The Coming Storm

So ... as suspected, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and their Team of 2s didn't walk away but concluded what Obama characterized as an "historic" deal with Iran. He felt compelled to tell us it's a "good deal." Of course, the claim of a "good deal" should be assessed in the context of other mendacious claims that Obama made ("you can keep your doctor" comes to mind as but one of dozens of examples). But the deal may very well be historic, although not for the reasons Barack Obama thinks.

In November, 2013, Barack Obama eliminated key sanctions on Iran, telling us that (to quote The Wall Street Journal):

At that time, Mr. Obama said U.S. negotiators were still focused on dismantling much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including a heavy-water reactor in the city of Arak, a fortified underground enrichment facility called Fordow and advanced centrifuge machines which spin uranium gas into nuclear fuel.

When Iran, in no real position to push back, pushed back, Obama's Team of 2s caved. They did this, they claim, because they are realists, and they saw no hope of forcing the issue short of war (still another in a long list of lies promoted by the Obama administration). In fact, the Team of 2s caved because Obama was and is desperate for a deal, any deal, that he can claim as a foreign policy legacy achievement.

So ... this president did what he always does. He told us that what he really meant that what he wanted to do was elongate Iran's "breakout time" from 2 - 3 months to a year. Whoopee! What that means is that the world's major sponsor of Islamic terror gets to keep its nuclear development capability, but it'll take a year, rather than a few months to build a bomb. But it gets worse. Even that isn't true, because it looks like there will be no effective way for international inspectors to visit the facilities thought to be doing the real bomb work and absolutely no way to discover the suspected additional secret bomb making facility that are as yet unknown to western intelligence services

Today, after the "outline of principles" has been established, Iran gets to keep all of its nuclear capability, moth-balling some centrifuges but allowing thousands to keep running. It gets to control the depth and frequency of inspections, undermining any real attempt at verification. It gets to keep its ICBM research and development—that wasn't even on the table. It gets ... pretty much everything it wanted. And the United States and the Middle East region gets ... verbal promises from a president who has been known, now and then, to renege on promises.

It's time for Democrats to show some courage and speak out again a very bad deal. Then again, Robert Menendez did just that, but he was indicted by Obama's DoJ just yesterday on corruption charges. Pure coincidence, I'm sure. So, in a true profile in cowardice, the Dems remain silent.

We have entered into an "historic" time, alright. A time when storm clouds that have been on the horizon for the past few decades begin to move across the land toward us and our allies. Lightning begins to flash, and the ominous sound of thunder can be heard in the distance. Barack Obama seems obsessed about the climate. He seems completely uninterested in the coming storm.

UPDATE:
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It's highly likely that Obama's trained hamsters in the mainstream media will, as they always seem to do, put the best possible face on what critics are already calling a "Swiss cheese agreement."  The Obama administration's interpretation of this "good deal" looks at things one way, while the Iranian interpretation is radically different. Rick Moran provides an early deep dive into the details. He writes:

The vagueness of the framework deal struck between the P5+1 powers and Iran is going to work out beautifully for Tehran in that there is apparently enough wiggle room for them to engage in nuclear activities that the U.S. is clearly saying they can’t engage in.

Looks like this good deal isn't so good after all. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE-II
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To its credit, The Washington Post has been more honest than other mainstream media outlets (the NYT comes to mind) in its assessment of Barack Obama's "historic" deal. The editors write:

THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.

That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years.

Mr. Obama argued forcefully — and sometimes combatively — Thursday that the United States and its partners had obtained “a good deal” and that it was preferable to the alternatives, which he described as a nearly inevitable slide toward war. He also said he welcomed a “robust debate.” We hope that, as that debate goes forward, the president and his aides will respond substantively to legitimate questions, rather than claim, as Mr. Obama did, that the “inevitable critics” who “sound off” prefer “the risk of another war in the Middle East.”

So ... according to a president who welcomes a "robust debate", any criticism of his "good deal" is political, not substantive. That's typical Obama, who says one thing (in 2012, 2013) and then tells us he meant another, who is willing to lie to sell some perceived presidential "achievement." For once, one of his erstwhile media allies has called him on it.

Listen carefully. That's thunder you hear in the distance.