Congress Welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu
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If the Obama administration allows Iran to continue with its illicit nuclear program, the U.S. and the world will be less safe, less secure, and less stable.
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Given the administration’s past capitulations in international negotiations, any agreement on Iran’s nuclear program must be scrutinized.
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Any agreement needs to be accountable, enforceable and verifiable.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington this week to speak to a joint meeting of Congress. He has not been greeted by President Obama or any Cabinet-level official. Instead, the administration – including national security adviser Susan Rice – has sharply criticized the visit. The American people need to hear from the Israeli prime minister on a number of issues, such as the negotiations with Iran over its illicit nuclear program. The president should want to hear from the prime minister as well.
Seeking a legacy with a (bad) Iranian nuclear agreement
President Obama appears to be racking up losses in the Iran negotiations as he chases a comprehensive agreement to burnish his legacy. When progress in the negotiations is described publicly, it seems to identify one point after another on which the United States has capitulated to the Iranian position.
The president said in October 2009 that the United States “will not continue to negotiate indefinitely.” Four years later, he announced a Joint Plan of Action, a six-month interim agreement in which the U.S. suspended enforcement of some sanctions in exchange for Iran freezing and reversing specific elements of its nuclear program. This was supposed to provide time for a final, comprehensive agreement to be negotiated within a year.
That six-month interim agreement is now in its 17th month. The Obama administration now says the political parameters of the final agreement are to be mostly completed by the end of this month, with all technical details to be completed by June.
In the first year of negotiations, Iran received $7 billion in much-needed hard currency. It also got income from the suspension of sanctions in the automotive, precious metals, and petrochemical sectors. As negotiations enter a second year, Iran is expected to benefit from an influx of an additional $4.9 billion in hard currency, along with income from the other suspended sanctions.
Negotiating for nothing
President Obama mishandled these negotiations from the very beginning, when he conceded to Iran in the Joint Plan of Action a right to enrich uranium. Then, his administration went on to say that the metric for a good final agreement is not how much of Iran’s illicit nuclear program is dismantled. Rather, it is if the requirements of the agreement make it such that it would take one year for Iran to construct a nuclear weapon.
This would be no better than the outer bounds of the time frame that existed before the Joint Plan of Action, when the Iranian program was essentially unconstrained. Wendy Sherman, the administration’s chief negotiator, testified to Congress on October 3, 2013, that if Iran’s “Supreme Leader decides that he truly wants to go for a nuclear weapon ... it could take as much as a year before he got there.”
The administration’s negotiating position seems to be: lift sanctions, and Iran’s breakout time stays the same as when sanctions were in effect prior to the Joint Plan of Action. Given that money is fungible, it would seem impossible for any final agreement to ensure that the income Iran receives from sanctions relief is not redirected. The beneficiaries could be activities inimical to U.S. interests, such as Iran’s support for terrorists worldwide and for Bashar Assad in Syria.
The final, comprehensive agreement also will likely fail to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful. There are three main elements of any nuclear weapons program:
- producing enough fissile material for an explosive device;
- designing and manufacturing the device (the warhead); and
- completing the means to deliver it, i.e., a missile.
If public reports are accurate, the Obama administration continues to give concessions on the first point, and its surrogates are advocating further concessions on the second. Foreshadowing the cooperation that can be expected if a final deal is reached, Iran continues to break its promises to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency access to information on the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. No matter how intrusive the verification measures may be under any agreement, they are useless if Iran simply refuses to live up to its commitments.
Little is known about Iran’s progress on the third element. This is a particular concern to Israel. What we do know is that Iran’s missile program is not limited by the terms of the Joint Plan of Action. Since 2010, Iran has had an international legal obligation to “not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology,” as directed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929.
To show how seriously Iran is taking this obligation, it launched a satellite into space in early February, using ballistic missile technology. As the director of national intelligence testified to Congress last week, Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles provides it “with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile.” Technologies associated with a space program are essentially the same as those required for an ICBM-type capability.
The White House press secretary has said that any final agreement with Iran must address the U.N. Security Council resolutions, which have “provisions relating to ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.” Since the director of national intelligence has told Congress that “Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD,” Iran’s missile program must be significantly addressed and curtailed in any agreement. At a minimum, Iran must suspend work on ICBMs, including a ban on space launch vehicles, along with further significant constraints on its entire ballistic missile program.
The Obama administration has a track record of negotiations with our adversaries, including the recent surrender on Cuba and the series of capitulations to Russia in the New START arms control treaty. If these are any guide, the American people and Israel are right to be concerned.
The administration has repeatedly claimed that it is better to have no deal than to get a bad deal. The American people should have no confidence in this bromide, however, since the Obama administration is actively arguing it has no intention of seeking congressional approval of the deal in any form. This is solid evidence the administration has low expectations for the amount of public support any final agreement it is negotiating can attract.
If an agreement is reached, Congress must be given an opportunity to judge its merits. The American people, through their elected representatives, should be the final judge of whether the deal reached truly is better than no deal at all. Both Senators Obama and Biden took the position that any long-term security commitment that President Bush made to Iraq required legislative approval. Surely a long-term agreement with Iran over its nuclear program is as momentous. Hearing from Prime Minister Netanyahu can only enhance America’s deliberations on this issue.
Absolving Palestinians for violating peace promises
President Obama pays lip service to protecting Israel in Middle East peace negotiations. His actions tell a different story. Most notable is his continued attempt to absolve the Palestinians of the consequences of breaking fundamental promises they made.
The Oslo II Agreement, Wye River Memo, and Sharm el-Sheikh Memo all prohibit either party from “chang[ing] the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” prior to the completion of permanent status negotiations. The Palestinians broke this promise in 2011 when they sought recognition as a member state in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Current law prohibits providing U.S. funds to any entity of the U.N. that grants a Palestinian entity the same standing as a member state. When UNESCO granted statehood recognition to the Palestinians, those statutory prohibitions were triggered. In every budget request President Obama has made since then, he has requested legislative authority to waive these restrictions and relieve UNESCO – and the Palestinians – from the consequences of their actions.
“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
– Vice President Biden, 11/3/2012
The Obama administration has presented its budgets as having power beyond numbers. It has treated them as moral touchstones. So it is obvious how much President Obama values protecting Israel in the Middle East peace negotiations, and how much he values holding Palestinians to the promises that they make in those negotiations.
Implementing funding restrictions for Palestinians joining ICC
To further demonstrate how little interest the Palestinians have in negotiating peace with the Israelis, the Palestinians gained status as a non-member observer state in the U.N. General Assembly in November 2012. This is the same status held by the Holy See.
The Palestinians used that status to sign letters of accession to 15 multilateral treaties and conventions in April 2014. The Palestinian Authority then joined the International Criminal Court and 17 other multilateral treaties and conventions at the beginning of this year. Article 125 of the Rome Statute that created the court says it is available to be signed and joined by “states.” Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton summarized why the Palestinian application should have been rejected: “To be part of the treaty, you need to be a state, and the Palestinian Authority is not a state.”
The ICC admitted the Palestinians anyway, finding their observer status in the General Assembly dispositive. The ICC prosecutor then opened a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” The State Department expressed its disagreement with the action, repeating that Palestine is not a state and therefore ineligible to join the court.
In the foreign operations part of the fiscal year 2015 omnibus, section 7041(i) prohibits the use of certain funds “for assistance for the Palestinian Authority” if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.” Given President Obama’s penchant for ignoring the law, Congress must be especially vigilant in ensuring this restriction is implemented if triggered.
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