A Traitorous and Catastrophic Deal

Andrew McCarthy joined Frank Gaffney on today’s Secure Freedom Radio to discuss the newly-announced nuclear deal with Iran.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. There is a major new development in that war. It is the deal that has been unveiled earlier today in Vienna, featuring agreements between the United States, and a number of other nations, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are told it is going to close all of the pathways to a bomb for the Iranians, and that—well, I don’t know that anyone has said quite “peace in our time,” but it certainly sounds as though that’s what we’re setting ourselves up for.

To evaluate all of this, I am thrilled to say we have with us a regular featured guest here at Secure Freedom Radio: the former federal prosecutor turned pundit extraordinaire, best selling author and commentator, Andy McCarthy. Andy, thank you for joining us, especially on this occasion to help us make sense of what has gone down and what is likely to come of it. Good to have you with us.

ANDY MCCARTHY: Thanks so much, Frank. I appreciate it.

FG: Well, so let’s start, I guess, with what we know about this deal. I’m fond of saying that if you want it bad, you get it bad. Certainly seems to have applied. How bad is it, in your estimation?

AMC: I would call it traitorous, Frank.

FG: Woah.

AMC: I don’t use that word lightly. We are talking about a deal with a regime that is a committed enemy of the United States, that has reaffirmed that just in the last few days, if there were any doubt about it. A regime that has killed thousands of Americans since 1979, that has expressed not only no remorse about it, but more to the point has essentially committed to continuing that course. And what we have done is move from a commitment made by Barack Obama when he was running for president—both times—that Iran would not be permitted to get a nuclear weapon, and that they would do things like shut down, physically, their nuclear production facilities one way or another, to a situation where the West is now actually aiding and abetting the Iranians in the development of nuclear energy under circumstances where it can quickly be converted to military use.

Worse yet is that they have essentially dropped every single commitment to the American people in the way of red lines against the Iranian deal. I mean, basically we are complicit in our enemy’s not only being able to develop the worst, most lethal weapons known to man, but also to destabilize that region in a way that will have other Islamist governments given incentive to harm us. So how it could be more of a catastrophe, I don’t know.

FG: Well, presumably it could be more of a catastrophe if the Iranians were getting the nuclear weapon right away. But I think my concern is—Andy, not disagreeing with anything you’ve said—is we don’t know how long it will be before they decide to say “Okay, now we have it.” Because as you’ve indicated, essentially all of the wherewithal they need is not simply preserved in place—there will be some adjustments made to various pieces of it, but nothing that’s irreversible—and they can essentially break out at will.

This is the kind of thing that I think does warrant the kind of very strong language you’ve used here, and the question I guess is—and I know you’ve been evaluating this for some time—given that these redlines have all been breached, given that the Iranians are clearly salivating at the prospect that they now have international legitimation, and in a way protection, does this foreclose, or at least greatly complicate, the job of, say, the government of Israel, in contending with this threat in a more direct fashion? Which I suspect they’re concluding is now needed.

AMC: I think it does, Frank, because I don’t see how the path is clear to Israel to now try to stop Iranian weapons development the only way as a practical matter it can be stopped, or at least set back, which is by an attack. Under circumstances where the West is now working with Iran: for example, one of the major terms of this agreement that was actually flaunted at the press conference as a major triumph, which is actually a major disaster, is that the Iranian nuclear program is now going to be placed under what’s called “International Sponsorship for Research and Development.” That’s a longwinded way of saying it’s going to be taking place under the auspices of one of the great powers—to my knowledge which great power has not been identified yet.

What that essentially does is put Israel—and it’s not the only condition in this deal that has that character—but it puts Israel in the position of if they were to attack, they’re not only attacking Iran, they’re attacking one of the Western powers, which I think would probably be unacceptable. Well, that may be taking it too far, but it’s certainly something that majorly complicates Israel’s capacity to take physical action.

If they’re not going to take military action, I don’t see that there’s any other way to address this. The only other way to address it would be as people like our old friend Michael Ledeen has been saying for years, that we have to give greater support, much greater support, to the dissidents in Iran. But frankly, if we’re in bed with the regime, which is essentially what Obama has done here, I don’t see how that does anything but demoralize Iranian dissenters and any democracy, or at least anti-regime, movement that may have been viable in Iran.

FG: It certainly undercuts them, there’s not question about that. So we’ve given a get-out-of-jail-free card to the Iranians if this deal is in fact going to go into force. Andy, you’ve been carefully thinking about and researching—and again our guest is Andrew C. McCarthy, the bestselling author of among other things, “Willful Blindness” and “Catastrophic Failure”. We’re witnessing a case of willful blindness of the first order, of course, and a catastrophic failure, as you say. What we are also going to watch play out here over the next sixty days, apparently, is some kind of Congressional deliberation. It’s under very stringent restrictions, self-imposed. Give us a flavor of why those restrictions were self-imposed, Andy, and what Congress can do now, and more to the point what can we do to ensure that Congress does actually reject this deal.

AMC: I don’t think they will reject it, Frank, I’m sorry to say, because Obama’s victory is kind of baked in the cake at this point, thanks to the Corker legislation: this bipartisan bill that was done in early May, that people like I argued vigorously against because it shifts the Constitutional function against international agreements. So without getting into the weeds, rather than having to get 2/3^rds supermajority of the Senate to approve the deal before it can be ratified, which is what Obama would have been looking at, under the Corker legislation the presumption is switched. The opponents of the deal now need 2/3^rds to disapprove the deal. Given that the number of Democrats in the Senate and the House that thought that you were going to get 67 votes in the Senate and 291 in the House to reject this thing, is illusory I would say, at best.

FG: Well I would hope that you’re wrong about that, Andy, that it’s an insuperably hard problem. It’s a hard problem, to be sure, but I do think there are a couple of things going for us. One is that the American people seem to be overwhelmingly opposed. We’ll see how that plays out as they’re subjected to endless demagoguery and indoctrination on it, but their instincts are right, I think, for all of the reasons that you’ve described. The other is that, I was listening to a number of the presidential candidates over the past 24 hours, Republican presidential candidates, and I don’t think there’s a one that is in favor of this. So this will be a defining moment, clearly for them and for our polity, as well as perhaps for our national security. You will be following it closely, as will we with the benefit of your help. Thank you, Andy, for taking some time to talk about this as the news is breaking today. Keep up the good work, my friend, at National Review Online and PJ Media, and come back to us very soon.