Iran Deal: Peril & Promise
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
The Iran nuclear deal represents a setback to the pro-Israel lobby and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who made an alarmist pitch against it during his address before a joint session of the US Congress in March.
This accord is not a bilateral agreement between the US and Iran. It is a multilateral agreement with 5 other powers that has been unanimously ratified by the United Nations, making it thereby, in effect, a part of international law.
If the US Congress rejects it, Obama can always veto it, as he has promised to do so. It would need two-third s majority in both Chambers of the US Congress to override the Presidential veto. The arithmetic numbers just aren’t there. Even if, arguably, they were there, it wouldn’t make much of a difference as the other powers would continue with the deal, leaving the United States stranded and isolated on its own.
It would be analogous to policy mistakes made by Iran over the years, which left Iran isolated giving ample opportunities to its foes to infiltrate via those vulnerabilities.
Indirectly, the deal reflects two major strategic errors. The first was made by the Arab Establishment in not asking for a nuke-free Mideast. Why nuke-free Iran and why not nuke-free Mideast? Why? Because it goes against “divide and rule.”
The second blunder spotlights Pakistan’s inept policy makers in not contesting the Indo-US nuclear deal, which was inconsistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). By foolishly asking for the same deal, they unwittingly swallowed and endorsed its illegality, thereby letting India off the hook.
Now, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Republican Jewish Coalition are spending $40 million to kill the deal. In contrast, the National Rifle Association (NRA) – the premier pro-gun lobby – and its supporters spent $20 million to kill gun control laws.
A commonsense solution to gun-related terror remains elusive in America. Mass killings are disturbingly frequent because of easy access to guns. 204 mass shootings took place in the United States in the first 204 days of the year 2015, according to the website shootingtracker.com (cited by CBS Evening News of July 24).
The predominant stranglehold of special interest lobbying groups means that democracy has been hijacked and burning issues bypassed to the detriment of commonweal.
What is unsaid is significant. How many in America, in the land of the First Amendment, which constitutionally guarantees and protects freedom of speech, have the guts to lift the veil of hypocrisy and juxtapose Iran’s nuclear program with that of Israel’s covert and undeclared nuclear weaponry?
The Vietnam War ended 40 years ago. A new study discloses that a quarter million of US Army Vietnam veterans still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Surveys now reveal that there is little appetite among the American public for further military adventurism.
Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, negotiated at Vienna, continue to humiliate and insult Iran, oblivious to the far-reaching repercussions. The book, “Hitler’s Vienna” by Brigitte Hamann depicts how the seeds of German revanchism were nourished in Vienna, setting the stage for World War II.
