Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News    9/15/2015

   Dishonorable, disgusting, despicable

Those words would start the list of adjectives describing the Iran “deal” foisted on America by Emperor Obama and his dim-witted lackey and partner-in-deception, John Kerry. Also applicable: dishonest, disloyal, disingenuous—there will be a few more if, God forbid, Iran’s brutal Islamic mullahs detonate a nuclear bomb in a cargo container in the bay of a coastal American city, or in a rented truck with a jihadist suicide driver.

While I was writing columns in July, scheduled to run while traveling in Idaho and Oregon, I observed the nation’s news media and pundit class conveying misinformation and administration spin on the “negotiated” agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. Scare quotes convey the disturbing practice of caving to Iranian demands and calling it “negotiating.” Duplicitous and potentially disastrous aspects deserve attention in this column.

Conservative blogger Paul Mirengoff summed it thusly: “John Kerry on the Iran Deal: A Litany of Lies.” Lee Smith, at the Weekly Standard, accused Kerry of “making stuff up” but that is perhaps too kind, too polite. “Kerry is flat out lying.” Almost 20 articles appeared on just the first page under the “Iran” label at Powerlineblog.com. They cited the misrepresentations, hidden compromises, sacrificed national security—for America and Israel—and include a deeply insightful series, “Speaking of the Iran Deal.” At DonPolson.blogspot.com, there are over 50 “Iran” posts March to July; “Bolton calls the Iran deal ‘unprecedented surrender’” appeared 3/19.

One obvious example of duplicity would be Kerry “claiming that the administration had never promised ‘anytime/anywhere’ inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities…Anytime/anywhere, Kerry said on Face the Nation, ‘is a term that honestly I never heard in the four years that we were negotiating. It was not on the table.’”

However, there were references to “anywhere/anytime” inspections; as recently as April, “national security adviser Ben Rhodes promised that the Western negotiators were going to secure anywhere/anytime inspections. Ernest Moniz, who sat next to Kerry throughout the Iran talks, also said, ‘we expect to have anywhere, anytime access’ to Iranian facilities. But Kerry’s lieutenant, Wendy Sherman…said that anytime/anywhere was rhetorical overreach. The administration didn’t really mean it. Kerry preposterously maintains they didn’t even say it.”

Just as preposterously, Obama/Kerry mouthpieces said with straight faces that no nation would accept “anywhere/anytime” inspections—not even America. What global-citizen, U.N.-supremacist, America-bashing claptrap. Any nation that agreed in good faith to end its nuclear weapons activity, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, willfully submitted to intrusive verification and inspections, as in South Africa. You surely recall Saddam Hussein’s efforts to thwart inspections—he acceded, with lip service, to U.N. demands while doing everything possible to delay, deny and distract inspectors. Iran gets a better deal by executive fiat.

Iran has succeeded in denying access to military locations, which would be prime weapons-assembly sites. It will be able to use the 24-day advance notice to scrub evidence from other facilities to the point that the major nations won’t raise the issue for purposes of re-imposing sanctions, let alone treating Iran as a hostile belligerent.

Kerry also beclowned himself by lying about sanctions being lifted on Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleimani. “Kerry denied [that sanctions of Suleimani will be lifted] when the terms of the deal were first made public. Administration spokespersons set the record straight, explaining that, yes, U.N. nuclear-related sanctions would no longer apply to Suleimani in eight years’ time. And yet in a press conference ... two days after the correction had been made, Kerry still insisted Suleimani was not coming off the sanctions list.” That’s called making stuff up.

We now know of the two secret side deals between Iran and the IAEA (U.N. atomic energy agency)—one relating to Parchin, a military base believed to be part of the regime’s nuclear weapons program, and the other relating to military dimensions of the program. Hence, Kerry’s lies become more problematic, pathetic and destructive of America’s national security.

The law that Obama signed (under the duress of knowing his veto would be overridden), granting Congress approval rights to any deal, requires Congress to be provided all ancillary, additional agreements. Hence, we had the spectacle of Kerry’s lame attempt to deny their existence, Obi-Wan Kenobi-like: “These aren’t the side deals you’re looking for.”

Any attempt by anyone to deny that Kerry/Moniz knew of the particulars, even the existence, of the Iran/IAEA side deals is immediately subject to dispute on veracity alone. “The administration knows what these deals say; it probably helped broker them. However it has been unwilling to share the details with Congress…Given John Kerry’s serial dishonesty about the deal, trusting this administration should be out of the question.”

Among other nearly-diabolical elements of the deal, Kerry et al can’t even bring themselves to honestly quantify the vast amounts of money Iran gets with little more than a promise to be good. While it could approach $150 billion, authoritative estimates (CNBC, David Rothkopf in Foreign Policy, Reuters, Al-Monitor) put it at $100-120 billion. Kerry low-balled it at $50 billion and minimized its use for terrorism, in spite of Iran’s undeniable history of funneling large sums to its terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East. Blood will be on Obama’s, Kerry’s and even Hillary Clinton’s hands, if she had any role in dismantling the sanctions and encouraging Iranian hopes for Western acceptance of its nuclear ambitions.