Latest Conssesion to Iran Proves President is Fixated on Deal
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Nuclear Talks: Secretary of State John Kerry says that he's no longer "fixated" on the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. No wonder one key senator now urges President Obama to end the talks.
There is one salient fact about the negotiations the U.S. and the other major powers — the so-called P5+1 — have been having with Iran to convince the terrorist state to give up its ability to build nuclear weapons: President Obama will do anything for a deal.
Tehran knows this and has been stringing Obama and Secretary Kerry along, through deadline after deadline that turn out not to be meaningful deadlines at all.
While claiming that the Obama administration had not changed its negotiating position even "one iota" in recent months, Kerry on Tuesday announced that the U.S. is "not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another" on the military aspects of its nuclear program. This, after the U.S. for years demanded that Tehran reveal exactly that.
"We know what they did," Kerry added. "We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in. What we're concerned about is going forward. It's critical to us to know that going forward, those activities have been stopped, and that we can account for that in a legitimate way."
The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin was quick to point out that this is Kerry flipping his own position from only 10 weeks ago.
In April, he told PBS regarding Iran disclosing past military-related nuclear activities, "They have to do it. It will be done. If there's going to be a deal, it will be done. ... It will be part of a final agreement. It has to be."
This, of course, is just part of a hemorrhage of concessions from the Obama administration. The U.S. now seems willing to lift economic sanctions before the ink is dry on a pact, letting Iran have countless tens of billions of dollars to supply terrorists and gain dominance for itself in the Middle East.
We are also no longer demanding that Iran agree to allow unrestricted surprise inspections of nuclear sites.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., wrote to Obama on Monday, calling it "breathtaking to see how far from your original goals and statements the P5+1 have come during negotiations with Iran."
Corker charged that Obama has "allowed an isolated country with roguish policies to move from having its nuclear program dismantled to having its nuclear proliferation managed." Under the proposed deal, for about a decade it would supposedly take Iran a year to arm itself with nukes.
The GOP senator called on Obama to pick up and walk away from the talks altogether. "Walking away from a bad deal at this point would take courage," Corker wrote, "but it would be the best thing for the United States, the region and the world."
Kerry is right: There is a fixation. But it's the
president's fixation on obtaining any Iran nuclear
deal, no matter how much jeopardy the free world
ends up in because of it.