Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Another gift from Iran nuke deal

Iran’s top terrorist unshackled by nuke deal

The curious case of Qassem Soleimani perfectly explains the secrecy and folly of President Obama’s Iran deal, as well as his rush to bypass Congress and instead entrust a vital national-security issue to the United Nations.
Gen. Soleimani is the commander of the Quds division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. He’s charged with exporting the Islamic Republic’s revolution to the rest of the Mideast and beyond. He has American blood on his hands. He is, then, America’s enemy.
Or is he? Gen. Joseph Dunford, Obama’s candidate to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week that Soleimani is directly responsible for killing at least 500 US troops in Iraq. He’s also responsible for many deaths of others in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. That’s the nature of his business.
So America has made sure, since 2007, to name him on all lists of Iranians targeted for international sanctions.
No longer. According to the deal reached in Vienna Tuesday, Soleimani will be de-listed.
A day after the hoopla in Austria, the American UN ambassador, Samantha Power, circulated among Security Council members a new draft resolution, “replacing the existing Security Council sanctions architecture with the new, binding restrictions,” as agreed in Vienna, she said.
According to those agreements, Soleimani would be removed from the sanctions list, a fact the administration was loath to admit. In a background briefing to reporters Tuesday, a US official, very well versed in the deal’s details, didn’t even recognize the name.
Later in the day, reporters got a note from the White House, helpfully explaining that “Soleymani, Ghasem” (as spelled in an annex to the agreement) isn’t the notorious general. Nah. That’s someone else by that name who was once designated for sanctions.
Oops, wrong. Turns out “Soleymani” is indeed that Gen. Soleimani. Now the White House explains that sanctions on him won’t be removed in “Phase 1” of the deal, but much later, in eight years.
Maybe. Meanwhile, in the real world, Soleimani, our former enemy, is now a partner and friend. He’s the one commanding the Iranian troops and their proxy Iraqi Shiite militias that fight, under US air umbrella and with our guidance, against ISIS.
And in that very real world the sanctions against him, including a UN resolution banning him from traveling anywhere outside of Iran’s borders, are long gone.
For months now, Soleimani has been popping up all over the Mideast.
His heroics are well documented in Iranian and regional press. He’s pictured alongside Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. In Iraq, he takes proud selfies with his troops.
That publicly advertised flaunting of a “binding” UN resolution would, ideally, be raised up at a committee that was set up by the Security Council to oversee Iranian compliance.
But for more than a year now, that committee has been inactive.
Its members, representing all 15 council members, including America, curiously raise no complaints about any Iranian violations, such as Soleimani’s regional tour de force.
So whether he’s now de-listed by the United Nations or not is moot.
In practice Soleimani is already off the sanctions list. That’s what all council members, including America, want, so no one complains. And while Soleimani’s quest — dominating the Mideast — is going well he no longer needs to hide from the United Nations.
Realizing this week that Soleimani would be de-listed officially, members of Congress were livid. “It’s outrageous,” Sen. John McCain told the Daily Beast.
Kosherizing a man with so much American blood on his hands may even move some supporters of the Iran deal to the opposing camp.
But will their objections — and their deep dive soon into a deal they had no part in structuring — matter, or will it be preempted by the UN fast track?
By next week, even before Congress begins its deliberations, the Security Council will remove sanctions as dictated by the Vienna negotiators.
Obama would rather be rubber-stamped by the Security Council, where members (including Venezuela, for one) are eager to do business with Iran.
American congressmen, on the other hand, may be concerned that, say, with our blessing a killer of so many Americans is now quickly becoming a major Mideast strongman.
Sanctioned or not, Soleimani is our newest partner.

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