Obama's Legacy of Ruin

Adam Smith famously said, "There is a lot of ruin in a nation." Barack Obama seems hell bent on seeing how much ruin he can inflict on this country as part of his "legacy."

The Iran nuclear arms deal is a dire threat to America. We could easily lose a major city to a terrorist nuclear weapon hidden in a hijacked ocean freighter. We also run the risk that other countries who once depended on the US to defend them from nuclear threats will feel compelled to make their own arrangements. This could easily lead to a general, perhaps nuclear war in the Middle East.

Putin is taking crazy chances because he knows his grip on power is threatened by the rock bottom price of oil. Energy is Russia's main world class export. The last time oil prices crashed, Russian inflation hit 80% a year, Russia defaulted on its bonds and Boris Yeltsin was forced from power. That's how Putin came to power. Putin believes, probably correctly, that losing power will be the death of him. He has resorted to risky military adventures to bolster his popularity. Putin has found no US resistance to his attacks on the Ukraine and Syria. In the Ukraine, Obama has not supplied any weapons at all. Putin's next trick could be attacking Lithuania, a former Soviet Republic and now NATO ally. At the moment, Putin has just finished quietly negotiating basing rights in Belarus, next door to Lithuania, while everybody is watching the Russian Air Force bomb civilians in Syria.

I am also concerned that Obama's disdain for the Constitution and rule of law has created dangerous precedents that his successors will emulate. I don't want a dictator even if he's on my side. I think it will probably take a Constitutional Convention called by the states to fix the mess, because the courts have not acted to restrain the administration's extralegal moves. In many cases they have piled on themselves, for example in the Obamacare cases where they rewrote the law twice without benefit of Congress.

As to the amount of ruin in the US, I am fearfully asking myself, "Are we there yet?" 

Iran Agreement: They Don't Want to Talk About It

Democrats are so proud of their Iran nuclear agreement with Iran, they don’t want to talk about it.  Last week 42 Senate Democrats voted to filibuster the consideration of the Iran nuclear agreement that they voted for when they passed the Corker bill, officially the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.  The Corker bill was supposed to force a vote in the Senate and House on the merits of the Iran agreement.  It was also supposed to force disclosure of the whole agreement including all of the secret side deals.  The Corker bill failed at both of these tasks due to the total lack of good faith from Democrats, who never really wanted to subject the agreement to any discussion at all.  The reason the Democrats voted for the filibuster was to spare the president from the embarrassment of having to veto a bill disapproving the Iran Agreement.  Evidently, the terms of the agreement itself are not embarrassing, but having to veto a bill disapproving it would be.

The successful filibuster is hailed by the Pravda Press as a great success for President Obama.  I guess I’m just a redneck, but I don’t get it.  The agreement is opposed by a large majority of Americans in every poll.  The Democrats could not get a majority of either House to vote for it, let alone the 2/3 of the Senate normally required for a treaty.  The secret side deals between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, basically allow the Iranians to stall any inspection for 24 days and also let the Iranians inspect themselves in areas where they refused to allow foreign inspectors.  It’s likely there are more secret provisions that have not been revealed publicly.  The US achieved none of our original negotiating objectives.  We have not stopped Iran’s nuclear enrichment.  We do not have inspections anywhere anytime.  Barry the Brilliant has just agreed to pay the Mad Mullahs about $150 billion to take our surrender.  The Mad Mullahs are thrilled because their oil revenues run only about $55 billion a year.

All of this ruthless action was to provide President Obama with a legacy agreement with Iran.  The Middle East is on fire because Obama needed Iran’s approval to get his legacy agreement.  We could not leave troops in Iraq to support a nonsectarian regime, support the civilian protests in Tehran against a rigged election or get rid of Bashir Al Assad no matter how many Syrian civilians he killed with barrel bombs or poison gas.  Any of these actions would have upset the Iranian government and made the legacy nuclear agreement impossible.  This agreement was worth the deaths of several hundred thousand Syrians.  This agreement was worth allowing the rise of ISIS.  This agreement was worth trashing the Constitutional treaty ratification mechanism.  And the agreement is so bad, Democrats filibustered it in the Senate because they don’t want to talk about it.  

Given that Iran's leadership believe Allah has ordered them to wipe Israel off the map and kill us if we don't convert, would you want to talk about it?

What Did Corker's Deal Do For Republicans?

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, written by Republican Senator Bob Corker, set up a framework that mandates Congressional review of any arms control agreement with Iran, but allows the agreement to go into force unless Congress can override President Obama’s veto of a bill to stop the agreement.  Since the agreement seems very tilted in favor of President Obama, why would Corker write and help pass such legislation?

What Corker bought us is an on the record vote by every Democrat in Congress on the Iran agreement. Without the Corker bill, there would have been no vote at all. Traditionally, Congress does not vote on Executive Agreements. You must measure Corker’s agreement by the way the Smartest President Ever got the agreement ratified in the UN before Congress could even vote.  Without Corker’s agreement, there would have been no vote and no debate in Congress on the Iran deal.

Further, once that vote is taken, it will be a matter of public record that Barry the Brilliant acted without the advice and consent of anybody beyond his circle of cronies. The Israelis and Saudis are not going to wait quietly while Iran gathers the strength to kill them. They will attack first. The situation will quickly deteriorate in the Middle East to the point that even the Pravda Press can't ignore the general, perhaps nuclear, war that the agreement triggered. We will have a Democratic president, Obama, supported by Congressional Democrats who voted on the record, who made an agreement the majority of both Houses of Congress voted against. This Chicago Machine Prodigy will carry it out anyway, showing his true colors as an arrogant aspiring dictator. That will be a great campaign issue against every Democrat in 2016.

You should note that the Obama administration feels free to ignore Executive Agreements concerning nuclear disarmament whenever convenient. In 1994 the US, UK and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum with the Ukraine. In return for the Ukraine surrendering all of the former Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory, the US, UK and Russia guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine. Last year, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukraine, then invaded the Ukraine from the east. The Smartest President Ever refused to send any weapons to help the Ukrainians. He only sent "non-lethal" aid. I know that US field rations are much better than Soviet era leftovers, but do you really believe that's keeping the promise of the Budapest Memorandum?

Since the Smartest President Ever has ignored Executive Agreements he didn’t like, and since the Iran Executive Agreement will have been put in force after being rejected by a majority in both houses of Congress, it should be relatively easy for a Republican president to cancel it in 2017.  If a Democrat is elected in 2016, the country will have so many problems that nuclear war in the Middle East may seem relatively minor.

Iran Deal Will Lead To Middle East War

Democrats believe that Saudi Arabia and Israel will wait patiently until Iran uses the benefits of Obama's deal to gather enough strength to kill them.  The deal frees $150 billion in frozen assets that Iran can use to buy weapons, train terrorists and finance weapons development.  The agreement allows the inspection of only "civilian" Iranian nuclear sites and allows the Iranians to demand 24 days advance notice of inspections.  So Democrats believe this deal has secured peace in our time.

I believe that Saudi Arabia and Israel will attack Iran very soon after the deal goes into effect because both Saudis and Israelis believe that Iran's threats to convert or kill all Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia and to wipe Israel off the map are exactly what the Iranians intend to do if given the chance.  

Iran's economy is very easy to damage.  About 90% of Iran's oil exports flow through the big oil terminal on Kharg Island, 16 miles off shore.  The Iraqi air force knocked out Kharg Island during the 198-1988 Iran Iraq war.  Both Saudi Arabia and Israel have air forces far superior to the Iraqi air force of the 80's.  

Also, while Iran has lots of crude oil, it has no oil refineries.  They import all refined oil products, including gasoline, diesel and kerosene.  Kerosene is widely used for home cooking, so shortages would cause political instability.  Mining Iran's major ports from the air would stop the importation almost all refined imports.

If the Saudis and Israelis decide to hit Iranian nuclear facilities directly, they can't do it with conventional weapons.  In particular, Iran's nuclear facility at Fordow has equipment levels as low as 300 feet below ground.  A 30,000 pound bunker buster bomb with conventional explosives might be able to inflict significant damage.  Unfortunately, only the US Air Force has the capability to deliver a bomb that heavy against current Iranian air defenses. The alternative for the Israelis is nuclear weapons.  What's worse is that any nuclear weapons targeted at Fordow will have to be ground bursts, that is the fireball will have to touch the ground.  This means a lot of radioactive dirt would get sucked up into the atmosphere.  Also, it’s not clear that only one nuclear weapon would do the job.  Due to payload restrictions of Israeli aircraft, they might not be able to use the kind of heavily armored ground penetrating nuclear bombs required to destroy Fordow.  Instead, they might have to dig Fordow out with two or three nuclear explosions spaced out 15 to 30 minutes apart.

To sum up, in my view, no deal means continuing the brush fire wars of the Middle East.  Singing the agreement means a general war in the Middle East that would likely escalate to nuclear weapons.  Liberals who back the deal with Iran are the real war mongers.

Is Obama's Deal Less Damaging Than Bush's Invasion?

The left is saying that Obama’s agreement with Iran is less damaging than Bush invading Iraq.  Given their own arguments, this can’t be true.  As the left reminds us constantly, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Under Barry the Brilliant's agreement, Iran will have nuclear weapons in at most 10 years time. A failed state in Iraq can inflict at most one World Trade Center scale attack on the US. While that would be terrible, three thousand killed would be dwarfed by the casualties of a successful nuclear attack on New York City. The left seems to be arithmetic challenged in both budgetary and military matters.

The Smartest President Ever has maneuvered the world to the point where Israel's only option appears to be war with Iran. Ironically, this appears to be the only option left to Saudi Arabia as well. The Saudis and Israelis have been quietly discussing cooperation in the last year or so.

The deal gives Iran access to $150 billion of frozen assets. To put this in perspective, Iran has about $55 billion in oil revenue per year. I don't think Iran's enemies in the region will permit Iran to sell oil in addition to the $150 billion they will have to spend on weapons and financing terrorism. About 90% of Iranian oil exports pass through the Kharg Island oil terminal, which is about 16 miles offshore. It is packed with oil storage tanks. We will know the war has started when we see a big fire on Kharg Island which destroys the oil terminal. In the Iran Iraq war (1980-1988), Saddam Hussein's air force knocked out Kharg Island.

The biggest problem that the Community Organizer in Chief has created with his extended diplomacy is the fortification of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. It's now the case that to destroy key facilities would probably require a 30,000 pound enhanced bunker buster bomb. Only the US Air Force has the capability to deliver this conventional explosive bomb against Iran's current air defenses. The Saudis and Israelis would need to use nuclear weapons. The Israelis have an estimated 150 nuclear warheads. The Saudis financed Pakistan's bomb, so they can always buy a few if they need to.

So all of this "peaceful" diplomacy has created a situation where war is almost inevitable. The only good news is that it won't involve US military action right away. We will probably have to pay some ransom to get back our troops in Iraq from Iran's control, but that's the end of our short term involvement.

Longer term, the world will be a huge mess we have to live in.