BAD DEAL – AT 9:06 A.M. ET: The debate this morning is all about the Iran deal. Obama bought the 1991 Buick from Mullah's Used Cars, and didn't even ask for a test drive. And his mechanics didn't get much of a chance to look under the hood.
Some reactions to the deal were predictable. The New York Times believes it was written in Heaven itself. Another triumph for the greater glory of Barack, come to save us. Copies were apparently delivered to The Times on parchment.
But, as another show of its independence, the superb Washington Post editorial board is having none of it. It makes the point that the deal falls far short of even Obama's publicly stated standards. From the Post:
THE “KEY parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities — including the Fordow center buried under a mountain — will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.
That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years.
Mr. Obama argued forcefully — and sometimes combatively — Thursday that the United States and its partners had obtained “a good deal” and that it was preferable to the alternatives, which he described as a nearly inevitable slide toward war. He also said he welcomed a “robust debate.” We hope that, as that debate goes forward, the president and his aides will respond substantively to legitimate questions, rather than claim, as Mr. Obama did, that the “inevitable critics” who “sound off” prefer “the risk of another war in the Middle East.”
The proposed accord will provide Iran a huge economic boost that will allow it to wage more aggressively the wars it is already fighting or sponsoring across the region. Whether that concession is worthwhile will depend in part on details that have yet to be agreed upon, or at least publicly explained.
COMMENT: Obama is already cheapening the debate by demeaning his critics. If he had thoughtfully engaged Congress earlier, he might have come out of this negotiation in better shape because he might have had the power of Congress behind him. But I guess a god doesn't have to go to Congress.
It's not a good deal. It may not even happen because there are many critical details to be worked out in the next months. It is presidents down the road who will have to deal with Barack's blunder.
April 3, 2015 |