Barack Obama defended his Iran deal before his favorite type of sycophant: college students. Of course he said different things about it a few years earlier. He plays bait and switch with the security of America and Americans. No wonder he can no longer do so politely.

A new kind of rude

Yesterday (5 August) at about noon, he spoke about the Iran deal for nearly an hour at American University in Washington, D.C. He chose that place for a reason. Fifty-two years ago, then-President John F. Kennedy spoke about diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Obama “offered” only two choices: his Iran deal, or war.

Well, Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) cannot tell us the obvious between Barack Obama and Jack Kennedy. (He died about nine years and three months ago.) But anyone who lived through the period can tell us one thing Obama did not mention. In October of 1962, Jack Kennedy came as close as any American President ever came, to open war with the Soviet Union. The subject: placing nuclear missiles on Cuba.

Obama addresses a joint session of Congress about health care reform, 9 September 2009. Photo: Lawrence Jackson/E.O.P

Furthermore, Jack Kennedy never said anything about “hard-liners” on the other side “making common cause” with his political opponents. Yesterday, Barack Obama said just that.

No, Barack Obama did not say, “The Republican Caucus [in the House and Senate] play into the hands of the hard-liners in Iran.” By whom he meant those chanting “Death to America” while their leaders “negotiated” the Iran deal with the Americans. He said, first, the “hard-liners” did not want the deal. Then he said they made “common cause” with Republicans in Congress.

Never mind the insulting quality of what he said. Only you, the reader, can decide what offends you the more:

1. That Barack Obama really said that of those who oppose him, or
2. That those American University students “ate it up” and gave loud cheers, cackles, and catcalls.

We see only what leftism has become. Disagree with a leftist, and he no longer feels he must be polite to you. Argumentum ad hominem becomes the order of the day. That, and argumentum ab auctorite and discursum ex cathedra. That applies to most students and professors in college today, as well as to Barack Obama.

But Barack Obama has a larger problem. He told a lie. The hard-liners do want this deal. Because it gives them everything they could reasonably expect, and more. So why incite people to chant “Death to America” in the streets? Because they can. Because Barack Obama will still give them what they ask for.

Changing the Iran deal

Alan Dershowitz explained it to Newsmax TV. Obama, says Dershowitz, said one thing before his last election. He said another thing yesterday.

The president should say that that’s part of the deal, and if Iran ever violates that, the military option remains on the table. He hasn’t done that. … He initially said we would never agree to containment, now he’s agreed to containment and postponement.

In fact, the Iran deal includes more than anything Obama sent to Congress. It includes other deals he made “on the side” and will not send to Congress. Only one official, one Wendy Sherman, knows anything about what those deals say. Now she admits she has seen only “rough drafts,” not the finished work. That comes from Kristina Wong of The Hill.

We want to protect U.S. confidentiality. This is a safeguards protocol. The IAEA protects our confidential understandings and our confidential arrangements between the United States and the IAEA.

Confidentiality, fiddlesticks! She’s breaking the law, and particularly the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. More to the point, the administration is breaking the Constitution.

He shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present concur.

John Kerry, the current Secretary of State, served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts under Ted Kennedy. Now he says the White House won’t call the Iran deal a treaty because the Senate would never pass a treaty of any kind. Hel-lo-ooo! The Senate mustered 68 votes during the Carter years to hand back the Panama Canal. Do not say the Senate can never pass a treaty!

Every member of the House and Senate, of whatever party, must decide for himself (or herself) what to do with this Iran deal. First they must decide whether to trust Obama. That could present a problem. When a man can only speak ex cathedra and impeach his opponents’ motives without foundation, his story usually varies from fact, and he knows it.

But suppose they decide they can believe what Obama says: that if they throw this Iran deal back, war will break out. They might want to decide whether to take their chances. Jack Kennedy took a chance. In October of 1962, his chance paid off. A little more than twenty-eight years later, that chance paid even greater dividends.

Herr Gorbatschow, Tor auf! Herr Gorbatschow, reißen Sie diese Mauer!

Ronald Reagan (translated into German).

Dare we expect Barack Hussein Obama to say a thing like that? Obama, who once called the muezzin one of the sweetest sounds he ever heard?

Sadly, no.