A former Clinton administration official calls the Obama administration approach to Iran “absurd” and believes the American people are being mislead on the framework of a deal, but he insists a Hillary Clinton presidency would chart a much different course on the threat of a nuclear Iran.
In the days since an announced framework for a nuclear deal, Iranian officials have worked nonstop to declare the U.S. appraisal of the deal a lie. Iran has disputed such key issues as when the sanctions would end, how many centrifuges would be allowed to keep spinning and even where enriched uranium would be stored.
Is one side actually telling the truth or are both governments actively spinning the details of the framework to win over their own people?
“I suspect it’s more of the latter. Let’s keep in mind that we’re talking about a framework as opposed to a deal itself. Both sides put off very crucial questions,” said Larry Haas, who served as communications director to then-Vice President Al Gore.
Given all the unresolved issues, Haas is not surprised that the two governments do no appear on the same page.
“I’m not terribly surprised that we are seeing different interpretations by the two sides. I think I am far more disturbed by the kind of rhetoric that’s coming out from the supreme leader of Iran, who at the end of the day will have the final say,” said Haas.
“He is now making demands for a final deal that if the Obama administration were to go along with them it would be akin to simply giving the Iranians a nuclear weapon,” he said.
In addition to the unresolved questions are the critical issues the United States says are no longer on the table: addressing Iranian actions and ambitions to dominate the region and working to free multiple Americans imprisoned there. The Obama administration says those are ancillary issues that do not need to be part of the nuclear discussions.
“That is precisely absurd to think that way,” said Haas, who says a nuclear Iran is a far different animal than a nuclear Great Britain, Israel, France or even Pakistan.
“Those governments are not radical in the way that the regime in Tehran is. It is precisely because Tehran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and precisely for the fact that it abuses the human rights of its own people and any other area that it dominates and precisely over the fact that it wants regional dominance that we fear what this regime will do if it has nuclear weapons,” said Haas.
Haas says these issues ought to be at the very heart of any negotiations with Iran. He says Iran’s success in getting them off the table means they’ve already won.
“The fact that we now view them as ancillary are all concessions to the Iranians. When these negotiations began, they were central to the negotiations themselves. We basically said this is part of an overall negotiation having to do with nuclear weapons and other issues that are troubling us, like the Iranian ballistic missile program, and terrorism, and regional dominance and all the rest,” said Haas.
He sums up the U.S. negotiating posture as “appeasing” and “self-defeating.”
Furthermore, Haas says recent American history proves the Obama administration is heading down the wrong road. In a recent piece for U.S. News and World Report, Haas says Obama is following in the misguided footsteps of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, who got policy toward the Soviet Union very wrong in the wake of the Vietnam War.
“Like President Obama, President Nixon essentially subscribed to the view that the United States could not be alone as the world’s major power center, that rather than fighting the Cold War, we ought to pursue detente, and a detente that would allow the United States to be perhaps the first among equals, but literally among equals,” said Haas.
Starting with President Reagan, Haas says presidents of both parties reverted back to the notion that a strong America is best for our nation and the world.
“We are a country that believes, and we have since World War II, that the world is a better place when the United States more than any other power calls the shots, ensures regional stability and keeps other players in line,” said Haas.
While Haas believes Bill Clinton ended up a strong president on foreign affairs, he believes Clinton dropped the ball in confronting North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. And he doesn’t believe Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have learned anything from that episode.
“I do think we’re heading down the same path, a path of too much trust for regime that I would argue is implacably anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-western, and that is the regime in Tehran. I do fear that we are making the same mistake,” said Haas.
Regardless of who becomes the next president, Haas expects American foreign policy to look more like it did prior to the Obama years.
“No matter what happens over the next year and a half, I do believe that the next president, whoever he or she is, will not continue this policy and will turn to a more traditional view of America’s role in the world,” said Haas.
Despite Hillary Clinton serving as Obama’s top diplomat for four years, he believes she would chart a far different course on Iran than her former boss although it might be hard to tell based on her campaign rhetoric.
“I think we would see a markedly different approach. She will not be able to say on the campaign trail precisely how much she would differ from President Obama because it would undercut her Democratic support. So it’s going to be very tricky for her,” said Haas.
When it comes to blame for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, Haas stresses that he sees Hillary’s tenure at the State Department as maintaining a tough posture towards Iran. However, he contends it all unraveled as Kerry took over.
“She really spent much more time beefing up the sanctions against Iran, which was precisely the right policy. It was really President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry who have pursued this policy of lifting the sanctions temporarily, negotiating a deal and making one concession after the next,” said Haas.
