Chuck Schumer is now officially the Senator from Israel. He is no longer a member of the Democratic Party that I belong to, and his primary constituency is the small number of well-moneyed AIPAC contributors who have bought up all his stock.
Now he is trying to cover his tracks with a story that he didn’t really mean to oppose the President. That’s why he waited until the middle of the GOOP debate to announce, and caught the very slow Friday news cycle. So no one will notice. Well I noticed.
And he is trying to sound moderate. We just need a better plan he says. We can go back to the table and get a better deal, he says. Bullshit. Let me count the ways. First, there is no better deal. You don’t have to take that from me. Listen to the guy who used to make his living opposing ANY nuclear deal with Iran, Gary Samore, until recently president of United Against Nuclear Iran, a job he resigned because UANI is still opposed to the deal. (He has been replaced by none other than Joe LIEberman, which will tell you which direction UANI is headed.) Samore, a Harvard professor and authority on Iran and nuclear disarmament, had this to say: “I’m skeptical that we can reject this agreement and negotiate a substantially better deal within any kind of reasonable time frame.”
Second, the fact is everyone wants to get this done, Iran has gone as far as it will go (which Samore says it’s much further than he ever thought possible), and our negotiating partners are as tired of the trade embargo as are the Iranians. So Sen. Schumer is rejecting a common sense approach to one of the most delicate diplomatic challenges of this century… exercising the galling presumption that he somehow knows a lot more about this deal than does the President, or Secretary of State, both of which have staked their legacy on its outcome.
Third, common sense tells you it is not a bad deal. It substantially reduces the ability of Iran to make weapons. It provides for and establishes a significant and unprecedented inspections program that can easily inform the participating nations in the event of any breach or attempted breach by the Iranians. AND any breach of the agreement by Iran will lead to re-imposition of sanctions… an action that is binding on all signers of the pact. That is important. Russia and China are also signers to the pact. Without a pact they are likely as not to abandon the process and never return. With it they have an obligation to support the others if there is a breach.
The Iranians will get something for their participation, most importantly, they get relief from stringent economic sanctions and they get access to billions in Iranian assets that have been frozen in the US since 1980.
Fourth, the agreement will have positive repercussions worldwide. For the USA, for better or ill, lifting the sanctions will open the market to Iranian oil and lower the cost of fuel. Gasoline is expected to drop below $2 in the USA for the first time in years. In the Iranian economy, stifled by sanctions for decades, access to world markets is expected to be dramatic.
Fifth, political implications are significant. Iranian oil is another assault on the Saudi oil monopoly which has already been challenged by Iraq, Koch brothers’ Bracken Crude from Canada (which we hope is also challenged by Iranian oil) and natural gas from world-wide fracking. Thus it will further diminish the influence of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and beyond. We should remember that Saudi money is still fueling ISIS, still funds hundreds of madrassas throughout the region, all of which are no more than recruiting centers for terrorists and suicide bombers. In Iran, the hard line Mullahs are as opposed to the deal as are Israel’s hard liners, and for similar reasons. The pact gives more credibility to moderate forces and creates opportunities for further cooperation between Iran and the rest of the world. Hard liners, who use fear as a tool of control, hate moderation.
Sen. Schumer has yet to offer an alternative that will improve on the already substantial world-peace potential of this agreement. All he has are threats and fears. The tools of despots. He says we can’t trust Iran, what happens if Iran backs out? The answer to that is written in the terms of the agreement. We are back to sanctions and a continued effort at economic isolation, and every signer of the agreement is obliged to re-impose sanctions.
Sixth, Sen. Schumer has forgotten one important element in the game. The USA is not the principal player in on the field. Also playing are the four permanent members of the United National Security Council (China, France, Russia, The United Kingdom), Germany and the European Union. Other affected nations that have been more or less honoring the sanctions include India and Pakistan and Japan. Some of these nations, China and Russia in particular, are unlikely to agree that more talk is useful or necessary. With or without an agreement, they may reopen trade with Iran. Once they open trade, the rest of the world is likely to follow. In short, whether or not the USA agrees to the deal, the other parties will likely go ahead without us.
Senator Schumer’s claim that we need a better deal offers no deal that we can get. Especially appalling, nothing in his statements have improved on the talking points offered by the Republican Party, all of which were originally offered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he came the USA with the specific intent to embarrass President Obama in an address to a Republican Congress particularly hostile to the President.
Chuck Schumer is no Democrat. He has no party loyalty, he is a traitor to his President.