by Robert Spencer
The mullahs can’t wait to deal with Sleepy Joe.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday: “It is not important who is elected president, as the next US administration will surrender to the Iranian nation.” Tough talk, but there was no doubt in any sentient being’s mind that he was not referring to President Trump, but only to Joe Biden’s regency for Kamala Harris. That’s the only US administration that will “surrender to the Iranian nation,” as the disastrous precedent of the Obama/Biden administration makes clear.
Take, for example, the Iran nuclear deal, to which Biden has pledged to return. Few people are aware of just how bad it really was. The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains some of the deal’s very worst aspects:
1. The expiration dates: While the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the agreement is called, did include real restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, these were all slated to expire in the near future. The agreement anticipated the “conclusion of consideration of the Iran nuclear issue by the U.N. Security Council 10 years after the Adoption Day” — that is, the adoption of the agreement itself on July 14, 2015. It added: “There will be no additional heavy water reactors or accumulation of heavy water in Iran for 15 years.” But what about after that? The agreement didn’t say. Apparently, at that point, Iran would be free to build nuclear weapons with no objections from anyone.
2. The delay in inspections: The day after the conclusion of the JCPOA, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed: “Iran has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal.” They could get the bomb even if they kept the deal because the JCPOA contained the provision that Iran could delay requested International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections for up to 24 days — ample time to clean up for the inspectors.
3. The removal of sanctions: Even before the deal, it was questionable how effective the economic sanctions that the United States and U.N. had placed upon Iran really were. In March 2015, Thomas Erdbrink, Tehran bureau chief of the New York Times and longtime resident of Iran, remarked, “As the politicians are talking for months to end the sanctions, my shopkeeper tells me he has more foreign products for sale than ever.”
Nonetheless, the JCPOA was quite definite about removing all economic sanctions on Iran. This included the removal of sanctions that had originally been intended to be removed only when Iran definitively gave up its nuclear program; now the Islamic Republic was being given sanctions relief and allowed to continue its nuclear program, only with certain restrictions that would all eventually expire anyway. Sanctions relief allows the Iranian mullahs to finance jihad groups worldwide.
4. The lack of any consequences for breaking the agreement: The 159-page Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action went into tremendous detail about the Iranian nuclear program and how it is to be temporarily restricted in various ways. It also expatiated at length on exactly which sanctions were to be removed. But it was conspicuously lacking in specifying penalties for Iran’s not holding to the agreement. There was vague talk about the sanctions being reimposed, but no concrete guidelines about how that was to be done, and nothing said about recovering money given to Iran in the interim.
5. Americans were not to be allowed to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites: On July 30, 2015, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pointed out, “American and Canadian inspectors cannot be sent to Iran. It is mentioned in the deal that inspectors should be from countries that have diplomatic relations with Islamic Republic of Iran.” IAEA inspectors, he added, would not be given access to “sensitive and military documents.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera the following day, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, further broadened these restrictions to apply to other signatories to the deal as well: “Regardless of how the P5+1 countries interpret the nuclear agreement, their entry into our military sites is absolutely forbidden.”
Who, then, was supposed to be inspecting Iran’s nuclear sites? Why, Iran itself.
6. Iran could inspect its own sites: On August 19, 2015, the Associated Press dropped a bombshell. Confirming rumors that had circulated since the agreement was signed, it reported that a secret side deal between the IAEA and Iran allowed the Iranians to conduct their own inspections of their own sites: “Iran, in an unusual arrangement, will be allowed to use its own experts to inspect a site it allegedly used to develop nuclear arms under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work.”
These terms were, obviously, absurdly easy on Iran. What exactly did the rest of the world get out of this agreement? Only a newly flush and increasingly bellicose Iran, thanks to Barack Obama. And possibly again soon, thanks to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
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Photo credit: Hamed Malikpour
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/irans-president-next-us-administration-will-robert-spencer/
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