Welcome to government bureaucracy "Click here: ? Barton: OCare Website Hidden Source Code Says Users "Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" - YouTube"
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The golf term "bad lie" is now referred to as "an Obama".
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Sowell on achievement and how it is has been supplanted. Victimhood versus self achievers. (See 1 below.)
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The Skidawy Island Republican Club recently had an authority speak on Islam and his comments have been summarized in our monthly newsletter.
Please draw your own conclusions. (See 2 below.)
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Has Obama come to realize a comparison with Lincoln would be more than his ego can take and thus has decided not to be present today? (See 3 below.)
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Obama's new ploy is let Iran off the hook because we can always reinstate sanctions which, history shows, seldom, if ever, happens.
If these Jewish Leaders are stupid enough to believe crap from the White House they deserve what they get and maybe they should no longer be in the position of leadership. Maybe they are better suited at 'curryship.' (See 4 and 4a below.)
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It is becoming increasingly evident anything that issues forth from this administration is unreliable, should not be trusted or taken at face value and has probably been manipulated or massaged. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
The War Against Achievement
By Thomas Sowell
A friend recently sent me a link to an inspiring video about an upbeat young black man who was born without arms. It showed him going to work -- unlike the record number of people living on government payments for "disabilities" that are far less serious, if not fictitious. How is this young man getting to work? He gets into his car and drives there -- using controls set up so that he can operate the car with his feet.
What kind of work does he do, and how does he do it? He is involved in the design of racing cars. He sits at his computer, looking at the screen, with the keyboard on the floor, where he uses his toes as others use their fingers.
His story recalls the story of Helen Keller, who went to an elite college and on to a career, despite being both deaf and blind. Her story was celebrated in books, in television documentaries and in an inspiring movie, "The Miracle Worker."
But our culture has changed so much over the years that the young man with no arms is unlikely to get comparable publicity. Helen Keller's achievement was seen as an inspiration for others, but this young man's achievement is more like a threat to the prevailing ideology of our times.
The vision on which the all-encompassing and all-controlling welfare state was built is a vision of widespread helplessness, requiring ever more expanding big government. Our "compassionate" statists would probably have wanted to take this young man without arms, early on, and put him in some government institution.
But to celebrate him in the mainstream media today would undermine a whole ideological vision of the world -- and of the vast government bureaucracies built on that vision. It might even cause people to think twice about giving money to able-bodied men who are standing on street corners, begging.
The last thing the political left needs, or can even afford, are self-reliant individuals. If such people became the norm, that would destroy not only the agenda and the careers of those on the left, but even their flattering image of themselves as saviors of the less fortunate.
Victimhood is where it's at. If there are not enough real victims, then fictitious victims must be created -- as with the claim that there is "a war on women." Why anyone would have an incentive or a motivation to create a war on women in the first place is just one of the questions that should be asked of those who promote this political slogan, obviously designed for the gullible.
The real war -- which is being waged in our schools, in the media and among the intelligentsia -- is the war on achievement. When President Obama told business owners, "You didn't build that!" this was just one passing skirmish in the war on achievement.
The very word "achievement" has been replaced by the word "privilege" in many writings of our times. Individuals or groups that have achieved more than others are called "privileged" individuals or groups, who are to be resented rather than emulated.
The length to which this kind of thinking -- or lack of thinking -- can be carried was shown in a report on various ethnic groups in Toronto. It said that people of Japanese ancestry in that city were the most "privileged" group there, because they had the highest average income.
What made this claim of "privilege" grotesque was a history of anti-Japanese discrimination in Canada, climaxed by people of Japanese ancestry being interned during World War II longer than Japanese Americans.
If the concept of achievement threatens the prevailing ideology, the reality of achievement despite having obstacles to overcome is a deadly threat. That is why the achievements of Asians in general -- and of people like the young black man with no arms -- make those on the left uneasy. And why the achievements of people who created their own businesses have to be undermined by the President of the United States.
What would happen if Americans in general, or blacks in particular, started celebrating people like this armless young man, instead of trying to make heroes out of hoodlums? Many of us would find that promising and inspiring. But it would be a political disaster for the left -- which is why it is not likely to happen.
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2)This is a summary we recently had on the Threat of Radical Islam in American...I think you find it very concerning and an issue that is not being properly addressed by this administration.
True Perspectives Seminar, November 7, 2013 -Threat of Radical
Islam in America At a packed Plantation Ballroom True Perspectives Seminar on November 7, David R. Bores gave a riveting recap of the penetration of Radical Islam in the U.S. He served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and has been involved in police work for over 45 years, and actively follows the penetration of Radical Islam in the U.S. Historical Background Islam evolved as a political/religious/ of Mohammed in 632. For some 400 years, the followers of this new religion had military conquests extending from the Middle East to Spain and Austria and even India. This conquest was not in response to the Crusades, which only started after 1095. The high-water mark of Islam came to an end on September 11, 1683 with a great military defeat in Vienna, Austria. The next phase of Islam then was a non-military cultural one that lasted until 1924 when Turkey finally disbanded its Caliphate and abolished Sharia Law. This prompted the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 to begin a much more active movement to take back its territories and start a strong revival.
The revival movement had two distinct phases:
• Extremist violence epitomized by al Qaida and Jihadi Wahhabism and Salafism. Much of the intra-Islamic strife is between groups who espouse the above violence as the means versus a longer-term takeover represented by the following: • A stealth mode to begin subverting other cultures and adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The creed of the MB tells it all: the goal is to destroy from within, and sabotage and eliminate America as a nation. They also admitted that the only sure way to get to heaven for a believer was to be a martyr for the cause. The MB is also heavily financed by interests in Saudi Arabia. The latter goals of Muslin Brotherhood were revealed in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trials which revealed HLF as not a charitable organization which was its front, but instead a terrorist financing organization. Documents uncovered the true mission as stated in an “Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”: “...their work in America is a Grand Jihad in destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their own hands AND the hands of believers”; “so that America is eliminated and god’s religion is made victorious” “Without this level of understanding we are not up to the challenge & not prepared for jihad” Author: Mohamed Akram. Penetration of America Hillary Clinton’s chief advisor is MB member or sympathizer, Huma Abedin. She is inexplicably married to a Jew, former Congressional representative Anthony Weiner. This is strictly forbidden for a Muslim woman. A major explanation is that one can subvert true beliefs for a higher cause, e.g. promoting a stronger case for a takeover. Her parents and other relatives are steeped in MB movements, and even supporters of terrorist groups such as HAMAS. Then there is the acknowledged existence of training camps in the U.S. where followers are apparently practicing paramilitary exercises – even as close as Jesup, Georgia. This was also covered in a TV report by Sean Hannity (see Terrorist Training Camp#179825C) Obama's Embrace of Islam The initial evidence is his purge of pejorative or even any references to Islam in the historical records. The original report on the attacks of 9/11 had Radical Islam all over the motivation for the attacks. Now the training manuals for the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense have purged all references to Islam. This has been pushed by Attorney General Eric Holder, and even the military’s Chief of Staff, who serves at the pleasure of the president. Slander has been redefined in the MB tradition that any adverse reaction to a statement means it is slanderous, without regard to whether it is truthful. If a Muslim is offended, it can’t be told. If a Muslim reacts violently, it must be regarded as hate speech, even if not intended and even if it is the truth. So much for freedom of speech. Sharia Law in Law and the Courts There are numerous cases in state family courts that have allowed Sharia elements to excuse actions, e.g. honor killings, in rape cases dismissing of women’s testimony in the face of male testimony, marrying underage girls, and multiple wives. The Congress of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is actively trying to expand the number of lawyers who believe in the cause so as to file more lawsuits to intimidate the criticism of Islamic goals in the U.S. As a response, there is now a movement to strike the use of foreign law influencing decisions in U.S. state courts, called American Law in American Courts (ALAC). Georgia is contemplating such a law. It is getting push back from CAIR, ACLU, and even ADL. Free Speech Restrictions Recommended by Radical Islam The UN is leading the way by Resolution 16/18, March 2011, “to combat intolerance … and discrimination, incitement to riot based on religion or belief.” Truth is not a defense if some group is incited to riot, and should be criminally punished. If violence ensues, it’s the speaker’s fault, even if not intended or expected or the truth. In the U.S. Public Education Syllabus, what is being pushed is an objection to American Exceptionalism in any curriculum (it is “offensive” to Muslims). Enablers of this new purge of American values are Common Core and Agenda 21 movements to revise the educational core for American students. Other Concepts There is an expansion of the following: prayer rooms, gender separation, and “Chrislam”, a blending of Christianity and Islam (to the exclusion of Judaism). Mosque building is also proceeding at a rapid rate. The Ground Zero mosque was an obvious one, as the tradition after a conquest was building or conversion to a mosque. (Even the original name was significant, Cordoba House, reminiscent of the Islamic conquest of Spain at Cordoba.) Many financial institutions (Bank of America, AIG) are proudly proclaiming that they are “Sharia compliant”. Recognize that the Islamic concept of “dhimmitude” means nonbelievers must be submissive to Islam.
Recommendations to the Public
Given this history and revelation of Muslim Brotherhood goals to subvert America, the following should be on the minds of Americans to be watchful. • Be wary of even “peaceful” Muslim goals • Question every major proposal in light of MB goals
• Don’t give up free speech concepts in favor of “political correctness”,
• Review textbooks for the new goals of diminishing American values • Be wary of “Chrislam”.
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3) From 'Four Score' to 'Yes We Can!'Sudden modesty from the selfhyperadulated president.
By Bret Stephens
Seven score and 10 years ago, Abraham Lincoln delivered his sacred speech on the meaning of free government. Edward Everett, a former secretary of state and the principal speaker for the consecration of the Gettysburg cemetery, instantly recognized the power of the president's 272 words.
"I should be glad, if I could flatter myself," Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day, "that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."
Barack Obama is not scheduled to be present at Gettysburg on Tuesday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the address. Maybe he figured that the world would little note, nor long remember, what he said there. Maybe he thought the comparisons with the original were bound to be invidious, and rightly so.
If that's the case, it would be the beginning of wisdom for this presidency. Better late than never.
Mr. Obama's political career has always and naturally inspired thoughts about the 16th president: the lawyer from Illinois, blazing a sudden trail from obscurity to eminence; the first black president, redeeming the deep promise of the new birth of freedom. The associations create a reservoir of pride in the 44th president even among his political opponents.
In Lincoln's larger shadow. AFP/Getty Images
But, then, has there ever been a president who so completely over-salted his own brand as Barack Obama? "I never compare myself to Lincoln," the president told NBC's David Gregory last year. Except that he announced his presidential candidacy from the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Ill. And that he traveled by train to Washington from Philadelphia for his first inauguration along the same route Lincoln took in the spring of 1861. And that he twice swore his oaths of office on the Lincoln Bible. "Lincoln—they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me," he said in Iowa in 2011.
No, this has not been a president who has ever shied away from grandiose historical comparisons. If George W. Bush reveled in being misunderestimated, Mr. Obama aims to be selfhyperadulated. "I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president—with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln," the president told "60 Minutes" in 2011. Note the word possible.
But now that has started to change. The president has been humbled; he's pleading incompetence against charges of dishonesty; the media, mainstream as well as alternative, smell blood in the water.
And his problems on that score are just beginning: ObamaCare is really a political self-punching machine, slugging itself with every botched rollout, missed deadline, postponed mandate, higher deductible, canceled insurance policy and jury-rigged administrative fix.John Roberts, we hardly knew you: Your ObamaCare swing vote last year may yet turn out to be best gift Republicans have had in a decade.
All this will force even liberals to reappraise the Obama presidency. Lincoln's political reputation went from being "the original gorilla" (as Edwin Stanton, his future secretary of war, once called him) to being celebrated, in the words of Ulysses Grant, as "incontestably the greatest man I have ever known." Obama's political trajectory, and reputation, are headed in the opposite direction: from Candidate Cool to President Callow.
That reappraisal is going to take many forms, not least in the international goodwill Mr. Obama's presidency was supposed to have brought us. But since the occasion of this column is the Gettysburg sesquicentennial, it's worth turning to the question of the president's once-celebrated prose.
Abraham Lincoln spoke greatly because he read wisely and thought deeply. He turned to Shakespeare, he once said, "perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader." "It matters not to me whether Shakespeare be well or ill acted," he added. "With him the thought suffices."
Maybe Mr. Obama has similar literary tastes. It doesn't show. "An economy built to last," the refrain from his 2012 State of the Union, borrows from an ad slogan once used to sell the Ford Edsel. "Nation-building at home," another favorite presidential trope, was born in a Tom Friedman column. "We are the ones we have been waiting for" is the title of a volume of essays by Alice Walker. "The audacity of hope" is adapted from a Jeremiah Wright sermon. "Yes We Can!" is the anthem from "Bob the Builder," a TV cartoon aimed at 3-year-olds.
There is a common view that good policy and good rhetoric have little intrinsic connection. Not so. President Obama's stupendously shallow rhetoric betrays a remarkably superficial mind. Superficial minds designed ObamaCare. Superficial minds are now astounded by its elementary failures, and will continue to be astounded by the failures to come.
Is there a remedy? Probably not. Then again, the president's no-show at Gettysburg suggests he might be trying to follow Old Abe's counsel in a fruitful way: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool," the Great Emancipator is reported to have said, "than to speak and to remove all doubt."
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4)US Jewish leaders feel misled by White House over Iran deal Geneva terms were ‘precooked’ in secret US-Iran talks, Times of Israel told, but the administration didn’t come clean to Israel or to American Jewish groupsAmerican Jewish leaders feel they were misled by the White House in recent contacts during which Obama administration officials urged them to stop pressing for more sanctions on Iran and instead give time for the Geneva negotiations to bear fruit, The Times of Israel was told on Monday The US Jewish leaders feel that the administration showed a “lack of trust” in them, a source close to the contacts said. Obama administration officials did not tell them that they had been secretly negotiating with Iran for the past year, and that the Geneva talks were really “precooked,” The Times of Israel was told, and thus it was an act of bad faith for the administration to ask the Jewish groups to hold off on pressure for more sanctions with the promise that they would meet again in 30-60 days to consider where the negotiations had led. In fact, the Jewish leaders believe, the administration knew exactly where the negotiations would be heading, since they had secretly negotiated the terms.
Two sources told The Times of Israel they were convinced there was a secret channel of negotiations and were dismayed that the White House had not come clean about it.
Israel was also kept in the dark about the secret channel, and only learned about it from other sources, The Times of Israel was told by the sources, who asked to remain anonymous.
Contacts between US Jewish leaders and the senior American official handling the Geneva talks, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, had been candid and emotional on occasion, The Times of Israel was told, but not impolite or unpleasant. The Jewish leaders, after all, were questioning her judgment and her approach on thwarting Iran’s nuclear drive, the sources noted.
In a November 11 statement by the ADL, its national director Abraham Foxman noted, “Both the US and Israel need each other at this pivotal moment, but do not seem to trust each other… Clearly, both countries share the same goals: regional stability, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and making progress with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But the strategy to get there is different. At times, this creates tension between the two states when the strategy is emphasized over the goals.”
In the wake of a recent meeting with administration officials — attended by leaders of AIPAC, the ADL, AJC and Conference of Presidents — the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC stated flatly that there would be “no pause, delay or moratorium in our efforts” to seek new sanctions on Iran. The American Jewish Committee said it found the argument in favor of increased economic pressure on Iran “compelling.”
By contrast, Foxman first said he favored the administration’s request to suspend for 60 days lobbying for new congressional legislation that would intensify sanctions. Days later, however, Foxman reversed his position. In the November 11 statement, he said he had initially given the administration “the benefit of the doubt” and agreed “to refrain for a short period of time from urging the Senate to impose additional Iran sanctions as the US and other nations pursued diplomatic efforts with Iran.” Now, the statement continued, however, “having reviewed some of the points of the tentative agreement” offered to Iran in Geneva, Foxman said, “We no longer have the luxury or the option to refrain from enacting additional sanctions against Iran.”
Foxman said he had ”wanted to give the Obama Administration a chance to demonstrate that they could make real progress on this issue. But rather than leading Iran to make serious concessions, the Islamic Republic has used the perception of its willingness to negotiate with the US and other nations in order to hold on to its right to enrich uranium while getting relief from some sanctions.”
He said he was convinced that the terms offered to Iran in Geneva earlier this month “will not only prematurely roll back the sanctions regime,” but would “legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state… The time has come for Congress, especially the Senate, not only to reconfirm and strengthen the existing sanctions, but also to begin to impose additional sanctions against Iran.”
The Geneva negotiations — between the so-called P5+1 powers and Iran — are set to resume on Wednesday.
The Channel 10 report on Sunday said the talks were a mere “facade,” because the terms of a deal on Iran’s nuclear program were negotiated in talks between a top adviser to Obama and a leading Iranian nuclear official that have continued in secret for more than a year.
Despite ostensible full coordination between the US and Israel over strategies for thwarting Iran’s nuclear weapons drive, the administration did not keep Israel fully informed on those talks, Channel 10 news reported, but Jerusalem nonetheless has a pretty clear picture of what has been going on in the secret channel.
The report, which relied on unnamed senior Israeli officials, said the US team to the secret talks was led by Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Her primary interlocutor, the report said, was the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi. The talks have been taking place in various Gulf States.
The White House denied reports that Jarrett had been involved in secret talks with Iran. “There is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the rumors put forth by anonymous sources that Valerie Jarrett has ever been involved in secret talks with Iranian officials,” spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in an emailed statement.
In the course of the talks, the Channel 10 report said, the Americans offered the Iranians a series of “confidence-building measures,” which underlined American readiness to conclude a deal and undercut sanctions pressure.
It was the deal discussed in these secret talks, the report said, that the Americans then brought to Geneva earlier this month, where it was largely adopted by the P5+1 nations — the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, plus Germany.
France has indicated that it raised objections to the proposed terms, while US Secretary of State John Kerry said the deal was so “tough” that the Iranians had to return to Tehran to take a decision on whether to sign it. The Geneva talks are set to resume on Wednesday.
According to Channel 10, the secret channel marginalized Kerry, and was overseen by the president. The idea had been for Kerry merely to fly to Geneva, as he did last Friday, to sign a deal in which he had been a bit player. In the event, factors such as the French stance, and Israel’s very public objections, derailed this plan, and the talks broke up last Saturday without an agreement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly fumed at the terms that were offered to Iran at Geneva, including an easing of non-core sanctions under an arrangement whereby Iran would still be permitted to enrich uranium to 3.5%. Netanyahu wants all sanctions retained, and all enrichment to be frozen, as a first step toward the dismantling of Iran’s entire “military nuclear” program.
Nevertheless, the expectation in Jerusalem is that a deal is on the way in the near future. Kerry, with whom Netanyahu has been engaged in a public sniping match in recent days, is due back in Israel at the end of this week, after the Geneva talks resume.
Sunday’s Channel 10 report was not the first to assert a secret US-Iran channel involving Obama aide Jarrett. In November 2012, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said, Jarrett — a Chicago lawyer born in Shiraz, Iran, to American parents, and a good friend of Obama’s — was “a key figure in secret contacts the White House is conducting with the Iranian regime.”
That report said “Jarrett served as the personal and direct emissary of the president to secret meetings with the Iranians, which are understood to have taken place in one of the Gulf principalities.”
4a)Sanctions on Iran Won't Be Cranked Back Up
Arms control in action: The bad guys cheat, and democracies do nothing.
By Douglas Feith
President Obama wants Iran to suspend parts of its nuclear program in return for easing international economic sanctions. Critics contend that if the West strikes a deal along these lines, Iran could cheat far more easily than the rest of the world could reinstate tough sanctions. But Mr. Obama insists that relaxing sanctions is reversible: If the Iranians are "not following through," he recently told NBC News, "We can crank that dial back up."
Peace and arms-control agreements have a long history that warns against such assurances. Democratic countries have time and again failed to get what they bargained for with their undemocratic antagonists—and then found themselves unable or unwilling to enforce the bargain.
After World War I, the Versailles and Locarno Treaties subjected Germany to arms-control measures, including demilitarization of the Rhineland. When Germany's Nazi regime boldly remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, neither Britain, France nor any other treaty party took enforcement action.
This and other 20th-century incidents led U.S. strategist Fred Iklé to write a prescient 1961 "Foreign Affairs" article titled "After Detection—What?" He argued: "In entering into an arms-control agreement, we must know not only that we are technically capable of detecting a violation but also that we or the rest of the world will be politically, legally and militarily in a position to react effectively if a violation is discovered." Iklé foresaw that the Soviets would violate their agreements, and that U.S. presidents would find it difficult or impossible to remedy the violations.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Reuters
Nevertheless, the U.S. made a series of arms-control treaties with the Soviets. When the predicted violations occurred, no enforcement actions were even attempted.
During the Reagan administration, U.S. officials detected a huge radar in the Soviet city of Krasnoyarsk that violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Despite his reputation as an arms-control skeptic and anti-Soviet hard-liner, Reagan concluded he had no good options other than to complain. The U.S. continued to adhere to the treaty for another 16 years, until President George W. Bush withdrew for reasons unrelated to violations.
Another democracy that has failed to enforce agreements is Israel. When Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was asked what Israel would do if the agreement were violated. He declared it was "reversible," assuring skeptics that if the PLO broke its peace pledges, Israel would not only stop territorial withdrawals, but retake the land already traded.
The PLO promptly violated Oslo in various ways, most egregiously by launching the Second Intifada in 2000. But no Israeli government—on the left or right—ever terminated the Accords, let alone reversed any withdrawals.
What typically happens with such agreements is the following: On the democratic side, political leaders hype the agreement to their voters as a proud diplomatic achievement. The nondemocratic side—typically an aggressive, dishonest party—cheats.
The democratic leaders have no desire to detect the violation because they don't want to admit that they oversold the agreement or, for other reasons, they don't want to disrupt relations with the other side. If they can't ignore the violation, they will claim the evidence is inconclusive. But if it is conclusive, they will belittle the significance of the offense. Officials on the democratic side sometimes even act as de facto defense attorneys for the cheaters.
Recall the Krasnoyarsk case. Some U.S. officials in internal administration meetings in which I participated said we should not accuse the Soviets of violating the ABM Treaty simply because they built the football-field-size radar. Rather, they disgracefully but brazenly argued, we should wait until the Soviets turned it on.
When PLO officials in the 1990s breached Oslo by inciting anti-Israel hatred and supporting terrorism, the Israelis who had made the deal offered similarly disgraceful excuses along the lines of: "We don't care what they say, only what they do," and "You have to make peace with your enemies, not with your friends."
An agreement that actually dismantled the Iranian nuclear program would be a formidable accomplishment. But if Mr. Obama can justify his deal with Iran only by promising to "crank up" the relaxed sanctions if and when the Iranian regime cheats, no one should buy it. History teaches that we should expect the cheating, but not effective enforcement.
Mr. Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy (2001-05) and is the author of "War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism" (Harper, 2008).
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