How to Defeat the Grand Bargain with Iran

I think most of those trying to stop the approval of the Iran Deal are going about it wrong.  I don’t believe you can stop this thing by going through the text and pointing out its myriad flaws, nor do I think it’s good enough to expose the many lies Obama, Kerry, Rhodes et. al. told us along the way, nor even to uncover secret deals.  Kerry and Zarif spent 27 hours alone during the negotiations, and we’re not going to get a transcript of those conversations, nor will either of them tell us what they may have agreed.  And even if they did, I don’t think it would produce enough public political rage to stiffen the wobbly spines of our elected leaders.

The critics are quite right for the most part: it’s an awful agreement, the administration has behaved abominably, and the deal should be rejected.  I’m just talking about the best way to do it, the best tactics to use.  Obama understands how to do it:  reduce the issue to a simple choice.  He does that when he says that Congress must either approve the Grand Bargain or plunge the Middle East–or is it the world?–into war.

We should answer it:  Iran has been at war with us for 36 years, and this deal–the latest of its kind–gives Iran lots of money to kill even more Americans.  Indeed, we’ve been doing it for quite a while.

In a single phrase:  the war is already ON, and we’re paying the Iranians to kill us.  You want to pay them even more?  Apparently that’s what Obama wants.

That’s the essence of the matter, but we’re all wrapped up in on-site inspections, complicated annexes and a steady flow of information that’s been withheld from us.  That won’t work.  Just stick to the one-liner.  Americans don’t like our guys getting murdered by Iranians and their proxies, and we don’t like being shaken down by our own killers.

Remember when comrade Lenin remarked that the capitalists would eventually buy the rope and supply it to their hangman?  Well here we are.

In my conversations with leading members of Congress, I’m constantly amazed to find how many of them–including members of key committees, representatives who have been briefed extensively on the Iran question–do NOT KNOW that we have been sending the Iranian regime upwards of seven hundred million dollars a month.  We’ve been doing it for a year and a half.

As we keep saying “the war is ON, it’s been on for 36 years, and now we’re paying for it, and Obama is proposing to pay even more,” we should remind the American people that we are already paying Iran to kill Americans.

And we can add one more thing:  this deal is part of a pattern of indifference to the lives of Americans targeted by the Iranian regime.  Obama’s failure to insist on the release of U.S. hostages proves that.

I don’t know if that will do it, but I think this approach has a better chance than delving into the details of the Grand Bargain.  Our message to the American people should be simple and powerful, and, unlike Obama’s phony option, truthful.