{"id":29683,"date":"2018-05-09T19:15:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T19:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29683"},"modified":"2018-05-09T19:15:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T19:15:01","slug":"why-is-no-deal-better-than-a-bad-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29683","title":{"rendered":"Why is no deal better than a bad one?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/iran-deal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29684\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/iran-deal-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/iran-deal-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/iran-deal-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/iran-deal.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am still trying to digest the implications of Donald Trump&#8217;s decision to pull the United States out of a deal that would prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>The president railed against the deal struck in 2015 as a terrible agreement. He said he couldn&#8217;t in good faith keep the United States involved in a pact that had the endorsement of virtually all of our major strategic allies.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the question for which I cannot find an answer: Why is &#8220;no deal&#8221; better than a bad deal that could be improved?<\/p>\n<p>U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry &#8212; who happens to represent the Texas Panhandle in the House of Representatives &#8212; questions the wisdom of backing out of the deal without trying to persuade our European allies to work even harder to hammer out a better deal.<\/p>\n<p>Did the president exhaust all of our diplomatic options? Every single one of them? Were there no avenues to explore? None? Anywhere?<\/p>\n<p>The defense secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman both concurred that Iran was complying with the strict inspection protocol that had been written into the deal. Trump said Iran wasn&#8217;t. Who do we believe? No need to answer that one. I know who I believe &#8212; and it <em>isn&#8217;t<\/em> the commander in chief.<\/p>\n<p>The president&#8217;s first task is to protect us from our enemies. I do not believe Donald Trump has fulfilled that task by tossing the Iran nuclear deal into the trash bin.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s remember this fact that hasn&#8217;t yet been discussed fully in the hours since Trump&#8217;s announcement: Iran was a signatory to the agreement; if the Iranians remain a part of it, the deal sticks; if they don&#8217;t, all bets are off and they will resume their quest for a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>Do you feel safer now? Neither do I.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am still trying to digest the implications of Donald Trump&#8217;s decision to pull the United States out of a deal that would prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The president railed against the deal struck in 2015 as a terrible agreement. He said he couldn&#8217;t in good faith keep the United States involved &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29683\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why is no deal better than a bad one?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1424,2315,3355],"class_list":["post-29683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran-nuclear-deal","tag-nuclear-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29685,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29683\/revisions\/29685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}