New York Times Editorial, "A Final Dash on an Iran Deal": Liars!

In an editorial entitled "A Final Dash on an Iran Deal," The New York Times tells its readers:

"For nearly a year, Iran has adhered to an interim agreement that froze and rolled back its nuclear program. This experience offers some hope that, subject to a rigorous verification regime, Iran will be able to fulfill a more permanent agreement."

Iran has adhered to the interim agreement? Oh really? Lee Smith's recent Weekly Standard article entitled "Caving to Iran" tells us that Obama received absolutely nothing in exchange for easing the sanctions regime against Iran one year ago. Mr. Smith writes:

"[T]he interim deal acknowledged Iran’s right to enrich uranium. It ignored Iran’s ballistic missile program (the most obvious delivery mechanism for a bomb), despite a U.N. Security Council resolution (1929) as well as several pieces of congressional legislation requiring Iran to cease such activities. It allowed Iran to continue building its heavy-water plutonium facility at Arak. The deal sought to limit Iran to research and development work on advanced centrifuges, but Tehran exploited that allowance and reportedly built up to 5,000 advanced centrifuges in the last year.

The issue is not just that Iran has repeatedly cheated, but that the administration keeps helping. When it became clear Iran was selling more than the million barrels of oil per month that sanctions relief permitted, White House spokesmen counseled patience: Maybe next month, they said, Iran would sell less and get under the cap. And when it didn’t, all the administration could do was shrug.

It’s the same now with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iranians won’t let the U.N. agency in to count and catalog the entirety of their program. It’s a concern but not a deal-breaker, says the State Department. After all, any agreement will include a mechanism to monitor whether Iran is keeping up its side of the bargain. But if the IAEA can’t get in to find out exactly what Iran has now, post-deal inspections to see if Iran is keeping its word are all but irrelevant."

With Obamacare destined for destruction when the US Supreme Court decides King v. Burwell in 2015 (the editorial board of the Times refuses to comment upon Jonathan Gruber's declaration concerning the stupidity of the American voter), the only thing the president will be able to show in the way of a legacy is an agreement with Iran. The alternative - heaven help the president - is to attempt to reinstate the sanctions regime, which has become a leaking sieve under his watch.


Is Obama capable of confronting Khamenei? Not a chance.