Gift-wrapped disaster
IN BUSINESS terms, it’s throwing good money after bad. In political terms, it’s Democrats following Barack Obama over the cliff. Reports say key congressional leaders, furious over the interim nuke pact with Iran, are threatening to buck Obama and add more sanctions. Those threats, I believe, will never come to anything.
Democrats are afraid to say no to Obama. They’ve never done it and are not likely to start now.
So if you like ObamaCare, you’ll love the Iranian nuke deal.
The same people who gave you the healthcare disaster on a partyline vote also will make it easier for Iran to get a nuke. Some will kick and scream, but they’ll fall in line like good party soldiers. They did it before and they’ll do it again.
Joe Biden called ObamaCare a “big fking deal” at the signing ceremony. Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” She also said, “It’s going to be very, very exciting.”
Well, there is no arguing with those predictions. ObamaCare is a very big deal, and it’s fair to say Americans are very, very excited as they discover what’s in it.
Unfortunately, the big deal is a bad one and the excitement comes from an epidemic of disgust and fear sweeping the nation.
So it will be with Iran. The promise of greater security and peace in our time will be proven false. You don’t have to be a historian to know that weakness begets aggression. Always.
The question remains a simple one. Is Iran ready to give up its 30year quest for nukes? If the answer isn’t yes, it’s no.
One fact tells the whole story: The deal anticipates permanently recognizing Iran’s right to enrich uranium. That makes it weaker than Security Council resolutions that even China and Russia supported.
Yet now comes the sell, with the president, just as he did with ObamaCare, in full pitchman mode. Before the ink was dry, he was in California before adoring crowds assembled to nod and smile and clap on cue as he trot ted out a straw man to demonize critics.
“Tough talk and bluster may be the easy thing to do politically, but it’s not the right thing for our country,” he told the nodding heads.
There he goes again. If you don’t agree with him, you’re playing politics. Only he knows “the right thing for our country.”
His latest offer is one America can and should refuse. Trusting Iran to deliver on its promises is even more risky than trusting Obama to deliver on his.
The nation has been down this path before. When a failing president digs in and refuses to listen, it is the duty of the leaders of his party to confront him and speak the truth. Republican elders did that to Richard Nixon during Watergate, leading to his resignation, and Dems did it to Bill Clinton to get him to stop lying about Monica Lewinsky.
In 2006, as Iraq was convulsed by a ShiaSunni civil war, Virginia Sen. John Warner and other Republicans urged President Bush to start bringing the troops home.
Bush didn’t agree, but the pressure helped persuade him to change course. Immediately after the Democratic sweep in the midterm elections, Bush replaced Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary and forged the “surge” plan that dramatically reduced the violence in Iraq. No two situations are alike, of course, but the principle is the same. Partisanship cannot demand blind loyalty. Every elected official has a first duty to the country, and leaders of a wayward president’s party bear a special responsibility to set him straight.
That burden now falls on the Democrats who know the Iran deal is a bad one. My hope is that they will rise to the occasion. My fear is that the same people who gave us ObamaCare will give us a nucleararmed Iran.