The United States and Iran had been negotiating a new nuclear deal, and Iran was finally ready to say, OK, here is what we are willing do. But Russia, asked by President Joe Biden to play an intermediary role, delayed action. The Iran deal should not embody any of the U.S. economic and other sanctions against Russia because of its Ukraine invasion, the invader insisted, meaning it would be out from under in a host of ways pleasing next to no one.
Well, this whole Iran business has long been proceeding in strange ways, and what we really need is not just a deal excluding Russia, but a treaty requiring a two-thirds approval in the Senate, a constitutional requirement safeguarding us and rule of law instead of rule by incompetent presidents.
If the original deal blessed by President Barack Obama had been a treaty, President Donald Trump could not simply have said, sorry, no more. And he would not have had to because there is no way a treaty would have contained such a lineup of stupidities.
The deal worked out by Obama and five other nations, including Russia and China, did not do away with Iran’s ability to manufacture uranium sufficiently enriched to enable nuclear bombs. It did require that uranium already highly enriched be given to Russia, which has already given some of it back. The deal’s rules on inspections were slipshod at best. It allowed ballistic missile tests that the United Nations disallowed, and Iran is now bragging about missiles with long-range abilities. We unfroze billions of dollars helping to get American hostages returned and enabling Iran to finance terrorists.
When Trump ended the deal while piling on devastating economic sanctions, he said he would be happy to renegotiate something that made more sense, but Iran revved up its enrichment process instead, no matter that its people were suffering. Taking charge lately have been new, tougher, more dogmatic leaders with intensified Israeli hatred and intentions to rule the world someday as the prospect of having a nuclear bomb is said to be mere weeks away.
But the sanctions were suffocating, Biden seemed more conciliatory than his predecessor, and negotiations got underway with Russia playing a key role. The Iranians seemed to go back and forth with their willingness to come around, but did finally come up with something it felt might be more acceptable. That’s when Russia, needing help in its downright evil war against the Ukrainian people, made demands about Iranian trade that could help resuscitate its own oil business and escape the economic peril of sanctions it is enduring.
An awful lot is going on behind the scenes, of course, and there are unknowns and complications no matter which way you look. But Biden’s foremost concerns should be to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power that could jeopardize millions and Russia gaining strength with worldwide consequences. A nuclearized Iran would make it even more of a Middle East terror and likely cause Saudi Arabia and other countries into going nuclear, increasing the possibilities of apocalypse as Russia does the same thing. At the least, we’re talking about instituting world order, about the future of democracy, freedom, peace and security.
Iran did not act joyfully to the Russian demands, fortunately, and the White House reaction has been pretty tough. Under the right kind of treaty, Iran would get rid of its enriched uranium and make lots of money helping its people as the gasoline price increases could go down internationally. But the United States should rely ever more on its own fossil fuel resources even as it aims to reduce CO2 emissions along with inhibiting Russian maliciousness and Iran’s imperialistic, anti-Israel, hegemonic, terroristic ambitions.
