The Obama administration thought that it was sitting across
the negotiating table from the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Iranian negotiators understood that they were sitting across a poker table,
trying to bluff out an opponent who was holding the stronger hand.
Evidently, they succeeded.
The administration put a large number of chips into the pot. Among them,
Iran’s access to tens of billion dollars, Iran’s ability to trade with the rest
of the world, Iran’s eventual access to nuclear weapons, America’s relationship
with Israel, Israel’s national security and eventually the security of the
world.
With all that at stake, holding the better hand, the great Obama, timorous negotiator that he was,
folded his hand and declared that he had concluded a successful negotiation. He must have thought to himself that at least he got to keep Valerie Jarrett.
And now, to the amazement of all, even The New York Times,
the Iranians are doing a victory lap. They are positively gloating over their
victory over the Great Satan. They do not want anyone to doubt the nature of the game and the identity of the victor. Their behavior is becoming more stridently
anti-American, thus dashing the hopes of those who foolishly imagined that the
nuclear deal would usher in a new era of comity between the nations.
The Times reports:
TEHRAN
— Anyone who hoped that Iran’s nuclear agreement with
the United States and other powers portended a new era of openness with the
West has been jolted with a series of increasingly rude awakenings over the
past few weeks.
On
Tuesday, the eve of the 36th anniversary of the student takeover of the
American Embassy in Tehran, state television announced the arrest of a
Lebanese-American missing for weeks — after he had been invited here by the
government. He has been accused of spying.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader,
said the “Death to America” slogan is eternal. New anti-American billboards in
Tehran include a mockery of the Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph that
symbolized Marine sacrifice in World War II. And an Iranian knockoff version of
K.F.C., the chicken chain widely associated with the United States, was summarily
closed after two days.
“It
feels like a witch hunt,” said one Iranian-American businessman in Tehran, who
dared not speak for attribution over fear for his safety. “It’s pretty scary.”
Anyone who hoped that the outcome would be different is a
bigger dupe than John Kerry.
The Times continues by trotting out the fiction that the foreign policy elite hold to. It's all the fault of the hardliners:
Many
proponents of the nuclear accord, in both countries, have suggested that a
gradual improvement in relations was inevitable. Some even foresaw a shift in
the region, shaped by collaboration between the United States and Iran to bring
peace, coupled with an eased enmity that could embolden President Hassan
Rouhani to open up the country.
While
Mr. Rouhani promised more freedoms when he was elected two years ago, he has
taken only a few cosmetic steps.
Now, as
the autumn leaves are falling in Tehran, there are no signs that bolder changes
are coming. On the contrary, a backlash appears to be underway, promoted by Mr.
Rouhani’s hard-line adversaries in the government who are deeply skeptical of
the United States and its allies.
It
seems that hard-liners, using the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary
Guards Corps, have started rounding up journalists, activists and
cultural figures, as a warning that the post nuclear-deal period cannot lead to
further relaxation or political demands.
Doubtless, Obama will declare that a new era of freedom is
dawning in Iran and that the Republican presidential candidates could never
negotiate as well as he has. After all, having shown himself to be a world
class bumbler in his dealings with Vladimir Putin Obama had the audacity to say recently that Republicans would not be up to the task.
Meantime, the Iranian regime is doubling down on its
anti-Americanism:
On
Wednesday, Iran will loudly celebrate the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover of the United
States Embassy, with a state-sponsored rally in front of the building, commonly
known as the den of spies.
To help
promote the proper mood, the municipality has erected billboards showing a
young man wearing a baseball cap spray-painting the words “down with America.”
Another
billboard on Tehran’s central Vali-e Asr Square satirizes the flag-raising at
Iwo Jima, where many Marines died, showing it planted atop a pile of bodies
symbolizing historic “wrongdoings by the Americans.”
Some Americans understand what it all means. It means that
Iran won and that we lost. It was not a negotiation. It was a poker game. We
walked away from the table while holding the winning hand.
It ain't a winning hand if you refuse to play it. Obama, the Refusenik.
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