Incivility and the Iran Deal
By ABRAHAM H. MILLER • 8/31/15 12:01 AM
An internet petition calls for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to change his position on the Iran agreement by telling him not to be a “war monger.” Schumer, of course, is no war monger, and neither are most of those who disagree with the dangerous agreement the Obama administration is intent on getting Congress to approve.
The name-calling says far less about Schumer than it says about the quality of discourse created by the president. Richard Nixon had an enemies list. Barack Obama has enemies too. The difference is that Nixon faced a critical if not overtly hostile press. Obama, in contrast, has a sycophantic press and a pliable coterie of partisans that will follow him into the depths of incivility.
An environment of hostility exists where the intensity with which Obama and his supporters are fighting for the agreement is proportional to both its flaws and the corrupt political culture that Obama brought to Washington.
If the agreement were so beneficial to America’s national interest, it would have been compelling on its own merits. It would have not engendered the ensuing controversy or the accompanying intense hostility against its detractors that has been laced with anti-Semitic innuendo and accusations of preferring war to peace.
The battle for the agreement is right out of the political culture of Chicago. Winning is all that counts, no matter what the battle leaves in its wake or how it is fought.
The agreement is not the product of a focus on the national interest but rather a result of a preoccupation with the president’s legacy. Obama wants to be the president who brought Iran back into the community of nations in a fashion similar to the way Nixon opened up China to America.
To accomplish that, Obama has needed to ignore the obvious. Iran signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty that resulted in Iran’s acquisition of nuclear technology in exchange for a commitment not to use it to pursue nuclear weapons. Iran took the technology and proceeded to embark on a nuclear weapons program complete with an intercontinental delivery system.
Iran claimed it was enriching uranium to generate energy, but only 5 percent enrichment is required for energy production. Iran was enriching uranium to over 20 percent, a level portending a breakout capacity for weaponization. Many countries generate energy with uranium enriched under 5 percent.
The agreement leaves in place Iran’s high speed centrifuges and its possession of highly enriched uranium. Perhaps more dangerous is the nature of the inspection process that will permit Iran to have its own inspectors, inspect its own facilities, even to the point of taking its own soil samples.
There is more than sufficient reason to object to the agreement. Indeed, in a viable democracy, it is the obligation of the loyal opposition to raise the kinds of concerns that Schumer and others have raised. Equally, it is the responsibility of a legitimate and effective government to respond to those objections with arguments grounded in facts, not ad hominem accusations.
Obama is pursuing a policy that overturns that of three administrations, of both parties, over the last twenty years, and it is based on faith that the Iranian government will do something it has not done before: Adhere to its commitments.
It is time for the administration to turn down the rhetoric and let the policy debate proceed without intimidation.
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