The Iran deal betrays US interests

The chattering classes have weighed in, appropriately in criticizing the P5+1 deal with Iran on its nuclear program, but overlooked in much of the commentary are the following points.

First, the document is being sent to the U.N. Security Counsel for approval. This, of course, is redundant since the P5+1 represent the key nations in the Security Council (plus Germany). Once approved, congressional disapproval is irrelevant. The U.S. could decide, for example, to reinstate sanctions, but it would be isolated in it actions. What President Obama has done is internationalize American foreign policy, taking it from the realm of unilateral national interest to multilateral approval. This may be a desirable outcome if you believe in world government, but if you assume, as I do, that American interest should be guided by our elected representatives, this is a constitutional tragedy.

{mosads}The accord with Iran states that “The E3+3 [another name for P5+1] will submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council endorsing the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] affirming that conditions of this JCPOA marks a fundamental shift in its consideration of this issue and expressing its desire to build a new relationship with Iran.”

That new relationship is clear and it is an unassailable effort to relieve Iran of the sanctions burden.

Second, with a last-minute insertion prompted by the Russian representative at the Vienna meetings, the conventional arms embargo against Iran has been lifted. What this means in effect is that Iran can use the $100 billion windfall it will receive in commercial activity with the removal of sanctions for advanced missiles and radars that could provide Iran with dominance in the Gulf of Hormuz and the Red Sea. In addition, Iran will most likely enhance the missile capability of both Hamas and Hezbollah, thereby threatening Israeli security.

Third, the accord is an example of Orwellian doublethink. Obama argues that the deal prevents Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, if you read the entire 159-page document, provisions exist for Iran to continue to enrich uranium and even develop advanced centrifuges that are likely to accelerate the timeline for a bomb. Here is Humpty Dumpty telling Alice that a word “means just what I choose it to mean.” Last, the deal puts in motion the Sunni nations’ inextricable acquisition of nuclear weapons. Even though the agreement makes specific reference to the Non-Proliferation Agreement (NPT), with the claims this accord is consistent with its principles, the NPT is dead. In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Obama contended that nonproliferation of nuclear weapons was the overarching aim of his presidency. Curiously, he has produced the opposite of his intention.

In fact, the world has become a more dangerous place than ever before with the leading sponsor of terror and a nation responsible for at least 1,000 American deaths given a pathway to nuclear weapons. Never before has an agreement with a foreign nation so betrayed our interests. This is not a partisan statement; it is a claim that emerges from a careful reading of the draft agreement. Iran received everything it wanted, Obama got what he considered a distinguished place in history and Americans got a precarious global arrangement that jeopardizes national security and our interests abroad.

Attributed to Oscar Wilde is the quote “When bad ideas have nowhere to go they gravitate to American universities and become courses.” Unfortunately, Wilde was only partially right. Many bad ideas gravitate to the State Department and the White House where they are elevated to policies.

It could be said that this generation of politicians has reinvented a lost utopia, a new order in which evangelical distinctions are made between “before and after.” The problem, of course, is that utopia is beyond our grasp just as the notion of “peace in our time” through an agreement with Iran.

London is president of the London Center for Policy Research.