Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew trooped to the House Foreign Relations Committee today to again make their case for the Iran nuclear deal as they had before the Senate last week. As was the case with the upper body, Republicans appear united in opposition to the deal. But though most Democrats appear willing to support what has become President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, there are clear signs of a split within the Democratic caucus with a number of prominent members, such as Senator Robert Menendez and ranking House Foreign Relation Committee member Eliot Engel, openly opposing the administration. But, as Politico reports, efforts to whip Democrats into line behind the deal are being vigorously pursued and seem likely to be met with success. But as wavering Democrats feel the pressure be exerted on them by both the White House and the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, they should also consider that going on record favoring appeasement of Iran will have long-term consequences. While President Obama is confident about having his name on the nuclear deal, representatives and senators who hope to still be in office long after the current resident of the White House leaves in January 2017 need to ponder whether they want their party to shoulder the responsibility for a policy that hinges on Iranian good behavior.
Though Kerry has been arrogantly declaring that the deal will permanently prevent Iran from every getting a weapon, those who read the document see that what he has signed is more like an official declaration of Western acquiescence to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran’s nuclear research will continue with its advanced infrastructure intact. Even if it observes the limitations imposed on them, they will be free once it expires to do as they like. As even a stalwart ideological liberal like Leon Wieseltier observed in The Atlantic yesterday, the defense of the deal seems to hinge on what he rightly calls the demagogic argument that there is no alternative.
This agreement was designed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. If it does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — and it seems uncontroversial to suggest that it does not guarantee such an outcome — then it does not solve the problem that it was designed to solve. And if it does not solve the problem that it was designed to solve, then it is itself not an alternative, is it? The status is still quo. Or should we prefer the sweetness of illusion to the nastiness of reality? For as long as Iran does not agree to retire its infrastructure so that the manufacture of a nuclear weapon becomes not improbable but impossible, the United States will not have transformed the reality that worries it. We will only have mitigated it and prettified it. We will have found relief from the crisis, but not a resolution of it.
Iran’s will to pursue nuclear weapons is undiminished and its means to do so will be protected by the pact. Nor will its efforts to sponsor terrorism or build the ballistic missiles with which it could deliver a nuclear device to a Western and not just an Israeli target be stopped by this deal. The only thing that makes the agreement even remotely defensible is the notion that Iran has changed or will changed. And there is not the slightest evidence that this is in the cards.
And it is that point that brings us back to those House and Senate Democrats being whipped into line to back the most far-reaching foreign treaty signed by the U.S. in a generation.
For some, it is a matter of loyalty to the president. That seems to be a particularly strong emotion among the most left-wing members of Congress as well as for members of the Congressional Black Caucus that were encouraged to think any opposition to the Iran negotiations was an insult to President Obama. But Obama, who reportedly warned freshman members of the House last week that none of them would get a pass for opposing him on this matter believes he still has the clout to enforce his will on all Democrats.
But this is a moment for Democrats to start thinking long term rather than on the daily battle to win the news cycle for the White House against their despised Republican foes. Backing up the president on this question isn’t just another tactical dustup with the GOP it is a long-term commitment that literally ties their political future to the whims and behavior of a despotic theocratic Islamist regime bent on regional hegemony and the destruction of Israel.
Though President Obama will not be giving his followers a pass on this issue, neither will the American people. If, as is more than likely, the Iranians continue on their current path of pursuing terror and conflict with the West as well as an eventual bomb, this deal will constitute a millstone around the necks of those who let it be put into effect.
Thinking in those terms is difficult for politicians who always live in the moment or the next election cycle. But what must be understood is that their decisions on the Iran deal will be long remembered after other votes they cast are forgotten. That may be okay for hard-core left-wing ideologues in the Democratic caucus. But for much of the rest of the party that looks to mainstream independent voters as well as the pro-Israel community for support that is a sobering thought. Democrats Iran deal votes aren’t so much a matter of partisan loyalty for Obama but linking your future to the ayatollahs. That is something that Democrats should think long and hard about before they acquiesce to pressure from the White House and their party whips.
