by: Mike Evans
President Barack Obama and President Hassan Rouhani have held the first direct talks between US and Iranian leaders since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Exchanging pleasantries during a fifteen minute telephone call on Friday, September 27, have-a-nice-day conversation, Obama communicated his “deep respects for the Iranian people,” and congratulated Rouhani for his recent election. Mr. Obama also expressed his good wishes and hopes that he and the Iranian leader could resolve over the next few months the differences between the US and Iran.
What exact “differences” will Presidents Obama and Rouhani attempt to resolve? The differences over the Revolutionary Guards and al-Quds Force killing tens of thousands of Syrians? The differences over Iranian funded and trained Hezbollah terrorists making life a living hell for the Jewish people in Israel, as well as for the Lebanese people? The differences over Hamas, a proxy of Iran, and its missiles being fired into Israel? Or could it be over the fact that 85 percent of all US troops killed or wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq have died because of the use of Iranian improvised explosive devices?
President Obama’s desire to negotiate no matter the cost gives rise to those in the West who have become unwilling cohorts of the jihadists. These individuals rationalize the presence of evil and the attacks by terrorists based on their perception of our past sins. Self-loathing has replaced righteous indignation and begets appeasement.
Seventy-two hours before the “historic” telephone conversation, I had dinner in Jerusalem with Dr. Iddo Netanyahu, the brother of the prime minister. When I asked him about Rouhani and his charm offensive, he said, “It is no different than Hitler in the 1930s. Hitler proclaimed to Germany and the world he wanted peace, peace, peace. Because of it, he was able to convince Neville Chamberlain to buy in to appeasement, which was the beginning of the end for 61 million human beings—including six million Jews—killed during World War II.
Philosopher George Santana said, “Those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” President Jimmy Carter was the last Liberal Left president to attempt what Mr. Obama is attempting. Rouhani, a Shi’a cleric, has learned his lessons well from Ayatollah Khomeini, who said and did precisely the same things. He convinced Jimmy Carter that he would be another Gandhi-like figure. Farah Pahlavi, wife of the former Shah of Iran, told me during an interview in her home, “My husband said to me, if Jimmy Carter keeps this up, ultimately Khomeini will come back and with him will come an Islamic revolution. The Russians will invade Afghanistan, Iraq will go to war against Iran, and who knows what horror will come upon the world.”
In an interview with President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France during the time of America’s first crisis with Iran, I was told that in 1979 he met with Carter in Guadalupe for a summit. Helmut Schmidt of Germany and James Callahan of Great Britain were also present. Mr. Carter told this group of men that the US was going to support Khomeini instead of the Shah of Iran. In essence, Mr. d’Estaing said he realized the US was trading its strongest pro-Western Persian Gulf ally in favor of a terrorist Muslim cleric. “I was horrified,” said d’Estaing. “The only way I can describe Jimmy Carter is that he was a ‘bastard of conscience.’”
I have interviewed virtually every living Iranian leader who has served during that period of time. Over the past four years in New York City, I have also met with and interviewed a large percentage of the present Iranian leaders while attending the UN General Assembly. This includes the former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with whom I arranged the first Fox News Network interview. I am convinced that the results of the Obama/Rouhani negotiations will be more catastrophic for the US than was those in the Jimmy Carter era.
During Rouhani’s trip, I met with many Iranian diplomats in their hotel. I asked one man from the Iranian mission in New York if he enjoyed his job as a diplomat. He responded, “Are you kidding me? I hate my job. There is nothing to like about it when your job is only to propagate lies and deception.”
For thirty-five years, Hassan Rouhani has served unswervingly loyal Islamic cleric and a close aide to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Despite the fact that President Obama congratulated him on his election, Rouhani was only one of six presidential candidates. After 678 had been disqualified by the regime as ideologically unsound, with Rouhani, the final choice, Obama had an opportunity to maintain moral clarity and keep the line of sanctions drawn in the sand. He had the chance to stand by the United States’ greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel; instead, he has played the appeasement card which will only devalue America’s currency in the Middle East and embolden terror.
What did Rouhani do to deserve such a reward? He never gave an inch on the Iranian atomic enrichment plan when Iran, according to Israeli intelligence, is within weeks of reaching the red line in their nuclear program. When I asked the Iranian diplomats, they smiled and winked and told me it was to begin negotiations with President Obama within three to six months. I asked another Iranian diplomat what role Iran was attempting to play in Syria. The response was, “We are communicating to your president that the key to the Syrian crisis is Iran. Its leaders need to be the mediators between the US, Syria and Russia.”
It takes about 250 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in August that Iran already has 186 kilograms. The Iranians are on the threshold of going nuclear and are now adding about 3,000 new high-speed centrifuges. Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005. He boasted in a 2004 speech to the Supreme Culture Revolution Council, “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing new equipment in parts of the Iranian conversion facilities in Isfahan…in fact by creating a calm environment we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
Between 1989 and 2005, Rouhani and the National Security Council in Iran were responsible for the bombing of the Jewish Culture Center in Buenos Aries in which 85 were killed and 300 wounded and the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 and wounded 500. In two scriptures in the Bible, Satan is described in this way: “Do not marvel that Satan has transformed himself into an angel of light.”
To think that Iran, a fascist, terrorist state run by mullahs is willing to dismantle vast portions of its multi-billion atomic infrastructure in exchange for sanction relief defines the true meaning of naivety. Even worse, to think that President Hassan Rouhani is about to lead Iran into dismantling its nuclear program now that it has 18,000 centrifuges instead of the 178 it had ten years ago, is laughable. On May 17, 1933, Adolf Hitler gave a speech declaring, “Germany will be perfectly willing to dismantle its entire military establishment and destroy the small amount of arms remaining to her if the neighboring countries will do the same with equal thoroughness.”
On December 18, 1933, Hitler gave an even stronger speech on his desire for peace. He continued giving numerous speeches on peace and disarmament. On May 21, 1935, he declared that the “German government is ready to take an active part in all efforts which may lead to practical limitations of armaments.” On June 18, 1935, he negotiated a naval agreement with Great Britain which asserted that the German navy could only have the strength of 35 percent of that of the British navy. Signs of Hitler’s intentions abounded, and were ignored. After a period of lulling Europe to sleep, In September 1939, Adolf Hitler and German forces invaded Poland signaling the beginning of World War II.
It was Winston Churchill who said in 1935: “The world lacks the democratic courage, intellectual honesty, and moral willingness to act to stop Hitler’s war machine.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has his back against the wall. A Jew-murdering, terrorist state wants an atomic bomb to wipe Israel off the map. Instead of standing up to Iran, President Obama is bowing down to its new president.
During World War II, US pilots begged their generals to allow them to bomb the railroad tracks leading into concentration camps in order to halt the cattle cars loaded with Jews bound for the ovens. President Roosevelt gave orders not to allow the tracks to be bombed; he was afraid he would offend Jew-hating US allies. Israeli Air Force jets flew over Auschwitz on September 4, 2003. A photograph hangs at every base with these words: “We the Israeli Air Force pilots in the skies over the camp of atrocities have risen from the ashes of millions of victims and we carry their solemn cry. We salute their courage and pledge to serve as the defenders of the Jewish people and their state Israel. Auschwitz, September 4, 2003.”
As Mr. Obama’s plane landed in Israel on March 20, 2013, I was with Brigadier General Tomer Bar receiving a high-level briefing at the strategic Northern Command Air Force Base. I asked, “When you feel that the danger from Iran has reached the point of no return and has become an existential threat to your nation, will you depend upon President Obama and the world to support you?” He replied, “We’ve learned from the Holocaust to have faith in no one but ourselves and God.”
********
Dr. Michael Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. His latest novel, The Locket, based on the pursuit, arrest, trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann debuted at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in June. His latest non-fiction book, Persia: The Final Jihad is available at www.TimeWorthyBooks.com.
Benjamin Netanyahu has again challenged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his failure to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. During a Likud meeting earlier this week, the prime minister said: "The chairman of the PA was quoted today as saying he is not prepared to recognize the Jewish state. And this comes with him knowing there will not be an agreement without recognition of the nation state of the Jews." Netanyahu also called “absurd” the idea that Israel would acquiesce to a Palestinian state without the reciprocity of the PA recognizing the Jewish state. Abbas’ failure to acknowledge the Jewish state has become the proverbial elephant in the room during peace negotiations.
