In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rep. Chris Stewart wonders why Pres. Obama seems to see the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran as a reliable negotiating partner.
Writes Stewart:
I was one of the Air Force’s B-1 pilot representatives for the verification of the START treaties with the former Soviet Union during my 14 years in the military. In those years I learned much about implementing a credible national-security policy. Two lessons in particular were crucial: For an international agreement to hold, both parties must be viewed as reliable partners who want the agreement to succeed. And any nation can and will cheat on an agreement if it determines that doing so is in its national interest.
Watching President Obama ’s Iran negotiations, I wonder if he realizes this.
The president seems to view Iran as a reliable partner that is simply looking for an opportunity to join a peaceful league of nations seeking to bring stability to a violent and chaotic part of the world. But the record is bare of any examples of Iran partnering with the U.S. or any U.S. ally in a productive way.
Iran is a state sponsor of terror and has been officially listed as such for more than 30 years. It has developed an extensive military-industrial complex, the Defense Industries Organization, which is capable of supplying all of its own military equipment, weapons and ammunition. With this capability, Iran has become the primary supplier of weapons to two other state sponsors of terror, Sudan and Syria, as well as the primary sponsor of other foreign terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas and numerous Shiite militias in Iraq. With Iran’s help, Hezbollah has stockpiled about 60,000 surface-to-surface rockets in Lebanon while Hamas has stockpiled about 10,000 surface-to-surface rockets in Gaza, all for the stated purpose of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.
