The "Deal"—Revisited

The disastrous foreign policy legacy of the past administration is best exemplified by it's "Iran deal." The Obama administration negotiated with hard men who knew it wouldn't walk away from a bad deal because—legacy. Lead by an incompetent (John Kerry), crafted in language that is loose and easily violated, it resulted in the transfer of billions to the largest state sponsor of Islamic terror. The deal accomplished virtually nothing while setting the stage for a nuclear Iran, and therefore, regional war (or worse) within the next decade.

I have consistently opposed the "Iran Deal" (e.g., here, here, and here) and have castigated Democrats for their inability at controlling their president as he entered into a catastrophically bad arrangement. But today, that's water under the bridge.

As we watch the outcome of other bad "deals" with rouge regimes (e.g., deals with Syria and North Korea that supposedly had them walk away from WMDs only to have them build and use them) developed with the best intentions but naive to their core, the Iran deal should again enter public consciousness. Michael Oren, a past Israeli ambassador to the United States, comments:

The U.S. has signed agreements with three rogue regimes strictly limiting their unconventional military capacities. Two of those regimes—Syria and North Korea—brazenly violated the agreements, provoking game-changing responses from President Trump. But the third agreement—with Iran—is so inherently flawed that Tehran doesn’t even have to break it. Honoring it will be enough to endanger millions of lives.

The framework agreements with North Korea and Syria, concluded respectively in 1994 and 2013, were similar in many ways. Both recognized that the regimes already possessed weapons of mass destruction or at least the means to produce them. Both assumed that the regimes would surrender their arsenals under an international treaty and open their facilities to inspectors. And both believed that these repressive states, if properly engaged, could be brought into the community of nations.

All those assumptions were wrong. After withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pyongyang tested five atomic weapons and developed intercontinental missiles capable of carrying them. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, less than a year after signing the framework, reverted to gassing his own people. Bolstered by the inaction of the U.S. and backed by other powers, North Korea and Syria broke their commitments with impunity ...

A nuclear-armed Iran would be as dangerous as “50 North Koreas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. in 2013, and Iran is certainly many times more dangerous than Syria. Yet Iran alone has been granted immunity for butchering civilians and threatening genocide. Iran alone has been guaranteed a future nuclear capability. And the Iranian regime—which brutally crushed a popular uprising in 2009—has amassed a million-man force to suppress any future opposition. Rather than moderating, the current regime promises to be more radical yet in another 10 years.

It may be too late for the current administration to correct the errors of the previous president. But Iran should be kept on a very short leash. Should they violate even a semi-colon in the written agreements they signed, should they act aggressively against our navel vessels in the Persian gulf, should they be directly tied to the deaths of our military in Middle East hot spots, should they capture and humiliate our sailors, there should be serious consequences.

It appears that our current president recognizes that actions, not words, get the attention of the hard men who control rogue nations. That, in itself, is a beginning. We can only hope that Trump's team applies actions that will be in the best interests of the United States and its allies.