The Growing Chorus Against the Iran Deal
By Max Boot, COMMENTARY 5-9-15
President Obama would like to pretend that anyone who opposes the nuclear deal with Iran that he is in the process of striking must be a warmonger—because war is the (supposed) consequence of not doing a deal. But that charge is hard to level against some of the high-profilecritics who had spoken out in recent days.
–In the Wall Street Journal, former secretaries of State George Shultz (architect of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union) and Henry Kissinger (architect of the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement with the USSR and the “opening” to China) blast Obama’s deal-making. They warn that not only will the agreement be extremely difficult to enforce, it is unlikely sanctions will be reimposed even if Iran is caught cheating: “Iran is in a position to violate the agreement by executive decision. Restoring the most effective sanctions will require coordinated international action.”
The result of these talks, they warn, will be an increase in Iran’s regional power and a nuclear arms race in the Middle East: “For the U.S., a decade-long restriction on Iran’s nuclear capacity is a possibly hopeful interlude. For Iran’s neighbors—who perceive their imperatives in terms of millennial rivalries—it is a dangerous prelude to an even more dangerous permanent fact of life. Some of the chief actors in the Middle East are likely to view the U.S. as willing to concede a nuclear military capability to the country they consider their principal threat. Several will insist on at least an equivalent capability. Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will enter the lists; others are likely to follow. In that sense, the implications of the negotiation are irreversible.”
–On the Journal’s website, Aaron David Miller (one of Bill Clinton’s chief negotiators in the 1990s working on a deal between Israel and the Palestinians) is even more stark—“what we know now,” he writes, “suggests that the mullahs got the better end of the deal.” “The U.S. went from seeking to dismantle a putative nuclear weapons program to trying to impose limitations on one,” he explains. “Score one for the mullahs. By the time a final agreement is reached, Iran’s right to enrich uranium and its nuclear infrastructure may be validated in a U.N. Security Council resolution. That would be another win for the mullahs.” Finally Miller notes: “it’s stunning that the president of the United States is protesting Mr. Netanyahu’s terrible statements about Israeli Arabs and not blasting Tehran for its human rights abuses.”
–Also in the Journal, William Galston (another former Bill Clinton aide and a veteran Democratic thinker) doesn’t come out completely against the agreement but he advocates greatly strengthening it, in ways that, among others, the Israeli government has advocated—and that Obama is certain to reject. He also writes: “Many of our traditional allies in the Middle East fear that they are being sacrificed to Mr. Obama’s aspiration to achieve a historic breakthrough with the Islamic Republic. He should reassure them by strengthening U.S. security guarantees, pledging the long-term presence of U.S. military assets, and by acting far more forcefully against Iranian meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.…. And finally, the Obama administration should relax its opposition to meaningful congressional involvement in vetting a final agreement.”
Asked about the Kissinger-Shultz op-ed, the best that the State Department spokesman could do was to describe it as a “lot of big words and big thoughts,” as if that’s a criticism. (Does this administration favor small words and small thoughts?) Wonder what the White House thinks about what Shultz, Kissinger, Miller, and Galston have said? Are they neocon warmongers too? Or is it just possible that they are reasonable centrists who have grave reservations about the unprecedented concessions that the president is making to a regime whose animating slogan is “Death to America”?
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