The United States struck a surprising nuclear deal with Iran last week. The agreement commits Iran to halt its nuclear activites for six months in exchange for limited and gradual sanctions relief. U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the deal as putting substantial limitations on the Iranian nuclear program which the U.S. and its allies have feared could lead to nuclear weapons capabilities. He stated, "For the first time in a decade we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly disagreed. Netanyahu rightly criticized the agreement saying that the international community is giving up too much to Iran for virtually nothing in return but delay. He added that the agreement does not at all halt Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon with which it will further threaten Israel and the world. Netanyahu called the agreement "an historic mistake," and added that his country would not be bound by it. Speaking to the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that the world has now become "a more dangerous place." He repeated a long-standing threat to use military action, should it become necessary, against Iran stressing that "Israel has the right and the duty to defend itself."
Strangely, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations have remained conspicuously quiet about the deal. Five other world powers were included with the U.S. in the talks in Geneva leading to the agreement. All welcomed the deal except for the president of France who correctly called it "a sucker's deal."
Jewish-American national syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer sized up the agreement in this way: "A president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state desperate to make a name for himself" concluded "the ridiculous pact." Obama now has the Benghazi, Libya, failure and cover-up, the Internal Revenue Service illegal actions, and the Obamacare health insurance fiasco hot on the griddle, so he needed a change of attention. Secretary John Kerry has failed to make any positive impact on the Syria civil war or on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, so he needed something that looks positive on his record.
Then too, it seems true that the only reason Iran came to the negotiation table is that the world's economic sanctions have cut so deeply into Iran's economy that the regime feared a threat to its very survival. Nothing else could have moved the mullahs to negotiate, Krauthammer wrote. He added, regime survival is the only thing they value above nuclear weapons. The deal is "a rescue package for the mullahs and the Iran regime."
How can all those supposedly superior brains in Washington so simply allow those knowingly deceptive Muslims to once again get away with their favorite diplomatic tactic – straight-faced lying? U.S. foreign policy experts apparently are failing to remember how the Muslim Arabs have negotiated five so-called peace agreements with the Israelis, but have never taken the first step to implement anything they agreed to in writing? Obviously they never intended to, in spite of what they promised. The Muslim Koran teaches that it is not a sin for Muslims to lie. In fact, if a Muslim lies and deceives to successfully achieve a certain desirable outcome, it is considered to be a clever achievement. So how can anyone depend on a Muslim's word at any level?
Krauthammer comments about the lifting of sanctions. “For what,” he asks. “In return for Iran's giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons? That's what it should be, but it isn't. It leaves Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact, and it allows Iran to keep its thousands of centrifuges. The sanctions relief only leaves Iran's nuclear progam development supposedly delayed for six months, if you believe Iran will keep its word. It in no way halts the program's process.”
Iran, of course, is ecstatic over the one-sided agreement. Israel, however, is heavily and rightly disappointed. It is giving the Iranian regime immediate political and economic relief. And it removes the one incentive they had to conclude any agreement that would be worth anything to Israel and to the United States - a verifiable complete giving up of their nuclear weapons development program.
