Joe Biden Is Selling Out the United States to Iran | Opinion

In 2015, when then-President Barack Obama was on the verge of signing the Iran nuclear accord, Israel sought to upend Obama's forthcoming blunder by publicly denouncing the deal. Israel's then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, went so far as to use an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress to all but implore the people's representatives to stop Obama's appeasement of the Islamic Republic. Despite a majority of U.S. senators opposing the agreement, the Iran deal was signed—and Tehran was immediately enriched and empowered by billions of dollars and access to global markets. In subsequent years, Iran never fully adhered to the agreement, yet the regime reaped the deal's rewards nonetheless.

Over a year after taking office, then-President Donald Trump exited the Iran deal and engaged in a campaign of maximum diplomatic and economic pressure aimed at bringing the world's leading state sponsor of terror to heel. The Trump administration's actions had a significant impact on Iran's economy, dramatically decreasing Iran's leverage in any future negotiations over its illicit nuclear program, support for terrorism around the globe, and myriad human rights abuses. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden squandered the strong position left to him by his predecessor. And despite Biden's erstwhile promises of a "longer and stronger" agreement, the president is now poised to repeat Obama's mistakes.

President Biden appears to have resigned himself to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability—albeit after he leaves office. The deal he is inching toward signing is both shorter and weaker than that which President Obama negotiated, immediately releases billions of dollars in frozen assets, alters non-nuclear terrorist designations, lifts certain secondary sanctions, and in less than six months wipes away the conventional arms embargo against the Islamic Republic. For all this, Iran makes temporary and incomplete concessions and will release American hostages—but will not make assurances that other hostages won't be taken, or that other Americans won't be targeted by Iranian-backed terrorists. Nor will Iran forsake its state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide.

It is, in short, a near total victory for Iran over the United States.

Head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi
Head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian meet, on March 05, 2022 in tehran, Iran. Meghdad Madadi ATPImages/Getty Images

Unfathomable as it may be, this is just the opening act of the tragedy about to unfold. With no extension to the original agreement's arbitrary sunset clauses, in 2025 the provision enabling snapback sanctions will die. In the ensuing years, limitations on Iran's development of advanced centrifuges will fade away. And in 2030, the deal will expire completely, freeing Iran to finish its decades-long pursuit of a nuclear weapon with impunity.

It's no wonder, then, that there is widespread bipartisan concern over the path the Biden administration is taking. Congress, which has long been sidelined by the White House, must assert itself. The legislative branch's impact can be enormous, but only if it acts.

In May, a supermajority of senators voted on a non-binding provision calling for President Biden to address Iran's support for terror in negotiations with the pariah state, while also opposing Iranian demands that the U.S. lift its terrorist designation on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of U.S. military personnel. The Biden administration ignored the former concern and conceded the latter point. Later, that same month, Biden's lead Iran negotiator, Robert Malley, assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that any Iran deal would be submitted for congressional review. That review, and which actions policymakers take to shore up our allies' capabilities, is very likely our last hope of averting disaster.

Failing to stop this deal consigns generations of Americans into a life wherein an emboldened Iranian regime has an internationally legitimized turnkey nuclear weapons capability, or a demonstrated nuclear weapons program, that allows it to confidently act on U.S. soil and against U.S. allies. The constant threat of Iranian terror, nuclear blackmail, or catastrophic war will hang over all our heads—in perpetuity.

Members of Congress therefore face one of the most important decisions of their lives. For some, it may be politically expedient to support President Biden's capitulation. For others, it may be politically beneficial to simply pillory the president. Neither approach is proper. Our elected officials must rise above our present hyper-partisan environment and ask themselves one simple question: Will they allow a new evil empire to rise on their watch—one for whom the notion of "mutually assured destruction" is not feared, but relished?

I sincerely hope for America, Israel, and the rest of the free world that the answer is "no."

Pastor John Hagee is the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Pastor John Hagee


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