The Iran lobby is digging deep in an effort to drum up support from anyone and anywhere to preserve the Iran nuclear deal including circulating a letter from members of the French, British and German parliaments addressed to the U.S. Congress.
The letter is rife with the same common misperceptions that the Iran lobby has worked hard to foist on an unsuspecting world. None have done as much spadework in engineering this plethora of fake news than the National Iranian American Council.
Among the common misperceptions in the letter are:
“The only reason we were able to achieve this breakthrough is that we stood together. Together, Europeans and Americans have proved that a strong and united transatlantic partnership can bring about a coalition extending to Russia and China, endorsed by the international community.”
In actuality, the deal was achieved largely through the imposition of backbreaking economic sanctions, including cutting off Iran from international currency exchanges which brought its economy to a virtual standstill. The U.S. dollar, which serves as the world’s principle reserve currency, is vital to international commerce and the inability to convert Iranian rials to dollars or euros cut the regime off at the kneecaps.
“We were able to impose unprecedented scrutiny on the Iranian nuclear program, dismantle most of their nuclear enrichment facilities, and drastically reduce the danger of a nuclear arms race.”
Another fallacy since the nuclear deal gave the regime vast leeway to sanitize suspected nuclear sites, extract soil samples only by Iranian personnel and prohibit the inspection of Iranian military sites. Iran was also allowed to keep and store its centrifuges while being allowed to test and install even higher performing centrifuges to enrich uranium under the deal.
“As much as we share the concerns expressed by many about Iran’s behavior, we are deeply convinced that these issues must be treated separately (as we are doing already) – and not within the context of the JCPOA.”
Failure to connect the regime’s behavior, including involvement in the Syrian civil war, support of terrorism and brutal human rights record, to the nuclear deal gave the mullahs a free pass to do as they wished without fear of interference or retribution. It was an oversight so large that the end result has killed more civilians and created more refugees than dropping a tactical nuclear device would.
More importantly, the lack of including restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program allowed it to vault years ahead by buying North Korean missile technology and develop weapons capable of reaching most of Europe and Asia. The first goal of any nuclearization program is to develop a payload delivery system and the Iranian regime has been to cut to the front of the line because of the nuclear deal.
Predictably Trita Parsi of the NIAC weighed in arguing that the large number of parliamentarians signing the letter, roughly 500, demonstrated its global significance.
"The message to Trump/Pompeo/Bolton is clear: You do this and you're on your own," Parsi wrote.
What Parsi failed to mention is that those 500 members represented only 18 percent of the total membership of the three European parliaments. Hardly a blockbuster majority and more reminiscent of the paltry lack of widespread support for the nuclear deal in the wake of three years of unrelenting Islamic-inspired terrorist attacks that have killed over 250 French citizens alone.
While Parsi and the rest of the Iran lobby beat their chests over this letter, the awful truth for them is that the vast majority of U.S. and European voters have moved on and now view the Iranian regime as a direct threat to regional peace and stability.
What is also becoming increasingly clear is that the Iran nuclear deal is already dead from the perspective of the Trump administration. The Iranian regime has already secured all of the monetary benefits it could from it and leveraged it for its public relations value, but even the Iranian people now view it with disfavor seeing little benefits trickling down to them from it.
The irony is that the Trump administration is viewing the deal as a useful PR tool for itself by constantly threatening to tear it up as it renews the waiver finding the regime in compliance.
The threat of ending it as also served the administration well in spurring its European partners to frantically work to address the glaring loopholes left in by the Obama administration.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit the White House next week, hoping to persuade President Trump against pulling out of the deal by showing progress on his three main concerns: expiring limits on Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s ballistic-missile program and the scope of international nuclear inspections.
Meanwhile, regime Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is making a six-day trip to New York and the United Nations in an effort to showcase Iran’s compliance with the agreement and to stave off renewed U.S. sanctions indicating the regime’s fixation on President Trump’s threats.
The furious rounds of diplomacy highlight once again how an aggressive president can make Europe and the Iranian regime jump to scramble and address his concerns. President Obama would have done well to have followed the Trump playbook in his original negotiations with Iran.
“Iran has several options if the United States leaves the nuclear deal. Tehran’s reaction to America’s withdrawal of the deal will be unpleasant,” TV quoted Zarif as saying on his arrival in New York.
It’s a hollow threat since there isn’t much left from the deal that would benefit Iran moving forward. Think about it, what is the incentive for Iran to stick with the deal now since it has already taken effective control of Syria, overthrown the government in Yemen and has its fingers deep into Iraq?
The reality is that the Iran lobby’s efforts to save the Iran nuclear deal are a waste of time since both the U.S. and Iran realize it’s dead already.
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