"Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
July 15, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
So what's the flap about? The U.S. made a deal with Iran. And yes, it was a nuclear deal.
We have the president's reassurances that it's all good and you know you can rely on that.
Naturally, right away, Israel's prime minister was out there saying his country will not be bound by the agreement. That it's a bad deal. That it enables Iran to get a nuclear bomb. That Israel will probably be blown up.
Come on! He always says that. Nothing new to see here.
Doesn't Netanyahu remember how great a negotiator Obama is?
It seems like only yesterday that Obama traded five terrorists back to the Taliban in exchange for Army St. Bowe Bergdahl.
The president was confident that those terrorists would walk the straight and narrow under the "intensive monitoring" done by Qatar. And why wouldn't he be? Why in the world wouldn't Qatar want to be vigilant on our behalf?
But even then, there was a flap, even after Obama told us that these released terrorists were no threat to the U.S. because their every movement would be scrutinized.
And I bet the president was right, they didn't rejoin their respective terrorist buddies, but so far we haven't heard.
Obama plays his cards close to his chest, so close we don't know much. Neither does Congress. But, keeping secrets, that's good when you're negotiating.
And it works! We didn't know, and he didn't know, and Nancy Pelosi didn't know, what was in Obamacare. Nobody did. And you know how that turned out.
Same with this deal. We don't know what's in it, but it'll probably turn out okay.
We've seen that the president isn't afraid to play hard ball. Okay, not so much with the red lines or with ISIS, but he is with Congress! He told them, mess up this deal with Iran by exercising your Constitutional treaty power and I'll veto it.
Kerry said the same thing, except he added something that sounded like a teensy bump in the road. Actually it was a slip.
He said, "If Congress were to veto the deal, Congress -- the United States of America -- would be in noncompliance with this agreement and contrary to all of the other countries in the world."
That was strange. You know how the United Nations loves the U.S., and now that esteemed body is going to have the final word on this, not two-thirds of the U.S. Senate?
It sounds that way. The president never breathed a word about it, but it'll probably be fine.
U.N. Ambassador Samantha Powers is going to take the Iranian deal to the U.N. Security Council this week, so that'll save the Senate all that trouble -- the 60-day Congressional review, voting on the agreement, the president vetoing.
I know. I know. It's in the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, that the president can "negotiate agreements...which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Congress."
But it seems Obama has given the treaty power to Samantha Powers and the United Nations.
Not to worry. I'm sure it'll turn out great.
It's the same kind of power the president handed to M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber to craft a foolproof Obamacare bill, in secret, to save the American people the trouble of knowing what was going on. And you know how that turned out.
The other funny thing I noticed was every time they took a coffee break from negotiations, while Kerry was out bike-riding, the Iranian leaders made speeches with slogans in them like "Death to America."
Kerry never mentioned it. Neither did Obama.
But I think Obama's prowess as a topnotch negotiator reached its zenith when he didn't request release of four Americans held hostage in Iran.
When Major Garrett asked Obama why he hadn't, the president first scolded Garrett for asking, then said if it had been included, it would mean Iran could get additional concessions.
According to reports from the world, the U.S. is supposed to be the alpha dog, which in negotiations means the concessions flow the other way.
According to reports from the world, Kerry had made so many concessions that there weren't any left to give.
Predictably Garrett has been skewered by the mainstream press, and he works for CBS! Although probably not for long.
At least the Obama press corps (pronounced "core") didn't chase this journalist down to the Washington Monument like they did with The Daily Caller's Neil Munro. Munro asked Obama a question about immigration when Obama didn't want him to, and this made the obedient White House Press Corps hopping mad, just like Garrett just did.
But it's all good.
Donald Trump may have written a best-selling book, "The Art of the Deal," outlining what good negotiations look like, but that was before he saw Obama in action.
How could The Donald say Obama was the only one in America who hadn't read his book?
Ridiculous!
Hold the line, America.