Article
by Prof. Alan Dershowitz 13-8-2015.
For full article go to: http://tinyurl.com/pxwkgso
President
Obama, in his desperation to save his Iran deal, has taken to attacking its opponents in
personal ways. He has accused critics of his deal of being the same
Republican warmongers who drove us into the ground war against Iraq and has
warned that they would offer “overheated” and often dishonest arguments. He has
complained about the influence of lobbyists and money on the process of
deciding this important issue, as if lobbying and money were not involved in
other important matters before Congress.
These
types of ad hominem arguments are becoming less and less convincing as more
Democratic members of Congress, more liberal supporters of the President, more
nuclear experts and more foreign policy gurus are expressing deep concern
about, and sometimes strong opposition to, the deal that
is currently before Congress.
QUESTIONS THAT DEMAND CREDIBLE
ANSWERS
The
President would be well advised to stop attacking his critics and to start
answering their hard questions with specific and credible answers. Questions
that need answering include the following:
1. Even
after the expiration of the nuclear agreement, will American policy remain that
Iran will never under any circumstances be allowed to develop nuclear weapons?
Or is it now our policy that Iran will be free to do whatever it wants to do
once the deal expires?
2. After
the major constraints contained in the deal end, or were the deal to collapse
at any point, how long would it take Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear
bomb?
3. Would
the United States allow Iran to begin production of a nuclear arsenal when the
major constraints of the deal end?
4. Does
the deal reflect a reversal in policy from President Obama’s pre-reelection
promise that “My policy is not containment; my policy is to prevent them from
getting a nuclear weapon”?
5. If
not, will President Obama now announce that it is still the policy of the
United States that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon?
6. How
exactly will the inspections regime work? Precisely how much time will the
Iranians have between a request for inspection and the inspection itself? What
precisely will they be permitted to do during this hiatus? And why do they need
so much time if they don’t plan to cheat?
7. What
will President Obama do if Iran is caught cheating on this deal during his
administration?
8.
Precisely when will which sanctions be lifted under the agreement? Do
provisions that prevent the P5+1 from imposing new sanctions apply even if Iran
is found to be in violation of its commitments under the agreement? When
exactly will sanctions prohibiting the sale of weapons, and particularly
missile technology, be lifted?
If and
when these and other important questions about the deal are answered —
directly, candidly, and unambiguously — Congress will be in a better position
to answer the fundamental questions now before it: would rejecting this deeply
flawed deal produce more dangerous results than not rejecting it? If so, what
can we now do to assure that Iran will not acquire a nuclear arsenal? The
answers to those questions may profoundly affect the future of the world.
So the
President should spend more time on substance and less on personal attacks.
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