This is The “Art of the Deal?”

This is The “Art of the Deal?”

By Howard Barbanel

Is Barack Obama running foreign policy in the second Trump Administration? It sure seems like it. Recall Obama sending actual pallets of cash to Iran in the waning days and hours of his second term? Recall his acceding to most of Iran’s demands just to get an agreement – any agreement? Recall his horrible agreement which enabled Iran to build thousands of ballistic missiles and continue to enrich uranium?

Now comes along one of the most maddening accords ever agreed to. Have you read the 14 points in the memorandum? You’re not alone. Practically nobody has. It’s being done on the QT via executive order without any Congressional oversight (sounds like Obama too). it’s not even a treaty or even a contract, it’s really just the umpteenth ceasefire sweetened by tons of black and green sugar. By that I mean oil and money, which seem to speak louder than right and wrong.

Supposedly, some $24 to $25 billion in frozen assets will be released to Iran during the 60-day negotiation period to devise a treaty and theoretically dispose of Iran’s enriched uranium. Meanwhile, Iran is looking for $300 billion in reparations to rebuild everything the US and Israel destroyed and you can bet your bottom dollar that will include the terrorist infrastructure surrounding Israel. The Strait of Hormuz has been ceded to Iran’s ultimate control and you can bet this sword of Damacles will be wielded whenever it suits the mullahs to take the world economy hostage.

More significantly, the rumor is the US is agreeing not to foment regime change in Teheran and interfere in their internal affairs. Iran will agree not to produce or acquire nuclear weapons, but they’ve been making this promise for decades, insisting their program is for civilian use. If that’s not enough, the US will lift its blockade of Iranian ports and oil exports, thereby effectively rearming Iran with billions in oil sales each month – money that will not go not to the Iranian people but to procure weapons from China and Russia and strengthen the repression of their population. You can also bet that funds will find round-about routes to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

Israel’s hand is being checked and its arms tied behind its back as Trump caved to Iranian demands that Lebanon be linked to any deal with Iran. Hamstringing Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon is unconscionable and will create friction with Washington.

That this awful deal was negotiated by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner is another disgrace. Two New York Jewish real estate guys reporting to another real estate guy (Trump) with everyone hot for a deal – any deal – just to make a deal. Witkoff is naïve and inexperienced to the extreme and Kushner ought to know better.

On September 30, 1938, British prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich accords with Hitler, a low point of Western weakness and appeasement for a “pledge of peace.” The footage of Chamberlain landing back in Britain, waving a piece of paper gloating about “peace in our time” is an iconic image of the foolishness of believing and trusting in dictators – all because the West lacked the backbone to enforce the Versailles treaty. Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Rippentropp told Hitler that he should sign Chamberlain’s document because it’s just a piece of paper and that Nazi Germany will ultimately do whatever it wants. We know what happened next.

At the end of the day the derisive term “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) has held true here. Instead of ridding the earth of the dangerous fanatical regime in Iran, he’s opted for the photo op. Trump has zero stomach for any dead soldiers, even one is too much. Can’t handle the blood. The Iranians know this. They also know high oil prices and inflation are jeopardizing the Republicans’ chances of retaining the House and Senate in the midterms – and Trump blinked first, gambling that $3 a gallon gas and low inflation could bolster the GOPs chances in November.

The US Marines could have taken Karg Island and the Strait in a few days but probably many would be killed or injured, so instead of guts and glory, Trump raised the white flag and is embellishing that flag with all kinds of money for the mullahs. Disgraceful. And I don’t believe for a second that Iran will agree to the seizure and disposal of its enriched uranium and the kind of inspections and enforcement to keep them from a bomb.

It pains me to say this, but had Trump been President during World War II, he’d be berating Churchill not to fight and looking for a “deal” with the Nazis on the eve of D-Day leaving them in control of France because he wouldn’t be able to stomach the 2,500-plus US casualties on day one of a Normandy invasion.

The prophet Ezekiel (chapter 13, verse 10) famously says to the leaders of Judea, " because they have misled My people, saying, 'Peace,' when there is no peace; and when the people build a flimsy wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash."

This just kicks the can down the road which like in 1938 will lead to a more deadly confrontation down the road, perhaps horrifically with nuclear weapons.