A Warmonger’s Guide to the Universe (Why They Really Oppose the Iran Treaty)

Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are the same fanatics who gave us two pointless wars and $3 trillion of national debt.

The House and Senate are certain to reject the Obama Administration’s recently-penned international diplomatic agreement with Iran.  Apparently, they’ll stoop to any measure in order to stop it, including lying about it.  After all, it’s something initiated by Obama, so it must be evil.  Anything he favors must be stopped dead in its tracks.  Expect severe constraints on the fragile deal to pass both legislative chambers, and then hit the president’s desk by the end of August.

When it comes to major forks on the often muddy American foreign policy road, Congress-on-a-leash hasn’t gotten anything right since World War II.  Whatever any “go to war” initiative comes down the pike — whether it was passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (which ended up needlessly costing 56,000 American lives), approving the Iraq Resolution (which ended up putting us into a quagmire in the Middle East and gave rise to ISIS), implementing the Patriot Act (which mushroomed into the out-of-control intelligence bureaucracy and made every American into a target), or continuing to pour billions of treasury dollars that we don’t have into counties like Israel, Pakistan, and Egypt (while American roads and bridges crumble in neglect) — time and time again Congress has repeatedly demonstrated no credibility whatsoever on matters of war, diplomacy, treaties, or just about anything else going on outside our borders.  For goodness sake, this is a body that has a perpetually-spinning revolving door between elected office and far-more lucrative post-service positions later on with major defense contractors and lobbying firms for foreign nations.  How is any rational discussion of international affairs going to take place in a chamber polluted with lobbyists?

Fortunately, neither the House nor the Senate will be able to muster up the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto against any imposed limitations on the deal.  In other words, there’s nothing the war hawks can do to stop the agreement, and they know it (well, the sane ones know it).  But that doesn’t stop a shameless parade of lies and misrepresentations about the Iran deal being made throughout the media, which (not surprisingly) has become the latest chunk of stale red meat tossed into right-wing lunatics’ dungeon, with the wolves rabidly ready to rip apart every part of the deal purely for political gain.

Consider House Speaker John Boehner, who infamously vowed — and I quote– “to do everything possible to stop the Iran deal.”  Initially, upon making that brazen statement at a press conference on July 22nd, when asked precisely what parts of the deal he didn’t like, Boehner stunned reporters by admitting, “I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”  That’s flabbergasting.  Even for Boehner.  The head of the House of Representatives and the highest-ranking Republican in Congress openly stated he opposed the Iran deal but hadn’t even bothered to look at it.  What arrogant obstructionism.  What a disgrace.

Alas, sometimes the very best measuring stick of how good or bad something is comes from examining precisely who’s against it.  Well, just about every Republican on Capitol Hill is against the Iran deal.  So too are all the right-wing journalists (many who have falsely compared President Obama to Neville Chamberlain).  Note:  When all else fails, pull out the Hitler as a threat chestnut.  Then, there are the discredited neoconservatives like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest who shamelessly tell us this is a bad agreement, this after they themselves were the very architects of irreparable damage in the Middle East and to U.S. national security worldwide.  Then, of course, there’s our so-called albatross ally, Israel, which has sucked about a trillion dollars out of the American taxpayer’s pockets since its creation, and now dares to make bold threats and criticize the international agreements we make.  To which I say — if Israel doesn’t like how we negotiate, then go find another sugar daddy.

Fact is, Iran currently ranges from a few months to about a year away from achieving some kind of nuclear capability, assuming one believes our own intelligence agencies anymore (it’s not like their record is stellar when it comes to the subject of weapons of mass destruction).  Assuming what they tell us is true, then the options for the West are pretty much limited to two things — 1.  negotiate a deal  2.  do nothing.

I guess if there’s a third option, it would be “go to war.”  Oops.  Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz just creamed their pants again.

President Obama decided to choose the first option.  Opponents of the deal leave us with option number two, which is doing nothing.  Let’s call this obstructionism what it really is — a pathetic display of leadership that’s dangerous.

Indeed, if these outspoken opponents of the deal have a better alternative not just how to deal with Iran, but the increasing nuclear capacity of many other emerging nations (some that are hostile to us), they haven’t shared their wisdom with us.  Not yet.  Probably, not ever.  That’s because it’s far easier to tear down an agreement than to carefully construct one.  Building a house takes lots of time and skill.  Burning it down takes a lunatic with a match and just a couple of minutes.  That pretty much sums up the conservative opposition to the Iran deal.

Here’s the political reality:  Existing economic sanctions against Iran were becoming increasingly difficult to enforce.  They were unsustainable, really.  Several European nations were (and are now) eager to trade with Iran, and nothing the U.S. could have done would stop that.  With international sanctions crumbling anyway, and new markets opening up (weren’t conservatives once in favor of opening up trade with murderous regimes such as Red China and the Soviet Union?), the U.S. could do nothing, lose the opportunity to bring Iran into the circle of international arbitration, and let all its diplomatic leverage gradually slip away.  Instead, President Obama chose to craft an agreement now that will put inspectors on Iranian soil for the first time.

So, what about the trust factor?  What’s really remarkable is that Iran would dare trust us.  For those who might have forgotten their history, or care to conveniently forget it, it was the United States that once helped to overthrow a democratically-elected government in Iran (1953).  It was the United States that gave full support to a brutal dictator, not all the much different from the man we deposed next door, named the Shah, who ruled over Iranians with an iron fist for 25 ruthless years with the full support of American military and corporate power.  It was the United States that gave Iran’s sworn enemy, Iraq, the most modern weapons and equipment that were unleashed during the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War, which killed 750,000 Iranians.  It was the United States that shot down an Iranian airliner, carrying 240 civilians, for no apparent reason, an act for which the U.S. has never formally apologized.  It was the United States that invaded two nearby nations and then constructed countless military bases flanking each side of Iran.  Now, tell me again about those concerns about “trust.”

Yeah, let’s now really discuss the WHO WE CAN TRUST factor and look more closely at the record of these warmongers, many in Congress, who are now flirting with going to war against Iran and very much risk that prospect by opposing a deal.  Do you think the war and 12-year occupation of Iraq was bloody and terribly expensive?  Try to envision the scope of a nation with a far more advanced military, with three times the population.  That’s Iran.  The Iraq War (not to mention Afghanistan) is estimated to cost $3-5 trillion (with a T), since we’ll be paying for veterans treatment and care for the next 70 years.  We’re nearly bankrupt already, except for defense and intelligence contractors who are apparently looking at the prospect of an Iranian War like Christmas morning on steroids.  What madness.

Those who oppose the Iran deal haven’t just been wrong before.  Their estimates were disastrous.  Consider the case of neoconservative champion, the unapologetic Paul Wolfowitz, who once testified before Congress that the Iraq War would cost $60 billion, would require about 100,000 troops, and the conflict would be over within 18 months.  Wolfowitz’s estimates were only off by about $2,940,000,000.   As Middle East writer and expert Juan Cole eloquently wrote:

I figure that an Iran war should cost about 3 times what an Iraq War cost since Iran is nearly 3 times more populous and geographically expansive than Iraq. So, $18 trillion. The US gross national product is about $17 trillion annually, and our national debt (an important chunk of it built up during Bush’s wars) is about equal to that. This situation is very bad– you never want your debt to equal your GDP, and it has already hurt the US credit rating. If you double the national debt with an Iran war, you pretty much turn the US into Greece right there. You might as well just go to the Chinese embassy and offer to sell yourself into slavery at that point.

SOURCE:  OPPONENTS OF IRAN DEAL ARE WARMONGERS

So, like those on the political right continue to foam at the mouth like rabid dogs over the next several weeks attacking the Iran deal, even going so far as to stumble all over themselves in tonight’s first Republican presidential debate slinging little more than empty hostility with no workable alternatives whatsoever, let’s remember their abysmal track record when it comes to American foreign policy in the Middle East.

We’ve had enough and heard more than enough of war-profiting Cheney, the mathematically challenged liar Wolfowitz, the shamelessly uninformed obstructionist Boehner, and the incendiary hard-liner Netanyahu — and all the rest, audaciously trying to derail an international agreement between the United States and a dangerous rogue nation on the brink getting of nuclear weapons.

Admittedly, no one can be certain if this Iran deal will help bring peace and stability (most want) to the troubled region.  Regardless, doing something is far better than doing nothing.  And negotiating sure as hell beats Iraq x 3, and what will be a broken and bankrupt the United States if we are insane enough to start a war with Iran.