Sunday, September 06, 2015

I'm Surprised the Percentage Isn't Higher

Defense One surveyed active duty American military and civilian national security-related employees about the Iran nuclear deal:

Asked to evaluate the statement “The Iran nuclear deal is a good deal for the United States,” some 66 percent of responders disagreed — and two-thirds of that group “strongly disagreed.”

I'm surprised the percentage isn't higher.

But as I've noted, it is possible to view the deal in a positive light given certain assumptions.

If you assume the deal is buying time--a perfectly legitimate objective--the deal could help us prepare to defeat the mullah-led Iranian regime to make Iran's possession of nuclear weapons no more dangerous to us than France's arsenal (or less comforting, Pakistan's arsenal); or prepare to destroy Iran's nuclear arsenal and infrastructure so that the mullah-run regime doesn't pose the level of lethal threat that owning nuclear missiles would pose to us.

How many think the deal is "good" because they assume that we will in fact use the deal's time frame for either regime change or to prepare to strike? I can't tell.

And how many support the deal on the assumption that the UN route will lift sanctions and so rejecting the deal only rejects the limited benefits we get while allowing Iran to reap benefits that flow from lifting UN sanctions?

Perhaps only a few think that way since while 66% say the deal is bad, only 62% say it should be rejected:

Some 62 percent said that the U.S. would be better off simply rejecting the deal and keeping current sanctions in place. (31 percent disagreed.)

I think the deal is bad; that we won't prepare for regime change or disarming strike; that the regime will reform by being invited back into the world community; and that the limited benefits aren't worth the cost of having a deal that will lead us to pretend we've solved the problem of Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

We should reject the deal. And if we don't, the next president should cancel it and then deal with the many problems we'd have because of what we gave to Iran at the start of the deal.