By Rene Sotolongo:
Does anyone (including Obama) even know all of the details of the Iran nuclear deal? It seems that with every passing week, more information is revealed showing that the citizens (and Congress) of the United States have been mislead.
And every time a new piece of information is revealed, it shows us the situation continues to deteriorate. Ed Royce, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, has publicly declared; “We already know the Iran nuclear deal was a historic mistake. It keeps getting worse.”
And now House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has publicly declared that President Obama needs to explain the secret concession between the United States and Iran on its nuclear program to the American public.
But we know such a request is never going to happen. Obama has proven time and time again that he is simply above the law.
So what are these secret concessions Ryan is referring to? And what does it mean to National Security?
On July 14, 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – the United States, China, France, Russia and Britain plus Germany – signed a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which guaranteed the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran agreed to admit IAEA inspectors to locations the agency seeks to verify the absence of nuclear material and activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
On its face, this agreement was to guarantee Iran’s nuclear program would be a peaceful endeavor (for at least a decade), and it was a signature foreign-policy achievement for the Obama administration.
We now know the Iran Nuclear Deal is an unmitigated disaster.
…Iran keeps pushing. Why? Because they do not respect weakness. And weakness is all this administration is showing…
According to Senator Ted Cruz; “the nuclear agreement as a series of bribes shrouded in secrecy that will do nothing to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons and continuing to sponsor international terrorism.”
That statement by Senator Cruz proved to be prophetic.
According to Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East expert who is a vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; “the scope of the agreement focused too narrowly on nuclear developments and left glaring omissions that Iran has exploited.”
“The JCPOA did not address any of Iran’s regional activities, aggressions, or efforts to destabilize the region,” Schanzer said in an interview with Business Insider. “It was a crucial omission from the deal.”
And what are the outcomes of these omission?
Iran is backing the brutal Assad regime in Syria and the Houthi military uprising in Yemen. Two of the largest humanitarian crises of this century. And Iran continues to fund terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.
According to Schanzer: “These omissions also allow Iran’s testing ballistic missiles and funding and arming terrorist organizations like Hezbollah; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps slaughtering thousands in Syria; and the destabilization of Yemen by the Shia-aligned Houthi rebels.”
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran.
Now the administration would have you believe this is just a coincidence. But if the U.S. government exchanged cash to release American hostages from Iran it would confirm that President Barack Obama misled the public to sell an illegitimate Iran nuclear deal.
According to Ted Cruz, “The revelation that the Obama administration ransomed the Americans being unjustly detained by the Islamic Republic of Iran with $400 million in cash is only the most recent piece of evidence that the so-called nuclear deal with the mullahs is fundamentally illegitimate.”
And to make matters even worse, Obama and his administration are now being “held hostage.”
“The US has continually backed down,” Schanzer said. “The U.S. is fearful of scuttling the nuclear deal. This is the bind that the Obama White House has found itself in… it is beholden to the Iranians out of fear.”
According to Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, “The calculus has been that the U.S. won’t challenge Iran on any issue.” Ballistic missiles, slaughter in Syria, support for Houthis,” none of these destabilizing actions seemed to get a rise out of the administration or President Barack Obama.
Even when Iranian vessels directly challenge US ships in the Persian Gulf, the US has not responded with anything harsher than strong words.
And now even our allies question our intentions, our resolve, and our involvement with the Iranians.
“The Saudis feel abandoned by the U.S., so do Emiratis and other Gulf states,” Schanzer said. The recent legislation allowing U.S. citizens to sue Saudi Arabia over the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, further serves to create a “very angry Gulf bloc.”
And it gets worse. Iran keeps pushing. Why? Because they do not respect weakness. And weakness is all this administration is showing.
So now Iran plans to discuss U.S. violations of the [nuclear] deal at an upcoming meeting of the commission on implementation of the agreement, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif declared, and now Iran even plans to sue the United States.
President Hassan Rouhani declared Iran is also preparing international legal action to recover nearly $2 billion that the US Supreme Court has ordered to be paid as compensation to American victims of terror attacks.
All of which just keeps putting more and more money into the hands of Iran; A state sponsor of worldwide terrorism.
So thanks to the Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, we now have a completely destabilized middle east, civil wars in Yemen and Syria, ISIS spreading, and the largest humanitarian crisis of this century. How’s that for an effective “negotiation?”
Bottom Line: As Ed Royce, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman so eloquently stated:
“Hundreds of millions in the pockets of a terrorist regime means a more dangerous region, period.”
Rene C. Sotolongo is an OpsLens Contributor and a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer who served for over twenty years as an Information Systems official. Sotolongo also specialized in homeland security and counterterrorism.
