The article below, entitled “Obama’s Nuclear ‘Deal’ with Iran: A Historic Agreement, or an Epic Failure?” was written by IWP alumnus and Kosciuszko Chair Research Fellow Pawel Styrna and was published by the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research.
The “deal” seems to conform to a disconcerting pattern characterizing the Obama administration’s foreign policy of propping up anti-American Marxist or Islamist dictatorships. Thus, Obama has thrown a lifeline to and reestablished relations with communist-occupied Cuba, and his perplexing passivity vis-à-vis ISIS has helped that savage Jihadist tyranny survive and consolidate. Now, Team Obama has de facto shored up Khamenei’s regime and shielded it from international pressure and, especially, the threat of an airstrike by Israel (which does not possess the necessary bunker-buster bombs, which only the U.S. has, to destroy nuclear facilities embedded deeply in the mountains of Iran). Is this pattern merely a coincidence?
On July 14, the “P5 + 1” powers (the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany) and the EU signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — also known as the Vienna Agreement, or simply the “Iran deal” — with the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The terms of this nuclear deal with Tehran seemed so unfavorable to Washington and its allies (especially Israel) as to prompt both amazement and ridicule. The Jewish comedian, Jackie Mason, mocked the unbelievably lax and naïve inspection regime stipulated by the agreement, which would allow Tehran to delay inspection of its nuclear sites for up to 24 days, by stating that even New York City has tougher food inspection rules than the agreement negotiated by Kerry: “We’re not protected from a [nuclear] bomb but we’re protected from a bad quality of a tuna fish.” Current GOP presidential candidate, and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, asserted bluntly that the agreement “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” President Obama’s “historic deal” with the Islamist regime occupying Iran is summed up well by the Heritage Foundation:
The Vienna Agreement represents a Faustian bargain in which the Obama Administration agreed to dismantle sanctions and legitimize Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary restrictions on uranium enrichment, greater (but still limited) access for U.N. inspectors and promises to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -promises that Tehran has repeatedly broken in the past. If Iran reneges on the agreement, as it could easily do since most of its concessions are quickly reversible, the international sanctions regime will be almost impossible to put back in place.