Well, as I feared, it appears that the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal will pass and Obama will hold a celebration dinner, perhaps at the next Iftar, and invite Iranian leaders, who knows. At any rate it seems he will establish some sort of a legacy, not quite like Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords, but something that at least his administration will claim is of equal importance, and reams of paperwork will go into Obama Presidential Library that will be set up.
What is most amazing about this so-called deal that "prevented war," is that the rhetoric coming out of Iran is even more belligerent and ominous now than it was before the deal! While the proponents of the deal are performing a celebratory jig, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei is spewing out some very disturbing verbiage, such as, "Israel won't last the next 25 years," and "We will not negotiate with the Great Satan (the U.S, with whom they just made this terrific deal!) and will not allow it into Iran!" He can't even address us by our proper name!
Let's take a quick look at this "great deal" that we struck with Iran, at three major points:
1. Can Iran make nuclear weapons under this new agreement? Theoretically, no, but only if they don't cheat. But who says they won't cheat? There are no guarantees.
2. When will the sanctions be lifted allowing Iran to benefit the harvest of billions in cash and oil revenue? Some have already been lifted, and the bulk within a year or so.
3. Can we inspect any facility any time? No. We must first secure permission with Iran to allow the IAEA to inspect. We must then give them at least a 24 hour notice and in case of new facilities, they have a right to deny our request! (some deal, huh?) Oh, and in some of their more sensitive facilities, they are allowed to "self inspect." In other words, their technicians will gather material which will be presented to the IAEA for inspection!
I have never been one for "party line" voting. On crucial issues, I believe crossing the party line should be the norm for our politicians, unfortunately, such is not the case. It appears that everyone is sticking to their party line and all Democrats are voting for the "deal." I am disappointed, even presidential hopefuls are sticking to the party line, the only exception being Hillary Clinton who is now scrambling to survive after her email fiasco and is making noises such as, "I do not trust Iranians." An interesting comment coming from a former Secretary of State. Apparently the current Secretary of State does not share her feelings and does "trust" the Iranians.
Neither the White House nor the Secretary of State have been able to give a satisfactory response to points numbers 2 and 3. When questions are posed in that category, they are usually deftly swept aside with some general response. On point number one, both the White House and the Secretary of State respond by saying that if or should Iran cheat, we have the capability to "militarily" neutralize the problem. OK, fine and dandy, we have the stealth bombers and smart bombs to do the job, but why give the Iranians the opportunity to beef up their defenses so our job will be much more difficult, should we be forced to use a military option? The money that they receive from lifted sanctions allow them to buy defensive hardware that could cost American lives. They have already signed a contract to buy a sophisticated anti missile system from Russia, and I am sure there is much more to come. At the same time, if they cheat, and there is a good chance that they will, they will be that much closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
I know, we are not supposed to compare apples to oranges, and according to what we're told, North Korea is a completely different story. Really? I don't think so. We struck a "good deal" with North Korea and guess what, they cheated and now have nuclear weapons! Perhaps because North Koreans are godless communists they are much more prone to cheating and Iranians being devout Muslims will not cheat. If you believe that, which apparently our government does, than we are indeed in deep trouble. Our government and politicians have always been viewed as somewhat naïve by our adversaries, and that trend seems to be continuing.
If you listen to the words of Ayatollah Khamenei, you get the impression that he and his countrymen have no respect for or fear of the United States. After all, if you refer to a country as the "Great Satan," don't even call it by its proper name, it should give you an idea as to what they think of America. Never mind that the general population professes to "love" the American people, they just don't like our government, etc. The bottom line is, there is no love lost, and no respect!
Putin has demonstrated the same distain for our government. He first found that our hard line talk, the so-called threat to do something if you cross the "thin red line" amounted to nothing. He quietly watched how we reacted or didn't act when the Syrian crisis first unfolded. The "thin red line" was crossed multiple times since that first announcement by Obama and to this date nothing has been done. So, he grabs Crimea from Ukraine....nothing happens. He encourages separatists in Ukraine to wage war to gain territory, and nothing happens. The so-called separatists are actually Russian Special Forces, the Spetznaz, but never mind, they claim they are separatists. Next, as soon as we ink the deal with Iran, he signs a contract to deliver a sophisticated anti missile defense system to Iran. We protest and send a couple hundred tanks to Europe, that must have really scared him. The latest Putin saga is the shipment of tank landing crafts and Russian troops to Syria! Oh well, their definition of the "thin red line" is obviously different from that of the White House.
In the meantime, to counter the growing ISIS threat, we have partnered with Turkey, both for use of their territory to launch our aircraft and for Turkish military to engage ISIS. Of course the Turks have no love of Kurds and are paranoid that the Kurds might gain autonomy and a huge chunk of real estate and establish an independent state of Kurdistan. The Turks are fighting and killing Kurds. Up until now, the Kurds have been the only ones we could trust to fight ISIS and they were the only ones who seem to have some success. Now, it seems, the Kurds have been set aside, sort of. That's a nice way of saying they were sold down the river! This would be akin to us dumping the Montagnards and the Nungs and putting all our marbles in the Vietnamese basket. Oh wait, we did that, didn't we?
Ah, the poor Kurds....they are the Montagnards and the Nungs of the Middle East. The Nungs survived by melting into local Chinese populations and joining the opium army in the Golden Triangle. The Montagnards? Some of them are still fighting, others are retreating further and further into the hills. The Kurds, unlike the Montagnards, are much more organized and better suited to survive in the modern world. They will survive despite what the Turks might do to them, but that won't endear us to them! We betrayed them after the first Gulf War when we left them to be slaughtered by Saddam Hussein. We betrayed them again in Iraqi Freedom (second Gulf War) when we abruptly pulled our support and left them in the hands of the incompetent, and Kurd hating Maliki. Now, we are leaving them to be slaughtered by the Turks. Interesting foreign policy that we are employing in the Middle East, and we wonder why it is such a mess.
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