President’s Failed Leadership on Iran "time to bone up on principle of strong American leadership"

Mr. President, it’s time for you to bone up on the principle of strong American leadership. Such a course of study would convince you to prioritize our safety over your own legacy. It would compel you to step away from this bad deal, and America would be better for it.

Today marks another deadline for President Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran. The truth is these talks were doomed from the start by the administration’s pattern of retreat. As the Iranians hang tough, insisting on their core demands, the president has steadily abandoned commitments he made to the American people and our allies.

In the most recent example, Secretary of State John Kerry backed off from the longstanding demand of the United States and its partners that Iran come clean about the possible military dimensions of its program before any deal is signed. If the administration continues on this course, we will never know how much progress the Iranians made toward building a nuclear weapon in the past, leaving us in the dark about how quickly they could make a bomb in the future. As a result of this and many other concessions, negotiations originally designed to deny Iran a path to the bomb are instead giving an American stamp of approval to the country’s nuclear-weapons ambitions.

President Obama’s pattern of retreat has sent such a resounding message of weakness that the Iranians, even if they do sign an agreement, will inevitably test American resolve again and again. The administration tells us not to worry, because its “unprecedented” inspections will discover any cheating by Iran. But effective inspections can’t take place without Iranian cooperation, which Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has rejected. And responding to any violations will also require Russia and China’s goodwill, which is in short supply.

While failing to stop the mullahs’ march toward a bomb, President Obama’s deal risks turning Iran into the dominant power in the Middle East. The so-called “signing bonus” — the many billions of dollars Iran will receive even before it delivers fully on its commitments — will provide the regime that chants “Death to America” and calls for Israel’s destruction the resources to fund more terrorism across the region; to further destabilize Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen; and to build up Hamas’s lethal arsenal.

What’s worse, the president’s deal also ignores crucial components of the broader Iranian threat, including Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal — the largest and most sophisticated in the region. Iran is also developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, something no nation in history has done without developing nuclear warheads to match, and an obvious potential threat to the American homeland.

How do we get back on the right course? President Obama must abandon his flawed framework, which accepts Iran as a nuclear-weapons threshold state. Instead, we should send a message loud and clear that America demands a deal in which Iran dismantles its illicit nuclear infrastructure and agrees to full transparency and verification. We should remind the world that Iran is in active violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions. We should redouble efforts to impose crippling economic sanctions on Iran without apology and rollback Iran’s regional influence. We should focus international attention on Iran’s abysmal human-rights record and its support for terrorism abroad. And we should stand with our key allies and partners in the region, especially Israel.

Iran’s rulers should fear American economic sanctions and military power. But they don’t because President Obama dislikes these tools almost as much as they do. He imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran only when Congress forced him to do so. And when he failed to enforce his own red lines in Syria, he proved that the use of military force — despite his repeated claims to the contrary — was never really on the table.

Now the president tells us we face a stark decision: his bad deal or war with Iran. This is a false choice. The president’s deal is the starting pistol in a Middle Eastern nuclear-arms race that would actually make war with Iran more likely, not less. His lack of resolve and pattern of retreat have unnerved our allies, who are now taking steps to defend themselves from the growing threat of a nuclear Iran.

Throughout these negotiations, the president has failed to lead. He has consistently ignored concerns from Democrats, Republicans, and key allies. He is squandering an opportunity to peacefully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, an opportunity generated by 19 years of bipartisan sanctions and 12 years of negotiations.

That’s what President Obama meant by fundamental change. He literally wants to see us reduced as a nation. As written before, one doesn’t want to “fundamentally change” what one loves.

I should try that with my wife. “Dear, I love you dearly, but I think you should look like your French friend Sue. Your hair is blonde but it should be black, your nose is a bit too large and should be cute like hers, and really, your boobs are just a tad small compared to hers. I love you dearly, but you need to fundamentally change.”

I’m sure that would go over real well...

That’s what President Obama meant by fundamental change. He literally wants to see us reduced as a nation. As written before, one doesn’t want to “fundamentally change” what one loves.

It's the de-development of the United States as advocated by his adviser JOHN P. HOLDREN, and we can be certain pro-Middle East Valerie Jarrett too. UN Climate policy will cut us off at the knees if we allow it. John Kerry is on board with this, as an AVID environmentalist and anti-strong America, along with his wife, Teresa Heinz.

...“De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation,” Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.

“Resources must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries," Holdren and his co-authors wrote. "This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”.....

February 19, 2015: GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP NECESSARY & POSSIBLE?

"With the continued buildup of greenhouse gases and the continued apathy of governments towards the lethal results of human population growth, Paul and Anne Ehrlich believe that a potential environmental storm is building up to bring down civilization....

..... Can much of the world population come to understand that humanity’s current dilemmas of environmental destruction, inequities, unemployment, and declining democracy, are not largely an accidental result of cultural evolution, but are rather mostly the consequences of deliberate planning, by those in charge, to increase their own wealth and power? Can they move dramatically to close the gap between the rich and poor that is especially dramatic in developing nations, and growing in many rich ones, especially the United States?....

[SNIP]

.....The MAHB’s [mahb.stanford.edukey] strategy is threefold: foster collaboration between natural scientists and social scientists to better understand the issues; build understanding of what we call ‘foresight intelligence’—the ability of individuals, institutions, governments, and society to act (behave) in ‘future smart’ ways; and engage civil society (individuals and organizations), already concerned about collapse, in ways that ‘strengthen’ the political impact of their endeavors. In short, the MAHB’s main goal could be said to help generate a bottom-up program to produce large numbers of global citizens, who, in turn might be able to divert society from its suicidal course. The odds of success seem small, but what choice does any ethical person have but to try?"...........

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