by Ruthie Blum
In other words, whatever the outcome of its bogus contract with the P5+1, the Iranian regime will proudly remain the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. And it will have lots more money at its disposal for this purpose than it had before its American, European, Russian and Chinese appeasers begged it to accept cash for signing the contract they so desired.
Two pieces published on
Monday illustrate the depth of the cognitive dissonance with which
Western liberals are afflicted in relation to the nuclear agreement with
Iran. One is a report in the Fars News Agency, a semiofficial
mouthpiece of the Iranian regime; the other is Roger Cohen's column in
The New York Times, titled "Iran and American Jews."
The Fars article covers
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's address to the so-called 8th International
General Assembly of Islamic Radios and Televisions Union about the
nuclear deal.
"Washington imagined
that it could use this agreement whose fate is not clear yet ... to find
a way to wield influence in Iran, and this was their intention,"
Khamenei said. "But we closed this path, and we will definitely keep it
closed. We will not allow the U.S. to influence our economy, or politics
or culture. We will stand against such penetration with all our power
-- that is, thank God, at a high level today."
He went on to say,
"[The Americans] seek to disintegrate the regional states and create
small and subordinate countries ... but the territorial integrity of the
regional states, Iraq and Syria, is highly important to us."
Elaborating on his own
policies, which include "never yielding to excessive demands of the
enemies, while safeguarding Iran's defensive and security capabilities,"
and not changing its stance toward the U.S., Khamenei stressed, "Iran
fully supports resistance in the region, especially the resistance in
Palestine, and supports anyone who fights against Israel and strikes at
the Zionist regime."
He also made clear that
whether or not the Majlis, Iran's parliament, ratifies the text of the
nuclear agreement, Iran would continue supporting "the oppressed
Palestinian nation, Yemen, Bahrain, the governments of Syria and Iraq
and the honest warriors of Lebanon and Palestine."
In other words,
whatever the outcome of its bogus contract with the P5+1, the Iranian
regime will proudly remain the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. And
it will have lots more money at its disposal for this purpose than it
had before its American, European, Russian and Chinese appeasers begged
it to accept cash for signing the contract they so desired.
Precisely because of
Khamenei's openness about his aims of Islamist hegemony and hostility to
the West, U.S. President Barack Obama has had his work cut out for him
trying to persuade skeptics that the world will be safer as a result of
the current deal. He knows that Republicans are a lost cause. And he
wouldn't care about that if vetoing a congressional vote against it
didn't require a larger majority of Democrats than he is certain to
convince.
So his main target is
his own party, particularly its Jews. This, too, is why they are the
focus of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign to prevent the
deal from passing.
It is an unfortunate
situation, because blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is not
an Israeli or a Jewish imperative. It is crucial for the free world as a
whole. And, until Obama came along, America was the leader of that
entity.
This brings us to the
second article in question, in which Cohen defends the nuclear deal.
Coming from Cohen, a liberal Jew, a Democrat and a New York Times
columnist, his acceptance of Obama's arguments in favor of the agreement
-- and against all things Netanyahu -- is humdrum. The artillery he
deploys, however, would be merely hilarious if it weren't so
disingenuous.
Referring to
Netanyahu's webcast earlier this month, in which he appealed to U.S.
Jewry to take a stand against the agreement, Cohen cites two individuals
-- Sandra Lippy, a retired health care executive in Florida, and Roland
Moskowitz, a doctor in Ohio -- who tuned in to it.
"Lippy was not impressed," writes Cohen. "She felt all the doomsday lines were tired."
Here is how she put it
to Cohen: "It's not a great deal, but it's enough of a deal to postpone
the nuclear situation and maybe give us time to work things out. While
they're being sharply reduced in their nuclear capacity, we can sit down
again over the next several years and talk about the Holocaust, Israel
and human rights, and that is why I go along with it."
Rather than guffaw at the incomprehensible idiocy of this remark, Cohen agrees with it.
"She's right," he says.
"A merit of this deal is that it would condemn the United States and
Iran to a relationship -- hostile, but still a framework for airing
differences and doing business -- over the next 15 years. Most young
Iranians no more believe in 'Death to America' than they believe the
Hidden Imam is going to show up tomorrow."
Really?
Cohen, it seems, would
do well to spend more time listening to Khamenei, and observing typical
mass demonstrations in Tehran, than hearing from avid readers of his
newspaper. Still, he goes on to describe the reaction of Moskowitz, the
second Jew he interviewed, who was "left feeling uneasy" by Netanyahu's
warnings.
"He thinks the deal is
worrying, but not worrying enough for the United States to walk away,"
Cohen writes. "Nor does he want family strife. His wife, Peta Moskowitz,
is a firm supporter of the deal and a member of J Street, the largest
Jewish organization to back Obama's Iran diplomacy."
Instead of quipping
that Jewish men are more afraid of their spouses than nuclear bombs,
Cohen takes this as a cue to cast Netanyahu as a pushy interloper in
affairs that don't concern him.
"Netanyahu's
performance was of a piece with his habit of intervening in American
politics," Cohen spews. "He tries to circumvent Obama, often in clumsy
ways, further undermining the relationship. It's enough to imagine Obama
calling thousands of Israelis to encourage them to oppose a piece of
sensitive legislation in the Knesset to gauge how inappropriate
Netanyahu's behavior is."
Cohen must not be aware
that the Obama administration did, in fact, actively insert itself into
the last Israeli election, attempting to defeat Netanyahu. It was a
wholly partisan ploy. And a covert one, to boot.
Netanyahu's overt
lobbying against the nuclear deal is a legitimate plea to an ally. But
he might be as delusional about his chance of success as his detractors
are about the advantages to sealing the deal.
Ruthie Blum is the web editor of Voice of Israel talk radio (voiceofisrael.com).
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13515
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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