If You Like Your Centrifuges, You Can Keep Your Centrifuges... Really

There are lots of happy faces in Tehran this week.   Not since the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan and deployed intermediate range missiles in Eastern Europe have I so feared for the survival of the West.   Fortunately, we had Reagan and Thatcher (and Helmut Kohl) to pull our chestnuts out of the fire that time.   Despite the howling of the nuclear freeze crowd and the overt mocking of Ronald Reagan as the "amiable dunce" and the "simpleton warmonger,"  Reagan knew when to compromise and when to walk from a deal, as he wisely did in Reykjavik when he refused to commit not to deploy the strategic defense initiative (derided by Ted Kennedy and others as "Star Wars."

Well, the nuclear freeze, medal tossing folks are in charge of our national security now and it shows.  Less than 90 days after the Chinese launch a major cyberattack on a pitifully exposed OPM database protected by a washed up school administrator, the Iranians, starting from a position of complete weakness, and on their knees economically, ran the table on Team Obama.   Others have written more fulsome analyses of this catastrophic "deal" so I will just highlight the few points that I find most repugnant.

• $140 billion signing bonus.  Money is fungible.  Tehran has extended a line of credit to Bashar al-Assad.   Therefore, the United States is a large financier of terrorism in the Middle East.  For the sake of full transparency, I propose that all Hamas missiles now bear, "Financed by U.S.A. and E.U." labels on them.
• We left 4 Americans hostage in Iran that were not part of the deal.  Perhaps we should be thankful that the mullahs did not demand more.  But we released 5 Gitmo jihadis for deserter Bergdahl because of our commitment to "do everything we can to bring him home."  To facilitate this "deal," however, the 4 Americans can rot.  
• The U.S. has committed to cooperate with Iran to thwart Israeli sabotage to their nuclear program.  Evidently, Stuxnet really pissed off the mullahs.  So, now we have to turn our friends, the Israelis in to the authorities if they try that again.  The mullahs now want us to take on the role of Capos, which we have agreed to do.
• After the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey exclaimed, "Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking," we promptly agree to the military embargo in 5 years and ballistic missile technology in 8.  So, Obama is willing to sunset restrictions on a terror state and give an explicit timetable for that expiration.  For the Canadians that want to build an oil pipeline in the U.S., however, Obama grants no such timetable for relief.

Of course, Team Obama framed this up as a take this deal or war choice, which was a false choice, and always was.  There were plenty of options other than total war that were available to us.   

This "deal" confers legitimacy and power on a tyrannical and authoritarian regime that remains committed to destroying Israel AND the United States.  It all but ensures that Iran will become a nuclear power and sooner rather than later and cements the hold of the regime on that country.  

Eventually, Israel will have to take matter into its own hands.   If we learned one thing from the Third Reich, it's that evil people most often mean what they say.

Neville Chamberlain, you've been one upped.