David Brooks, "The Revolution Lives!": The "Framework" Is Crumbling!

Obama's so-called "framework understanding" with Iran is crumbling. On Thursday, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei declared that "sanctions should be lifted completely, on the very day of the deal," and inspection of Iranian military bases would not be tolerated as part of any final agreement. Regarding Khamenei's refusal to allow inspection of military bases, a lead New York Times article entitled "Iranian Leader Says Sanctions Must Lift When Deal Is Signed" by Thomas Erdbrink and David E. Sanger, today states:

"While Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry have said the inspection requirements they have negotiated would be among the most intrusive in history, they have not said whether they would extend to military sites. Several of the sites the United States is most concerned about in Iran are on military bases, including Fordo. Inspectors have visited the site regularly, and the atomic energy agency has, periodically, been allowed onto other military bases."

Well, I sent an email to David Sanger and asked:

"Why do you choose not to make reference to Iran's Parchin military base? As you know, the IAEA has been seeking access to Parchin since 2005, but has been refused entry."

Iran is suspected of testing atomic bomb components at Parchin over the past several years, and I await Sanger's reply.

And now, David Brooks has stepped into the fray. In a Times op-ed entitled "The Revolution Lives!, Brooks begins by observing, "President Obama’s deal with Iran is really a giant gamble on the nature of the Iranian regime." Observing that "the West wants a deal more than Khamenei does" and "[t]hat imbalance explains why Western negotiators had to give away so many of their original demands," Brooks concludes:

"If Iran still has revolutionary intent, then no amount of treaty subtlety will enforce this deal. Iran will begin subtly subverting any agreement. It will continue to work on its advanced nuclear technology even during the agreement. It will inevitably use nuclear weaponry, or even the threat of eventual nuclear weaponry, to advance its apocalyptic interests. Every other regional power will prepare for the worst, and we’ll get a pseudo-nuclear-arms race in a region of disintegrating nation-states.

. . . .

At some point, there has to be a scintilla of evidence that Iran wants to change. Khamenei’s speech offers none. Negotiating an arms treaty with Brezhnev and Gorbachev was one thing. But with this guy? Good luck with that."

"Negotiating" with Khamenei. In fact, Obama's "fire sale" tactics with Khamenei, pursuant to which everything effectively is being given away, only targets one objective: the creation of a legacy for a president consumed by narcissism.

[See also: "Farred Zakaria, "Is Iran rational?": Which Other Country Hangs Homosexuals?"]