JED BABBIN: THE IRAN DEAL AND THE HAPPY TERRORISTS
http://www.epictimes.com/londoncenter/2015/07/the-iran-deal-and-the-happy-terrorists/
The good news is that there wasn’t a nuclear weapons deal with Iran by the June 30 “deadline.” The bad news is that there will probably be one this week, and it’s going to be a very bad one.
The world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism – as even Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has to admit Iran is – is as recalcitrant as the “P5+1” group, led by Vichy John Kerry, is eager to make a deal. The more the Iranians demand, the more the West caves in.
As we go to press, an agreement has already been reached allowing Iran to get its multi-billion dollar signing bonus in the form of relief of the international economic sanctions that forced them to the bargaining table. One of the disagreements – as of Sunday – was on the risible “snap-back” mechanism to reimpose the sanctions if (that should be “when,” not “if,” but suspension of disbelief is a principle tenet of Western diplomacy) Iran violates the agreement. It’s risible because there will be no reimposition of the sanctions. The French, for example, are lining up for oil contracts with Iran. None of the Europeans will allow sanctions to be reimposed, nor will Obama.
Not only is this kabuki dance of appeasement certain to assure Iran nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, it will ensure Iran the power of nuclear blackmail (and probably nuclear terrorism) in the immediate future. It’s encouraging terrorists all around the world to kill more innocent people and threaten the expansion of their de facto conquests of more territory and nations.
ISIS – the self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate – celebrated the first anniversary of its founding in late June. ISIS is known for its braggadocio of brutality. It’s turned beheadings into form of performance art. It gets consistent headlines by kidnapping, throwing people off roofs and committing massacres on beaches. The details of its celebration were, as usual, written in blood.
ISIS’ celebration began shortly after President Obama called for more gun control in America. Speaking on June 18 about the Charleston, South Carolina killing of nine African-American worshippers at a church, he said, “This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.”
ISIS and its allies in terrorism, ever eager to prove Obama wrong, went on a killing spree in three nations only a few days later.
The first paragraph in a June 26 Financial Times report is worth quoting…
At least 37 — mostly tourists — were gunned down in the Tunisian beach resort of Sousse in the heat of the midday sun; a suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shia mosque in Kuwait City, murdering 25 and maiming more than 200; and a local businessman was decapitated and others injured in an attack on a gas factory near Lyon in France.
That’s just one day of Islamic terrorist activity around the world. Some of the attacks were ISIS-connected (as the attack in France clearly was) and some probably weren’t. But, as FT also reported, these attacks came within days of ISIS calling for a wave of violence against foreign targets on the anniversary of its declaration of a new caliphate.
ISIS, let’s remember, has three primary sources of funding. First, the sale of oil from areas of Iraq it has conquered. Second, from bank robberies in Syria and Iraq. Third, from ransoms paid in exchange for hostages. One UN report, as related by The Economist this week, estimates that ISIS gained $35-$45 million in ransoms for a period ending last October.
For most of its history the United States has refused to pay ransom for hostages. That was our policy since about 1805, when Thomas Jefferson decided to send the Navy to “chastise the Tripolitan pirates” instead of paying ransom and tribute.
More recently, that policy was expressed in law. Title 18 US Code Section 2339b provides that anyone who pays money to terrorists or terrorist groups can be imprisoned for up to 15 years. That law, enacted by congress, still stands. But on June 24, Obama said that there would be no prosecutions of families and others who paid ransom to terrorists in exchange for hostages.
There is – and now the proper term is “was” — a very simple market principle at the heart of our policy: if you subsidize something, you get more of it. If you penalize it, you get less of it.
Now Obama’s policy – in contravention of established law – says that Americans can subsidize terrorist kidnappings by paying ransom. He says that there won’t be ransoms paid by the U.S. government directly, but that the government will be able to facilitate payments by others. Obama’s action is an anniversary present to ISIS. Other terrorist networks will be just as glad of it.
Obama’s persistence in seeking a nuclear deal with Iran and his enabling the subsidization of terrorist kidnappings are perfectly consistent.
When Iran is able to deploy nuclear weapons, as Obama conceded it would be able to do at the end of the agreement he seeks, it will be able to blackmail every non-nuclear state, in essence taking them hostage. In return, those nations – whether in the Middle East or Europe or wherever Iranian missiles can carry their nukes – will have to pay tribute to Iran economically or diplomatically to ransom themselves. Their only alternative will be to obtain and deploy their own nuclear arms.
Arab nations are Sunni Muslims. Iran is a Shiite nation. They are perpetually at war because their religious sects have been so since they were created. No one can doubt that Iran’s development and deployment of nuclear arms makes a Sunni-Shiite nuclear war highly likely, if not inevitable.
By Obama’s actions America’s national security, the security of our allies and the security of our citizens here and abroad, is being so rapidly diminished that it may never recover.
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