message the Iranians can draw from the nuclear deal is that piracy pays.

Their naval aggression in the Strait of Hormuz was not met by American military force, but by American strategic collapse at Vienna.

This is doubly true when America’s listless response to Iran’s plan to use its Houthi proxy’s takeover of Yemen to control the Bab el-Mandab strait is taken into consideration. With the Bab el-Mandab, Iran will control all maritime traffic from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Rather than confront this clear and present danger to the global economy, America abandoned all its redlines in the nuclear talks.

Then there is Iran’s partnership 20-year partnership with al-Qaida.

The 9/11 Commission found in its report that four of the 9/11 terrorists transited Iran before traveling to the US. As former Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Mike Flynn told Fox News in the spring, Iranian cooperation with al-Qaida remains deep and strategic.

When the US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, they seized hard drives containing more than a million documents related to al-Qaida operations. All but a few dozen remain classified.

According to Flynn and other US intelligence officials who spoke to The Weekly Standard, the documents expose Iran’s vast collaboration with al-Qaida.

The agreement Obama concluded with the mullahs gives a tailwind to Iran. Iran’s empowerment will undoubtedly be used to expand its use of al-Qaida terrorists as proxies in their joint war against the US.

Then there is Iran’s ballistic missile program.

The UN Security Council resolution passed two weeks ago cancels the UN-imposed embargoes on conventional arms and ballistic missile acquisitions by Iran. Since the nuclear deal facilities Iranian development of advanced nuclear technologies that will enable the mullahs to build nuclear weapons freely when the deal expires, the Security Council resolution means that by the time the deal expires, Iran will have the nuclear warheads and the intercontinental ballistic missiles required to carry out a nuclear attack on the US.

Obama said Wednesday that if Congress votes down his nuclear deal, “we will lose… America’s credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America’s credibility,” he explained, “is the anchor of the international system.”

Unfortunately, Obama got it backwards. It is the deal that destroys America’s credibility and so upends the international system which has rested on that credibility for the past 70 years.

The White House’s dangerous suppression of seized al-Qaida-Iran documents, like its listless response to Iran’s maritime aggression, its indifference to Iran’s massive presence in Latin America, its lackluster response to Iran’s terrorist activities in Latin America, and its belittlement of the importance of the regime’s stated goal to destroy America – not to mention its complete collapse on all its previous redlines over the course of the negotiations – are all signs of the disastrous toll the nuclear deal has already taken on America’s credibility, and indeed on US national security.

To defend a policy that empowers Iran, the administration has no choice but to serve as Iran’s agent. The deal destroys America’s credibility in fighting terrorism. By legitimizing and enriching the most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, the US has made a mockery of its claimed commitment to the fight.

The deal destroys the US’s credibility as an ally.

By serving as apologists for its worst enemy, the US has shown its allies that they cannot trust American security guarantees. How can Israel or Saudi Arabia trust America to defend them when it is endangering itself? The deal destroys 70 years of US nonproliferation efforts. By enabling Iran to become a nuclear power, the US has made a mockery of the very notion of nonproliferation and caused a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The damage caused by the deal is already being felt. For instance, Europe, Russia and China are already beating a path to the ayatollahs’ doorstep to sign commercial and military deals with the regime.

But if Congress defeats the deal, it can mitigate the damage. By killing the deal, Congress will demonstrate that the American people are not ready to go down in defeat. They can show that the US remains committed to its own defense and the rebuilding of its strategic credibility worldwide.

In his meeting with Jewish leaders Tuesday, Obama acknowledged that his claim – repeated yet again Wednesday – that the only alternative to the deal is war, is a lie.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Greg Rosenbaum, chairman of the National Democratic Jewish Council, which is allied with the White House, said that Obama rejected the notion that war will break out if Congress rejects the deal with veto-overriding majorities in both houses.

According to Rosenbaum, Obama claimed that if Congress rejects his nuclear deal, eventually the US will have to carry out air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to prevent them from enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

“But,” he quoted Obama as saying, “the result of such a strike won’t be war with Iran.”

Rather, Obama said, Iran will respond to a US strike primarily by ratcheting up its terrorist attacks against Israel.

“I can assure,” Obama told the Jewish leaders, “that Israel will bear the brunt of the asymmetrical responses that Iran will have to a military strike on its nuclear facilities.”

What is notable here is that despite the fact that it will pay the heaviest price for a congressional defeat of the Iran deal, Israel is united in its opposition to the deal. This speaks volume about the gravity with which the Israeli public views the threats the agreement unleashed.

But again, Israel is not the only country that is imperiled by the nuclear deal. And Israelis are not the only ones who need to worry.

Obama wishes to convince the public that the deal’s opponents are either partisan extremists or traitors who care about Israel more than they care about America. But neither claim is true. The main reason Americans should oppose the deal is that it endangers America. And as a consequence, Americans who oppose the deal are neither partisans nor turncoats.

They are patriots.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Defense of Israel, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Freedom of the seas, Iran / Israel War, Iran scam, Iranian EMPs, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Khamenei, Latin America, Lies, Muslim Brotherhood, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Treason, U.S. Congress
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