Norman Podhoretz:

Almost everyone who opposes the deal President Obama has struck with Iran hotly contests his relentless insistence that the only alternative to it is war. No, they claim, there is another alternative, and that is “a better deal.”

To which Mr. Obama responds that Iran would never agree to the terms his critics imagine could be imposed. These terms would include the toughening rather than the lifting of sanctions; “anytime, anywhere” nuclear-plant inspections instead of the easily evaded ones to which he has agreed; the elimination rather than the freezing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure; and the corresponding elimination of the “sunset” clause that leaves Iran free after 10 years to build as many nuclear weapons as it wishes.

Since I too consider Mr. Obama’s deal a calamity, I would be happy to add my voice to the critical chorus. Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly with the critics that, far from “cutting off any pathway Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon,” as he claims, the deal actually offers Tehran not one but two paths to acquiring the bomb. Iran can either cheat or simply wait for the sunset clause to kick in, while proceeding more or less legally to prepare for that glorious day.

Unfortunately, however, I am unable to escape the conclusion that Mr. Obama is right when he dismisses as a nonstarter the kind of “better deal” his critics propose. Nor, given that the six other parties to the negotiations are eager to do business with Iran, could these stringent conditions be imposed if the U.S. were to walk away without a deal. The upshot is that if the objective remains preventing Iran from getting the bomb, the only way to do so is to bomb Iran.

And there’s the rub. Once upon a time the U.S. and just about every other country on earth believed that achieving this objective was absolutely necessary to the safety of the world, and that it could be done through negotiations. Yet as the years wore on, it became increasingly clear to everyone not blinded by wishful delusions that diplomacy would never work.

Simultaneously it also became clear that the U.S. and the six other parties to the negotiations, despite their protestations that force remained “on the table,” would never resort to it (and that Mr. Obama was hellbent on stopping Israel from taking military action on its own). Hence they all set about persuading themselves that their fears of a nuclear Iran had been excessive, and that we could live with a nuclear Iran as we had lived with Russia and China during the Cold War.

Out the window went the previously compelling case against that possibility made by authoritative scholars like Bernard Lewis, and with it went the assumption that the purpose of the negotiations was to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

For our negotiating partners, the new goal was to open the way to lucrative business contracts, but for Mr. Obama it was to remove the biggest obstacle to his long-standing dream of a U.S. détente with Iran. To realize this dream, he was ready to concede just about anything the Iranians wanted—without, of course, admitting that this was tantamount to acquiescence in an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the rockets to deliver them.

To repeat, then, what cannot be stressed too often: If the purpose were still to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, no deal that Iran would conceivably agree to sign could do the trick, leaving war as the only alternative. To that extent, Mr. Obama is also right. But there is an additional wrinkle. For in allowing Iran to get the bomb, he is not averting war. What he is doing is setting the stage for a nuclear war between Iran and Israel.

The reason stems from the fact that, with hardly an exception, all of Israel believes that the Iranians are deadly serious when they proclaim that they are bound and determined to wipe the Jewish state off the map. It follows that once Iran acquires the means to make good on this genocidal commitment, each side will be faced with only two choices: either to rely on the fear of a retaliatory strike to deter the other from striking first, or to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own.

Yet when even a famous Iranian “moderate” like the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has said—as he did in 2001, contemplating a nuclear exchange—that “the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality,” how can deterrence work?

The brutal truth is that the actual alternatives before us are not Mr. Obama’s deal or war. They are conventional war now or nuclear war later. John Kerry recently declared that Israel would be making a “huge mistake” to take military action against Iran. But Mr. Kerry, as usual, is spectacularly wrong. Israel would not be making a mistake at all, let alone a huge one. On the contrary, it would actually be sparing itself—and the rest of the world—a nuclear conflagration in the not too distant future.

 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice profiles Facebook Friend Kevin Hermening, a hostage of Iran in 1980 and 1981:

At his presidential campaign launch this month, Walker introduced Hermening — a former Iranian hostage — by name, offering the former U.S. Marine a nod and a salute.

The second-term Republican governor cited Hermening when opposing the nuclear deal with Iran. Walker said Hermening had taught him that Iran “is not a place we should be doing business with.”

Walker also has made mention of Hermening on Twitter and in an opinion piece for Breitbart.com.

“As foreign policy emerges as a leading issue in the 2016 election, Walker plans to keep featuring Hermening in the campaign — a role Hermening gladly accepts,” said an Associated Pressarticle from last week.

But Hermening, who admits he is no expert on the Middle East, has espoused some extreme foreign policy views in the past — ones he continues to defend.

He expressed these points in an inflammatory opinion piece for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in September 2001, just weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

There, Hermening called for the deportation of all illegal immigrants, especially those with a Middle Eastern background and anyone who reacted “with glee” to the coordinated attacks by 19 al-Qaida terrorists. He also urged wiping out the capitals of seven heavily Muslim countries — if they didn’t support American efforts to kill Osama bin Laden.

“Every military response must be considered, including the use of nuclear warheads,” Hermening wrote in the column.

Reached last week, Hermening said he had been expecting to be asked about the provocative opinion piece after Walker began using him in campaign speeches.

Hermening emphasized that the op-ed piece was written during an extremely emotional period in America.

But he then went on to defend most of the column, saying it had to be read in context. He even suggested that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton would agree with parts of it.

“I’m not sure I would have a different view today in 2015,” Hermening said. He added later, “I don’t have a problem with anybody raising (the op-ed piece).”

But he did distance himself from one line in the column. Specifically, he recommended in the article that America suspend the civil rights of terror suspects, including — bizarrely — “representatives of Israel’s Mossad intelligence forces.”

He said this must have been an incomplete thought.

“I have never believed that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks,” Hermening said last week by email. “I DO believe that Mossad is more skilled at gleaning information during interrogations than our own intelligence agencies.”

A Walker campaign spokeswoman stood by Hermening when asked about the views expressed in his opinion piece.

AshLee Strong, press secretary for Walker, emphasized that Hermening was one of 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days more than three decades ago by militant Iranian students. He was a 20-year-old Marine sergeant stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran at the time.

“Mr. Hermening has bravely served our country, and any attacks on this service are shameful,” Strong said.

She did not respond to particulars of Hermening’s foreign policy positions.

Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, denounced Hermening’s views as “utter nonsense” and “extremist.”

“That feeds into two right-wing veins here — anti-immigrant and Islamophobia,” Hooper said. “It’s like a perfect storm there.”

Hooper asked how undocumented immigrants would be tracked down and would Hermening have favored a two-track deportation system, one for Muslims and one for non-Muslims.

As for nuking the capitals of various Middle Eastern and northern African countries, Hooper said no reasonable person was advocating such views. He said it was disturbing that Walker is being advised by someone who pushed this proposal.

“It’s the kind of nonsense that substitutes for reasoned policy advice,” Hooper said.

In the 2001 article, Hermening outlined a four-point plan that he described as “the only acceptable and appropriate responses” to the attacks.

First, he called for the “immediate and unequivocal deportation of every illegal alien and immigrant.” He said this effort should “focus on removing those of Middle Eastern descent, and especially those who reacted with glee at the horror of Sept. 11 (if you don’t have permission to be here, get the hell out!).”

In addition, Hermening said he favored a “prompt and massive military response that includes the destruction of the capitals of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.” The only way out, he said, would be if these countries “agree unequivocally to support our efforts to kill Osama bin Laden.”

“After the annihilation of each country’s capitals, we can make them the same kind of financial offer we made to the leaders of Japan and Germany after World War II,” Hermening continued.

“Cooperate with us in the establishment of democratic governments, and we will assist you in every possible way. Don’t cooperate, and your people will perpetually suffer — that ought to be our unspoken message.”

Last week, Hermening pointed out that he was writing from a particular point of view.

“I don’t speak as a foreign policy expert,” Hermening said in a phone interview. “I speak as somebody concerned about the security of the American people — meaning my family at the time at least.”

Asked if he still favored singling out illegal immigrants of Middle Eastern descent for deportation, he said:

“If people were training to fly airplanes into the Freedom Center in downtown New York and people reacted with glee and celebration — I’m talking about folks who are here beyond their visas — I think anybody who’s picked up without their visas having being extended ought to be looked at. They’re certainly not legally in the country anymore.”

Hermening went on to say that he was not talking in 2001 about the current policy debates over Hispanic immigrants.

Rather, he said he was responding to the Sept. 11 attacks, even if he said back then that the U.S. should deport “every illegal alien.”

“We’re talking in a totally different context now, you and I are,” said Hermening, a 55-year-old investment adviser, financial planner and onetime candidate for office who grew up in Oak Creek and now lives in Mosinee, just south of Wausau.

As for destroying the capitals of the seven heavily Muslim countries, Hermening pointed out that the U.S. subsequently bombed at least two of them — Kabul in Afghanistan and Baghdad in Iraq.

“So eventually that was accomplished,” Hermening said. America, however, did not totally destroy either city and did not use nuclear weapons. His list also didn’t include Saudi Arabia, even though 15 of the hijackers were from that country.

But does Hermening still think destroying these seven capitals would have been an appropriate response to Sept. 11?

Yes, he does.

“Obviously, I’m not the only one,” he said. “Hillary Clinton agreed. Hillary Clinton maybe wasn’t as expansive as I was because I included more countries. … But on Afghanistan and Iraq, the president of the United States, and the majority of the U.S. Senate and Congress also agree.”

Some have suggested, Hermening said, that he can’t get past his experience as a hostage in Iran. He said he doesn’t see it that way.

“Iran is a part of my life — it isn’t my life,” he said. “It helped make who I am today. It’s given me this view: You need to be trusting of your international partners, defending your global allies and standing tall and tough against countries that are adversarial to you.”

Yeah, that’s really radical, “standing tall and tough against countries that are adversarial to you.” Except to the Surrender Caucus, including Barack Obama, who are fine with kowtowing to Iraq, Russia, China and this country’s other enemies.

Bice conveniently fails to remember American attitudes both during the 444-day Iran hostage crisis and immediately after 9/11. There were Americans who believed our country should have obliterated Teheran, even at the cost of the hostages’ lives. There were Americans who believed our country should have obliterated any Middle Eastern country that was assisting the terrorists, even at the cost of innocent Middle Eastern lives.

Given Iran’s lack of compliance with previous treaties, Hermening makes a much better argument against the surrender — I mean, treaty — with Iran than any of the treaty’s supporters.