Iran has recently test-fired ballistic missiles and is treating last year’s nuclear deal as a joke, and retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says the Obama administration simply doesn’t care anymore.
Within the past two days, new revelations about Iran’s actions and the contents of the nuclear agreement have national security experts howling mad. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Iran had test-fired multiple ballistic missiles. While such missiles have little use except to carry warheads, the testing is permitted under the deal hammered out between western nations and Iran last summer.
That news follows on the heels of Monday’s revelations that the deal prohibits the United Nations’ nuclear inspectors from publicly announcing any violations Iran has committed. That admission from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, followed protests that it’s February reports on Iran’s activities offered little transparency.
Captain Nash is an Iran expert. While not surprised at the apparent gaping loopholes in the enforcement mechanism of the nuclear deal, Nash says it is further proof that the agreement doesn’t make anyone safer.
“The nuclear deal was only a deal for Iran. It was not a deal for any of the other participants,” said Nash, in reference to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, which all signed on to the agreement. The group is often referred to as the P5 Plus One.
“Our verbiage and everything from that deal going forward is just a big joke. If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be funny. We were just absolutely skunked. We went into it with the intention of getting a deal just to get a deal. Now we’re living with the fruits of that,” said Nash.
Nash says the actions of Iran since the deal are also concrete evidence that it knows it fleeced the world at the negotiating table because everything we’ve seen from Iran shows that it’s agenda is moving ahead at full speed.
“They have clearly not been humbled. They have won. They held out and they got the P5 Plus One to give them exactly what they wanted to placate the politicians in the West so they could go back to their constituents and say peace is at hand,” said Nash.
“It;s Chamberlain all over again,” said Nash, alluding to then-British Prime Minister assuring his people Europe would be at peace after surrendering the Sudetenland to Adolf Hitler at talks in Munich in 1938. Hitler invaded Poland the next year.
Not only has Iran been brazen in its missile testing, it also played an aggressive role in the detention of U.S. Navy personnel in January, forcing Americans to their knees at gunpoint and forcing one of the sailors to make a statement admitting blame for the incident.
That incensed Nash.
“The way you do that is you hail or contact the other vessel and you let them know they are entering waters. Then you make sure that they stay out. What they did to our sailors was they treated them as if they were bringing in a boatload of cocaine into Key West,” said Nash.
Nash is borderline speechless that the U.S. agreed to prevent the IAEA from publicly revealing any Iranian nuclear violations, especially after the Obama administration insisted that would not be the case.
“You can’t make this stuff up. nobody would believe it. Yet, that’s what these great negotiators have signed. Of course we’re the only ones, in the West, who are going to abide by the agreement. The Iranians are not and they have not since this thing was signed,” said Nash.
He says the bottom line is that the Obama administration is fine with the provision because it means it won’t have to answer for the ineffectiveness of the deal.
“Even if we did find something wrong, we’re not going to divulge it, not only the IAEA but the United States because it would prove that the critics of this stupid deal were right all along and they will not do it. They would rather hide that from the American people,” said Nash.
He says Iran has carte blanche in the Persian Gulf for now.
“They are not stopping doing what they are doing. They are setting out to be the regional hegemon in the gulf and that’s it. Period. End of statement. And no piece of paper is going to stop them,” said Nash.
He says Obama got his deal and has no further plans to check Iranian ambitions.
“They got an Iran deal. That’s in the wake. That’s going to be listed as one of the great achievements of this administration. They’re looking for a legacy,” said Nash. “[Iran is] developing these missiles. They don’t care what the UN says. They don’t care what the U.S. says. Unfortunately, the U.S. doesn’t care either,” said Nash.
He says the development of the Iranian missile program is already an imminent threat to Israel.
“Just wait until the Iranians continue down the path and demonstrate the capability to not only develop a nuclear weapon, but to have the delivery system in place that can reach Israel,” said Nash.
