Despite attack near U.S. consulate, Biden desperate to sign dangerous Iran deal

by James Sinkinson

(FLAME) — Last week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched 14 missiles that landed near the U.S. consulate in Erbil, northern Iraq — though strangely, the IRGC said it was aiming for an unspecified Israeli “strategic center.”

Nonetheless, the Biden administration continues negotiations with Iran in Vienna — meant to reward Iran with a $90 billion “signing bonus” and a clear path to nuclear weapons.

In response to this attack — as well as leaks about dangerous concessions to Iran in the nuclear talks — some 20 U.S. House representatives, including 12 Democrats, sent a message to President Biden expressing grave doubts about any deal. Their letter concluded, “it is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed.”

Their assessment is an understatement. The deal Team Biden is pushing in Vienna is a triumph of obsession over reason. It is not only hard to support, it’s frightening.

Biden promised in 2020 an “unshakeable commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” Read that again. This noble and necessary goal would have required strengthening the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, since that document gave Iran a prescribed path to nuclear weapons over 15 years.

Yet the current deal reportedly fails to tighten restrictions on the Islamic Republic — it actually loosens limits on uranium enrichment, from 3.67% in the old deal to 20%, a threshold hurdle on the path to nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, Iran has already been enriching to 60% purity — giving it a current nuclear breakout time of just six months. Suffice it to say, the new deal — called JCPOA 2 — puts the lie to Biden’s promise of a more robust agreement: It does absolutely nothing to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Not only will the deal being cooked up by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia and the United States allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, it will also permit Tehran to continue developing the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) needed to launch their nukes against enemies globally.

It will in no way limit Iran’s motivation or ability to sponsor violent jihad in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria or Latin America, where it has been increasingly active.

That’s why, just two weeks ago, the powerful Arab Quartet Committee — comprised of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt — issued a statement urgently warning the Biden administration against any deal that would give Iran nukes, permit its ICBMs, or support its terrorism in the Middle East.

It’s also why Saudi and UAE leaders refused calls from President Biden to discuss increasing oil output.

Clearly, the new deal will in no way inhibit Iran’s threats or acts of war against Israel. As evidenced by Tehran’s recent attack on our consulate in northern Iraq, neither will the agreement stop them from aggression toward the United States.

In fact, the Biden strategy — led by U.S. Iran envoy Robert Malley — promises to make the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism even more terrifying.

Shocking, but no surprise: Three members of Biden’s Iran negotiating team recently resigned over disagreements with the U.S. position, which they felt was too soft on Iran. In particular, they disagreed with the dovish Malley’s refusal to enforce existing sanctions on the Islamic Republic and reluctance to walk away in the face of ever-more outrageous Iranian demands.

No wonder former national security official Richard Goldberg called the new Iran agreement “the worst deal in history.”

To make matters worse, Russia — having taken a leadership role in Vienna, mediating between the United States and Iran — is now introducing its own demands, related to its war against Ukraine. Russia wants written guarantees that America’s Ukraine-related sanctions won’t restrain it from doing business with Tehran under JCPOA 2.

Let’s just state this clearly: Not only is the United States agreeing to rescind all major sanctions against Iran and its terrorist leadership — putting hundreds of billions of dollars in the ayatollahs’ pockets — we’re now being asked to soften sanctions against Russia, all for the sake of a new, weaker Iran nuclear deal.

Given Iran’s past lying and cheating, its headlong determination to acquire nuclear weapons, its sweetheart relationship with Russia and its increasingly unreasonable negotiating terms, why is Biden so obsessed with doing this dangerous deal?

Aside from wanting to reverse President Trump’s demolition of Obama’s JCPOA, State Department experts say a new Iran deal — in a hurry — is key to the Biden administration’s global strategy. Biden wants to de-emphasize the Middle East — by first putting Iran “in a box” — then move to rebuild relationships with Europe and focus more on China and Russia.

Unfortunately for Biden, Iran refuses to jump into the box, Arab states are angry and panicking, Russia decided to invade a sovereign European democracy and China vigorously continues all its competitive, destabilizing and genocidal activities.

Events are telling the Biden team it’s time to reset. Yet they seem possessed — hell-bent.

Despite all evidence that this new Iran deal fails spectacularly to achieve the longer, stronger Iran deal we were promised; despite the fact that the deal gives Iran a huge new source of funding for its terrorist activities and makes it a nuclear threshold state in just three short years; despite a virtual guarantee that Iran will soon have enough nuclear material to create an arsenal of dozens of nuclear weapons capable of reaching any part of the United States — let alone Israel — the Biden administration seems in a desperate rush to sign it.

We simply cannot afford to allow a rogue jihadi state — a declared enemy of both the United States and Israel — to build nuclear weapons. Even if Biden ignores the warnings of our Middle East allies — and especially the alarm of fellow Democrats in a midterm-election year — we must make him understand that we, the people, do not approve of this madness. We fear for our country, we fear for the world.

James Sinkinson is president of Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME), which publishes educational messages to correct lies and misperceptions about Israel and its relationship to the United States.