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Proposed Iran nuclear deal does nothing for U.S.

Delaware Voice Kevin Wade

World War II cost 70 million lives. Tens of millions of others were driven by force, fear or famine from their quiet homes never to return. Entire nations ceased to exist. Among the dead, more than 5 million European Jews specifically exterminated as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution.”

The bizarre Nazi Aryan ideology of the 1930s does not compare to today’s dangers from the Shia Islamic theocracy led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Nazis initially sought to dominate their weaker neighbors by bluff and bluster, the Iranian theocracy actively moves by proxy violence. The German economy was weakened by hyperinflation and the world depression; Iran is awash in oil ready for export in return for instant wealth. Even after the outbreak of combat in 1939, Hitler banned attacks on American shipping; Iran and its proxies have killed and wounded countless Americans in Lebanon and Iraq.

Today, President Obama reached an agreement that allows Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. He doesn’t dispute this fact. He says the existing sanctions are failing and the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges have increased. Obama thinks the agreement slows Iran’s nuclear development. He hopes that delay allows time for a change of attitude by Iran’s Shia Islam theocracy.

The proposed agreement does remove large quantities of processed uranium and a large percentage of enrichment centrifuges. These are the touted benefits. In return, sanctions are removed. Iran receives over 100 billion dollars in cash, the right to sell its vast inventory of oil to raise added billions, and the ability to rebuild Iran’s military. This includes long-range rockets.

Military sites are off-limits to international inspectors. It is there that final assembly of weapons and their storage will take place – all beyond the eyes, cameras and sensors of inspectors.

The agreement benefits are imaginary.

The uranium removed will only be waste leftover from earlier processing. The uranium retained will be material already highly enriched and closest to weapons grade. The thousands of centrifuges to be removed are already scrap-worthy, having little future benefit to Iran.

The billions of dollars to flow into Iran will easily build larger and more effective processing lines.

This agreement is madness. Middle Eastern leaders know this. From Egypt to Israel to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates leaders know Iran can not gain nuclear weapons without a recourse by neighbors in-kind. This fuels a nuclear arms race in the world’s most violent and unstable neighborhood. You can’t maintain world peace by providing a path for the world’s No. 1 terror sponsor to possess mankind’s most dangerous weapons.

President Obama says today’s economic sanctions are difficult to maintain. Then redouble the efforts to maintain, strengthen and extend the sanctions.

Supporters and opponents will decide quickly that access to the American financial system and Saudi and Gulf State oil trump their limited financial prospects in Iran.

Understand the Islamic Republic is fragile and its economy is weak. There are many voices inside Iran who wish to see changes made. Encourage those voices.

The country is awash with oil but Iran doesn’t have a capability to refine adequate gasoline to keep its economy moving. Restricted gasoline imports will send the Iranian economy into slow motion.

Iran’s electrical power grid is failing. Let it fail. Help it fail.

These steps take time but not as much needed to rebuild the world’s oil supply infrastructure destroyed in a future Arabian Gulf nuclear war. These tasks are difficult but not so difficult as counting millions of dead.

If it were possible to move by space and time the Nazi regime of the 1930s into today’s world to compare that evil with Iran today, one startling truth will emerge. Under Hitler’s madness, the extermination of the Jewish people was the “Final Solution.” Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the extinction of Israel and the eradication of the Jewish people is the “First Solution.”

British and French leaders who appeased Hitler in 1938 could not have foreseen the global destruction that flowed from their concessions. They were wrong and weak, but they couldn’t know the scale of horrors soon unleashed.

Today, we do know Iran’s plans. Iran’s mullahs lead the masses shouting “Death to Israel!” and louder cries shouting “Death to America!” If members of Congress won’t stop this deal for the safety of this nation and our own families, then they must stop it for the sake of humanity itself.

Congress must reject this dangerous agreement now to maintain peace in the world tomorrow.

Kevin Wade of New Castle was the Delaware Republican nominees for U.S. Senate in 2016.