July 22^nd

Cal Thomas titles his column today, “Obama, you’re no Ronald Reagan.” He’s right of course, and we can be eternally thankful for that. He goes on to call President Obama “the president of self-regard” because he has linked himself to Reagan in that both men sought agreements with their enemies. Thomas then cites several Iranian acts that support Iran’s history of aggression against the United States. He goes back nine years to claim that Iranian factories were “mass producing bombs to kill soldiers in Iraq.” Is it news, or is it column worthy, to point out that the Iranian leaders despise the United States…but those are the leaders; the ordinary citizens, many under thirty, despise their leaders almost as much as their leaders despise us.

After expending several hundred words describing the awfulness of the Iranian regime Thomas,  in horror says, “These are the people who  can supposedly be trusted not to cheat on a deal with a government they regard as ‘satanic’ and worthy of every tactic they can employ to eradicate it? These are the people who will not stop pursuing whatever weaponry they need—conventional or nuclear toward their stated objective…” OK Cal, we get the idea that you don’t trust the Iranians to keep their agreement with us nor with the other five countries that are also party to it. Of course you only find yourself condemning our President for trusting Iran on this agreement; I guess you aren’t paid to bash the negotiators from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the other five countries that signed on too.

Of course we don’t trust the Iranians; there are a variety of safeguards in the agreement to catch most of the cheating that might occur. Is it foolproof? Of course it isn’t foolproof; neither were our inspection/treaties with the Soviets, but you were happy about them because they were negotiated by the Reagan administration.

Then you write that the President’s claim that our only choices were the agreement or war left out the possibility of increased sanctions. You apparently don’t realize that the other five countries involved must also increase sanctions. Getting the agreement we did was a remarkable accomplishment. And then as I wrote yesterday, the Ayatollah Khamenei is not particularly happy about this deal either, nor are his advisors. The Iranians might not be willing to sign on to it. Wouldn’t be interesting if Netanyahu, the Republicans and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were all on the same side in this kerfuffle?