Bad Things

Last Thursday the puppy dog Democrats succumbing to White House pressure and voted to block a legitimate, agreed upon up or down vote on Barack Obama's Iran "deal." This compounded their cowardice in indicating that they would vote for a "deal" that most of them know is bad for this country and the world. The Wall Street Journal comments:

... it says something about President Obama’s contempt for Congress that he browbeat and threatened 42 Democrats to filibuster the vote so he can duck having to veto a resolution of disapproval. The President may think he can spin 42 Senate votes into political vindication, and we’re sure he’ll get media support for that view. But Americans should read a filibuster as a tacit Democratic admission of no confidence in an agreement they fear voting on.

It’s also an abdication—and a betrayal. In May the Senate voted 98-1 for the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, better known for sponsors Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and Ben Cardin (D., Md.), and Mr. Obama signed it. Historically, significant foreign agreements have been submitted to Congress as treaties, requiring two-thirds approval in the Senate.

The Administration knew it could never meet that threshold, devised by the founders so that binding agreements with foreign powers would have broad and enduring public support. Instead, it wanted to make a deal with Iran as an executive agreement, ratified not by Congress but by the U.N.’s Security Council. But only Congress can fully lift the sanctions it imposed on Iran, so Mr. Obama was forced to make his grudging nod to the co-equal branch.

Now Mr. Obama is violating the law he signed, and Democrats are helping him do it. Corker-Cardin stipulates that the Administration must submit to Congress the full nuclear agreement, including any “side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.”

Barack Obama is a man who cannot be trusted to abide by agreements with Congress he originally supported. He cynically threw Corker-Cardin under the bus so he could avoid looking bad. But here's the problem—Barack Obama looks bad every day because his decisions are weak, his focus is inward, and his ideology exhibits a hyperpartisan view that does this country an enormous disservice. He looks bad because he is a bad leader. No Senate vote or lack thereof will change any of that.

AN ASIDE:
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There's a warped symmetry to the Democrat (quasi-filibuster) vote that blocked an up or down Senate vote on Obama's Iran deal. It occurred one day before the anniversary of 9/11. Obama's capitulation to the Ayatollah in Iran guarantees that virulent Islamists will have a nuclear weapon in no more than 10 years. If Iran cheats—and they will cheat—they'll have a clandestine nuclear weapon much sooner.

In fact, one could argue that it in in the interest of the Iranians to cheat immediately. Why? Because no amount of evidence would convince Barack Obama to act against them—it would make him look bad, and we can't have that, can we? Even worse, I suspect that Obama, his Democrat colleagues, and their trained hamsters in the media would suppress or obfuscate any evidence of cheating and blithely proceed as if all is well. Not a comforting thought.

Obama and his progressive supporters—cynically paint a soothing picture of Iran's response—you know, the one in which the Islamists see the light, sit down with us to discuss their grievances, and link arms and become our allies. Unfortunately, rainbows and unicorns don't have a chance when they collide with the reality of the Islamists' long war. They are intent in destroying Western culture and replacing it with a brutal, intolerant, and unforgiving version of Islam.

On Thursday, 9/10, were we attacked from within by duplicitous Democratic politicians who made a grievous error that will haunt the country in much the same way that memories of 9/11 haunt us still. Shame on them ... and shame on us for allowing them to lead.

UPDATE:
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Richard Fernandez cuts to the core of the issue:

Very few would have predicted on September 11, 2001 that the headlines 14 years later would feature an American president arming Iran; that there would be millions of Middle Eastern Arabs flooding into the heart of Europe. Or Saudi Arabia, while refusing to accept any refugees from an Islamic civil war in Syria, would instead offer to build 200 mosques in Germany, one for every hundred who has arrived to spare the Germans the trouble and expense of building the mosques themselves.

Few could have imagined that rail and road transport from Hungary to Germany would be interrupted to hold back floods of people in numbers unseen since World War 2. Not many would have guessed that the Palestinian flag would fly over the UN in New York, despite the objection of the United States.

Hardly anyone would have foretold the return of Russia to the Middle East, spearheaded by a legion of forces who had honed their skill at “hybrid warfare” — then an unknown term — in Ukraine. Not just anyone mind you, but as Michael Weiss in the Daily Beast notes, “the Kremlin isn’t sending just any troops to prop up the Assad regime. It’s dispatching units that spearheaded Russia’s slow-rolling invasion of Ukraine.”

Except one man: Osama bin Laden. Unlike the American public, which still expected its leaders to defend them against aggression on that fatal day, Bin Laden had come to the conclusion the American elite would run at the slightest difficulty. What convinced him was the precipitate withdrawal of American troops from Somalia in 1996 following the incident popularly known as Blackhawk Down.

Another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, rushed to withdraw after the Blackhawk Down incident.   After all, we might anger the larger Muslim world if we acted aggressively. Right?

On the fateful day that has come to be known as Blackhawk Down, our dead soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu tied to pickup trucks while Islamic militants laughed and cheered. One can only wonder how things would have turned out if a stronger president had acted with outrage, stating,

"No one will disrespect our soldiers or commit barbaric acts and get away with it. No one who supports the barbarians is safe, no one who lives in their proximity is safe, and no city that harbors them is immune from destruction. As a consequence, we will punish those who have committed this act, those who support them and, of necessity, the city that harbors them. As I make this statement we are dropping tens of thousands of leaflets throughout Mogadishu warning its residents to leave the city within 12 hours. At the same time we have positioned special forces on all roads exiting the city. Their job is to capture or kill any resident who flees and is suspected of terrorist activity." By nightfall, we will destroy Mogadishu as a lesson for all who perpetrate or support or allow terrorism to grow in their midst."

 Brutal? Yes. But a clear and unequivocal message would have been delivered.

It's reasonable to state, with 22 years of hindsight after Blackhawk Down, that things could not have turned out much worse. And remember, Bill Clinton looks like strong and capable decision maker when he is compared to the current president of the United States.

One can only wonder what the Ayatollah, like his Islamist brother, Osama Bin Laden, is really thinking after Obama and his Team of 2s capitulated to him so readily.

Bad things will come of this, and I suspect, we won't have to wait 22 years to find out what they are.