Initiated

In 1994, Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a "deal" with North Korea that was heralded as a major step in stopping the rogue regime's march toward nuclear weapons. It was praised by Dems and a few GOP members as a major step toward bringing the NoKos into the family of nations. It didn't work. Over the intervening years the NoKos have conducted a number of underground nuclear tests and have become even more belligerent while at the same time starving their own people.

21 years later, Barack Obama signed a "deal" with Iran that he heralded as a landmark in stopping the rogue regime's march toward nuclear weapons. It was praised (only by Dems) as a major step toward bringing the world's largest sponsor of Islamic terror into the family of nations. When considering the potential lessons that could have been learned from the 1994 deal, the Dems seem to be characters in Ground Hog Day (the movie, not the yearly event). The only difference is they don't seem to learn from past experience.

The two Democratic candidates for 2016 provide guarded praise for Obama's "deal," recognizing, I think, that the whole thing is so poorly conceived and so full of loopholes, it could go south while the presidential race is still on. Every GOP candidate condemns the deal (correctly, in my view) and commits to rescind it upon taking office.

Going south is what the Iran deal is already doing. Benny Avni reports:

The promise of Iran’s denuclearization may be unraveling faster than the promise of North Korea’s denuclearization.

This week, Stratfor published satellite-photo analysis strongly indicating that Iran is moving much of its nuclear activities from sites that the United Nations inspects to “no-go zones” where it may well continue developing nuclear-arms technology.

Wait, but didn’t Secretary of State John Kerry promise the pact he signed with the mullahs last summer “blocks of all Iran’s paths to a nuclear bomb?” And isn’t Iran complying?

Iran indeed took enriched uranium out of its known sites, closed down its plutonium plant — and then concealed whatever it’s doing in the Parchin military complex.

Parchin’s status was contentious during the talks. Our tireless diplomats demanded inspectors’ access there, but Iran contended that its military facilities are non-nuclear, so no inspection necessary. Yet, intelligence reports have raised suspicion that in the past, Iran had tested explosives at the Parchin facility, which can be used for detonating nuclear weapons.

Tehran finally agreed to let the International Atomic Energy Agency have a look-see. Except the inspectors weren’t allowed to visit Parchin’s secretive, deeply-buried parts.

Obama and Kerry were so focused on making a deal—any deal—that they capitulated to Iran's demands in every aspect that mattered. That included the establishment of 'no-go' zones like Parchin where Iran can secretly continue its nuclear bomb-making research without worry about pesky IAEA inspectors.

It took the Nokos only two years after Clinton's non-proliferation deal to become a nuclear power. I suspect that Iran just might better that time. But by then the Islamic Republic will be another president's problem.

The Dems love to repeat the canard that "Bush Lied and People Died." One can only hope that the operative phrase in 2017-18 isn't: "Obama capitulated and Nuclear War was Initiated."