Yesterday, Barack Obama told one of the most egregious series of lies any American president has ever uttered to the American people. It would be fair to say it was unprecedented. The closest approximation would be a tie between Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman.” In neither of those cases, however, was the physical safety of America and her people put into play. Those lives were meant to divert attention from personal political difficulties, not to sell away America’s security.

Via the White House:

This deal offers the prospect of relief from sanctions that were imposed because of Iran’s violation of international law.  Since Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, this framework gives Iran the opportunity to verify that its program is, in fact, peaceful.

This fatwa is bogus. It is not only NOT a fatwa, by religious definition, it doesn’t mean what Obama claims it means. A scholarly analysis of the fatwa was done by the Washington Institute, hardly a hotbed of conservative thought, back in 2011 and this is their conclusion:

Mehdi Khalaji’s essay looks at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fatwa proscribing the development, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons, against the background of traditional Islamic attitudes toward weapons of mass destruction and Shiite attitudes toward dissimulation and deception, and considers how these factors have been dealt with by the Expediency Council, which is responsible for advising the Supreme Leader on matters of national policy and resolving legislative issues. [italics mine] The author demonstrates how decisions in the Islamic Republic on these and other matters are grounded not in Islamic law but rather in the regime’s doctrine of expediency, as interpreted by the Supreme Leader.

Both essays conclude that if the Islamic Republic’s leaders believe that developing, stockpiling, or using nuclear weapons is in its interests, then religious considerations will not constrain these actions. Past proclamations about the matter, like all fatwas issued by Shiite clerics, can be revised under new circumstances.

When you are depending upon statements approved by the “Expediency Council” you are grasping at straws.

From US News:

The nearest thing to an official text can be found on the web page of Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. This version, dated Feb. 19, 2012, declares that “The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons, because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

That’s all well and good, but it is not exactly a fatwa. It makes no reference to the Quran or any other Islamic text or tradition, as other religious edicts traditionally do. It reads more like a statement of government policy, and as such, can be changed with the circumstances. In fact, even genuine fatwas can be amended and changed by circumstances.

…

In fact, Iran will only say nuclear weapons are un-Islamic so long as it does not possess them. Once Iran is nuclear-capable, expect a new explanation for why the “senseless, destructive and dangerous” proliferation of nuclear weapons required Tehran to develop one of its own, to defend Iran against international aggression and safeguard the gains of its Islamic Revolution.

This “fatwa” hokum has been thoroughly, completely, and unambiguously debunked over the years. No one believed it when it was issued. No one believes it now. Neither Obama nor Kerry believe it. That Obama used it in his address shows the contempt in which he holds the American people. It also demonstrates his justified contempt he has for the bootlick media. He tossed this lie into their faces and he knows that he will not be challenged.