Obama Offers His ‘Deal or War’-LoriLowenthal Marcus
Obama attacks his critics (guess who) as ignorant, deceptive and trying to pull a fast one on the American people.
This critical period during which Congress is mulling over the nuclear deal made by U.S. negotiators and their P5+1 partners with Iran has turned into a hotly contested debate between those committed to preventing the deal from being approved and those who are desperate to ensure that it will be approved.
Yesterday, Aug. 4, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke to thousands of Americans and explained why he believes the deal is a bad one. It boiled down to “Keep or Cheat.” However Iran decides to act under this agreement, it will attain nuclear threshold status.
Today President Barack Obama gave a midday televised speech from American University in Washington, D.C.. During the speech he ridiculed those who criticize the deal, and explained why, according to him, the choice is either the deal or war.
Obama sought to compare the current situation in which Iran is seen by many as threatening the U.S. and its closest allies, and perhaps the world, to the time in which the Soviet Union, also a supporter of terrorist proxies, was considered the global danger.
This comparison is useful because the tensions and stakes were similar, and the danger was handled through diplomacy, rather than a resort to war.
Of course, diplomacy is not a generic concept, and its success depends greatly on the diplomats involved and the deals they are able to strike.
This American administration and its negotiating team are not the teams who handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, nor have they woven treaties like the SALT and START Treaties. In fact, one clear red flagging difference is that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is not a treaty, or at least is not being called one, with all the consequences that entails.
The President agrees with many of his critics about one factor: the importance of the issue. He described the deal and the foreign policy debate surrounding it as “one of the most consequential” the United States government has engaged in, in years.
Unfortunately, unlike Netanyahu’s speech, which was entirely respectful of President Obama, this one was smug, threatening, nasty and insulting, especially regarding Netanyahu, but also towards any other critics of the deal.
In refusing to take the high road, it may be that Obama lost the opportunity to win over those who were wavering. Or, and perhaps more likely, the threats he raised, including the specter of disaster that will befall the United States should the deal be rejected, may be sufficient to capture those who are susceptible to such tactics.
Time will tell.
In the hour-long speech, the President reiterated what he and the other proponents of the deal have been touting since the JCPOA was signed two weeks ago. This is the best possible deal, snap-back of sanctions will be available if Iran cheats, the inspections regime covers all contingencies (but while admitting the Iranians will have 24 days before inspectors can visit contested sites, Obama promised “we will be watching it continuously until inspectors get in.”)
A careful review of the speech, however, reveals several significant inconsistencies.
SANCTIONS NOT ENOUGH, BUT IF THEY CHEAT, WE’LL SNAP BACK SANCTIONS
The President spent a great deal of time deriding the idea that sanctions would be enough to deter Iran from driving towards its nuclear weapons goal, and ridiculing the idea of America going it alone on sanctions should Congress reject the deal. He pledged that should Iran cheat, “we can catch them, and we will.”
He then said, “If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place. We won’t need the support of the other members of the U.N. Security Council, America can trigger snap back on our own.” So what happened to the idea that America can’t go it alone? Or that sanctions are sufficient?
What was new in the speech was the threats to the U.S. economy, should Congress vote down the deal.
What was not new were the implicit suggestions that the powerful Jewish lobby, and/or the Israeli government is seeking to undermine the deal because they really prefer war, or because they simply do not understand the region like Obama and his experts do.
In fact, he singled out Israel as the only nation which has not expressed support for the deal. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations were probably surprised to hear that line.
IRAN’S ‘PEACEFUL’ NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
It may also have been surprising to some to hear Obama talk about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
In a portion of the speech that seemed to address voters in Iran, rather than in Iowa or Illinois, the President castigated those who think that anything we do will “force Iran to completely dismantle all vestiges of its nuclear infrastructure, even aspects that are consistent with peaceful programs. That is oftentimes, what the critics are calling a better deal.”
Forgive those who thought the whole idea of having discussions with Iran about its nuclear program was to, as the President and his supporters had been saying, get Iran to dismantle all of its centrifuges and remove all enriched uranium from the country.
Here is what he is saying now about those earlier goals: “Neither the Iranian government, or the Iranian opposition, or the Iranian people would agree to what they would view as a total surrender of their sovereignty.”
MOCKING NETANYAHU
But guess who is making such demands? Well, just the day before in his speech Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded his audience that a better deal than the JCPOA would be one with tougher sanctions, and that the world should not be abandoning the only significant leverage over Iran.
What did Obama say about that?
First Obama quoted his critics who said “we should get a better deal. That is repeated over and over again. It’s a bad deal — we need a better deal.” The audience tittered in response to the mocking tone.
“One that relies on vague promises of toughness and, more recently, the argument that we can apply a broader and infinite set of sanctions to squeeze the Iranian regime harder.” That is exactly what Netanyahu said. He said Iran needs this deal, and suggested that they would come back to the table if this one was rejected and the rest of the nations pushed harder.
And this is where it got quite ugly.
After clearly referring to Netanyahu as the one calling for tougher sanctions, Obama then described the proponents of that position as being “either ignorant of Iranian society, or they are not being straight with the American people.” That’s right. President Obama is saying Netanyahu and the entire Israeli government, and the vast majority of Israelis are ignorant or are trying to pull a fast one over on the American people. That’s ugly.
There may have been titters earlier, but the sound must have been muted during the real punch line. That is when the President talked about the Iranian government’s need to respond to its citizens desires and that it will surely use the billions of dollars in sanctions relief for “funding pensions and salaries to paying for crumbling infrastructure.”
In yet another surprise argument – delivered with a straight face – the President mocked the notion that Iran is trying to become a hegemon in the Middle East, let alone having designs on world domination.
IRAN WILL BE JUST A MINOR LOCAL BULLY
Sounding as if he were discussing a western European, secular country, Obama told Americans that “contrary to the alarmists who claim Iran is on the brink of taking over the Middle East, or even the world, Iran will remain a regional power with its own set of challenges.”
But isn’t that really the primary concern, that Iran is seeking hegemony over the Middle East: dominion over the Sunni Arab nations and over Israel. And once that were to happen, it would have a devastating impact on the rest of the world as well.
Not to mention the issue of Iran’s desire for, and the JCPOA granting it the right to attain in just eight years, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. One doesn’t need to have ICBMs to bully enemies in your own back yard. Hello California!
IT’S MY DEAL OR WAR
So, after dispensing with all the criticism directed against the deal, Obama once again doubled down on his primary threat. It is either this deal, or it is war. And, need the President remind his listeners, war is ugly, it is expensive, it guarantees human suffering and it may not even achieve what this deal is intended to achieve.
He threatened that if the deal is rejected by Congress, the United States will be isolated and our economy would suffer serious consequences. Putting aside, apparently, the fact that when the U.S. had sanctions against Iran, we allowed carve outs for China and Russia (and other favored trading partners). But today the President threatened that “we’d have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system,” and that could result in economic catastrophe.
A point the President delivered with great force was that were Congress to kill the deal, “we will lose more than just constraints on Iran’s nuclear deal or the sanctions we have painstakingly build. We will have lost something more precious: America’s credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America’s credibility is the anchor of the international system.”
But whose fault is that?
The last time we checked the U.S. Constitution, the President is given the right to negotiate treaties but they can only become binding if the Senate consents to their ratification. So for the most solemn and important international agreements – which this one, all agree, surely is – the Founders built into the Constition precisely the disjunction that President Obama is kvetching about between presidential negotiation and Congressional approval. And by the way, the United States is far from alone in distinguishing between executive negotiation and legislative consent to ratification.
ONLY THE HARDLINERS HATE AMERICA (THAT’S WHO WE ARE TRUSTING TO ENFORCE THIS DEAL)
Some in the audience might have been wondering to themselves, but how can we trust the Iranians at least cut back on their acts and support of terrorism and their constant incitement and provocations?
To that segment, the President also had an answer.
Just because Iranian hardliners chant ‘Death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe. In fact, it’s those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It’s those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.
No questions were allowed after the speech, or some cheeky reporter might have mentioned that it is the Ayatollah himself who is shouting Death to America, it is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who are shouting Death to America. It is the hardliners who are running the Iranian government, and they are the ones who will be entrusted to enforce the deal the President wants Congress to approve. So who is it that is ignorant of Iranian society?
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About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: Lori@JewishPressOnline.com
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