Congress is finally having its say on the Iran deal. It
will be an elaborate charade, however, because, having first gone to the United
Nations, President Obama has largely drained congressional action of relevance.
At the Security Council, he pushed
through a resolution ratifying
the deal, thus officially committing the United States as a nation to its implementation
— in advance of any congressional action.
The resolution
abolishes the entire legal framework, built over a decade, underlying the
international sanctions against Iran. A few months from now, they will be gone.
The script is already written: The International Atomic
Energy Agency, relying on Iran’s self-inspection (!) of its most sensitive
nuclear facility, will declare Iran in compliance. The agreement then goes into
effect and Iran’s nuclear program is officially deemed peaceful.
Sanctions are
lifted. The mullahs receive $100 billion of frozen assets as a signing bonus.
Iran begins reaping the economic bonanza, tripling
its oil exports and
welcoming a stampede of foreign companies back into the country.
It is all
precooked. Last month, Britain’s foreign secretary traveled to Tehran with an
impressive delegation of British companies ready to deal. He was late, however.
The Italian and French foreign ministers had already
been there, accompanied by their own hungry businessmen and oil
companies. Iran is back in business.
As a matter of
constitutional decency, the president should have submitted the deal to Congress
first. And submitted it as a treaty. Which it obviously is. No international
agreement in a generation matches this one in strategic significance and
geopolitical gravity.
Obama did not
submit it as a treaty because he knew he could never get the constitutionally
required votes for ratification. He’s not close to getting two-thirds of the
Senate. He’s not close to getting a
simple majority. No wonder: In the latest Pew Research Center poll,
the American people oppose the deal by a staggering 28-point
margin.
To get around the Constitution, Obama negotiated
a swindle that
requires him to garner a mere one-third of one house of Congress. Indeed, on
Thursday, with just 42 Senate supporters — remember, a treaty requires 67 — the Democrats
filibustered and prevented, at least for now, the Senate from voting
on the deal at all.
But Obama two
months ago enshrined the deal as international law at the U.N. Why should we
care about the congressional vote? In order to highlight the illegitimacy of
Obama’s constitutional runaround and thus make it easier for a future president
to overturn the deal, especially if Iran is found to be cheating.
As of now,
however, it is done. Iran will be both unleashed — sanctions lifted, economy
booming, with no treaty provisions regarding its growing regional aggression
and support for terrorists — and welcomed as a good international citizen
possessing a peaceful nuclear program. An astonishing trick.
Iran’s
legitimation will not have to wait a decade, after which, as the Iranian
foreign minister boasts, the U.N. file on the Iranian nuclear
program will be closed, all restrictions will be dropped and, as Obama
himself has admitted, the breakout time to an Iranian bomb will
become essentially zero. On the contrary. The legitimation happens now. Early
next year, Iran will be officially recognized as a peaceful nuclear nation.
This is a revolution in Iran’s international standing, yet
its consequences have been largely overlooked. The deal goes beyond merely
leaving Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact. Because the deal legitimizes that
nuclear program as peaceful (unless proven otherwise — don’t hold your breath),
it is entitled to international assistance. Hence the astonishing
provision buried
in Annex III, Section 10, committing Western experts to offering the Iranian
program our nuclear expertise.
Specifically
“training courses and workshops.” On what? Among other things, on how to
protect against “sabotage.”
Imagine: We
are now to protect Iran against, say, the very Stuxnet virus, developed by the
NSA and Israel’s Unit 8200, that for years
disrupted and
delayed an Iranian bomb.
Secretary of
State John Kerry has darkly warned Israel to not even think about a military
strike on the nuclear facilities of a regime whose leader said just
Wednesday that
Israel will be wiped out within 25 years. The Israelis are now being told
additionally — Annex III, Section 10 — that if they attempt just a defensive,
nonmilitary cyberattack (a Stuxnet II), the West will help Iran foil it.
Ask those 42
senators if they even know about this provision. And how they can sign on to
such a deal without shame and revulsion.
*****
When I read this article I felt horror and
repulsion. It reminded me of a paragraph
from George F. Kennan’s Memoirs: 1925-1950, page 143:
“The experience taught me something about the
behavior of human beings in adversity: the untrustworthiness and failure of a
minority at one end of the human spectrum; the rather passive response to
leadership on the part of a majority in the middle; the extraordinary
faithfulness, courage, and general excellence of a few. I came away with a new
admiration for one portion of mankind, but a portion which, as I now
recognized, would never be more than a minority. For the majority at the
center, I felt a mixture of sympathy and solicitude. For the remainder there
was only horror and repulsion.”
