My wife and I are classic, Jewish liberal voters - the kind that vote 80 percent for Democratic candidates.
While we supported Hillary Clinton in 2008, we were content to vote for Barack Obama for President. And yes, we were moved by the thought that an African-American would become president of the United States. Like many others, we were filled with hope that this would herald a new era of integration and achievement for them which would bring with it improvement in race relations. We also have been troubled by the harsh and partisan tone of the continual criticism of President Obama.
Although we were worried that the radical Islamist wave sweeping the Muslim world would not stop until it was checked militarily, we accepted that the American public wanted him to end our fighting involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are the perspectives from which we followed the negotiations with Iran. Intrigued by his belief that he could solve the problem with diplomacy, we even felt that his concept to turn Iran from its anti-American and aggressive policies was worth a try.
We received our first shock when he crossed his own red line and reversed a 70-year, bipartisan American nonproliferation policy to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. While this policy failed to stop Pakistan and North Korea, it was immensely successful in shaping a safer world - especially in the Middle East where instability and the chance of non-government, terrorist actors gaining possession, made the spread of nuclear arms especially threatening.
We do not attribute unworthy motives to the president. He made a calculation that the American people were not emotionally or in moral fiber up to the possibility of waging war to stop Iran. Therefore, he concluded to settle for limitation instead of elimination of Iran's drive to nuclearization. If he had communicated to Iran that if diplomacy failed, military action would inevitably be America's only choice, then Iran would have negotiated an end to its program (as it offered to do in 2003 when it feared that it was militarily vulnerable to an American invasion). The president made the same judgment on the limits of his people and of his leadership that Neville Chamberlain made in 1938.
People are trying to hang the president with guilt-by-association with Chamberlain as a sellout - but this is unfair to Obama and to Chamberlain. The British prime minister made a realistic calculation. The British and the French people were not prepared - emotionally or militarily - to go to war to stop Hitler. Therefore he turned to negotiation in the hope that diplomacy - including yielding on Czechoslovakia - would satisfy Hitler and turn him to domestic affairs. Only with hindsight, do we grasp Churchill's legitimate critique. Sometimes, when the stakes are high enough, a leader should push his people to the point where he may put himself in electoral danger. He should have told them that unless they force themselves to risk a fight now, they would likely have to fight later under worse circumstances.
Personally -as a liberal - I fear that President Obama's weakness derived precisely from the liberal discomfort to use force (or the threat of force) as a sometimes necessary tool of diplomacy and of defending freedom.
Having yielded to his people's weakness, the president did his best to negotiate the Iran nuclear danger. I gratefully acknowledge two serious accomplishments in this treaty. One is that it bought 15 years of time in which Iran will not make nuclear bombs. This includes - no small accomplishment - that it will dramatically reduce its current holdings of fissionable nuclear ammunition to 300 kg, i.e., less than one bomb. Also the path to a bomb through plutonium which is being pursued at Fordo is being closed down for this period.
The other great accomplishment is Iran's agreement to 24/7 monitoring of its known operating supply chain of uranium, yellowcake, etc. so that it cannot siphon off materials for a clandestine bomb. While I worry that the rules restricting inspections on newly suspected sites gives room for cheating, I don't think that this cancels the value of the treaty.
However, other concessions - such as allowing centrifuge research and development, permission to develop intercontinental ballistic delivery systems after eight years, etc. - lead to the fatal flaw in this treaty. It is one which the president has acknowledged. After 15 years, when the restraints have expired, Iran will be a nuclear threshold state with the capability of manufacturing many, many nuclear devices and delivering them within weeks. And it cannot be stopped in time.
In the lives of presidents, 15 years is an eternity. But in the lives of countries, 15 years is the blink of an eye. It is intolerable that the United States then would be under nuclear threat from a country whose leadership proclaims "death to America". They hate this country as the Great Satan, representing democracy, liberalism and Western culture which they see as their mortal enemy and the greatest danger to their radical, Messianist Shiite Islamism.
I find it no less abhorrent that this threat will be posed at Israel, a country which Iran's leadership view through an anti-Semitic, demonizing lens which can justify any crime against it. This leadership - including Ayatollah Khamenei - has proclaimed repeatedly that Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth. This nightmare particularly haunts me in light of a comment made by Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran from 1985-1997 (who has since been removed from politics for being too moderate and an opponent of the regime). He said that "use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything... [But a counter Israeli nuclear blow would ] only harm the Islamic world."
No country - not the United States, not Israel, not any country - should have to live under such a threat. Liberalism and preference for diplomacy should never translate into some tolerance for the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. For this reason alone, this treaty must be defeated. I call on fellow liberals and Democratic legislators to rise above party politics and vote against this treaty. True, the president hopes that the moderates will be strengthened and will take over in Iran. I pray for that outcome also. But nothing in this treaty forces Khamenei or the hardliners to override any of their red lines. So nothing in this treaty makes a transfer of power less unlikely than it is now.
This brings up the other great flaw in this treaty. In order to get the deal done, President Obama made no attempt to require Iran to moderate - neither to release Americans being held hostage there, nor to stop calling for death to America, nor to restrain its aggressive policies in the Middle East nor to curb its use of terrorist proxies to assault Israel and America's other allies. This means that the end of sanctions will give Iran a $100 billion windfall to give extra strength to its proxies to attack American interests and destabilize a tottering Middle East.
Have I nothing to offer the president who feels that this treaty could be his foreign policy legacy? What can I say to Democratic legislators who feel that they owe it to the president to uphold his vision - especially when they judge the overwhelming Republican opposition as driven by partisan considerations. I personally am grateful to the Republicans who as conservatives, are more comfortable with the use of power. This has given them the insight to see the fatal flaw in the treaty. Still, what constructive outlet can I offer those Democrats who fear that if the treaty is defeated then worse will happen because there is no better option out there? And what if, in fact, enough votes cannot be corralled to override a presidential veto? Here is my proposal.
Congress should make clear that it will vote against the treaty - unless its fundamental flaws are corrected. This correction would require bipartisan cooperation between the White House and Democrats and Republicans in both houses.
- To stop Iran from manufacturing a bomb: the Congress should pass legislation stating that since the expiration of the treaty will leave Iran a nuclear threshold state that the United States hereby declares that any steps Iran takes in the future to purify uranium to 90% (weapons grade) level, will be an act of war. Then the United States will automatically take out the Iranian installations. Since the Iranians might persuade themselves that the present administration or its like would never use force, it is important that a congressional declaration be made - and welcomed by the White House publicly - to show that this is not an empty threat. It is a definitive statement that Iran will never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.
- To prevent use of the windfall to expand aggression by Iran and its allies: the United States should state now that it will increase by matching amounts its funding, training and airstrikes to aid its allies in stopping Iran's proxies on all fronts.
- Since Israel is most directly threatened with destruction by Iran if that country gains a nuclear bomb, the United States should announce that starting in the ninth year of the treaty (when certain restrictions on Iran's military development expire) it will lend-lease to Israel the M.O.P.(Massive Ordinance Penetrator) and the bomber which can deliver it. This 37,000 pound bomb is capable of penetrating and blowing up mountains, hence it can reach and destroy Iran's nuclear bomb installations. The United States should make clear that it will not let Israel use the bomb offensively. However if Iran moves to weaponize, in violation of the treaty or after its expiration, then the one country facing an existential threat will be equipped, trained and capable of using this weapon in self-defense .
In the interim, the United States should also expand its military assistance and cooperation with Israel to assure its qualitative superiority over Iran.
All these steps would require bipartisan cooperation. This would create a far more effective deterrent to Iran considering going nuclear than a treaty going into effect despite a negative vote from the Congress of the United States or even than one defeated with some bare-bones Democratic help. I believe that the Republican Party would show its patriotism and dedication to the cause of American security and a safer world by joining in legislation that eliminates the worst faults of the treaty - as a substitute for defeating it (which the party may not be able to do). Democrats who are supporting the treaty out of loyalty to President Obama would have the satisfaction of knowing that they have shown him an even greater faithfulness - taken out the potential bad effects of his legacy treaty.
Personally, I would be able to sleep better at night knowing that a decade from now, a significant fraction of my people, the Jewish people, will not be forced to live under the constant shadow of a nuclear holocaust, potentially inflicted by people who have made clear that they consider them fair game for destruction. In protecting them, we would be protecting all the potential targets, that is, Europe and the United States which could be reached through the intercontinental ballistic missiles under development as well as the nations of the Middle East who oppose Iran's hegemony.
For humanity to live with itself and its conscience, the agreement with Iran must be defeated - or saved.