RUTHFULLY YOURS

Defenders of the system say bureaucratic hurdles prevent failure. Have they not heard of the RAH 66 Comanche?

Here’s an anecdote that illustrates the problems with U.S. defense acquisition: The Navy, concerned about corrosion of equipment that spends its operating life surrounded by salt water, began requiring paperwork to certify that new systems would be corrosion free. But the rule applies without exception, meaning Navy staff go through the motions to certify the corrosion resistance of, say, new software programs they acquire.

Rep. Mac Thornberry cited this example when rolling out legislation in March that would overhaul Pentagon procurement. Mr. Thornberry, who leads the House Armed Services Committee, wants to give program managers more responsibility and eliminate dozens of reports required by Congress or the Pentagon. “The system has just grown these barnacles around it that’s made it so sluggish it’s a wonder anything comes out the other end,” he told the Washington Post.

When Michael Bloomberg tried to limit the size of soda to 16 oz cups in an effort to combat the national epidemic of obesity, he was reviled for his arrogant attempt to micro-manage people’s personal decisions regarding their appetites and health. Now the NY State Education Department has released new guidelines about how schools should treat transgender students. Among other questionable tactics is one that seems pregnant with the possibility of lawsuits over parental rights. Schools are advised to maintain student privacy about their gender identity at school – even to the point of withholding that information from parents if deemed necessary. So a school that needs parental consent on file in order to give Johnny an aspirin may decide not to tell his legal guardians who are totally responsible for his health and welfare that Johnny is registered as Janey, uses the girl’s bathroom and refers to himself as she.

Tehran will have much time and many loopholes to exploit.

‘Around-the-clock monitoring of Iran’s key nuclear facilities.” “Access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain.” “Access [to] any suspicious location.” “Access where necessary, when necessary.” “Unprecedented verification.”

These are among the claims President Obama is making about the inspections and enforcement contained in the Iran deal, which are supposed to reassure Americans that Tehran won’t cheat—or at least that it will be promptly caught and punished if it does. A closer look tells a different story.

Take that carefully finessed phrase, “where necessary, when necessary.” This is supposed to be the Administration’s version of “anytime, anywhere” inspections that experts have long insisted needs to be a condition of any agreement.

If the ayatollahs have a nuclear weapon, they will use it. Now they’re on the path to get one.
When giving Moses the Ten Commandments, God says that he will “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” Of course, God doesn’t have to punish these later generations himself; rather, the perils that follow are the natural course of events. Bad actions or bad choices made by one generation lead inevitably to consequences for future generations.

The generational calamity that will result from President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran will last a very long time indeed. This can be said with perfect confidence because of two undeniable facts.

For those of us who predicted the inevitable, watching Donald Trump verbally wander into a field of face-whacking garden rakes like Sideshow Bob fills one with a mixture of schadenfreude and affirmation. We knew it was coming, but it still feels good to be proven right.

Of course Trump wouldn’t hesitate to attack John McCain’s war-hero status. Trump’s bottomless insecurity cannot countenance the idea that his critics have any legitimacy. Of course Trump won’t apologize — because his dog-and-pony show is predicated on the idea that he “tells it like it is” and “fights.” He’s the omniscient master of The Apprentice. He can’t behave like the Biggest Loser.

The Trump squall is not over, alas. But it’s nonetheless obvious that we will someday soon look back on this as the beginning of the end of Trumpmania.

Ames, Iowa
A smoldering policy dispute over the Iran deal between two frontrunners for the Republican nomination caught fire over the weekend, as the campaigns of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and former Florida governor Jeb Bush traded accusations of bad faith and the candidates themselves engaged in a pointed back-and-forth about how a newly elected president should handle the deal.

Speaking to reporters here Saturday after an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit, Walker said the next president will need to be prepared to take aggressive action against Iran, “very possibly” including military strikes, on the day he or she is inaugurated, and said he would not be comfortable with a commander in chief who is unwilling to act aggressively on day one of a new presidency. In his announcement speech at the beginning of the week, Walker had promised to ‘terminate’ the Iran deal on day one of his presidency, and Bush, at a town hall four days later, said ending the deal on the first day of a new administration was unrealistic and suggested that promises to do so, while politically appealing, reflected a lack of seriousness.

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R)was a member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, and he served as Maryland’s governor from 2003 to 2007. He is currently a partner at the firm of King & Spalding.

On the Iranian threat to Israel: “The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat. . . . Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel.”

On health care: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.”

On Syria’s WMD: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime — but also to other players on the ground — that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.”

On capitalism: “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Give the president this much: At least he didn’t call the Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting workplace violence.

Speaking from the Oval Office just hours after the attack, President Obama did not once use the word “terrorism” in relation to the assault by Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez on military sites in Chattanooga.
Contrast his statement with that of U.S. Attorney Bill Killian at his news conference after the attack. The situation “is being treated as a terrorism investigation,” Killian said. “It is being led by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. And we will continue to investigate it as an act of terrorism until proof shows us otherwise” (emphasis added).

Why couldn’t Obama have said that? If the FBI is treating this as an act of terror, why isn’t the president of the United States?

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressmen Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) issued a press release today on a startling discovery they made during a July 17 meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna: There are two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public.

One of these side deals concerns inspection of the Parchin military base, where Iran reportedly has conducted explosive testing related to nuclear-warhead development. The Iranian government has refused to allow the IAEA to visit this site. Over the last several years, Iran has taken steps to clean up evidence of weapons-related activity at Parchin.

The other secret side deal concerns how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program. In late 2013, Iran agreed to resolve IAEA questions about nuclear weapons-related work in twelve areas. Iran only answered questions in one of these areas and rejected the rest as based on forgeries and fabrications.

On Sunday, I reviewed the reported evidence here at PJ Media on what we knew about Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the killer who gunned down four Marines and one Navy sailor in Chattanooga last Thursday, as both investigators and the media puzzled over his possible motive.

For many in the media, the motive remains elusive:

And as our friends at the Washington Free Beacon have chronicled, this is a point that the media is at great pains to let you know.