I’ve been troubled by the Democrat Party’s policies toward Iran ever since the presidency of Barack Obama. Every policy expert I knew thought the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—or JCPOA, or even more informally the Iran nuclear deal—was bad. Really, really bad. Everyone I knew who had escaped from Iran’s evil authoritarian rule knew it was a very bad deal. Every student of World War II history knew that it was a very bad deal, a war-provoking deal.
At the time, I was a member of AIPAC, the bipartisan Israel lobbying group run by former Obama fundraiser Lee Rosenberg. AIPAC said the deal literally threatened the very existence of Israel. Dennis Ross, the point man on the Middle East for former presidents Bill Clinton and Obama, advised against it. Ross resigned when Obama went through with it anyway. Israel’s prime minister then and now, Benjamin Netanyahu, called it “a historic mistake.”
Yet Obama’s national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, later laughed about how he lied to the American public to get it passed. In fact, due to a technicality signed into law by Obama, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the deal passed without congressional approval. This treaty specified concessions to be made by America, with none actually required by Iran. If Iran abided by it anyway, it would, at best, have delayed its development of a nuclear weapon by 10 years.
Through all this, my Republican friends theorized that Obama wanted Israel destroyed. Knowing that the antisemitic, anti-American preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright was his self-proclaimed lifelong spiritual leader, it didn’t seem unreasonable that he hated Jews and Israel. But a nuclear Iran threatens America, too. And the world. Even his Nobel Peace Prize would melt in the heat of a nuclear blast. I didn’t believe that Obama was suicidal. I assumed that he was incredibly, nearly unbelievably naive and that the Democrats had become lemmings, following their political comrades over a mushroom-clouded cliff.
As one of his last acts in office, Obama unfroze $150 billion of Iran’s cash and then gave Tehran another $1.7 billion in secret cash payments in defiance of Congress. This was the kind of thing that got President Ronald Reagan in trouble with the Iran-Contra Affair, even among those within his own party. But the Democrats just shrugged and wished Obama well. What was going on?
After Donald Trump became president, he rescinded the Iran deal in May 2018 and implemented strong economic sanctions. Not surprising to anyone with a brain, Iran quieted down. Attacks on Israel from Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, subsided. Arab nations signed the groundbreaking 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. Saudi Arabia was cooperating publicly with Israel. Things were looking surprisingly good for once in a very difficult part of the world.
Then U.S. President Joe Biden took office and undid Trump’s sanctions. He freed up billions of dollars for the terrorist state. Why? Biden has always supported Israel in his career and has continued to make statements to that effect, but his recent actions are destructive not just for Israel but for America. He has begun negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas and another with Hezbollah. He reached out once again to the evil mullahs of Iran. While Iran’s other proxy group, the Houthis, fire missiles on American ships in the Gulf of Aden, and seize and sink other ships, Biden orders only superficial responses that do little to take out their infrastructure or weaponry. Yet he has begun withholding weapons needed by Israel to take out its enemies for good—ones already been approved by Congress. Why?
And why have there been virtually no consequences for Robert Malley, Biden’s former special Iran envoy who was also influential in the Obama administrations, despite investigations by the U.S. State Department’s Inspector General and the FBI into his ties with Iran?
Recently, we learned that Tehran has been sending agents to target an American journalist, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and even Trump for assassination. What action does Biden take? The U.S. Department of Justice arrests or indicts individual actors but imposes no consequences for Iranian officials. The president of Iran is still welcomed into New York with security paid for with U.S. tax dollars.
And now, Biden is saying that he will not support Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and is even offering financial compensation (i.e. bribes) for not attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities or oil-production facilities. This is inconceivable. Israel has demonstrated that it can attack anywhere within enemy territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel already has bombs ready to detonate within Iranian nuclear labs. And we know that Israel, with the help of the United States and other allies, can shoot down hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles. Why would any rational person try to impede the removal of the threat of weapons of mass destruction from the hands of an evil regime that is hellbent on creating a new caliphate with no room for disbelievers?
I’ve heard an argument that the Democrats don’t want to start a regional war right before an election. But Americans love a wartime president if they believe in the cause and America is winning. Look at the popularity of Eisenhower after World War II, George H.W. Bush right after the Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush at the beginning of the Iraq war. Currently, a significant majority of Americans support Israel. If Israel were to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities with the outspoken approval of Biden-Harris, Harris could easily win over America in November. Could she be more afraid of losing Michigan than winning the other 49 states?