The signature feature of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been his administration’s dangerous combination of naiveté and bumbling incompetence. From underestimating the threat of ISIS, to miscalculating Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to implement an aggressive power-projection agenda in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, to mismanaging the conflict in Syria, to losing our hard-fought victory in Iraq, President Obama’s foreign policy failures are numerous - and Americans are less safe as a result.
Nowhere are the President’s policy failures more evident than the President’s July nuclear arms agreement with Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. The deal was a giveaway to Iran, full of sanctions relief (to the tune of $100 billion-$150 billion) and laughably weak inspection requirements that allow the Iranians to determine when and where the inspections will take place. Accountability and oversight of a rogue nation under the Obama Doctrine amount to very little indeed.
The U.N. Security Council this week released the finding of an investigation concluding that Iran conducted a new ballistic-missile test in the city of Chabahar in October. While diplomats insist the missile test does not violate any of the provisions of the Obama-Iran Deal, the test was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929. According to the U.N. report, Iran launched a rocket capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, which is prohibited under that particular U.N. resolution. By conducting the missile test, Iran was testing not only its nuclear capabilities, but also the United States’ - and the international community’s - resolve to hold the rogue state accountable for violating international resolutions.
Worse, the same week the U.N. Security Council was confirming an Iranian ballistic missile test, the International Atomic Energy Agency was confirming that, contrary to Iranian assertions, the Tehran regime did, in fact, conduct nuclear weapons research as recently as 2009.
As critics of the Iran Deal have consistently pointed out, the Iran Deal signals to Iran and to the entire world a new era in American diplomacy: We have officially entered the age of negotiating with terror sponsors. Is it any surprise that Iran, newly emboldened by the President’s nuclear deal, is flexing its muscles now?
Americans overwhelmingly opposed the Iran Deal by a 2-to-1 margin, so the White House developed a public relations campaign in response, hoping to defend the indefensible. WhiteHouse.gov launched a new feature about the “Historic Deal” promising that the Iran Deal “will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
The recent missile test is a strong indication that Iran has other ideas in mind.
President Ronald Reagan borrowed the Russian proverb “trust, but verify” as the underpinning of his policy for dealing with the Soviet Union. President Obama, by contrast, has put a millennial spin on his foreign policy that could be summed up as simply: “Trust me, I’ve got this.”
Despite his numerous failures on the international scene, President Obama still expects the American public to trust him. Whether it’s his promises that the United States will be able to vet tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, or his declaration that ISIS was “contained” - which he made the very morning of the deadly Paris attacks by ISIS! - or his propaganda campaign declaring the Iran Deal a huge success, Americans have ample reason not to trust the President’s foreign policy.
Herein lies the essence of the Obama Doctrine: The actual events that unfold on the world stage are of less significance than the President’s view of those events. Under the Obama Doctrine, the White House’s assurance that the Iran Deal blocks “all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon” is what matters, not whether or not Iran actually develops and deploys nuclear warheads on top of ballistic missiles.
The underlying premise of President Obama’s deal with Iran was that Iran could be trusted to live up to its promises and could (and would) follow through on its end of the bargain. Iran’s blatant disregard for the U.N. Security Council’s prohibition against missile tests proves otherwise. With the report this week that Iran disregarded the United Nations’ resolutions and conducted a ballistic-missile test, Americans must ask themselves if Iran is the type of treaty partner the United States wants to have.
It isn’t too late to walk away from the President’s dangerous deal with Iran, and sanctions could still be reinstated. Food for thought as we go into the 2016 elections with national security issues weighing heavily on voters’ minds.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.