A Deal Like the One With North Korea?

Those who have spent considerable time with unabashed jokesters know they have a way of avoiding repetition. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before,” the wag usually declares, prior to rattling off his latest laugh-line. The Obama administration, with ample help from feckless Europeans, as well as China and Russia – two nations more than willing to undermine America whenever the opportunity presents itself – is poised to inflict a disastrous “joke” on the entire world. And make no mistake: we have heard this one before, courtesy of another Democrat administration and its pursuit of a treaty aimed at preventing a rogue nation from going nuclear.

Anyone still remember the Agreed Framework of 1994? That was another “peace in our time” gem put together by President Bill Clinton and his “emissary,” the unstintingly naive Jimmy Carter. Here’s what the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) ostensibly agreed to do:

freeze and eventually dismantle its graphite-moderated reactors; seal, cease activities at, and eventually dismantle its reprocessing facilities; cooperate in finding a safe method to store existing spent fuel from its 5 MW experimental reactor and to dispose of such fuel in a safe manner that does not involve reprocessing in the DPRK;
allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor the freeze of its reactors; allow the implementation of its safeguards agreement under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) allow the IAEA to resume ad-hoc and routine inspections of facilities not subject to the freeze upon conclusion of a Supply Agreement for the light-water reactor (LWR) project;
come into full compliance with its safeguards agreement with the IAEA upon conclusion of a significant portion of the LWR project; remain a party to the NPT; and
take consistent steps to implement the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; and engage in North-South dialogue.

In return for this:

two LWRs [light water reactors] with a total generating capacity of approximately 2,000 MW(e), financed and supplied by an international consortium, by 2003;
150,000 tons of heavy fuel oil by October 1995 for heating and electricity production foregone due to the freeze of its graphite-moderated reactors, and 500,000 tons annually thereafter until the completion of the first LWR; and
formal assurances from the United States against the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

And both nations were required to:

reduce barriers to trade and investment, including restrictions on telecommunications services and financial services and transactions; open liaison offices in each other’s capitals; and
upgrade bilateral relations to ambassadorial level as progress is made on issues of concern to each side.

So how did that agreement work out? The DPRK expelled the last of the U.N. monitors in 2002, and publicly boasted about having nuclear weapons in 2005. Since then it has carried out at least three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. North Korea is also developing inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), but we’re supposed to be comforted by the fact that they won’t be fully operational until 2030. Around 2020, however, aerospace engineer John Schilling estimates the DPRK will have first-generation ICBMs that would be “generally unreliable and inaccurate, incapable of targeting anything smaller than a large city, and equipped with low-yield fission warheads.”

Anyone else think a bit of “low yield” radiation spreading throughout a “large city” is a bit problematic?

But enough about North Korea’s ambitions. As the United States Institute for Peace’s Michael Elleman reveals, Iran “has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East,” most of which were acquired from foreign sources – “notably North Korea.” That would be the very same North Korea whose “engineers, technicians and laborers remain in Iran assisting in constructing and operating the facilities” that are part of the current negotiations, reveals Forbes columnist Donald Kirk, who believes such an inconvenient reality might scuttle a deal. Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz isn’t quite as sanguine. “If this loophole is not closed, and if Iran under an agreement can have some kind of research and development, knowledge exchange and participation in other countries like North Korea, then this is also the way to bypass an agreement by simply not doing it alone in Iran, but by cooperating with North Korea or other rogue countries.”

Ya think?

Those darn Israelis are further “complicating” the negotiations with more inconvenient reality. In January one of their news organizations obtained satellite video showing a nearly 90-foot missile sitting on a launch site just outside of Tehran. “Originally many in the U.S. think of Iran, as well you know – that’s a problem for Saudi Arabia or Israel, but it’s not our problem. That’s not true,” said former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Dore Gold. “The trend in Iranian planning for long-range missiles that can eventually reach the eastern seaboard of the United States – that’s a given now.”

What’s also a given is the U.S. Department of Defense’s annual report to Congress presented last September, revealing that Iran’s military capabilities are proceeding apace. “Tehran is quietly fielding increasingly lethal symmetric and asymmetric weapon systems, including more advanced naval mines, small but capable submarines, coastal defense cruise missile batteries, attack craft, and anti-ship ballistic missiles," said the report’s declassified executive summary. That report followed one submitted in June by Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Syring’s report cited the development of a ship-killer missile called Khalij Fars "capable of threatening maritime activity throughout the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz,” Syring explained. Eight of those Khalij Fars missiles were ceremoniously delivered to Iran’s Ministry of Defense last March, and while the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) remains skeptical of Iran’s current capability, it admitted they could “potentially could alter the regional naval balance” if advances were made.

Anyone think Obama and company are up to the task of halting those advances?

But wait, it gets better, and you have heard this one before. When Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren asked State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki if the public might get “sort of a real strong briefing on (a deal) before it’s actually signed, sealed and delivered” so they might have input, Jen took the ObamaCare route, essentially insisting the deal would have to be made before the public could find out what’s in it. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond took it one step further, revealing that there might not even be anything to read at all. “We envisage being able to deliver a narrative,” he said. “Whether that is written down or not, I don’t think is the crucial issue.”

“Hands up, don’t shoot” was a narrative, delivered with all the gusto a corrupt mainstream media could muster. It was also a bald-faced lie. Are we supposed to believe the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism isn’t up to the task of “reinterpreting” an unpublished “narrative” if it suits its purposes?

Even more potentially damning, would the Obama administration offer an assist in that regard? “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal," insists Amir Hossein Motaghi, an Iranian journalist who covered the negotiations before seeking political asylum in Switzerland. He felt his nation was using him a a propagandist and his conscience "would not allow me to carry out my profession in this manner any more.”

Several media sources have tried to glean details of the deal, but one sentence courtesy of Yahoo News truly says it all:

“The hope is to prolong the theoretical ‘breakout’ time that Iran would need to produce enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb to at least a year from the current estimate of several months.”

Anyone still remember the original point of these negotiations was to prevent Iran from producing weapons-grade fissile material? As Yahoo further reports, that effort has been totally abandoned. All that remains on the table is the length of a “suspension of Iran’s most sensitive nuclear work.”

Insanity has often been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A progressive president and his equally clueless emissary negotiated a deal with North Korea, portrayed it as a triumph, only to have it blow up – literally – when North Korea began testing its nuclear arsenal. Now North Korea is a nuclear “player” who must be accorded an unwarranted level of respect as a result. As bad as that is, it doesn’t come close to what would occur should Iran achieve the same status. Not just because the Mad Mullahs, with their apocalyptic vision of an Islamic Second Coming, would have the ultimate weapon to advance their Islamist agenda, but because their acquisition of nukes will start a chain reaction among other Middle Eastern nations of the Sunni persuasion, who will not sit idly by and allow their Shi'ite nemesis to gain unfettered control of the region. As for Iran itself, what’s to stop it from “sharing” nukes with its proxies in Yemen and Syria, along with Hamas and Hezbollah?

Radio talk-show veteran Michael Savage has long described liberalism as a mental disorder. He is probably being too kind. There are millions of corpses that historically attest to the arrogance and fecklessness of an ideology that presumes “peace in our time” can be had by a clever turn of phrase or the inexorability of enlightened thinking – as defined by those who truly believe they are enlightened, absent an iota of evidence. In this particular case we have an Obama administration that is nothing more than a closed circle of self-congratulatory sycophants, each reminding the other about the “nobility” and “historical grandeur” of their cause.

And when reality intrudes, such as Obama’s “success” story in Yemen falling completely apart? Brazen it out. “The measure of the U.S. policy should not be graded against the success or the stability of the Yemeni government, that’s a separate enterprise," insists White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Is it so hard to imagine the equally Orwellian phrase, "the measure of the U.S. policy should not be graded against the capabilities of a nuclear Iran, that’s a separate enterprise,” as part of our future?

You’ve heard it all before, my fellow Americans. And none of it is the least bit amusing.

The Patriot Post® · A Deal Like the One With North Korea?