Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz teamed up to produce a magisterial analysis of President Obama’s nuclear deal that appeared in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.
Headlined “The Iran Deal and Its Consequences,” and hedged about with qualifiers, the article praises President Obama for his commitment to “reducing the peril” created by a nuclear Iran and then in sober language explains why the deal has the potential for a disaster of epic proportions.
The two former secretaries see as a consequence a nuclear Iran, as outlined in the framework announced by the Obama administration, a nuclear Iran with the power to extend its sway:
The gradual expiration of the framework agreement, beginning in a decade, will enable Iran to become a significant nuclear, industrial and military power after that time—in the scope and sophistication of its nuclear program and its latent capacity to weaponize at a time of its choosing.
Therefore Iran will be in a position to bolster its advanced nuclear technology during the period of the agreement and rapidly deploy more advanced centrifuges—of at least five times the capacity of the current model—after the agreement expires or is broken.”
It is a long and difficult article, but I urge you to save it for weekend reading. The State Department’s resident Valley Girl and spokesperson, Marie Harf, however dismissed the important article this way (courtesy of Hot Air):
“I wouldn’t say that it’s damning,” Harf said of Kissinger and Shultz’s damning verdict on the Iran deal. “And I didn’t hear a lot of alternatives. I heard a lot of big words and big thoughts in that piece, and those are certainly – there’s a place for that – but I didn’t hear a lot of alternatives of what they would do differently.”
It is an administration talking point that nobody has put forward an alternative. It’s beginning to rank right up there with “If you like your doctor…” It just isn’t true.
An endless array of policy experts even smarter than Marie Harf have urged the administration to leave the sanctions in place until Iran agrees to a better deal, and, in the event that Iran doesn’t sign on for a better deal, keep the sanctions indefinitely. This is not ideal; Iran is a monster regime; but it is better than what the Obama administration proposes to do.