Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Surrender In Geneva

9 Comments

Thoughts from Mark Steyn:

Many pundits reached for the obvious appeasement analogies, but Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal argued that Geneva is actually worse than Munich. In 1938, facing a German seizure of the Sudetenland, the French and British prime ministers were negotiating with Berlin from a position of profound military weakness: It’s easy to despise Chamberlain with the benefit of hindsight, less easy to give an honest answer as to what one would have done differently playing a weak hand across the table from Hitler 75 years ago. This time round, a superpower and its allies accounting for over 50 percent of the planet’s military spending was facing a militarily insignificant country with a ruined economy and no more than two to three months’ worth of hard currency — and they gave it everything it wanted.

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I would add two further points. First, the Munich Agreement’s language is brutal and unsparing, all “shall”s and “will”s: Paragraph 1) “The evacuation will begin on 1 October”; Paragraph 4) “The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order.” By contrast, the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, plus Germany) “Joint Plan of Action” barely reads like an international agreement at all. It’s all conditional, a forest of “would”s: “There would be additional steps in between the initial measures and the final step . . . ” In the postmodern phase of Western resolve, it’s an agreement to reach an agreement — supposedly within six months. But one gets the strong impression that, when that six-month deadline comes and goes, the temporary agreement will trundle along semi-permanently to the satisfaction of all parties.

Secondly, there are subtler concessions. Explaining that their “singular object” was to “ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” John Kerry said that “Foreign Minister Zarif emphasized that they don’t intend to do this, and the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa which forbids them to do this.” “The Supreme Leader” is not Barack Obama but Ayatollah Khamenei. Why is America’s secretary of state dignifying Khamenei as “the Supreme Leader”? In his own famous remarks upon his return from Munich, Neville Chamberlain referred only to “Herr Hitler.” “Der Führer” means, in effect, “the Supreme Leader,” but, unlike Kerry (and Obama), Chamberlain understood that it would be unseemly for the representative of a free people to confer respectability on such a designation. As for the Führer de nos jours, Ayatollah Khamenei called Israel a “rabid dog” and dismissed “the leaders of the Zionist regime, who look like beasts and cannot be called human.” If “the Supreme Leader”’s words are to be taken at face value when it comes to these supposed constraints preventing Iran from going nuclear, why not also when he calls Jews sub-human?

As George Turner noted the other day, Iran dealing with Obama/Kerry is easier than taking candy from a baby. It’s more like a baby waddling around handing out candy to adults.

9 thoughts on “Surrender In Geneva”

  1. When a treaty betrays a bunch of allies, you know it’s going to become infamous. Also, this is yet another abuse of executive agreement which Congress should have reigned in long ago. At this point, it’s not clear to me that any future president can be forced to honor previous executive agreements (aside from the political fallout such as a huge increase in the unwillingness of anyone to enter into executive agreements after previous ones have been casually breached).

  2. This was just a short term agreement that the administration dishonestly tried to sell as a major break where Iran had agreed to long term concessions. We gave up a lot for little in return but the deal was more about domestic politics than dealing with Iran. Judging by Iran’s statements after the deal, it doesn’t look like there will be much of a payoff domestically or internationally.

    1. Yes. This was much ado about nothing. Whatever it is the White House thinks, the Iranians have already claimed the deal invalid. Whether Iran follows through or not, the White House has already made clear its intention to defy out allies and allow Iran to continue enrichment. So Iran got a major concession deal or no deal, and the White House got to change the news cycle going into Thanksgiving. Coming out of Thanksgiving, they’ll have a website the doesn’t work and a deal that has evaporated.

  4. I see the senate has different ideas on the treaty than Obama does.

    As much as any other foreign policy issue during his five years in office, the Iran sanctions question now finds President Obama at odds with a hefty portion of his own party’s lawmakers, as well as most Republicans.

    A bipartisan juggernaut of senior senators is spending the remaining week of the Thanksgiving recess forging agreement on a new sanctions bill that the senators hope to pass before breaking again for Christmas.

    The administration believes the legislation could scuttle the interim nuclear agreement reached with Iran on Nov. 23 and derail upcoming negotiations on a permanent deal, scheduled for completion in six months, to ensure that Iran will never be able to build a nuclear weapon.

    1. What probably worries the Senate is that the Administration might strike a deal with Iran similar to the one with have the Royal Navy, whereby we provide Iran with W-88 nuclear warheads on Trident II missiles (and give their supreme leader an iPod with Obama’s greatest speeches), in return for their promise not to enrich uranium past 80% and not launch any nuclear attacks on weekends or holidays.

      2. “…………………in return for their promise not to enrich uranium past 80% and not launch any nuclear attacks on weekends or holidays.”

        Or during March Madness.

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