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The Iran Deal: Normalizing a Mortal Threat

Melanie Sturm | @ThinkAgainUSA Read Comments - 5
Publish Date: 
Thu, 07/16/2015

 

As capitulations to Iran’s theocracy dragged on, numbing Americans to the civilization-imperiling consequences of the planet’s most lethal terrorist state possessing nuclear weapons capability, a political sideshow emerged.

 

Two blunt iconoclasts, billionaire Donald Trump and self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, are encouraging Americans to Think Again about policies that undercut our interests, drawing surprisingly large crowds, breathless media attention, and lofty poll numbers.

 

Causing the collective eyes of the political class to roll, Trump and Sanders resonate with a pablum-fed electorate starving for authentic debate, policies aligned with citizens’ concerns, and leaders who say what they mean and mean what they say.

 

Witness the deceptions being used to normalize the mortal threat posed by Tuesday’s nuclear deal with Iran’s genocidal Ayatollahs. They’ve sponsored a slow-motion jihad against America ever since revolutionaries seized our embassy and hostages in 1979, asserting their constitution’s commitment to “universal holy government and the downfall of all others.”

 

Do politicians mean what they’ve consistently said about dismantling the nuclear program of the “Death to America”-dedicated Iranian theocracy? Will they claim the accord prevents an Iranian bomb when it merely delays it? Are they intentionally confusing us about what “verifiable” means, insisting the accord’s Iranian-approved “access where necessary, when necessary” meets the original “go anywhere-anytime” inspection standard? 

 

It’s déjà vu considering Britain’s Neville Chamberlain hailed the Munich Agreement with Hitler for delivering “peace with honor,” and President Clinton called the North Korea nuclear deal – which relied on verification – “the first step on the road to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”

 

Will lawmakers reject the concession-laden deal criticized by five former Obama Administration national security advisors for falling “short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good agreement’?” Their assessment supports Henry Kissinger and George Shultz’s conclusion: “Negotiations …to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability.”

 

Regarding bi-partisan dissension, Yale University foreign policy scholar Walter Russell Meade commented, “This is not what diplomatic success usually looks like. In fact, it’s hard to think of another moment in American diplomatic history in which so many warning lights from so many places have flashed so brightly.”

 

That’s because the agreement grants the Supreme Leader’s core demands: preserving Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure, allowing near-zero breakout time to a bomb if it cheats, a decade if it doesn’t; gradual sanctions relief unlocking an estimated $150 billion; limiting intrusive inspections; and jettisoning the conventional weapons embargo and international legal regime branding Iran a rogue state – without requiring Iran to renounce terrorism or release American prisoners.

 

Are lawmakers listening to voters of whom 76 percent rated terrorism their top priority in a January Pew poll while 52 percent now believe America is a more dangerous place than it was before 9/11, according to Rasmussen’s July survey?

 

Senators were right to vote 99-0 in 2010 for painstakingly conceived coercive sanctions – relaxed when Iran negotiations began – to force the self-described deceivers to dismantle their nuclear program, as six UN resolutions ordered. Are Senators now willing to bet American lives on rebooting sanctions if Iran continues its murderous ways?

 

Declaring an Iranian bomb “would be a game-changer,” presidential candidate Barack Obama re-iterated pledges to prevent it. “The deal we’ll accept is – they end their nuclear program. It’s very straightforward.”  He also promised to “take no options off the table… including all elements of American power:  A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to … ensure the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort."

 

The truth is, every president since Carter has failed to deploy these powers to oppose Iranian hostility, allowing committed revolutionaries and skilled diplomats to out-flank and out-negotiate the mightiest nation on earth.

 

Iran doesn’t control all terrorists, but it’s the head of an Islamic supremacist snake seeking to subjugate humanity and destroy freedom. Responsible for killing and maiming thousands of Americans, and posing threats we’ve neither anticipated nor mitigated, their unanswered aggression has stimulated more aggression.

 

We’ve failed to retaliate after successive attacks; conflated our “national interest” with democracy promotion, “nation-building” and détente with avowed enemies; and enunciated “redlines” we haven’t backed up. With U.S. credibility diluted, we’re harmless as an enemy, treacherous as a friend and weaker guardians of American security.

 

The Iranian nuclear deal reflects our self-crippling foreign policy. But as Winston Churchill noted, “you can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”  Having led efforts to extinguish Nazi, Imperial Japan and Soviet threats, America can do the same against aggressors with far less economic and military strength.

 

Think Again – The Berlin Wall turned to rubble twenty-nine months after President Reagan told Soviet leader Gorbachev, “if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity …tear down this wall!” Why can't the same be said of Iran’s nuclear installations? Then they can rejoin the civilized world.

 

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It’s even worse, reporters

It’s even worse, reporters have castigated their own for even asking a question about this deal.

The media is complicit with the coming nuclear war.

Your outrageous essay tries

Your outrageous essay tries to discredit the recent sanctions-ending accord the U.S. and Western powers have negotiated with Iran by falsely accusing its leaders (the Ayatollahs) of genocide and comparing the agreement to famously exaggerated failures to win impossible concessions from the mad national leaders of Nazi Germany and isolated North Korea.
Fighting a war with a neighboring country like Iraq or supporting a proxy battle by a politically sympathetic organization like Hezbollah in Lebanon do not constitute genocide. All wars end up killing people.

It is not true that the Munich or Pyongyang Agreements led to war. WWII was inevitable and the Kim Il Sung regime and its successors are only dangerous to their own people. No harm was done by the agreements negotiated by Chamberlain and Clinton. In fact, to the extent that their enemies believed that the British and Americans actually felt more at ease, those adversaries might have been lulled into rash actions that only contribute to ultimate defeat.

This may also be the case with regard to the nuclear deal with Iran. The terms of that agreement buy up to 10, 15 years or more before particular mass destruction weapons are added to Iran’s arsenal. That’s better than the possibility of immediate proliferation. Of course, it will require vigilant monitoring—but the words cited by one of your heroes, Ronald Reagan, “Trust but Verify” apply to the nuclear deal with Iran as much as to any other diplomatic agreement.

Moreover, the accord recognizes the fact that in today’s world it is futile to seek a commitment from a totally foreign culture, like the Shia Muslim regime that currently governs Iran, to accept the same goals that the West (even including Russia) has set for itself. The West can no longer ignore other civilizations in calculating the common welfare. Technology has made all ideologies compelling. Until the people of Iran change the rule of their country to a system that is more consistent with the values of the West, we will have to accept that Iran does not want to “rejoin the civilized world.” Its value system defines the world in which it wishes to exist very differently.

"The truth is, every

"The truth is, every president since Carter has failed to deploy these powers to oppose Iranian hostility, allowing committed revolutionaries and skilled diplomats to out-flank and out-negotiate the mightiest nation on earth."
~Melanie Sturm

'Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead.'
~ Omar N. Bradley

Melanie's analysis is the best I've read. She opened my eyes to what I believe is an indisputable proposition that in fact we capitulated to Iran a long time ago. I'm not afraid to learn new things even if they force me to inspect my thinking and make me question myself about what I've been missing over the years. Consistently she provokes me to, as she says, "ThinkAgain."

All of us should be now more fully aware about how little wiggle room is leftover due to the consequences of our past mistakes. It means every hand we're now dealt must be played all the more skillfully if we're going to win out in the end. The stakes are that large.

We must pay closer attention to our best instincts and principles as we sort through this Administration's most recent foreign policy initiative. The Deal still sucks for us. Whoever say's we've got 10 years to ride this out will want to think twice about that gamble.

I'm convinced more than ever that Hope is Not A Strategy, and now I see more clearly it's not a Good Tactic either. How long can we afford to keep leading from behind? During WWII when Omar Bradley required his front line commanders to perform, he wasn't looking for leaders that took up their positions in the rear. Why are we being led that way now?

And regarding today's "Major Garrett Blow Up", what got lost was a salient response to the second part of the question. The one that put the President on notice that the Press now realizes that many in our Pentagon are profoundly unhappy about this deal. It was like a morgue in that room wasn't it?

I believe it's true, as I once read, "there is no “other side” when it comes to the well-being of the nation," and that this Deal doesn't serve anyone's interests well. Perhaps the reporters intuitively understood that the real danger in this Deal is that its underlying purpose is "to make us look away" from Iran's past behavior with the "hopes" that going forward the mullahs will do the right thing.

Less than a year after the Munich Agreement, the one Chamberlain promised would bring "Peace in our lifetime," Hitler unleashed the hell hounds. He bet that Germany could Blitzkrieg it's way through it's resources in an effort take everyone else's away before anyone could get organized and fight back. He had his own timetable. We must assume that Iran's mullahs do too.

So do the Russians, as it can't be forgotten that they've been working hard to corner the Uranium market. This Administration's blunders are legion.

I sincerely doubt that, unlike our experience with Saddam Hussein, we have a decade to play international cat and mouse - all the while looking here and looking there; but never really seeing the smelly cheese right before our eyes. Like a string of others before him, this President's Middle East record is questionable at best. A leadership team that fails to realize that the entire world loses when America isn't out front can't be trusted to get it right. We've been watching them get it wrong for quit some time now.

We must reject the Deal if just to let everyone know it puts forward a false promise of Hope.

Enjoy your columns!

Enjoy your columns! Appreciate the fact that we can be Jews and have the positions on Israel and of those here in the U.S. as we do!

Just so you know… I have taken flack from friends, both Jewish and Christians who in many ways, used to be my friends and with my rational positions on Israel, the Second Amendment and my total dislike for Obama and his cronies, this Jew… who has climbed all the 14ers many times, who survived an armed robbery in my house, who is an advocate of protecting the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment and who lives in the Eruv here in SE Denver… will NOT stand idly by and watch the world perpetuate its hatred and anti Semitic propaganda and actions against Israel and Jews!

The unbelievable and hypocritical attitudes of American and Israeli Jews these days is enough to make one sick to the stomach! How these self-loafing Jews can say they love Israel and yet, back Obama… not once, but twice is totally beyond belief.

I’m just a regular kind of guy yet one who moves to the beat of a different drummer than most Jewish males. My parents taught me respect, integrity and values and unfortunately, these seem to be absent from American politics.

I’ve been a registered Independent my whole life and quite frankly, Jews in America will soon witness similar attacks like those now being experienced in Europe. I personally want to make it difficult for these terrorists and anti Jews to do so!

Anyway, just wanted to say hello and share with you… keep up the good writing!

Our dear leader prevaricates

Our dear leader prevaricates his way to victory, signing off on all that he said he would not do.........Obamacare redux. You wrote an excellent article....the last three paragraphs sum it up quite well.

Trump has certainly tapped in to the anger boiling over illegal immigration; those polled don't yet know how all over the map he has been politically. For years one of my reading habits has been to note all the crimes that have been perpetrated by 'illegal' immigrants and they are legion. A list recently published doesn't tap into all those that have been murdered, raped, knifed, DWIed, brutalized, robbed, etc. Political correctness has encouraged political and media cover-up or at best minimization of these events. We have our own home grown miseries without having to put up with an influx of rejects from countries world wide....on this Trump has scored. It is reminiscent of the wave of criminals that Castro gifted to us early on. Forty years ago a dead body was dropped off behind our house in Miami, a common thing in that era.

Planned Parenthood now exposed as selling the organs, of babies torn asunder, is not surprising. Since the ancient debates over fetal stem cell research, it always seemed to me as a potential justification or positive for abortion.

Another attack today in Chattanooga is Islamic payback to our military. The perpetrator has been punished with death; he beat us 4 to 1 and he could be up one more, a women who is awaiting life or death at his hand.

Our dear leader's performance at the microphone yesterday is another reminiscence of the interminable speeches of Fidel that serve as cheerleading for the cause. From now on we will be served with speech after speech.....droning on and on about the greatness of his Iran agreement......all to tamp down any opposition.

In addition our dear leader has a hate on for Bibi and loves him some Fidel and Ayatollah.

It is politically so depressing; are we as impotent as a country as it feels?

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