Iran deal: Obama’s transformational ‘change’

US President Hussein Obama has good news. When he ran for President in 2008, he ran with a message of transformational ‘change’ (John Perazzo, “Barack Obama, the Socialist”, frontpagemag, September 5, 2012). Now, through his brain-child, the Iran nuclear deal, he will bring that ‘change’ to the world.

For Iran, Obama utters ten declarations. Each is designed to assure the world that it now holds the killer lion by the tail: Iran has been contained. We are all better off.

But these ten declarations weren’t made to make us better off. They were made to announce that the world has been changed.

First, Obama said this deal will make the world a safer place (Keith Laing, “Obama: Iran deal 'will make America and the world safer'”, thehill, July 18, 2015).

Second, this deal will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon (ibid).

Third, this deal gave us every one of our ‘bottom lines’ (“Full text: Obama’s news conference on the Iran nuclear deal”, Washington Post, July 15, 2015).  

Fourth, this deal is the only alternative to war with Iran (ibid).

Fifth, this deal makes certain that Iran will not cheat because it won’t be able to cheat. The inspection regimen the deal imposes will be too strict for Iran to cheat (“Iran nuclear deal will make America and world safer: Barack Obama”, The Economic Times, July 18, 2015).  

Sixth, this deal “represents a powerful display of American leadership and diplomacy” (“Full text: Obama’s news conference”, Washington Post, ibid).

Seventh, this deal resolves a major problem with Iran to our advantage (Paul Koring, “Obama defends Iran nuclear deal as chance to make world safer”, The Globe and Mail, July 15, 2015).

Eighth, this deal cuts off “every single one of Iran's pathways to a nuclear program” (ibid).

Ninth, without this deal, the world risks even more war in the Middle East; and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs (ibid).

Tenth, the multilateral arms embargo on Iran will remain in place for an additional five years, and restrictions on ballistic missile technology will remain for eight years (ibid).

The US President is proud of these ten declarations. He wants you to share his sense of pride.

Unfortunately for us, none of these declarations is true. Unfortunately for Obama, few nations within spitting distance of Iran (who are not already Iranian proxies) buy any of this pride, joy and sense of accomplishment. Instead, they run in the opposite direction.

Israel condemns the deal in the harshest of terms. Even before the official announcement was made about the deal, Israel ‘came out swinging’ (Paul Goldman and F. Brinley Bruton, “Iran nuclear deal: Israel condemns agreement as ‘bad mistake’”, msnbc, July 14, 2014). This deal means Iran will have a sure path to nuclear weapons, Israel said… Iran will get a jackpot, a cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars, which will enable it to continue to pursue its aggression and terror in the region and in the world…Iran  wants to destroy nations and peoples (ibid).

The Saudis also condemned the deal (Jack Moore, “Saudi Arabian society unites to attack Iran deal”, Newsweek, July 15, 2105). One Saudi official, speaking of Iran, said, “We have learned as Iran's neighbours in the last 40 years that goodwill only led us to harvest sour grapes" (ibid). One Saudi newspaper ran a cartoon of the ‘deal’ that showed the US and Iran essentially conspiring together to wreak havoc in the Middle East (ibid).

For its part, India’s leadership welcomed the deal—but its military establishment wasn’t buying it (Vijeta Uniyal, “Iran Deal: Obama Just Sold Out an Ally, and It's Not Israel”, gatestoneinstitute, July 20, 2015). What India’s defense officials are buying, however, is more military equipment (ibid).

As a result of this deal, Pakistan could become important. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons industry has been secretly financed for decades by Saudi Arabia (ibid). In return, the Saudis might seek—and receive--an ‘off the shelf’ nuclear weapon from Pakistan in order to offset Iran’s capability (ibid).

Nuclear proliferation in a region dominated by Islam makes India nervous. India is not a Muslim country. It’s simply a country surrounded (mostly) by Islam.

The Saudis aren’t the only regional Sunni Arab nation looking to protect itself from the Shiite Iran. Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates are also Sunni-dominated states.

Shiite Iran threatens them all.

Sunni Arab nations have consistently looked to the US for help. But under Obama the US has been steadily losing credibility in the Middle East. More than a year-and-a-half ago, it was obvious that American Foreign policy for the Middle East had taken a ‘turn for the worse’ (Jonathan Spyer, “Confidence Game: Losing American Support, the Gulf States Scramble”, The Tower, January 2014, issue 10). Long-time Sunni Arab allies found themselves facing an Iranian (Shiite) menace alone (ibid). These Arab allies now have (in private) given up on the US.

The US abandons Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf region (ibid). The US empowers an aggressive Shiite Iran.

The US doesn’t want to grab the tail of the lion. With this deal, the US frees the lion completely.

Through the power of one Hussein Obama, the Middle East could now be dominated by the world’s leading supporter of state-sponsored terrorism. That state sponsor of terrorism professes a desire to destroy both the ‘little Satan’ (Israel) and the ‘big Satan’ (USA). That state sponsor of terrorism wants to dominate Islam. That state sponsor of terrorism will now have more than 100 billion dollars of once-frozen cash released through the terms of this agreement—to do as it pleases.

Hussein Obama has indeed created a transformational ‘change’. He has transformed Iran.

How do you think that’s going to work out?