Posted on 03/15/2021 3:36:56 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Barack Obama’s plan was never about stopping Iran from obtaining a bomb. It was about realigning American interests in the Middle East in order to remake the Democratic Party at home.
Joe Biden’s commitment to reenter the Iran nuclear deal from which Donald Trump withdrew might strike observers as bizarre. After all, Barack Obama’s July 2015 agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was an expensive and comprehensive failure whose underlying premises have been shown over the past six years to be false. By contrast, Trump’s policy of returning to traditional regional alliance structures—boosting allies and deterring enemies—was a success. The United States entered no new Middle East wars and Iran didn’t build a bomb, despite supposedly being “months” or “weeks” away from a nuclear breakout during Obama’s second term in the White House.
But facts- and results-based analysis misses the main purpose of the JCPOA, which had nothing to do with preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons. Rather, the agreement guaranteed Iran the money and technology it needs to build a bomb while putting Iran’s nuclear program under the protective umbrella of an international agreement guaranteed by the United States. The purpose of the JCPOA, in other words, was to put the nuclear issue in brackets by giving the Iranians a bomb that they were manifestly unable to build on their own—and, in doing so, to remove the obstacle that prevented Obama from realigning American regional interests with those of the revolutionary regime.
None of this should be remotely surprising to anyone who has read the plain text of the deal, and who understands it in its regional context rather than in the context of America’s domestic political wars. What I learned over the course of nearly a decade reporting on the deal, its causes and its effects was that all the elaborate technical talk that was endlessly bandied about by “experts”—centrifuge arrays and stockpiles of enriched uranium, etc.—was simple persiflage, intended to distract attention from the underlying purpose of these arrangements, which was to dump America’s current Middle East allies in favor of Iran.
The patent lunacy of tilting against Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel and toward Iran— that is, weakening your allies in order to partner with your enemy—was reflected by the abject misery the strategy caused in the Middle East. Between 2009 and 2017, I covered the entire spectrum of U.S.-Iran relations, from the Iran lobby to how Obama facilitated the genocide in Syria to satisfy Bashar Assad’s Iranian patrons. I detailed how the Iranians had killed Americans in Iraq and Lebanon and plotted to kill them at home, too, even as Obama praised Iran’s terror master Qassem Soleimani. I reported on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in front of Congress warning of the dangers of putting mankind’s most destructive weapon in the hands of a regime that embodies anti-Semitism, and the Obama administration’s deployment of anti-Semitic conceits to scare off Jewish Democrats from opposing the deal. I warned that empowering such a regime would bring more violence to the Middle East and license discord and give rise to a politics of paranoia here at home.
And here’s how anyone who was paying attention during the first iteration of the Iran deal debate knew the JCPOA was never about stopping Iran from getting the bomb: The key clauses of the agreement restraining Iran’s nuclear and nonnuclear activities were in no way permanent. In fact, they were specifically designed to expire over time. Had the deal been built to prevent Iran from a nuclear breakout, there would be no so-called “sunset clauses.” In other words, the JCPOA was written to ensure that a well-funded Iran (thanks to the elimination of American and U.N. sanctions), fortified with missing technology (also courtesy of the United States) got the bomb—once Obama was safely out of the White House.
Why give Iran the bomb? Because Obama wanted to give America’s old allies the boot. His motive for such rude treatment was that he wanted America to leave the Middle East for good, and to do so he needed a regional power that could manage American interests. Since the Gulf Arab powers are dependent on American protection, they are by definition incapable of handling America’s Middle East portfolio.
Joe Biden and John Kerry are going to give Iran the power terrorize the Middle East and then the rest of the world.
The Iran Deal’s Inevitable Sequel:
Iran tests its newly minted ICBMs and nuclear warheads on the previously announced targets - which the West has totally forgotten - bye bye Tel Aviv, bye bye Rome, bye bye Miss American pie ... bye bye New York City
For as long as Biden/Heels Up are in office, this kind of thing is going to be standard practice.
Along with upgrading our Prepper supplies, we might want to revisit the 1950’s Fall Out Shelters.
Gawd, how I LOATHE Socialist Democrats!
However, as to the authors conclusion:
"Why give Iran the bomb? Because Obama wanted to give America’s old allies the boot. His motive for such rude treatment was that he wanted America to leave the Middle East for good, and to do so he needed a regional power that could manage American interests. Since the Gulf Arab powers are dependent on American protection, they are by definition incapable of handling America’s Middle East portfolio."
I think Obama was venal, a hard Leftist, treacherous in my view BUT not so stupid as to think the Mullahs in Tehran could be "the Middle East regional power that could manage U.S. interests". HOWEVER, if history had not gone the way it did - if the Shah had liberalized his government and kept it stable in a transition to a democratic government where he moved in time to a ceremonial role, with an elected executive and legislature, closing off a chance for Komeini's "revolutionary" hijacking of Iranian nationalism - I think a secular government of a secular democratic Iran with no role in government for the Mullahs, could have been - and may one day in the future be - an American ally better than all the Arab "allies". We can never forget that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wahabi Sunni Saudis, and the Shia Mullahs of Tehran (and now Erdogan of Turkey) are just different versions of the same problem - radical fundamentalist Islam, and all that it imports, philosophically, to all the Muslim terrorists and radical Muslim movements. Even when their physical hands are clean, they are at the base of the radicals political inspiration.
Just maybe one day they can launch a missle to EMP the middle of America or sneak one into New York Harbor. Our enemies are drooling as the fake prez drools and the Ho is clicking her hooker heels.
A high-priced lawyer friend of my daughter (who I talk with when he and I are both at her house) gave essentially that line.
I am sure he was just parroting the Obama party line.
He is a very educated and intellegent man, who gets nearly everything wrong, because he starts with false premises.
He simply (and aggressively argues for) accepts all the leftist lies which are thrown at him by the Media.
To claify my comment.
The friend argued our best interests were with switching from the Saudis to the Iranians.
“What part of ‘Death to America!’ does Joe Biden not understand? Is this thing on?
The thing about that deal was, we threw away our bargaining leverage; from now on it’s either bombing or begging.
The oddest detail was the palettes of cash we delivered. Why cash? The Mullahs can get American Express like anybody else.
I don’t recall the source but some conspiracy theorist claimed that a lot of it came back here.
I can’t imagine who would do a thing like that.
Bkmk
The underlying purpose was to dump America’s current Middle East allies in favor of Iran.
He is a very uneducated and stupid man.
He simply (and aggressively argues for) accepts all the leftist lies which are thrown at him by the Media.
Not convinced.
I think all Obama’s motives were just venal.
He wanted the deal with the Mullahs for his own “presidential legacy” - an “accomplishment”, that in his grave Leftist error would “normalize” U.S. relations with the Mullahs for no greater purpose than that, without regard to or understanding of the consequences via the ramifications throughout the Middle East, such as other powers, Sunni powers, acquiring nuclear arms just to not be nuclear intimidated by the Mullahs.
No. I do not see stupid Obama thinking the Mullahs would be a bastion of our interests in the Middle East.
He just wanted the deal, like a trophy on a mantle, and that’s all.
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