Obama, Iran and the 2015 ‘Lie of the year’

In 2013, US President Hussein Obama worked hard to sell his proposed Obamacare national healthcare plan. To convince US citizens that his proposed plan was good, he said, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep him; if you like your healthcare insurance plan, you can keep it’ (Colin Campbell, “Republicans are latching onto this one White House comment to highlight the ‘big lie’ of the Iran deal”, Business Insider, July 15, 2015). The website PolitiFact was so impressed by those assertions—and the extent to which they weren’t true--it apparently rated them as the ‘2013 Lie of the Year’ (ibid).

Now, 2015, the Obama White House again races to that award. It seems intent upon winning the bragging rights for the ‘2015 Lie of the Year’.

This time, the administration’s lie isn’t about a US healthcare plan. It’s about an anti-US Iran seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran chants, “Death to Israel”. It chants “Death to America”. It wants nuclear weapons—and the US lies to help Iran get them.

Here’s part of the story: back in April, 2015, White House deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, made the statement that there will be ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections of Iran nuclear facilities to help assure that Iran was indeed complying with the terms of a deal to stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons. This type of ‘unprecedented’ 24/7 inspection requirement was considered key to securing a deal that would work (Jonathan Landay, “Iran nuke deal depends on most intrusive inspection system ever”, McClatchydc, July 14, 2015).

Now, US Secretary of State John Kerry, has said, ‘we never, ever had a discussion of ‘anytime, anywhere’ (Evan McMurry, “Sec. Kerry: We Never Said Anything About 'Anytime, Anywhere' Inspections”, mediaite, July 19, 2015).

Almost as soon as Kerry made that statement, Sean Hannity of Fox News played a video news interview of Mr Rhodes in April 2015. In that interview, Rhodes stated that, ‘under this deal, you will have anytime, anywhere 24/7 access as it relates to nuclear facilities’ (Colin Campbell, “Dick Cheney torches Iran deal: 'What the hell is the president thinking?'”, Business Insider, July 15, 2015).

Kerry’s assertion that ‘’we never, ever had a discussion of ‘anytime, anywhere’’ appears not simply as a reversal of a previous policy. It seems an outright denial of an ‘on the record’ statement that there certainly would be such 24/7 oversight of Iran’s nuclear facilities, because that’s what was needed to make sure Iran was compliant.

But now, some three months later, that position has changed. What had started out as a 24/7 ‘we want to inspect your facility right now’ policy has turned into ‘we’ll give you a 24-day notice to visit your facility if you object to that visit’ policy.

That’s not the ‘robust and unprecedented’ oversight Obama bragged about three-and-a-half months ago (Ilan Ben Zion, “Obama: Iran nuclear framework deal ‘will make world safer’”, Times of Israel, April 2, 2015). It’s not the ‘unprecedented’ inspections Obama referred to right after securing his ‘deal’ (Jana Kasperkevic, “Obama says Iran deal 'will make world safer' as Republicans plot opposition”, The Guardian, July 18, 2015). It’s certainly not the “With this deal, we will have unprecedented, 24/7 monitoring [emphasis mine] of Iran’s key nuclear facilities”, which Obama said in his weekly address just a few days ago (text of President’s weekly address, “Obama Weekly Address: Iran Deal "Will Make World Safer", RealClearPolitics, July 18, 2015).

Giving Iran 24 days to ‘prepare’ for an inspection is not ‘inspections’. It’s the complete abdication of the intended inspection concept.

As Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you check the premises? That’s a lot of time to flush a lot of meth down the toilet” (Andrew Kugle, “Netanyahu: 24 Days Before Access? You Don’t Give a Drug Dealer 24 Days Notice”, Washington Free Beacon, July 15, 2015).

Kerry’s denial wasn’t just ‘we didn’t discuss 24/7 anytime anywhere’. If he had said that, he’d have lied.

He didn’t do that. He also didn’t say, ‘we never discussed ‘anytime, anywhere’. If he’d done that, that would have been a big lie.

He didn’t do that, either. What he said was, ‘we never, ever [emphasis mine] discussed ‘anytime, anywhere’ (mediaite, above).

That’s not a lie. It isn’t a big lie. It’s a candidate for ‘2015 Lie of the Year’.

The G-d of Israel has a Story for you. It’s the Story of the Final Jewish Redemption. You don’t believe that American lies about a bad ‘deal’ with an anti-US and anti-Israel Iran will play a role in that Story?

Stay tuned.