By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--August 5, 2015
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Let's play a game. You are talking to someone and you want them to agree to something. You promise you can deliver the something, even though you know you can't really deliver it without the cooperation of another party whose support you can't guarantee. Doesn't matter. You promise anyway.
So the other party, somewhat wary of your trustworthiness, agrees.Congress is the target of Kerry’s feistiness, as is his close friend and staunch adversary, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is leading the charge against congressional ratification of the deal. In the course of a lengthy and freewheeling interview—which you will find published in full, below—Kerry warned that if Congress rejects the Iran deal, it will confirm the anti-U.S. suspicions harbored by the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and eliminate any chance of a peaceful solution to the nuclear conundrum: “The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said. “This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.” Kerry also said that his chief Iranian interlocutor, the foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and Zarif’s boss, the (relatively) reformist president, Hassan Rouhani, would be in “serious trouble” at home if the deal falls through. Zarif, Kerry told me, explicitly promised him that Iran will engage with the United States and its Arab allies on a range of regional issues, should Congress approve the deal. “Zarif specifically said to me in the last two weeks, ‘If we get this finished, I am now empowered to work with and talk to you about regional issues.’” Kerry went on, “This is in Congress’s hands. If Congress says no, Congress will shut that down, shut off that conversation, set this back, and set in motion a series of inevitables about what would happen with respect to Iranian behavior, and, by the way, the sanctions will be over.”This is just amazing. Kerry knew perfectly well during these negotiations that the Congress did not approve of the deal. Not only that, but Senate Republicans made it clear in a letter written directly to the Iranians that there would be no deal without their approval, and that this would not come easily. No one who was complicit in the construction of this horrible deal can pretend they didn't know this would be an issue. When you've screwed another party is when you've promised them something and then you welched on the deal. The Congress of the United States promised nothing to Iran. The only people who did are Barack Obama and John Kerry. Now that they're worried they won't be able to deliver, they're scrambling to blame everyone but themselves. And by the way, since when is the United States concerned about "screwing" the people who take American hostages, shout "Death to America" and fund terrorism against us and our allies? We should be seeking ways to screw the Ayatollah, not fretting about it. Then again, as the photo above might remind you, it's always been Kerry's reflex to look out for the interests of America's enemies at our expense. Why should he change now?
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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