The Hope and the Change

President Obama is vigorously defending his deal with Iran, a deal that bears his personal stamp, it is said. Let's ignore the details and just ponder the very basic assumptions of the crisis and the deal.

President Obama thinks the Iran deal is great:

Pushing back hard, President Barack Obama forcefully defended the temporary agreement to freeze Iran's disputed nuclear program on Monday, declaring that the United States "cannot close the door on diplomacy."

The deal has BHO written all over it, apparently:

His engagement - both in private and in public and according to aides, at a level of minute detail - is in contrast to a more aloof approach as Egypt came under military rule and Syria descended into civil war.

"It's the top item on his foreign agenda for the rest of his term," a source close to the White House's thinking said of the Iran issue. "He doesn't want to leave anything to chance."

One, this is typical straw-man demolition by our president. Rejecting this deal is not closing the door on diplomacy.

As for his personal attention, I think I'm starting to think presidential aloofness is a preferred approach to our policies. At least policies on auto-pilot don't get deliberately screwed up.

After all, let's ponder the long crisis that led to this deal, "interim" though it may be.

Remember, we believe the evidence indicates that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

That is why we have continued, over the last decade and a half, to gather as many countries as we can in imposing sanctions on Iran. We hope economic pain will persuade Iran to abandon their goal of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the administration itself defends the deal by claiming the sanctions relief is really no big deal. So we don't even intend to cancel the sanctions during the interim period.

Our belief that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons is why the president has repeatedly claimed (no matter how little anyone seems to believe his threat) that "all options are on the table" to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

We also have waged cyber-war on Iran's nuclear program.

And our belief that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons is why we are building an expensive missile defense system in NATO Europe.

So, we believe Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

So this "interim" deal that we say can lead to a final solution--oh wait, that's perhaps a bad choice of words--what would that have to do with nutball Iranian mullahs wanting nuclear weapons?! Let's say a final agreement, eh?

This interim deal will lead to a final agreement based on the following language that we and the Iranians agreed on:

Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons.

We're at this point because we believe Iran has nuclear weapons programs. We'd have to believe that, you admit, to justify punishing Iranians with sanctions, holding the threat of military force over the Iranians, unleashing cyber-warfare on Iran's nuclear program, and building missile defenses.

Or do you really want to argue that President Obama is arbitrary, cruel, and quite possibly a secret hater of Shia Moslems?

Yet we believe this interim agreement will lead to a final agreement that prevents Iran from getting nuclear weapons even though Iran doesn't even admit that they have any ambitions for nuclear weapons to be negotiated?

What? Is John Kerry's droning voice somewhere at the 5-month mark going to cause the Iranians to snap and cry out, "Yes, for God's sake we've been lying! We want nukes! Just shut up and leave us alone ... ," [Iranian envoy drops heads to table and weeps uncontrollably] and simply beg for mercy?

That really is the only way President Obama could hope that Iran's behavior will change with his deal.

We are so screwed.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mad Minerva for the link.