With John Kerry’s deal allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium while the United States lifts billions of dollars in sanctions, President Barack Obama hasn’t had a foreign policy success this rousing since the Syrian crisis!
As The Financial Times put it, “For the Obama administration, which is reeling from the chaotic rollout of its healthcare reform and whose credibility has taken a battering with allies and foes from the wavering over Syria, even this interim deal with Iran represents a substantial diplomatic achievement.” Well, yes — compared to Obamacare and Syria, the Hindenburg would look like a substantial achievement.
According to details hammered out over the weekend in Geneva, the U.S. will unfreeze $8 billion in Iranian assets, and Iran will suspend installation of new centrifuges for its heavy water reactor at Arak, though it is free to continue building new ones and operating its 19,000 existing centrifuges.
Iran also had to swear they were enriching uranium for peaceful purposes and would give international weapons inspectors a bit more freedom for the next six months to inspect certain parts of select sites with enough advance notice.
In other words, Iran agreed not to go nuclear until Memorial Day.
As Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif declared in a breathless, run-on statement reflecting his astonishment at Iran’s good fortune, “None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordo and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material will be taken out of the country… The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return.”
Could the U.S. possibly have gotten a better deal than this? I almost feel bad for Iran’s Foreign Minister having to butt heads with Barack “The Ram” Obama.
Meanwhile, which United Nations Security Council member bravely stood up and opposed this lunatic deal? Not England, not Germany, not China, not Russia.
France.
Truth be told, France’s reputation has been improving over the last couple of decades. France contributed tens of thousands of troops in the Gulf War and currently has the third-largest nuclear force in the world. Whatever you think of the Libyan intervention or proposed strikes against Syria this fall, France was ahead of the U.S. on both. And in 2012, France almost single-handedly defeated forces in Mali and the Islamic Maghreb while Obama — satisfied that al-Qaeda was gone after bin Laden’s death — declined to get involved.
Now witness France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius refusing to support lifting economic sanctions against Iran while Obama and Kerry hand over the store.
It seems there’s always some Western nation that’s the butt of foreign policy jokes, that has an embarrassing reputation of refusing to fight or take sides — whether France, Switzerland, Canada, or all of Europe. But with France strapping on its fighting boots and rejecting deals like the one Obama just lapped up with Iran, it seems the U.S. is going to be the butt of international jokes until we get another Republican in the White House.
