Writer concerned with side deals on nuclear arms agreement with Iranian
Dear Editor:
Earlier this week it was revealed to the public that one of the side deals made in the Iranian nuclear agreement included Iran being in charge of inspecting itself at one of its largest and most infamous nuclear development sites. The absurdity of that thankfully seems to resonate with more and more congressmen and senators and the revelation seems to be slowly tipping Democrats who had tenuously said they were going to support the agreement.
Thanks to legal roundabouts and parliamentary magic, the administration was only required to get one-third of one house to vote for it. The most efficient of routes, it would seem, would be to get thirty-four senators to vote for it, but that is proving to be harder than expected.
Last week, the soon-to-be Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a long-time supporter of the Israeli cause and major benefactor from Israeli-American political action committees, came out publicly against the deal, along with New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. No doubt that these defections have boosted Republican hopes, especially for recruiting the entire Democratic Jewish Caucus, a whopping 7 senators including Schumer. The bar is set so low, however that there is a good chance that even this would prove not enough unless more Democrats defect from the Administration’s party line.
It’s important to know how the vote will go down, considering that the stakes are so high, if not for us, then for the allies that will suck us into a conflict if the Iranian hardliners are able to create even one warhead. The larger issue has been developing for decades, and the failed foreign policy of the last 6 years has directly led to the desperation for a deal that the administration now feels.
You may recall back in 2009, during the Arab Spring, that there were major demonstrations in the streets of Tehran. These weren’t TEA Parties with a couple hundred people, but actual streets filled with Iranians, both young and old, ready for modernization and liberalization.
The demonstrations occurred when Mahmoud Achmedinejad fraudulently stole the “election” by stuffing the ballot boxes so much that many NGO observers pointed out that there were more ballots cast than there were legal voters. This was because Achmedinejad was of course the choice psycho-in-arms of the Supreme Ayatollah Khomeini. The (believed to be) legitimate winner was Mir Hossein Mousavi, a reformer who decried the corruption and extremism of the Supreme Ayatollah and his lackey President Achmedinejad.
Rather than back the so-called Green Revolution and its de facto leader Mousavi using our extensive network of operatives, the administration decided that it would be better for the U.S. to not get involved instead of taking advantage of the best opportunity for a regime change in 30 years.
Despite the administration’s claim at the time to not want to get too involved in Middle Eastern affairs, we have dropped bombs on five different Middle Eastern countries during this administration, compared to the previous administration’s two. Not to mention that we’ve waded into the politics of everyone from Egypt to South Sudan in less than seven years’ worth of leadership.
Iran, as happens with any dictatorship, will eventually have a revolution that will replace the current system with a democratic one, but we cannot have any more unforced errors like we had in 2009, and like what the Senate is currently considering.
Foreign policy is not a game to be played lightly, it is after all the real-world game of thrones. The idea of a deal is good, but it must have an ironclad inspection clause with inspections only to be carried out by either the U.S. or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We have been at a stalemate with Iran since the ’80s and we cannot simply walk away at this point, as much as I believe we should never have been involved with that tract of sand. A non-interventionist foreign policy requires a clean slate (cleaner than a server can ever be), something we will never get so long as the current system of governance in Iran exists. For now, this is the consequence of our insufferable meddling.
We need a deal, yes, but one that does not jeopardize our allies and our men and women in uniform. We can only hope that when that regime change comes, and we’ve had ours, we are prepared to not make the same mistake. That mistake of course, being our involvement at all.
Devon Minnema
The author is a 20-year-old Woodland College student, Syndicated columnist based out of Dixon CA. Columns “Real Men Read The News” and “One in a Millenial,” and fourth generation Solano County farmer.
