Here's the most meaningful observation emerging from Congress after it and the public were knowingly misled by the Obama Administration, so that the Iran-Nuclear Pact would not be blocked:
"Congress needs to look at what our positions ought to be, going forward, with respect to Iran."
Rep. Gary Palmer [R-AL] issued this climactic challenge during the May 17th hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
This potential reassessment can be accomplished only if Congress trashes the year-old JCPOA, the catastrophic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iranian "deal."
It can be discarded only if the House votes to enjoin Obama from continuing to implement it.
This hearing centered upon how the White House sold the pact by claiming the deal would limit Iran's potential to develop a nuclear bomb by empowering apocryphal "moderates" in Tehran.
Ben Rhodes, the Obama Administration's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, had triggered the House to probe how he had coordinated a pattern of deceitful "messaging," as revealed in the May 8th issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine.
Indeed, despite Rhodes' rosy prediction, America is dollarizing Iran, which is rapidly developing offensive weaponry, including ballistic missiles that can strike Americans -- overseas and domestically.
Yet, during the past year -- while implementation of the pact has not prompted Iran to soften its hostile rhetoric and terrorism -- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been enriched, Secretary of State John Kerry went to Europe to convince non-U.S. banks and companies to do business with Iran, and the Obama administration is considering granting Iran indirect access to US dollars in financial transactions.
In urging the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran opposed by the Obama Administration, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was perhaps thinking of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) when he said at a Banking Committee hearing, "I hear many of my colleagues say we should keep Iran's feet to fire, but if there's no fire, how do you keep their feet to it?"
Illustrating the accuracy of this observation is the claim that a recent compliance report on Iran's nuclear program is missing several important pieces of information that could determine whether or not the Islamic Republic is abiding by JCPOA.
Thus, American initiative and interests must not continue to be based on "hope and change," for it is unrealistic to "hope" Iran's ayatollah will ever "change" his nefarious goal of destroying the two "Satans" -- "Little" Israel and "Big" United States.
Predictably, everyone ignores Iran's having placed Tel Aviv within its ICBM range.
Surprisingly, few confront the havoc Iran would create by deploying but one nuclear device in America's atmosphere, for an electromagnetic pulse could immediately fry everything using electricity nationally.
A congressional commission warned of the specter of such an unconventional attack in 2004.
Now, Congress must probe how Iran funds and sponsors worldwide terrorism, for the pact empowers these Shi'ite fundamentalists and thereby unnerves traditional allies (Israelis), enrages tenuous allies (Sunnis), and alarms underfunded allies (Kurds).
Indeed, the near-complete unraveling of America's role in the Middle East should prompt Congress to formulate appropriate legislation that would forestall further deterioration of the ability to neutralize Iran and to defeat the Islamic State.
It is telling, however, that neither the three expert witnesses who testified during the hearing nor any of Rep. Palmer's colleagues tackled his concern.
This reflected traditional congressional reticence to appear to formulate a cogent foreign policy short of routinely appropriating funds, passing toothless resolutions, and sometimes declaring war.
Now, such scrutiny must start with a reassessment of the pact, regardless of whatever other countries have done or may do.
Already, it has caused irreparable damage, having prompted global alleviation of economic sanctions against -- and release of billions of dollars to -- the No. 1 state-sponsor of global terror, Iran.
The pact has served as the culmination of Obama's concerted efforts to outsourceAmerican involvement in this volatile region to Iran and Russia, two countries harboring nefarious motives that are inimical with those of the United States.
In any case, the State Department deemed the pact to be an unprecedented "political commitment" rather than a treaty or an executive agreement, the department told Rep. Mike Pompeo [R-KS] in a letter.
This comports with the Obama Administration's neo-isolationist doctrine and autocratic behavior.
The GOP's presidential-candidate finalists provided necessary guidance, when Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX] advocated "tearing it up" (lamenting failure of the congressional Republican leadership to block it) and Donald Trump advised "negotiating a better deal" (notwithstanding his penchant to contradict himself).
Congress can reassess its positions regarding the Iran pact, as Palmer suggests, prior to pursuing tangible options.
But before it can be "torn up" to "negotiate a better deal," its inherent illegality must be appreciated.
This has been detailed in multiple essays -- replete with corroborative hyperlinks -- most recently in this op-ed.
These analyses detail how discovery of secret information by Rep. Pompeo and Sen. Tom Cotton [R-AK] prompted passage of a resolution introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam [R-IL] this past September that declared the congressional approval-review process moot.
After former-Speaker John Boehner [R-OH] recognized the Roskam vote had laid the foundation for litigation, Rep. Louie Gohmert [R-TX] submitted a resolution [HR410] that would have prompted the House to claim the pact was a treaty, mandating Senatorial "advice and consent" ratification before the pact could be effectuated.
The House could still invoke model litigation as a vehicle to undo the pact, for it contains the legalese that proved successful in obtaining standing when the House sued against Obama's having altered funding authorizations in his healthcare law.
Unfortunately, no vote has been taken, despite Speaker Paul Ryan [R-WI]'s repeated claim that he would invite the House to vote on bills and amendments that had not been channeled from leadership.
And, on January 16th, the pact's implementation-day, Rep. Roskam still supported suing Obama, but was "leaving the matter up to Speaker Paul Ryan."
Almost immediately thereafter, mutual dissatisfaction was voiced, but the pact remains nominally in-force.
The Iranian mullahs want their cash -- as much as $150 billion -- and expanded trade, while Secretary of State John Kerry helps them overcome fiscal impediments to developing their business and banking.
Western powers want the Iranians to stop testing missiles, although they aren't punishing breaches by imposing increased sanctions and no one talks of inspecting nuke sites on military bases.
Furthermore, the White House continues to jawbone, continually reassuring skeptical lawmakers that the pact has extended the time it would take Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon.
Such blind reassurances are reinforced by Obama's "Amen Choir" such as Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, who claims the pact is "working out well."
They all think it's just fine to ignore Iran's support for terrorism and human rights violations, thereby allowing the Russians to sell advanced arms to Iran such as the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system.
Such a schizoid, compartmentalized mindset perpetuates the myth that Iran harbors a dual-personality comprised of radicals and moderates, despite the absence of any evidence of the latter.
Instead, Congress must place Obama's failed "leading from behind" doctrine into receivership rather than allow him to kick this foreign policy "can" to the next administration, for he must not be able to evade responsibility while wreaking more havoc during the rest of 2016.
Meanwhile, additional fallout of the geopolitical impact of the pact emerges daily, as Iranian influence on the Iraqi government unnecessarily grows and the war against the Islamic State remains stalemated.
For example, because Obama still refuses to provide modern armaments directly to the consistently-loyal and unabashedly-courageous Kurds, Iran is constructing a missile base in the Kurdish section of Iraq according to Asharz Al-Awsat.
Therefore, the sooner Congress answers Rep. Palmer, the sooner the implications of an empowered and nuclear Iran will be appreciated … and the better it will be for regional and global peace.
Congress can perform its due diligence meaningfully only after it freezes the Iran Nuke Deal by enjoining the Obama Administration from helping Iran engage in world commerce while blinking as it plans to enter the global nuclear-nation club.
The writer, a political activist, has exhaustively documented, in 19 essays published during the past year, the six generic defects in the JCPOA. He also litigated against implementation of the Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry, against the creation of health-insurer Highmark, and against unconstitutional levels of public funding for two sports stadiums in Philadelphia.
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