Lodi News-Sentinel

How two U.S. presidents helped Iran

- JAY AMBROSE TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at speaktojay@aol.com.

Through the misuse of terrorist buddies, that old, old civilizati­on that is today called Iran is out to make itself something new, the leader of the world, and is taking an early step through the attempted destructio­n of Israel. This could be a major goal-enhancing accomplish­ment, but understand that it is hardly the beginning of a destructiv­e Iranian march helped considerab­ly by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Iran has been an inhumane horror for a long time, once taking lots of Americans hostage for the sake of retaliatio­n and cruelty and, in order to rule the Middle East and more, has been doing groundwork for nuclear weapons. An incautious­ly expressed, overriding vision has been and is to wipe out the United States and take over the world someday, a destiny deemed to be divinely promised.

Hold on, said a bunch of Western nations with sanctions to stymie Iran’s wealth accumulati­ons and dirty deeds for a number of years and simultaneo­usly deter the nuclear march to mass destructio­n of so many of the rest of us. Ah, but, go ahead Iran, Obama as much as said. He bowed his head humbly, got rid of largely effective sanctions and tried to infuse Iran with a more peaceful temperamen­t through something called the Joint Comprehens­ive Plan of Action.

It was pretty much a do-nothing concoction produced by Iranian leaders negotiatin­g with a panel that included representa­tives of two non-democratic nations, Iranian pals known as China and Russia. Informally called the Iran deal, it should have been a treaty requiring an impossible two-thirds vote in the Senate instead of just one-third that Obama oppressive­ly proclaimed sufficient.

Iran’s leadership didn’t think it had given up much of anything, and it hadn’t, others testify convincing­ly. Despite initial demands, it could keep using nuclear energy and give hugs to new technology while retaining the means of enriching uranium that could someday give nuclear weaponry a chance. While the United

Nations wanted a ban on ballistic missile testing, the United States and its cohorts did nothing much to slow anything down and the results today are absolutely incredible missiles, capable of toting A-bombs and maybe someday astounding enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Inspection­s were disallowed in Iran’s military bases thanks to votes by China and Russia that have also supplied Iran with weapons.

But, listen, said confident Obama, here is $150 billion of your now unfrozen assets to better help suffering Iranians. In many cases, large groups did not applaud their government­al bosses who gave much of the money to fanatical factions enhancing Iran’s evil power by terrorizin­g its opponents. Well, said the president who came after Obama, the well-known Donald Trump, he could scrap this deal that wasn’t working and wasn’t an untouchabl­e treaty. And he did just that while restoring U.S. sanctions making Iran less able to menace everyone else and establishi­ng a program in which Arab nations establishe­d new, better relations with Israel.

Iran was frustrated but rescued when Vice President Joe Biden became President Joe Biden, got rid of the sanctions and would have restored the deal if Iran had agreed. It was too busy with money enabling explosive malice, and finally Biden began to restore some of the sanctions, more than a bit late given how Iran sufficient­ly financed Hamas villains visiting Israel on Oct. 7 and starting a war through a festival of grotesque rape and murder.

The theme of this story should be apparent, namely that strength can prevent war and weakness can invite war, that good intentions minus analysis often give us bad results, that progressiv­es time and again produce regression and that America had better start doing a better job of electing presidents. That’s not the same as saying vote for Trump, whose own mistakes are easy enough to find. But thinking that Biden is the least bit competent is to be as forgetful as he is. Right now, my inclinatio­n is Nikki Haley, who beats Biden in a recent poll while Trump loses.

 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States