How Can We Possibly Trust Obama on Iran?

The Roman legal maxim Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Ominibus, meaning one who testifies falsely on one thing cannot be trusted on anything, may be a bit of an exaggeration. But what about Falsus repeatedly, as Barack Obama has been?

How can we let a president who has lied dozens of times about our healthcare negotiate something as cataclysmic as nuclear weaponry with Iran? How can we possibly trust him?

And yet that is happening before our eyes. The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

Iran and world powers expect to announce an initial deal as early as Friday to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for an easing of sanctions, a step that would mark the first breakthrough in a decade to blunt the threat of Tehran developing nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State John Kerry will fly to Geneva on Friday to complete the deal, the State Department said.

Fromt the New York Times:

But even as the two sides tried to finalize the agreement on Thursday, fissures have widened between the United States and some of its principal allies over the potential pact, which has been hailed by the Obama administration as a possible breakthrough in the yearslong standoff over Iran’s nuclear aspirations but dismissed by critics as a temporizing measure that would leave the core of Tehran’s atomic program intact.

Wonder who those principal allies might be? Probably not. Who would want to be Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at this moment? It’s clear he does not have an ally in the White House, but he has undoubtedly known that for some time, since he was unceremoniously escorted out the back door of that building. Or, if not then, when Obama made not a peep when the Green Movement democracy demonstrators cried out to him for help from the streets of Tehran — the worst moment of his administration until the lies about Obamacare and Benghazi trumped all.

What motivates Obama in his “dialogue” with Iran is the same thing that motivates him in everything: his own glory. With Obamacare what mattered is that national healthcare reform be associated with him; the details, as we now painfully learn, are unimportant. With Iran, it matters little if the mullahs ultimately have nuclear weapons or not, only that President Obama himself be perceived as the one who has solved the situation.

The good news is that the Iranians may be too fractious a society themselves to make a real deal (and then quietly go about building what weapons of mass destruction they desire the way the North Koreans have been able to do.) But I wouldn’t count on it. Remember Rouhani was one of Ayatollah Khamenei’s few approved candidates. In fact, the Iranians seem to rotate “moderates” (Khatami) and “hardliners” (Ahmadinejad) in order to manipulate outside pressures. I’m not sure which I prefer. The “hardliners” are more publicly noxious, but the “moderates” are probably more dangerous.

As important as Obamacare and other economics issues are, let’s hope Congress is paying very close attention to these Iran negotiations. A president who is becoming increasingly defensive with each passing day is likely to do something erratic and dangerous. We cannot let him. Otherwise it will certainly be “Israel alone.” Maybe it already is.