Outgoing CIA Director, John Brennan said it would be, “folly,” for President-elect Donald Trump to tear up and disregard the Iran nuclear deal, as Trump has reiterated both recently and during the US presidential race. But the folly lies with Director Brennan, Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama for believing this deal would ever work. Has Iran stopped belligerent behavior since sanctions were lifted and the agreement was signed? No, and to believe otherwise is the worse form of constructivism.
Good intentions don’t take the place of a true understanding of the Iranian regime. It was laudable to try negotiations, though that had been done under the previous Bush administration led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. If Director Brennan wanted the Iranian deal to work – and it could’ve worked – then he and the president’s team should’ve understood history, ideology, and regime type.
The current Iranian leadership fits into that model using Islam as an excuse for repression of individual rights. To think the Ayatollah or President Rouhani thought differently was naïve at best, and dangerously misguided without understanding their history.
Moreover, Rouhani is beholden to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military wing and defender of Islamic fascism within the Iranian governmental structure. Without the IRGC this deal isn’t worth the paper it’s currently written on, and means nothing to the Ayatollah. Rouhani is still an Islamist fascist who duped the Americans in particular, and used the financial lust the Russians, Chinese, and Germans had for market access for his gain.
The other laughable notion has always been that Rouhani is a moderate, and the West can do business with by negotiating away their nuclear weapons program. Rouhani is shrewd, but he isn’t Gorbachev. The Iranians were on the pathway to economic ruin, until President Obama did away with sanctions. Iran is not the decrepit, broke country the U.S.S.R. was when Reagan negotiated with Gorbachev. Reagan also had the strongest U.S. military post World War II, whereas President Obama has led to shrinking the world’s policeman’s military.
The Iranian regime type has always been one built on fear, intimidation, and a militarized version of Islam. Wars the Iranians have fostered in the past, and continue to foster as the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism, can only mean on thing: exchanging sanction relief for nuclear weapons will never work, at least until this regime renounces Islamic terror.
There’s a reason 99 U.S. senators just voted to reinstate sanctions on the Iranians. These senators have a better understanding – at least recently – of what they’re dealing with than the Republican senators, President Obama, and Secretary Kerry who ushered in this false notion of peace. But at what cost is the question?
And the lies, falsehoods, and downright deception this non-treaty, treaty was based on will leave a legacy of bloodshed, according to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Martin Dempsey. Director Brennan will call President-elect Trump’s criticism of the Iran deal folly, but did he call out President Obama, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Secretary Kerry, et al over the folly of treating Iran the way you would treat a trade agreement with the British. Of course he didn’t.
Does anyone seriously believe the ideology of the Iranians means they will abide by the contents of the agreement? Would someone ask Director Brennan if he understand the Islamic term, “Taqiyya,” where it is permissible to lie in advance of Islamic beliefs?
It’s the highest form of folly negotiating a multi-billion dollar deal with a country that militarizes Hezbollah, Hamas, and possibly the Muslim Brotherhood. That active ideology alone means sanctions should have been left in place, or at the very least, Director Brennan shouldn’t speak at all about the issue. What his CIA did or didn’t do to advance this geopolitical disaster is unfathomable for a man of his stature. It was a gross dereliction of duty on his part, and many others in the P5 + 1, led by President Obama.
The most famous example of folly is Chamberlin never looking at the truth about history, regime type and ideology of Germany and the National Socialist Party, but instead believing peace at any cost will advance national interests. Director Brennan has made the same fatal mistake, and his flaw is letting U.S. Democratic Party ideology not look at the truth about the Iranian regime.
It’s not weak to speak with enemies, but it’s foolish to believe you can change their mind, because you believe it so. That is one of the many reasons populist insurgencies are remaking the democratic world at this time.
People may not understand the intricacies of the Iran nuclear agreement, the way most of us don’t comprehend advanced engineered infrastructure and avionics, but if a bridge doesn’t work, or a plane falls from the sky, then we know something didn’t work. And that is exactly how Donald Trump got elected – people know something is wrong in the world. This is a fallacy-caked agreement, and the quest for a presidential legacy that created it is fueling an electoral pushback from the Rhine to ‘Main Street’ USA.
What Director Brennan’s ideology revealed was he led during the time an agreement was put in place with the Iranians that even French socialists thought was setting a bad precedent. What’s stunning is how Director Brennan never thought it was folly for the U.S. military to continue to take unprofessional, provocative behavior from the Iranians while never responding in kind. Has he ever publicly uttered the word folly, naïve, or war-like behavior this past year when Iran has been on the hegemonic march throughout the Middle East? He should’ve been fired for letting it happen, or not speaking truth to the P5 + 1 powers.
Director Brennan should quietly step aside, and prepare for the next administration and director to take his place. Using words such as folly only embolden our enemies, and after eight years of leading from behind, the world needs leaders who understand deterrence, balance of power, and the use of military force as an option. If regime type, ideology, and history aren’t considered – as which seems to be the case with Brennan’s choice of words – then doing nothing for a few more weeks is the best option.
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