News - Categorized News A Letter to Chuck Schumer: Convince Your Democrat Colleagues Iran Deal Is Bad

 
 

Dear Sen. Schumer,
Or may I call you “Chuck”? About 30 years ago, when I first met you, you were an informal kind of guy. You had recently been elected to the House from a district in Brooklyn and Queens. I was a New York Times reporter. I remember you were sharing a row house with two other House members—Leon Panetta was one—and I wrote a story about that. I always thought it could be the premise for a situation comedy. (“Friends with Entitlements”? Just kidding.)
I had no better source than you. You’d call to give me a heads-up on a bill or to explain some Hill battle so my editors would think I knew what I was talking about. It was nice of you, but it was also smart. You are smart: A perfect score on the SAT. On to Harvard College and Harvard Law. Elected to the New York Assembly at 23. Never losing a single election.
I’ve been thinking about writing you for a while regarding your vote on President Obama’s Iran deal. I knew you’d recognize that, from a policy perspective, this deal doesn’t get a passing grade. But from a political perspective, I understood that voting to disapprove would not be easy. Then, last week, you announced your decisions in an incisive 1,670-word essay. Kudos to you.
You pointed out that there won’t be “anywhere, anytime” inspections—which Obama himself had said was a necessity. American demands for inspections will be reviewed by a commission—on which Iran gets a seat. Iran’s rulers have flatly ruled out “entry into our military sites”—hardly an unlikely place for weapons research and development.
You grasp that sanctions, once lifted, cannot be “snapped back.” Then there is the curious decision to “sunset” restrictions on a regime whose supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, continues to call for “death to America!” As for Hassan Rouhani , Iran’s “moderate” president, he has said Iranians need “to express ‘death to America’ with action.” Like this deal?
Both Gen. Ray Odierno, U.S. Army chief of staff, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been clear: Iran has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. The United States, as you point out, has designated Iran as “one of only three nations in the world who are ‘state sponsors of terrorism.’ “...more