Crying Wolf

Last weekend, details about the Iran deal started leaking out in the Iranian press. The White House and, particularly, the Vice President, said those were lies and propaganda.

By Tuesday, the Vice President said it was “Iranian propaganda,” and he blasted the American press for regurgitating them.

When the deal finally came out, after days of the Vice President insisting he did not understand diplomatic protocol and could not actually release the details, it turned out that all the stuff the Iranian regime said was in the deal was actually in the deal.

Yesterday, the Treasury Department freed Iran to start selling oil. Most outside analysts project Iran can, in 60 days, sell $10 billion worth of oil.

Last week, Marco Rubio’s State Department notified Congress that Iran prioritizes funding terrorism with its oil sales.

Last week, Vice President Vance insisted Iran could not sell oil without first performing various actions under the plan.

This week, Iran is getting its oil sales, they have done nothing under the plan, and, based on our Secretary of State’s data, we can presume terrorism will be funded.

Iran is also getting an additional $12 billion, out of the gate, without doing anything, as a show of goodwill from Qatar. The money comes from Iran’s frozen assets, helpfully freed up by the President of the United States.

The Vice President now says Iran will buy our agriculture products. Iran’s leaders say that this is not only not true, but Iran would rather starve than fund the Great Satan.

The Vice President also says Iran agrees to allow in IAEA inspectors. Again, Iran says this is not true.

Last week, when Iran disputed American statements, it turned out the Iranian side was telling the truth. Can we believe the Vice President this week?

When we started the war, the Secretary of State made the case that Iran was building a missile shield. Once Iran had enough missiles, it would finish its nuclear ambitions. Iran was building so many missiles that it could overwhelm Israel and our Arab allies with so many missiles that no defensive systems could stop them.

It was necessary then to stop Iran from building up its missiles.

Now, President Trump says Iran can keep its ballistic missile program.

When the war started, we were all told we would target Iran’s military, defense industrial complex, intelligence operations, and government. Now, we have approved a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, and no one in the American government can tell us what Iran will reconstruct with that money.

If you want this all to make sense, particularly in light of the President’s bold and aggressive western hemisphere policy, just consider this.

The Vice President and those around him believe the United States is in decline, though they will not say so publicly. They believe in an isolationist policy to mitigate that decline, with the United States getting the Western hemisphere, and China, Russia, and possibly Europe fighting over the rest of the world.

But President Trump has been pretty robust on the world stage, and the American people still view themselves as leaders of the free world. If you believe we need to scale back our place in the world, restrain our ambitions abroad, and focus on the Western Hemisphere, refusing to help Ukraine, even as Ukraine is standing more and more on its own two feet, scaling back our support for Israel, and putting Iran in a position where we cannot take them on without overwhelming collateral damage is exactly what you would do.

You will force future American administrations to scale back their global ambitions simply because you’ve withdrawn forces from abroad, failed to grow forces abroad, and have approved $300 billion for the nation that calls you the Great Satan to build such a massive missile program that it can never be stopped in its nuclear ambitions.

It turns out, as part of our deal with Iran, we will not increase our military presence in the Middle East.

Even Barack Obama’s JCPOA deal was not this bad, as it did not fund Iran the way the Trump Administration has agreed to do, and it did not negotiate American troop levels in the Middle East with Iran.

Most people are rational. The Vice President is rational. The Vice President is an isolationist who opposed the engagement in Iran. He is perfectly comfortable looking reporters in the eyes, telling them they are spreading Iranian propaganda that turns out to be true. And he is perfectly willing to look the American people in the eye to tell them he believes in robust American leadership, all while striking a deal to make it impossible for us to restrain Iran from its nuclear desires.

And if that were not enough, consider the other $53 billion.

What’s that?

Iran, yesterday, got $12 billion from Qatar. It will get $10 billion in oil sales over the next sixty days. It will ultimately get $300 billion from a reconstruction fund.

That $53 billion is what Iran owes in court judgments to Americans whose family members have been murdered by the Iranian regime over the last 47 years. The Vice President left that part out of the negotiations. The murderers will get over $300 billion. The American families of those murdered get nothing.

Is this what America First looks like?

Overnight, the leader of Lebanon’s largest Christian party released a statement begging President Trump and Vice President Vance to change course on this deal. He knows that, under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, Iran can fund Hezbollah, but Israel cannoot destroy Hezbollah. He wrote, in part, “[E]nding the military and security presence of "Hezbollah" constitutes, in our view, the greatest contribution that can be made to the Christians of Lebanon and to all Lebanese people, as it opens the door to building the state we all aspire to: an effective, sovereign state that is free, strong, and capable of ensuring security, stability, and prosperity for all its citizens.”