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| Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) lives to fight another day |
The Memorandum of Understanding between the United States
and Iran is beyond terrible. It almost justifies what many Democrats have been
claiming: that we are worse off now than we were before we attacked Iran. While
that is not yet true, we may end up there if the President continues down this
path.
What makes this so shocking is that this is the same
President who finally had the courage to do what should have been done 47 years
ago. Together with Israel, the United States used its overwhelming military
superiority to cripple Iran’s military, eliminate much of its leadership,
destroy most of its air force and navy, achieve complete air superiority, and
significantly reduce its ballistic missile arsenal.
When Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz and
driving up fuel prices worldwide, the United States quickly tightened the
screws, restricting Iran’s access to shipping. As the President likes to say,
“We had all the cards.” Iran was on the ropes, despite its claims of victory.
We also had the moral high ground. Iran remains the world’s
leading sponsor of terrorism, arming and funding proxies dedicated to attacking
Israel, arguably America’s closest ally. Even worse, the regime has brutalized
its own people, killing tens of thousands of protesters and ruling through fear
and religious tyranny. That is why Iranian expatriates around the world
overwhelmingly applauded the actions of both the United States and Israel when
the war began.
The President was also right to reject Barack Obama’s
nuclear agreement. Not only was Iran later found violating its terms, but even
if it had complied, the deal would merely have delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions
while allowing it to continue funding terrorist proxies and expanding its
missile arsenal. It paved the way to a nuclear weapon rather than preventing
one.
As far as I am concerned, regime change was always the right
goal.
Although Iran emerged from the war badly weakened, it
survived. It retained enough missiles and drones to inflict damage and
succeeded in disrupting the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz to
shipping. The president responded with a blockade of its own – crippling Iran’s
economy even further. That left us in a stalemate. Meanwhile Iran remains
committed to its radical Islamist goals and shows no sign of changing course.
The logical solution was to finish the job. A full-scale
assault against a severely weakened Iran would have been costly, but it could
have ended the regime, liberated the Iranian people, cut off support for
terrorist proxies, and made the world a much safer place.
But that is not what happened.
Instead, the president capitulated. There are no meaningful
guarantees regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and any future agreement is
unlikely to be much better than Obama’s deal.
Most astonishing of all, the President reportedly argued
that it would be unfair to deny Iran ballistic missiles because neighboring
countries possess them.
Unfair?
Denying ballistic missiles to a regime that has spent 47
years chanting “Death to America” is not unfair. It is common sense. When a
country openly seeks your destruction, you do not provide it with the means to
achieve that goal.
Nor does the Memorandum address Iran’s sponsorship of
terrorism…
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