(Image by: Gary Varvel)
Meanwhile, every commentator I read says this is a bad deal.
(Image by: Lisa Benson)
It's certainly a victory for Iran even if "the smartest guy in the room" doesn't see it that way.
Analogies of The Munich Pact of 1938 abound and justifiably so, because Obama & Kerry sold out our allies, primarily Israel, but Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States as well.
The DiploMad has a particularly scathing commentary on this "Kellogg-Briand Moment."
For the past couple of days, this breaking news coming out of Munich Geneva generated a flood of commentary:
These people are such idiots. And they are getting paid a lot of money to be idiots. Everything they do seems predicated on the premise that Iran is being honest.
Bottom line is that this makes a nuclear war more likely, not less.
Yep.
I was debating things with the usual learned suspects on one of the message boards I drop in on—the lack of concern many seem to have about Iran going nuclear is pretty shocking. “I mean, it’s like they only said they’d nuke Israel which is far away and stuff.”
The irony of how they sound like a certain British PM “a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.” is no doubt an irony lost on most of the leftard foreign policy “experts.” Oh, and this is “in no way like Munich because the Czech and Hitler aren’t involved or something.” The fact remains that this admin wanted a deal at any price, largely as a result of domestic policy concerns. The latest polling indicates that even the low-info American voters seem to be figuring that one out.
The triumphant articles about how this is like having the Magna Carta or Peace of Westphalia signed have largely died down. Now, the more sober articles are starting to emerge as people actually consider the implications. Basically, we paid $8 billion or so dollars, and (despite what Kerry and Obama say out loud) have acknowledged that Iran has a right to a full uranium fuel cycle. All this was in exchange for an agreement to limit enrichment to 5% and not bring any new centrifuges on line (but they CAN repair damaged ones and use any of the 19,000 they already have). Not a good deal. It is so amazingly clear that Iran is going to do exactly what thinking people have feared -- they are going to toe the line on weaponization for a while, lull us into a false sense of security and warning fatigue, then race across secretly and quickly to make a fait accompli.
We are well and truly F-ed in the Middle East, and I'm not sure POTUS cares (if he does, then he is just monumentally stupid, a feature I assume for Kerry). We are driving the Saudis and Turks to the Chinese, the Egyptians to the Russians, and the Israelis to desperation. Things are so glaringly bad I think I now truly understand how Churchill must've felt in 1938.
Our weakness has not gone unnoticed: scooping an American tourist from a plane in North Korea, the Chinese declaring an ADIZ over Japanese territory. These things will get worse, not better. The One's efforts to cut America down a few notches is working magnificently.
Yep—that link to the Tower website on the Dip article notes that skepticism ranges from AEI to Brookings—the WTF factor is fairly bipartisan.
[Either]...(1) POTUS does not care and (2) he is monumentally stupid. Kerry thinks he cares, but is also monumentally stupid. As cited by one of the Dip commenters, the Israeli secret weapon of “having no alternative” is far more likely to come into play than not, now.
The baseline assumption of the striped pants set and their acolytes on this one is mind-numbing in its ignorance.
I don't agree that this deal was designed specifically to weaken Israel. Obama wanted a foreign policy "victory" to take some heat off of Obamacare (that explains the timing). As for the substance, he has long made it crystal clear that he wants a rapproachment with Iran, a "reset" just like that oh-so-successful one with Russia. He wanted it so bad he ignored the Green Revolution to keep in the good graces of Iran, he's written them happy letters, avoided conflict with them in Syria, etc. He thinks that, if the U.S. become less active and weakeer, then these other countries "legitimate" hate of us will evaporate and everything will be good. In other words, we are the source of the world's problems, and the solution is to back down and talk. Then, Iran won't need a nuke and all will be well.
As I said, this will not end well.
Comrade Karla Senior, who actually remembers the original Munich Pact, had this to say:
The comparison of Kerry with Daladier may be apt, with the distinction that Daladier, I don’t think, was blind to the inevitability of war with Germany. It may have been grasping at a straw, or it may have been horror at the thought of another war so soon after the previous one. Or he may have been wishful thinking. Or maybe just stupid. But I do not believe that even Chamberlain was all that sure ‘war had been prevented.’ Chamberlain and Daladier were old men. Both the French and the Brits (especially the latter) took advantage of the delay to proceed with preparations for the inevitable. In 1939 they were not as prepared as they should have been, but war in ’38 might have been a greater disaster than it was a year later. In contrast to popular reaction to the announcement of war in 1914, public reaction in Britain and France n Sep ’39 was more ‘Christ, not again’. In both countries, there were French and British military, and elements of the public, that knew Munich at best only delayed war. Wishful thinkers among the public hoped war had been prevented, but many knew better. That’s the comparison that makes my skin crawl.
Kerry should have read more history – if he’s read any at all. On the other hand, he may just be stupid. The result of the ‘agreement’ is very likely to be the same as the Munich one. Not enough people learn enough from previous mistakes.
(Image by Ken Catalino)
While everyone has a slightly different opinion about the motivations and outcomes, we all agree on one broad-based conclusion: This will not end well.
Maybe we can all hunker down behind The Maple Line.
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