In return for saving the Iranian economy and providing the wherewithal for Iran to refurbish its military, in return for providing the funds used to subsidize terrorists in Syria and elsewhere who are killing American soldiers, in return for approximately $1.7 billion in cash secretly airlifted to Tehran, in return for the release of fourteen Iranian spies and for declining to investigate or prosecute others, we received a total of four hostages and promises from the Iranian mullahs that they would abide by their nuclear non-proliferation commitments, which they were already obligated to keep, and halt work on their nuclear weapons program for about a decade.
Critics who complained that this was a crazy deal were smeared by the Obama administration. They were said to be choosing war over peace, as if those were the only choices, as if continued sanctions would not have eventually brought Iran to its knees.
Advocates of the deal may have been justified in their optimism had there been a means of insuring that the iranians would hold to the terms of the agreement, but under those terms no inspectors were allowed on site to confirm that Iran was indeed keeping their promises. The world just had to take the Iranians' word for it.
Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed to the world what every person of good will and common sense already knew. Netanyahu revealed that Israeli intelligence had filched a thousand pounds of documents from the Iranian government, a trove which proved that the Iranians had been lying about, and cheating on, the agreement all along. The documents reveal that Iran has...
...clandestine plans, despite years of denials, to develop five 10-kiloton nuclear warheads. Iranians continue to develop a ballistic missile program, an issue the Obama administration caved on at the behest of Russia during negotiations. Now we know they have the plans to finish the job whenever they want.Harsanyi adds that,
Iran broke the spirit of the deal long ago. The deal was contingent on the nation coming clean regarding its past efforts. It didn’t. Though the idea that the Islamic State would ever be found in violation of the nuclear agreement by International Atomic Energy Agency was, from the start, laughable. There are no inspections. International inspectors aren’t even allow on undeclared sites without permission.So far from buying peace this foolish deal, wrought by an administration blinded by liberal naiveté about the goodness of bad men (and the badness of good men), has made war with Iran much more likely than it would've been had Iran been crippled by continuing economic sanctions. Unfortunately, President Obama had those sanctions lifted to appease the Iranians.
The question then is what President Trump will do on May 12th. Harsanyi closes with this:
So will President Trump nix the deal? We don’t know. Now that the framework for sanctions has been destroyed, there are few good options left. But the agreement, as it stands, is worse than worthless. Rather than setting firm limits, the deal gave Iran cover and time to continue its efforts, making war with Israel more of an inevitability.Read the whole piece. It's not long and it'll explain, if Trump does in fact walk away from Obama's "signature foreign policy achievement", why he chose to do so.