"Congress Should Listen to Netanyahu’s Warnings on the Obama Iran Deal" - James Carafano / @JJCarafano / March 03, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/03/congress-listen-netanyahus-warnings-obama-iran-deal/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydigest&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoiv67BZKXonjHpfsX56eguXa%2B3lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4HTctjI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his wife Sarah leaving Tel Aviv on their way to Washington. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/Newscom)
Jimmy Carter had one of the worst foreign and defense policy records of any modern president. But, at least he cut one good deal. The speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress makes clear President Obama can’t even match Carter’s level of competency.
The high point of Carter’s presidency took place a little over a year after he took office, brokering the Camp David Accord, a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The deal endures to this day. It was realistic. Both sides wanted peace. Peace was what they got.
Netanyahu made the case before Congress that the White House’s efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran have about as much in common with the Camp David Accords as an SNL skit has with a State of the Union Address. The administration’s proposal is anything but a realistic plan for peace.
A real peace plan would demonstrate that all sides were committed to not adding more nuclear weapons powers to the Middle East. The deal as it stands does the opposite—it preserves the nuclear option for Iran—and as result will prompt other regional powers to hedge their bets and prepare to go nuclear as well rather than live in Tehran’s nuclear shadow.
The proposed multi-year moratorium doesn’t end concerns that Iran will build a bomb and put nuclear warheads on long-range missiles. Rather, under the agreement, Tehran can walk up to the edge of becoming a declared armed-nuclear state with a robust missile force and sit there. That hardly sets the condition for sure peace in our time.
Meanwhile, even the shaky stalemate proposed by the agreement rests on the assumption that Tehran won’t follow North Korea’s path to breakout status by cheating on the agreement and then abrogating the deal when it no longer suits the regime.
At the same time the price for Obama’s peace comes pretty high. Tehran demands significant and immediate sanctions relief. That means more money for a corrupt regime with one of the world’s worst human records to perpetuate strangled hold over the people of Iran.
Obama’s deal also means more money for Tehran to prop-up the likes of Hezbollah, Assad, Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and murderous unaccountable Shia militias in Iraq (which are as big a threat to the future of the country as ISIS). As one of the world’s premier state-sponsors of terrorism, enabling and emboldening Iran’s efforts to reshape the region by force of arms and slaughtering innocents doesn’t make the prospects for peace in the region any brighter.
All the partisan controversy and vitriol over Netanyahu’s speech cannot obscure that the White House has no good answers to the legitimate concerns he raised.
In the end, it was appropriate for the issue to be brought before Congress. There are only two powers capable of preventing Obama sealing a deal with Iran and cementing his legacy as a far-worse foreign policy president than Jimmy Carter. Tehran, of course, could string-out negotiations or sink the deal with even more outrageous demands to be given more for giving up very little.
The only other voice capable of interceding with the president is Congress. Having all the facts of what is at stake before them before they decide what to do makes sense. That fact made this speech worth hearing.
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, E. W. Richardson Fellow, and Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.
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"Netanyahu: 'Israel Will Stand, Even If Alone'" - By Jennifer Wishon, March 03, 2015; http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2015/March/Todays-the-Day-Netanyahu-Addresses-Congress/ [Go here to view the Prime Minister's entire speech on video.]
"Bibi Grand: Netanyahu Hits the Right Note on Iran" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, March 4, 2015, Family Reserarch Council; http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/20150303/bibi-grand
"...From his first mention of Esther to the closing message from Moses, our Judeo-Christian heritage was more prominent today than it has been in the last six years. "Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we'll read the Book of Esther," the Prime Minister said. "We'll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. But a courageous Jewish woman, Queen Esther, exposed the plot and gave for the Jewish people the right to defend themselves against their enemies." While the President tries to erase our identity as a Christian nation, the Jewish people look to their rich history as a source of meaning and guidance. Israel was under attack then, as it is now.
Under this administration, the two nations have a common enemy but not a mutual solution. In the face of the greatest nuclear threat in the Middle East, this President chooses to trust Iran -- instead of challenge it. On the eve of a deal that would lift sanctions on Hassan Rouhani's country, Netanyahu came to the United States -- not for political purposes, but survival purposes..."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his wife Sarah leaving Tel Aviv on their way to Washington. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/Newscom)
Jimmy Carter had one of the worst foreign and defense policy records of any modern president. But, at least he cut one good deal. The speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress makes clear President Obama can’t even match Carter’s level of competency.
The high point of Carter’s presidency took place a little over a year after he took office, brokering the Camp David Accord, a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The deal endures to this day. It was realistic. Both sides wanted peace. Peace was what they got.
Netanyahu made the case before Congress that the White House’s efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran have about as much in common with the Camp David Accords as an SNL skit has with a State of the Union Address. The administration’s proposal is anything but a realistic plan for peace.
A real peace plan would demonstrate that all sides were committed to not adding more nuclear weapons powers to the Middle East. The deal as it stands does the opposite—it preserves the nuclear option for Iran—and as result will prompt other regional powers to hedge their bets and prepare to go nuclear as well rather than live in Tehran’s nuclear shadow.
The proposed multi-year moratorium doesn’t end concerns that Iran will build a bomb and put nuclear warheads on long-range missiles. Rather, under the agreement, Tehran can walk up to the edge of becoming a declared armed-nuclear state with a robust missile force and sit there. That hardly sets the condition for sure peace in our time.
Meanwhile, even the shaky stalemate proposed by the agreement rests on the assumption that Tehran won’t follow North Korea’s path to breakout status by cheating on the agreement and then abrogating the deal when it no longer suits the regime.
At the same time the price for Obama’s peace comes pretty high. Tehran demands significant and immediate sanctions relief. That means more money for a corrupt regime with one of the world’s worst human records to perpetuate strangled hold over the people of Iran.
Obama’s deal also means more money for Tehran to prop-up the likes of Hezbollah, Assad, Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and murderous unaccountable Shia militias in Iraq (which are as big a threat to the future of the country as ISIS). As one of the world’s premier state-sponsors of terrorism, enabling and emboldening Iran’s efforts to reshape the region by force of arms and slaughtering innocents doesn’t make the prospects for peace in the region any brighter.
All the partisan controversy and vitriol over Netanyahu’s speech cannot obscure that the White House has no good answers to the legitimate concerns he raised.
In the end, it was appropriate for the issue to be brought before Congress. There are only two powers capable of preventing Obama sealing a deal with Iran and cementing his legacy as a far-worse foreign policy president than Jimmy Carter. Tehran, of course, could string-out negotiations or sink the deal with even more outrageous demands to be given more for giving up very little.
The only other voice capable of interceding with the president is Congress. Having all the facts of what is at stake before them before they decide what to do makes sense. That fact made this speech worth hearing.
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, E. W. Richardson Fellow, and Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Netanyahu: 'Israel Will Stand, Even If Alone'" - By Jennifer Wishon, March 03, 2015; http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2015/March/Todays-the-Day-Netanyahu-Addresses-Congress/ [Go here to view the Prime Minister's entire speech on video.]
"Bibi Grand: Netanyahu Hits the Right Note on Iran" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, March 4, 2015, Family Reserarch Council; http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/20150303/bibi-grand
"...From his first mention of Esther to the closing message from Moses, our Judeo-Christian heritage was more prominent today than it has been in the last six years. "Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we'll read the Book of Esther," the Prime Minister said. "We'll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. But a courageous Jewish woman, Queen Esther, exposed the plot and gave for the Jewish people the right to defend themselves against their enemies." While the President tries to erase our identity as a Christian nation, the Jewish people look to their rich history as a source of meaning and guidance. Israel was under attack then, as it is now.
Under this administration, the two nations have a common enemy but not a mutual solution. In the face of the greatest nuclear threat in the Middle East, this President chooses to trust Iran -- instead of challenge it. On the eve of a deal that would lift sanctions on Hassan Rouhani's country, Netanyahu came to the United States -- not for political purposes, but survival purposes..."
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