Defense25 August 2015

Notes from Norm: One of the “Crazies”

President Obama returned to the White House from vacation and immediately assured his Democratic supporters that he is “feisty” and ready to take on “the crazies” who oppose his Iran nuclear deal.

Speaking in front of his Democratic base one can forgive the President for his attacks on those who oppose his Iran nuclear deal for being crazy.

The President, wisely, attempted to separate “the crazies” from Democrats who oppose him on the nuclear agreement with Iran.

So far this list includes Democrats like Senators Chuck Schumer and Representatives Deutch, Engel, Hastings, Israel, Lowery, Meng, Norcross, Rice, Scott, Sherman, Sires and Vargas.

The “crazies” that oppose this deal may, according to the President’s view of the matter, include 56% of the American people who want Congress to reject the deal, according to a poll released by CNN last week.

Incidentally, 4% more American “crazies” joined the already 52% of “crazies” who opposed the deal less than a month before last week’s poll was released.

The poll also states that along with those “crazies” are 6-in-10 Americans who disapprove of President Barack Obama's handling of the U.S. relationship with Iran.

While Republicans would love nothing better to know that 60% of Americans consider themselves Republicans, it is true that 70% of Democrats in America want Congress to approve the deal, up from 61% in July.

Sadly, for those of you Democrats who find yourselves opposing this deal your sanity has been questioned by the President.

And, Independents, the 58% of you that oppose the agreement, feel free to join me and 83% of Republicans and the 30% of Democrats opposing the deal as being a part of the lunatic fringe.

Which begins to set the stage for the final vote tally on where members of Congress will fall on whether or not to approve or reject the deal that the President negotiated with Iran.

An agreement that will provide billions of dollars to Iran to rebuild its economy – restock its conventional military weapons systems – further invest in acts of terror throughout the world – without making a single serious concession to stop its nuclear weapons program.

We’ve been told from the beginning by the President that he would never settle for a Nuclear Iran.

It’s true, in this agreement he hasn’t in his term as President.

But, this agreement will prove one of the most fateful agreements in the life of future Americans long after this President has left office.

If approved, this agreement will make Iran one of the most powerful nations on the face of the Earth in less than fifteen years.

Iran will become a Mideast Superpower that will have the capacity and the means to not only threaten its neighbors, but to inflict harm upon its enemies across the world.

Those enemies, incidentally, still include the United States of America.

A regional Superpower that America helped to make and one that America will find more dangerous and difficult to confront fifteen years from now than today.

Should that reality matter to Congress and those Democrats still undecided about their vote on this agreement?

It should.

It will matter to Iran’s neighbors.

They will not concede to Iran what America is willing by approving this agreement.

It will not be long before investment in more weapons systems – and nuclear capacity – will become a critical component of the defense of nations that are neighbors of Iran.

The President, in his own words, understands that the net result of this agreement is that America will have to spend more money to protect Israel and make more weapons systems available to the neighbors of Iran.

And, that America itself will spend more money specifically to counter the threats that will grow if this agreement is passed.

By rejecting this agreement Congress doesn’t weaken America’s hand.  On the contrary, we protect our own national self-interest.

That may sound selfish but it’s the kind of self-preservation that other nations engage in all the time.

There’s no country on Earth that deliberately puts itself in harm’s way of another nation by providing it with the resources it needs to attack and destroy it.

Count me among “the crazies” who find providing the means to one’s own destruction insane.