Iran's Best Friend

"So when you hear the inevitable critics of the deal sound off, ask them a simple question:  Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?  Is it worse than doing what we’ve done for almost two decades, with Iran moving forward with its nuclear program and without robust inspections?  I think the answer will be clear."
"Remember, I have always insisted that I will do what is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and I will.  But I also know that a diplomatic solution is the best way to get this done, and offers a more comprehensive -- and lasting -- solution.  It is our best option, by far.  And while it is always a possibility that Iran may try to cheat on the deal in the future, this framework of inspections and transparency makes it far more likely that we’ll know about it if they try to cheat -- and I, or future Presidents, will have preserved all of the options that are currently available to deal with it."
"In return for Iran’s actions, the international community has agreed to provide Iran with relief from certain sanctions -- our own sanctions, and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.  This relief will be phased as Iran takes steps to adhere to the deal.  If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place.  Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program, will continue to be fully enforced."
"Now, let me reemphasize, our work is not yet done.  The deal has not been signed.  Between now and the end of June, the negotiators will continue to work through the details of how this framework will be fully implemented, and those details matter.  If there is backsliding on the part of the Iranians, if the verification and inspection mechanisms don’t meet the specifications of our nuclear and security experts, there will be no deal.  But if we can get this done, and Iran follows through on the framework that our negotiators agreed to, we will be able to resolve one of the greatest threats to our security, and to do so peacefully."
U.S. President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 2, 2015. (photo credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

We have the assurances of the President of the United States of America that the world is a safer place now that a framework agreement has been reached through the prodigious efforts of the American Secretary of State and the come-along members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, with the negotiators representing the nuclear file as presented by the ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran, that is, which entered the nuclear negotiations as a heavily sanctioned, isolated internationally, financially bleeding country, hobbling on its weakened legs, to face the demands of a collective representation of the international community that it surrender its nuclear ambitions. Which is to say the nuclear ambitions that would lead inevitably to a nuclear arsenal. For a country which has distinguished itself as a threat to world order.

From that position as an aggressive supplicant for the release from sanctions so harmful to its capacity to adequately fund the activities of its proxy Islamist terrorist militias in Lebanon and Gaza, hobbling its ability to sign contracts for the latest technologically advanced weaponry, while perfecting its own long-range missiles' geographic reach, Iran smiled its gracious way into the good graces of its interlocutors.

Tunnel storage for Qiam ballistic missiles. Press TV.ir

This anti-Western, Islamist theocracy which remains upfront and belligerent over its promise to destroy Israel -- which promotes the pleasing sound of "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel", at its nationalist rallies, which openly promulgates the vision of Aryan/Persian Iran as the rightful power in the Middle East, disrupting and tearing apart national interests of Arab nations -- found a strategic ally where even it might least have expected to.

An American president who has embraced the unpalatable-to-his-predecessors' belief that an appeased Iran would be an impotent Iran, so grateful for achieving its goals that it would suddenly become transformed into a kitten from its current representation as a reprehensible nation-eating tiger. Iran, under President Obama's tender ministrations, may continue its territorial, economic, military and nuclear ambitions in exchange for moderating its behaviour.

A quite incredible hypothesis, but one which President Obama appears to be personally dedicating himself to, as a legacy issue; taming the Persian Tiger. And to that end, one concession after another has been granted Iran, even in the face of its proxy armies, its Quds forces continuing to march through the Arab Middle East, and even while it vehemently rejects the U.S. version of the 'agreement' to which it insists it has never conceded agreement.

The Obama administration is sleep-walking into legitimizing Iranian nuclear 'normalization', giving it the proverbial green light to advance its weapons agenda. And, concomitantly, aiding it immeasurably in its rush toward dominance in the Middle East. So Iran sends a flotilla of warships and weapons to its Houthi rebel proxies in Yemen, and Obama serenely orders its aircraft carrier group to look away despite the breach of the UN weapons embargo on Yemen.

Saudi Arabia into the breach! Even while President Obama preaches to the Saudis that it should begin negotiations with Iran and with the Yemeni Shiites, to which the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. murmurs the reality that Iran represents "part of the problem, not part of the solution", as Saudi authorities commit to their own embargo enforced on maritime shipping of weapons to Yemen, even as it continues its air assault on the rebels.

The hard lesson that Obama has been patiently teaching its erstwhile Middle East Arab and Israeli allies is that they must adapt to fending for themselves. And they are, they are. Encouraged to take that leap by the president's casual surrender on his long-standing condition that no immediate sanctions relief of any Iranian nuclear deal would be considered. Yet another red line trodden with the stated commitment to reimpose sanctions should Iran not deliver.

And to encourage Tehran to drop the rhetoric and sign on the dotted line, the carrot of a $30- to $50-billion signing bonus, through releasing frozen Iranian assets.

An undated handout picture shows the Iranian supersonic ballistic missile launching during a war-game in an unknown location in Iran. (Reuters Photo)