RUTHFULLY YOURS

U.S. President Barack Obama has proudly declared that the Iran nuclear deal was the signature achievement of his second term in office, and his key foreign policy accomplishment. What Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) was for his first term, the Iran nuclear deal was for his second. And much like Obamacare, time has not healed the wounds of the debate over the Iran deal or made the “accomplishment” any more popular.

It should be no surprise that Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction by an overwhelming margin (over 70% believe this) or that the Iran deal has become less popular over time. We are in the midst of a presidential election campaign. Republicans routinely skewer the president on both domestic issues and foreign policy — particularly regarding the chaotic nature of the situations in Libya, Syria and Iraq, and the emergence of the Islamic State group, which has led to the greatest human disaster in the Middle East in decades and Europe’s greatest refugee crisis in 70 years.

Every presidential debate involves several if not all the Republican contenders denouncing the Iran deal as one of the worst ever negotiated, and one that — given its status as an executive agreement rather than a treaty — is subject to immediate termination upon a new president taking office. The Democrats — meaning Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — almost never discuss foreign policy, since the energy in the Democratic race has been supplied by Sanders and his supporters, and their agenda is almost exclusively domestic (other than cutting defense spending). Both Sanders and Clinton supported the Iran deal, as did almost all Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, choosing loyalty to their president over any realistic appraisal of the merits of the agreement (giveaway) negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department official Wendy Sherman.

The most recent public opinion polling on the Iran deal by the Gallup organization shows 57% opposed and 30% in support. This is by far the widest margin favoring the opposition to the deal since the talks began and since the deal was struck. Barely half of Democrats (51%) support the deal, and only 9% of Republicans do. Independents oppose the deal by almost the identical percentage as the entire national survey, 53% to 30%. Only 14% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Iran.

Again, this should be no surprise — the agreement is routinely condemned in the debates in one party for the nomination — the one which has attracted far more voters and media interest so far. Democratic presidential candidates and the Obama administration itself have been making almost no effort to defend it.

The president and his administration have also been on defense almost since the moment the deal was struck. The supposed “new Iran” which was ready to join the community of nations and become a more moderate, responsible regional power, has been anything but. The president appeared to believe that a stronger, more confident Iran, could achieve a rough balance of power with the Sunni Arab states, and this would enable the United States to further disengage from the area. The president seems to believe that the world is better off and more likely to resolve its disputes when the United States is removed from the picture. Somehow this balance of power arrangement in the region would also be stable and peaceful. It is difficult to choose the right word to characterize such a belief in everything just working out in this part of the world — but it is somewhere between naivete and lunacy.

The seizure of an American ship by the Iranians, and the humiliating picture of our captive sailors with their hands over their heads, was probably the single worst pubic relations disaster for the administration. But anyone following the recent news on Iran would also be aware of their ballistic missile tests and their

Henry Kissinger famously remarked some time ago that Iran must decide whether it wants to be “a nation or a cause.” For decades, U.S. presidents of both parties have been trying to coax Tehran toward the former and away from the latter.

Most recently, the U.S.-led global nuclear agreement with Iran – with its scores of billions in sanctions relief that President Obama hoped Iran would invest to improve the living standards of its people – was designed to convince Tehran to abandon its revolutionary ways and become a nation in good standing.

But if Tehran’s political crackdown before its upcoming Feb. 26 elections for the Assembly of Experts and Parliament is any indication, the Islamic Republic shows few signs of moderating its ideological impulses. Thus we should expect more of the revolutionary fervor that drives Iran’s efforts to destabilize Sunni regimes, impose its will on their successors and, in that way, advance its hegemonic ambitions.

All of that, in turn, presages no new day in U.S.-Iranian relations, as Obama and his top advisers hoped to create in inking the nuclear deal. Instead, it sets the stage for a still-larger challenge for the next president, with Tehran deploying the financial windfall from that deal to expand its military, advance its weaponry and strengthen its terrorist proxies.

Iran’s ruling class has long played a cat-and-mouse game with the nation’s limited democratic processes – promoting Iran’s democratic trappings to a naive Western audience that seeks its global integration while, behind the scenes, ensuring that no real democracy will unseat the clerics who run things.