Notes from Norm: When someone shows you who they are, believe them
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
– Maya Angelou
The Iranian Regime in 2015 is fundamentally the same Iranian Regime that existed in 1979 that held 51 American citizens hostage for 444 days.
The same Iranian Regime that taunted and tormented President Jimmy Carter for 444 days and dismantled an American Presidency through humiliation and disdain is in power today.
To be sure there is a different Ayatollah calling the shots, but his scorn for America, its people and its allies is no less palpable.
What’s different is that he has succeeded in directing his minions to successfully negotiate an agreement with an American President that actually makes Iran stronger, and more dangerous, than ever before.
Now, instead of making an American President dangle with the lives of 51 American citizens held in the balance, this Ayatollah is holding the lives of billions of people in the balance while an American President dangles a weakly constructed nuclear proliferation agreement before the world as proof of his negotiating prowess.
Before, during and after negotiations with Iran over this ill-fated agreement that Barack Obama holds up as the maginot line between Iran having a nuclear bomb or not having a nuclear bomb the country and its leaders made clear that nothing has changed about how it sees the United States or the world.
It threatened those who were negotiating with it. Continued to threaten the very existence of Israel. Refused to comply with existing international sanctions. And, made it abundantly clear that this agreement would change nothing about how it sees its relationship with the United States and any of its allies.
Where President Obama initially insisted there would be full and robust inspections of any and all nuclear sites in Iran is now an agreement that depends on trusting Iran to allow inspectors ready and unrestricted access to these sites.
As recently as March of 2015 the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Iran was not permitting access or information it needed to confirm that Iran’s nuclear activities were not focused on creating a nuclear bomb.
Now, despite an agreement the President of the United States says is central to the safety and security of America, Iran has declared that no U.S. inspectors will be allowed access to nuclear sites in the country.
Why would any nation, and certainly ours, accept an agreement that is supposed to protect us but forbids us from verifying that a sworn enemy of ours is not building a nuclear bomb intended to destroy us?
The American people know better. Polling now shows an overwhelming, and growing, opposition to this agreement because Americans have learned to listen to what Iran’s leaders say about them, and have watched what Iran has done to us and others around the world.
Iran’s threats against our safety ,security and our existence are not a thing of the past, nor are they not without evidence that they have been carried out.
By some estimates Iran has directly caused the death of at least 500 American soldiers.
This doesn’t take into account the countless thousands of injuries they have inflicted on our military men and women, nor the untold thousands of dead and injured of our allies who have been the targets of the Iranian regime and their bloodlust to destroy anything or anyone connected to the United States of America.
Iran has shown, time and time again, given the time, the resources and the space, they will attack the United States, our allies and our interests.
Yet, the President believes that all of this will change with an agreement that will soon reward Iran with billions of dollars, lifted economic sanctions and the removal of a conventional arms embargo against the country.
With no evidence to the contrary President Obama is committed to trusting the word of a regime that has yet to prove it is capable of co-existing in the international community.
Every nation on the planet has an agenda.
Iran’s agenda is to destroy Israel and anything and anyone that believes in defending her right to exist.
This would include the United States of America.
This agenda is not the stuff of western propaganda.
It is the stuff of Iranian propaganda and rhetoric. The words belong to their political, spiritual and religious leaders.
Their actions are proven. The intent is clear. Their ideology firm in its resolve.
Before this agreement, Iran proved that there was no more radical regime on the Earth that has the proven capacity and stated desire to do harm to other nations of the world.
With this agreement in hand Iran will become the most economically powerful terrorist nation state in the world capable of even more destruction than ever before.
Without this agreement, Iran would be constrained by world opinion, tough economic sanctions, a conventional arms embargo and the promises of the free world to destroy their capacity to harm their neighbors, friend or foe.
Without this agreement they would find it nearly impossible to have the economic resources to develop a nuclear weapons program.
Without this agreement they would not have the conventional arms capacity to defend against attacks upon a nuclear facility suspected of working on a nuclear bomb.
Iran 2015 is no different than Iran 1979 with one big exception.
A nuclear proliferation agreement negotiated by an American President will actually make Iran a much more dangerous sworn enemy of our nation capable of destroying the lives of more than 51 American citizens held in captivity.
This time America will not be held hostage for 444 days.
This time America will be held hostage for generations to come.