OPINION:
Before he fell off his bicycle, the secretary of state took great pains to persuade doubters that as President Obama’s chief negotiator with Iran he could and would prevent the radical Islamic regime from building a nuclear bomb.
However, John Kerry’s guarantees are cracking under pressure. The Iranians have clearly got his number. The United States, negotiating as if it were Lower Slobbovia, has apparently dropped its demand for rigid inspections to be set out in an agreement. Mr. Kerry and his boss, Barack Obama, seem to be terrified that Iran will blow up a deal before the June 30 deadline.
Neither Mr. Kerry nor the president never quite said “read my lips, no nuclear weapons,” but their vociferous reassurances to one and all sent exactly that message. Another red line falls into the memory hole where this administration lives.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, a Republican, questioned the change in strategy in a letter to Mr. Obama on Monday. “It is breathtaking to see how far from your original goals and statements the [nations of the West plus China] have come during negotiations with Iran,” he wrote. “Under your leadership, six of the world’s most important nations have allowed an isolated country with roguish policies to move from having its nuclear program dismantled, to have its nuclear proliferation managed.” He reminded the president of the paramount importance of adhering to the standard of “anytime, anywhere” inspections to ensure Iran cannot play hide and seek with its nuclear scheme. Concessions already enable the regime to continue nuclear research and enrichment, and Iran apparently won’t be required to own up to past nuclear cheating. U.S. backpedaling adds to fears that the mullahs will go nuclear the moment the agreement expires in 10 years — if not before.
Speculation cited by Mr. Corker, that the administration might cave on the inspections, stands in sharp contrast to previous assurances that the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, China and Germany would never agree to anything less than full disclosure, as Mr. Kerry emphatically promised in May: “I absolutely guarantee that in the future we will have the ability to know what [the Iranians] are doing, so that we can still stop them if they decide to move to a bomb President Obama has absolutely pledged they will not get a nuclear weapon.” Mr. Kerry’s absolute guarantee, like the president’s red lines, wobbles like the town drunk on a windy day.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, feels entitled to do what he wants, confident that the Obama administration is paralyzed by the president’s fear that he won’t have a “legacy” to leave. Prying foreign eyes at Iranian military installations, where work on the Islamic bomb would be done, is now out of the question. A stalemate of this magnitude means something has to give. The Corker letter warns the president that it better not be the United States.
Everybody knows that no deal would be far better than a bad deal. A Gallup poll earlier this year finds that 77 percent of respondents consider Iran’s development of nuclear weapons a critical threat to the United States, and a Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 59 percent have no confidence that a deal negotiated by the administration would prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
Rather than meekly surrender at the last minute, American negotiators should use time as a friend instead of an enemy. June 30 is an arbitrary deadline that is more crucial to Iran that to the P5+1 nations. Every day of negotiations is a day that economic sanctions sap the Iranian resources that fund jihadist poison. Better to break a deadline than agree to a disaster. If that happens, neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Kerry will be remembered as instruments of peace, but as incompetents who can’t ride a bicycle straight.
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