Yesterday's House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Hearing on Iran

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: "Historic Blunder" - A key House Foreign Affairs subcommittee yesterday heard testimony from defense and nonproliferation experts regarding President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. The hearing also tackled the issue of Iran's ballistic missile program, which is often ignored in the larger debate about its nuclear ambitions.

Ambassador Robert Joseph, an arms control expert, told members of Congress that Obama's Iranian nuclear deal "will represent perhaps the single greatest strategic mistake in the national security area in the past 35-plus years."

"There's no doubt that some will describe this agreement as historic. . . . And it will be historic; it will be a historic blunder," Ambassador Joseph said.

Professor David Cooper of the Naval War College also testified. Dr. Cooper said, "At this moment, Iran is the only country in the world that says it has no nuclear weapons ambitions, and yet has fielded an intermediate-range ballistic missile."

Earlier this year, Iran launched a satellite into space. The same technology can be used to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of carrying nuclear payloads.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) warned, "Ballistic missiles are not a separate and secondary issue, but part and parcel of Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure." He is exactly right.

"Wishful Thinking" - Perhaps the most damning testimony during yesterday's hearing came from Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Obama's former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Lt. Gen. Flynn testified that Obama's nuclear deal "suffers from severe deficiencies," and he slammed Obama's hope that Iran might "change its strategic course" as "wishful thinking." Consider these excerpts:"Iran has every intention of building a nuclear weapon. . . . Iran's stated desire to destroy Israel is very real. Iran has not once contributed to the greater good of the security of the region. . . . Iran killed or maimed thousands of Americans and Iraqis during our fight in Iraq. . . .

"I believe that Iran represents a clear and present danger to the region, and eventually to the world. They are still a U.S. State Department designated Islamic state sponsor of terrorism. They have and they continue to violate international sanctions, and they continue to spew hatred in their rhetoric coming from senior members of their government -- to include their top mullahs. . . .

"As the Washington Post editorialists have said, regime change in Tehran is the best way to stop the Iranian nuclear program. . . . Just look at [Iran's] cooperation with North Korea, China and Russia. Connect those dots and you get the outline of a global alliance aimed at the U.S., our friends and our allies.""Death To America" - Speaking of that hateful rhetoric that General Flynn referred to, a top Iranian general said yesterday that the United States "remains [Iran's] worst and most vicious enemy."

Last week, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a televised speech. According to a BBC transcript, his audience repeatedly interrupted his remarks with chants of "Neither compromise nor surrender, fight America!" and "Death to America! Death to England! Death to nonbelievers! Death to Israel!"

What exactly was Khamenei saying that got the crowd so riled up? He was speaking on the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic revolution in Tehran. He said:"'The Great Satan' was an astonishing term that [Khomeini] coined. The ideological and practical implications of the term 'The Great Satan' are very vast in scope. When you consider someone and some organization as 'Satan,' it is clear how you should behave and feel towards them."That should be a wake-up call to anyone tempted to think that disputes in the Middle East are Israel's problem and not ours.

Knowing Jewish history, Israeli leaders instinctively understand the dangers of such rhetoric. Unfortunately, too many western elites make excuses for such rhetoric. They dismiss it as intended only for "domestic consumption." The world made that mistake with Adolf Hitler too.

What does it say about how far genocidal hatred permeates significant segments of Iran's population when our own government concludes that repeated calls for a second holocaust by Iranian leaders are not serious but are merely intended to satisfy such a yearning? It is delusional to think we can negotiate with this tyrannical regime.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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