My must read of the day is "Was There An Alternative to the Iran Deal?" in Commentary:
As I wrote earlier this morning, the deal that President Obama has struck with Iran has very little chance of actually stopping them from reaching their nuclear goal. Their centrifuges remain intact and will, at best, delay them from "breaking out" to full nuclear capability by a few weeks. It will reward them for a decade of lies and deceptions and effectively normalize a rogue regime that continues to sponsor international terrorism and spew anti-Semitism while also starting the process of unraveling sanctions. But to all this Secretary of State John Kerry has what he thinks is a devastating answer: What’s the alternative?
The point of this question is to not-so-subtly imply that the only other choice was a war that no one wants. But this favorite rhetorical device of the president’s in which he poses false choices is a deception. There was an alternative to surrendering to Iran’s diplomatic demands that we effectively recognize their "right" to enrich uranium and scrapping the president’s campaign promise that his goal was to force it give up its nuclear program–and it didn’t mean war. All it required was for him to tighten sanctions and enforce them to the point where Iran’s elites, rather than the common people, started to feel the economic pain. But by wasting five years during which he opposed sanctions, stalled on their enforcement and then started to scale them back at the first hint of an Iranian willingness to negotiate, the president has discarded all of America’s leverage.
The same logic was applied to Syria. Opponents of intervention suggested the options were "America gets involved" or "America does not get involved." That was not the choice. The choice was America gets involved, or someone else gets involved. And someone else has. Instead of the United States working with the moderate rebels, who could have been easily identified 3 years ago, al Qaeda fighters have been swallowing up the rebel groups.
The choice in Geneva was not between making an agreement with the Iranians or going to war. In this instance, the choice was between a weak deal and tougher sanctions. Had the new round of sanctions been implemented, the United States would have had a stronger hand to dismantle the nuclear capabilities of a nation that is the number one state sponsor of terrorism.
In haste, Sec. Kerry sacrificed any deal of substance in order to say he had a deal. This deal is a nothing more than a notch on his belt.
We’ve ignored years of deceit to trust a new "moderate" presidential-figurehead, one who has held office for four months. That defies logic no matter how you cut it.