William Kristol
(Yes-it is a bad deal-we know this morning)
As we go to press, the Obama administration seems to
be hurtling towards a bad deal with Iran. The administration will claim
the agreement freezes and indeed sets back the Iranian nuclear program.
But even the New York Times acknowledges that “only some
elements are frozen, and rollbacks in the initial agreement are
relatively minor” and can be easily reversed. Furthermore, the “deal”
would mean the United States would retreat from its previous clear red
line—one embodied in repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions—of
requiring that Iran stop enrichment. It would allow Iran to move ever
closer to nuclear weapons while getting significant sanctions relief.
Some deal! In truth, it’s not a deal in the usual meaning of the term.
It’s an accommodation. It’s a way for the Obama administration to avoid
confronting Iran, and to buy time to acclimate the world to accepting a
nuclear Iran.
What will the Obama administration’s leading lights say
when this becomes obvious? When he sees his grand diplomatic achievement
crumbling around him, will Secretary of State John Kerry join his
counterpart, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in
sighing and exclaiming with pithy eloquence, “Uh-oh”? Will President
Barack Obama offer the same apology to the Israelis that he has to
Americans who held insurance policies they liked: “I am sorry that they
are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got
from me”? As the implementation of the Iran agreement goes the way of
the implementation of Obamacare, will his reaction be to say, “We’re
going to have to, obviously, re-market and re-brand”?
The president and his colleagues will presumably say these
sorts of things. But of course it will be too late. Congress can
legislate to try to make up for the failure of Obama’s assurances about
health insurance, and to try to help Americans get their old policies
back. But Congress won’t be able to legislate to undo a nuclear Iran.
The American people can ignore Obama’s efforts to re-market and re-brand
Obamacare, and instead insist on its repeal. But the American people
won’t be able to repeal Iran’s nuclear weapons once Iran has them.
That’s why serious people, in Congress and outside, will
do their utmost to expose and scuttle Obama’s bad Iran deal. They can
expect to be smeared by the Obama administration as reckless warmongers
and slandered by Obama’s media epigones as tools of the Israel lobby.
One trusts at least some members of Congress and some political leaders
are made of stern enough stuff to resist the attempted intimidation.
But one can’t be optimistic about their chances for
success in scuttling the deal. And one can’t be optimistic that the
Obama administration will reverse course at the eleventh hour. Which
means the last, best hope for stopping the Iranian regime from having
nuclear weapons may well lie in a deus ex machina (if one may
be permitted to use a pagan phrase for a Jewish state). It is Israel,
not the great American superpower, that may well have to act to thwart
Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And so the democratically elected leader of
Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will have to weigh his
choices, with the burden of history on his mind and the judgment of
future generations in his thoughts.
Last week was the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address. Many commentators mentioned the irony of Lincoln’s
saying that his brief remarks would soon be forgotten. There was indeed
irony, an intended irony, in the statement. But Lincoln’s tribute to
those who fought, and his elevation of their deeds above his speech,
isn’t ironic:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg will be studied as long as
people care about the American experiment in self-government, or about
political greatness. But Lincoln knew as well as anyone that speech has
to be supported by deeds. It was the soldiers’ hard-won victory in the
battle of Gettysburg that was the precondition for Lincoln’s remarks,
and for America’s “new birth of freedom.” So Lincoln was telling the
plain but deep truth when he emphasized, and gave priority to, “what
they did here.” In politics, deeds matter. Speech, even the most
eloquent and thoughtful speech, is not enough.
Benjamin Netanyahu understands this. Jewish history, and
not just Jewish history, teaches this lesson. Netanyahu may well judge
that he has to act to stop the Iranian regime from getting nuclear
weapons. If he does, then Israel will fight. And Israel will be right.
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