In just over a week, President Trump faces a deadline on recertifying Iranian compliance with the Iran nuclear deal. Right now, smart money would bet that the president declines to do so and the deal dies. The President promised to end the deal during the campaign and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s revelation that Israel had stolen over a thousand pounds of Iranian nuclear documents probably drove the last nail in the coffin. This has not stopped the same anti-American forces that authored and championed the deal from using every tool at their disposal to save the agreement. John Kerry, for instance, is flagrantly violating that legal keystone that protects the Republic, the Logan Act.

The most hilarious spectacle has been watching the Echo Chamber that failed Young Adult novelist and Obama foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes organized to bludgeon the opposition to the Iran nuclear deal as it was negotiated and Bob freakin Corker shepherded that travesty through the Senate tie itself in knots trying to spin Netanyahu’s revelations as a nothingburger and save the deal. First, Obama NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor claimed that the materials Benjamin Netanyahu revealed last week were fake and this was just a replay of “yellow cake” and “WMD” that caused the war with Iraq. Tommy can be excused for being profoundly stupid and inept as he gpt his start in politics literally driving a campaign bus in Obama’s 2008 campaign. A sign of just how silly this was, no serious person or organization bothered repeating it.

Next up was Rhodes himself. He rolled out the tried and true “nothing new, move on” excuse. In short, Rhodes claimed the IAEA already knew all of this stuff and it was baked into the agreement. This had a lot more success until some significant players in the non-proliferation community called bullsh**. Iran was required, under the agreement, to come clean about its previous nuclear weapons program and it was supposed to agree not to produce weapons in the future. Iran, to this day, has denied that it had a nuclear weapons program and, therefore, is sufficient proof that will not produce a weapon. Finding a half-ton of nuclear weapons research data is sort of a big thing.

Now they are trying something completely new. This argument is “of course the Iranians were going to go nuclear, everyone knew that.”

David Albright @TheGoodISIS reminds those whining "why would we expect them to destroy their archives?" that a state making a strategic reversal in nuc realm does NOT keep its nuclear archives. Like South Africa. Iran archives were kept to keep program alive

— Emily Landau ז"ל (@EmilyBLandau) May 4, 2018

Emily Landau is an arms control expert with the Institute for National Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. @GoodISiS is the Twitter account of the Institute for Science and International Security, a non-proliferation think tank.

She gets this from a former Obama official, Jon Wolfstahl.

https://twitter.com/JBWolfsthal/status/992565328331902979

TU QUOQUE, BITCHES! His argument is stupid. None of those nations have signed an international agreement swearing to reveal the status of their nuclear programs. None of those nations have lied to the IAEA about the status of its research.

But this is the clincher. It comes from an MIT professor who is a significant player in the non-proliferation and arms control arena:

https://twitter.com/NarangVipin/status/992706273564119041

Stop the freakin presses. When the deal was announced, this is what Barrack Obama had to say:

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is “peace for our time.” Go home and get a nice quiet sleep

Ooops, sorry. Wrong speech. I’m sure you can understand my confusion.

The agreement now reached between the international community and the Islamic Republic of Iran builds on this tradition of strong, principled diplomacy. After two years of negotiations, we have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb. It contains the most comprehensive inspection and verification regime ever negotiated to monitor a nuclear program. As was true in previous treaties, it does not resolve all problems; it certainly doesn’t resolve all our problems with Iran. It does not ensure a warming between our two countries. But it achieves one of our most critical security objectives. As such, it is a very good deal.

For 5 yrs there's been this game where Iran deal supporters 100% deny concessions until outed, then they go 'everyone always knew it was going to be that way': Enrichment "right," PMDs, 0 breakout, missiles, etc.

Now we've reached "everyone always knew deal lets Iran go nuclear" https://t.co/I5fEEQcFfE

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) May 5, 2018

Omri is exactly right. The entire selling point of the Iran nuclear deal was that it would keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Now we’re told, “sure they are going to have nukes, everyone knows that.” He’s right, those of us who fought against the deal said as much. His argument is that slowing down their development is the real goal. No it isn’t. The goal was to prevent an Iran from having nukes, bullying its neighbors and perhaps starting a regional nuclear war.