Shoula Romano Horing /Ynetnews/Obama’s fatal attraction to Iran

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Obama’s fatal attraction to Iran
Shoula Romano Horing /Ynetnews
Published: 05.02.15, / Israel Opinion

Op-ed: US president seems to naively believe that if he befriends and develops a relationship with the ‘bad boy’ Iranian regime, he can ‘save’ the Iranians and the world in the process; in practice, he is destroying the future of the free world. It seems that Barack Obama truly believes he is the chosen one who can change the “bad boy” Iranian regime, bring it back into the community of nations, moderate its revolutionary jihadist zeal, and make it the West’s new friend and partner in the Middle East.

The American president believes that by paving the way for Iran to be a threshold nuclear state and a successful regional power, he will be appropriately apologizing and compensating the Iranians for alleged past actions by the West and the US that abused and disrespected them. He believes that Iran is not bad or evil by nature but has behaved badly because it was misunderstood, humiliated, dishonored, isolated, confronted, and threatened militarily and economically by the West.

Like so many other ultra-liberal academics, he believes that Iran is lashing out with terrorism, a nuclear program, and threats of death to America and Israel, because it cries for help, attention, and its rightful place in the world, as befits the heirs of the old Persian Empire.

In pursuit of these goals, President Obama has been unilaterally rewarding and repeatedly conceding to Iranian demands in the nuclear negotiations in exchange for nothing in return. He has backed off from the initial demands that Iran shut down its centrifuges, dismantle its nuclear facilities and heavy water reactors, and from the phased lifting of sanctions depending on compliance.
Just recently, he encouraged John Kerry to be involved in “creative negotiations” to address Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent demand that the sanctions be lifted immediately upon the signing of a final deal. Obama has been covering up for and lying about Iran’s negotiating positions by stating that they agreed to the “framework agreement” which they have never done.
He has been keeping secrets about Iran’s dangerous behavior by concealing the fact that he has known for years that Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear bomb is less than three months and not a year as he has just recently insisted. He seems to have turned a blind eye to Iran’s belligerent military activities and its growing influence in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. Finally, he has been willing to publicly undermine the relationship with longtime friends such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in order to appease Iran.

However, reality shows that the Iranian regime has been evil and will stay evil, despite Obama’s many concessions and appeasement policy.
According to the US State Department, Iran has been and still is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and has been responsible for taking the lives of thousands of civilians in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Inside Iran, the regime is still responsible for a horrific human rights record against its own people including thousands of cases of arbitrary incarcerations, torture, rape, burnings, and flogging of political prisoners, journalists, and bloggers based on bogus charges as well as thousands of executions without due process.

The ayatollahs’ Iran has never for the last 36 years stopped being an outspoken enemy of the US and its leader’s speeches still indicate that Iran sees itself as being in a holy war with the US and the West. Since 2003, the Iranians have been responsible for killing thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ayatollah Khamenei continues to denounce the US as the Great Satan and continues to chant “Death to America,” as well as making it clear in speeches, tweets and through his advisors that Iran does not intend to normalize relations with the US despite any nuclear deal. To think otherwise only reinforces the concerns of many rational experts that Obama is detached from reality, obsessive, compulsive, delusional and irrational about present day Iran and its true intentions.