Only five days before Congress votes on the P5+1 [including the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany] Iranian nuke-deal, GOP presidential candidates real estate mogul Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined hands on Capital Hill to protest President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. Insisting “countless” numbers of lives will be lost by the deal, Trump blasted the agreement as “incompetent” negotiating. Trump, the author of the 1987 book “The Art of the Deal,” promised he would have driven a harder bargain with Iran, regardless of the two-year back-and-forth negotiation headed by 70-year-old Secretary of State John Kerry. Trump, Cruz and Palin are late to the party since ranking House member former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced yesterday she has the 41 Democratic votes needed to sustain a presidential veto.
Knowing that Obama has all the votes needed to pass the Iranian nuke deal through Congress, Trump, Cruz and Palin continue the political grandstanding. “We are led by very, very stupid people,” said Trump, implying Obama and Kerry, as one-sixth of the international negotiating team, somehow gave away the store, or, more absurd, were bullied by Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany. Whatever the flaws or merits of the agreement, it puts Iran under the watchful eye of the U.N’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, renewing inspections of Iran’s atomic facilities, regardless of what critics say. “We will have so much winning if I get elected, that you many get bored of winning,” said Trump, talking like he’s still hosting NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show. Cruz and Palin look to curry favor with Trump, now looking like the GOP’s prohibitive favorite.
Reaching a nuke-deal July 14, conservatives on Capitol Hill hoped they could derail the agreement before Congress gets to vote Sept. 14. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu practically stood on his head to discredit and defeat the nuke agreement. World leaders, while acknowledging the deal’s misgivings, saw more good than bad, backing the plan to renew IAEA inspections and curtail Iran’s enrichment program. Iran wanted, above all else, to end international sanctions hurting the economy, especially international oil sales. Netanyahu, and some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, think ending sanctions will accelerate Iran’s bomb development. With or without the end to international sanctions, Iran could pursue a clandestine military program and risk the “snapback” provisions, reinstating economic punitive sanctions if Iran cheats.
Wooing Trump to his way of thinking, Cruz hopes Trump gives him some consideration for vice president if the current trends hold. “You cannot watch your hand of that,” said Cruz, ripping House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for not actively working to defeat the deal. “Any commander-in-chief worthy of defending this nation should be prepared to stand up on Jan. 20, 2017 and rip to shreds this catastrophic deal,” said Cruz, playing fast-and-loose with the facts. Not only has Iran denied working on an A-bomb in the past, they’ve expressed through two years of negotiation no interest in pursuing military applications. Cruz accepts Netanyahu’s view as gospel that Iran’s an “existential threat” to Israel. Netanyahu sites no proof other that Iran’s past belligerent rhetoric about “wiping Israel off the map.”
Collective wisdom of the international community believes that placing Iran’s nuke program under the watchful IAEA is better for world peace. Trump & Co. would have you believe that somehow they’d negotiate a better deal, despite efforts by the P5+1 to twist Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei arm. Ready to break off negotiations on many occasions, the P5+1 got the best deal possible. While relaxing tensions with Europe, Khamenei reaffirmed yesterday he has no intent of normalizing relations with the U.S. Since agreeing to the deal July 14, Khamenei, his President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif have heard only hostile rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill. Joining forces with Cruz and Palin, Trump looks to curry favor with the Tea Party wing of the GOP, so far skeptical of Trump’s more centrist GOP campaign.
Joining forces with Cruz and Palin, Trump wants to send a loud signal to the Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee that he’s in the GOP race to win. Priebus hoped that voters turn to Tea Party favorites like Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) or Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), all rubber-stamping the GOP’s most conservative agenda. “I’m not dropping out of anything. I never drop out,” said Trump, reassuring the GOP base that he’s in the race for the long haul. While there’s no way to forecast how Trump will do in red states, especially the South, his strong showing in national polls proves that he’s the one to beat. Strong moderate-leaning GOP candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, also Tea Party favorites, have watched their campaigns head south. Now that the Iran nuke-deal’s a done-deal, it doesn’t help the GOP to beat a dead horse.
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