Making a Mistake with Iran?

The Fellowship  |  May 19, 2015

We all make mistakes. Parents, teachers, doctors, and yes, even world leaders often make mistakes. They’re the result of poor judgment, miscalculations, or outright carelessness. But when a person receives ample warnings that they are about to drive off a cliff, from numerous and diverse sources, and they decide to ignore all those warnings and continue to drive off the cliff, is that a mistake?

I’m not sure that what we are seeing in Obama’s policy towards Iran is a mistake. I am not suggesting in the least that Obama wants Iran to become a nuclear power. Yet, so many in the Middle East, and I’m not just talking about Israelis, are confused and dismayed with this U.S. administration’s capitulation to Iran in nuclear talks.

President Obama attempted to hold a summit with Gulf State leaders in a failed effort to assure them that the deal being hammered out with Iran is in their best interest. In the end, four out of six of those heads of states opted not to show up, and, in their stead, they sent lower level politicians to meet with the leader of the free world.

As it turns out, Gulf leaders headed by Saudi Arabia have given Obama an ultimatum. They have requested a defense pact with the US, which would land American boots on the ground in the event that they go to war with Iran. Such a treaty, assuming Obama would agree to one, would never gain the necessary approval from the U.S. Congress anyway. Especially, after considering how many precious American lives have been sacrificed in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since Obama cannot agree to a defense pact with the Gulf, they have already stated clearly that they too will seek to acquire nuclear weapons. At a recent conference in South Korea, a senior Gulf leader said, quite simply, “Whatever the Iranians have [nuclear weapons,] we will have, too.”

And so, the nuclear arms race which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned would happen as a result of the nuclear talks is already happening. And the road to a bomb, especially for the oil-rich Saudis, will likely be a lot shorter than for Iran.

Jordan, which is closely aligned with the Saudis, has a large natural deposit of uranium with no money or know-how to attempt to build their own bomb. Yet, with Saudi backing, coupled with their connections with Pakistan they could, together, race to a bomb as well.

Clearly, we are now at the beginning stages of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East – a direct result of the concessions made to Iran. The images and scenarios that pop into mind when thinking about the kind of world our children will inherit, as we sit by and watch the most fanatical regimes in the world get their hands on nuclear weapons, is to terrifying to jot down on paper.

We, the people of the free world, need to start asking our politicians some tough questions about this deal that is being sold as to good to pass up. And I’m not just talking about the Obama administration and Congress; there are other Western nations who are party to the nuclear talks.

Is this really just a mistake the West is making?

I don’t think I would call it that. When a person runs a red light because they were texting a friend and crashes their car, we rightly call that a mistake. But when the driver sees the red light with eyes wide open and two hands on the wheel, while all the passengers in the car are telling the driver to stop, and he or she doesn’t, is that a mistake?

That would be letting them off too easy.