We have favored military action against Iran’s ruling Islamist-terror-regime mullahs before their nuclear arms program was uncovered and even before they joined forces with al Qaeda and other enemies in Iraq to kill Americans. Iran has been the number one state sponsor of terror since soon after their 1979 revolution after which they held 52 American hostages for over a year, armed Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza and conspired with al Qaeda to bring down two American embassies in Africa.
So we have not in favor of President Barack Obama’s appeasement of Iran, especially including his deal that would remove economic sanctions in exchange for supposed restrictions on the oil power’s nuclear program. But even if we did, we would insist upon strict, Reagan-like “trust-but-verify” terms. U.S. makes clear it is willing for a U.N. commission to judge compliance:
Key elements of a new nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers are contained in an informal, 30-page text not yet publicly acknowledged by Western officials, Iran’s chief negotiator said Monday. Abbas Araqchi disclosed the existence of the document in a Persian-language interview with the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency. The new agreement, announced over the weekend, sets out a timetable for how Iran and the six nations, led by the United States, will implement a deal reached in November that is aimed at restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions. When officials from Iran and the world powers announced that they had completed the implementing agreement, they didn’t release the text of the deal, nor did they acknowledge the existence of an informal addendum.
In the interview, Araqchi referred to the side agreement using the English word “nonpaper,” a diplomatic term used for an informal side agreement that doesn’t have to be disclosed publicly. The nonpaper deals with such important details as the operation of a joint commission to oversee how the deal is implemented and Iran’s right to continue nuclear research and development during the next several months, he said. Araqchi described the joint commission as an influential body that will have authority to decide disputes.
U.S. officials have described it as a discussion forum rather than a venue for arbitrating major disputes. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the text of the implementing agreement would be released to lawmakers. He said the six parties were weighing how much of the text they could release publicly. Asked late Monday about the existence of the informal nonpaper, White House officials referred the question to the State Department. A State Department comment wasn’t immediately available.
[Updated 8:45 p.m. Jan. 13: A State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, denied later Monday that there was any secret agreement. “Any documentation associated with implementation tracks completely with what we’ve described,” she said. “These are technical plans submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency. “We will make information available to Congress and the public as it becomes available,” Harf said.]
Obama is appeasement personified. The United States has agreed to surrender the right to verify Iran’s suspension of its activities to build a nuclear weapon. The United States Senate must insist that this agreement is a treaty requiring their ratification to be participated in by the United States government, vote to reject the agreement and insist that the Obama Administration maintain economic sanctions on Iran.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
