Exceptional (21 page)

In June, ISIS took Mosul. Baghdadi declared the establishment of a caliphate and, as caliph, preached a Ramadan sermon in Mosul's main mosque. The caliphate
stretched across territory in Syria and Iraq, effectively erasing the former national boundaries, and securing a huge propaganda victory. It was a practical victory as well. The establishment of a caliphate imposes an obligation of allegiance upon those Muslims around the globe who share ISIS's apocalyptic, medieval
interpretation of Islam. Since the declaration, tens if not hundreds of thousands of jihadists from around the globe have flooded into the caliphate.

ISIS's spread into territory that now reaches virtually from Baghdad to Damascus has continued despite American air strikes that
began—in a limited fashion with onerous rules of engagement and no forward U.S. air controllers—in September 2014. In addition to the territory ISIS controls in Iraq and Syria, the group has established
wilayat
s or administrative districts in Yemen, the Sinai peninsula, Libya, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.

During the period of ISIS's expansion, President Obama has minimized the threat, declared the war on terror over, proclaimed that it was U.S. policy to “degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS,” declined to deploy the resources to accomplish this, and announced at least twice that we had no strategy to do so. His actions have served to accelerate progress by our enemies rather than safeguarding our interests. He has pointed to examples of his own success, only to see those policies deteriorate under the weight of the advance of militant Islam. Announcing his plans to combat ISIS in September 2014, for example, President Obama said the United States would adopt a plan similar to the counterterrorism strategy “that we have successfully pursued in Yemen . . . for years.” Six months later, in the face of advancing Iranian-backed rebels, the United States was forced to close its embassy and pull out of the country. America had also been forced to close its embassies in Syria and Libya due to the violence and chaos unleashed by the rise of America's adversaries across the region.

Allowing this rise to continue nearly unabated, the president has pointed to one instance in which he would deploy U.S. ground forces: “If we discover that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then yes, you can anticipate that not only would Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin] Dempsey recommend me sending U.S. ground troops to get that weapon out of their hands, but I
would order it.” Is the president of the United States really willing to let ISIS get a nuclear weapon before he acts? Surely even this president and
this national security team recognize that would be too late. Isn't there at least one person inside the Obama White House who could tell the president that his job is to prevent the terrorists from getting nuclear weapons, not to wait and act after the fact?

It is abundantly clear as we write this that the Obama strategy to defeat or even degrade ISIS is failing. General Jack Keane testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 21, 2015:

Looking at this strategy today we know now that the conceptual plan is fundamentally flawed. The resources provided to support Iraq are far from adequate. The timing and urgency to provide arms, equipment, and training is insufficient. And as such, we are not only failing, we are in fact losing this war. Moreover, I can say with certainty, this strategy will
not defeat ISIS.

The president is undeterred. ISIS is Iraq's problem, not ours. Having lived through the attacks of 9/11, the president cannot claim ignorance about the threat to America posed by terrorists who have the territory, desire, resources, and commitment to attack America, and with the spread of ISIS, the threat America faces is grave and growing. No combination of armies, absent American leadership, will defeat them. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has described the situation this way:

It is hard to overstate the threat that this organization poses. I call it al Qaeda Version 6.0. The Islamic State is far better organized, equipped, and funded than the original. They are more experienced and more numerous. Several thousand carry Western passports, including American ones. All the terrorists have to do is get on a plane and head west. But perhaps the most important asset they possess is territory. For the first time since 9/11, a determined
and capable enemy has the space and security to plan complex, longer-range operations. If we don't think we are on that list, we are
deluding ourselves.

In his time left in office, President Obama would do well to remember the words of one of his Democratic predecessors. In 1948, President Harry Truman spoke to Congress about the growing Soviet threat to Western Europe. Urging Congress to act immediately to pass the Marshall Plan and maintain America's military strength, Truman said, “There are times in world history when it is far wiser to act than to hesitate. There is some risk involved in action—there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.” President Truman continued, “We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we shall pay the
price of war.”

In years to come, President Obama will have to explain to his fellow citizens why he chose inaction as the threat grew, spread, and gathered strength? Why was he unwilling to stop those bent on America's destruction?

When history asks, how will he answer?

If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

—PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, MARCH 8, 1983

I
n his first inaugural address, on January 20, 2009, President Obama had a message for dictators around the globe. “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent,” he said, “know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Leaders in Tehran and Moscow had yet to take the measure of America's new president, but over the next six years, as they were placated and even appeased, they learned that the president's extended hand was full of prizes for them and did not require—contrary to what he had said—that they unclench their fists.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 1987.
The Iranian delegation arrived with a check, in Swiss francs, for approximately $3 million. Representatives
from A. Q. Khan's nuclear network, including S. M. Farouq and B.S.A. Tahir, met them in the hotel room carrying a briefcase containing designs for centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Once Farouq confirmed the Iranians' check would clear, Khan's team
handed over the briefcase. Technical drawings for a centrifuge were just the beginning. Khan's sales to the Iranians would eventually include a starter kit for a centrifuge plant, centrifuge components, and instructions for enriching uranium to
weapons-grade levels. The Iranians were Khan's first customers in what would become the most dangerous nuclear proliferation network in history.

MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS earlier, the Iranians had established a peaceful nuclear energy program. In 1967, the
Tehran Research Reactor went online. In 1970, the Iranian parliament ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which aimed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons technology by creating a two-tiered structure for membership. The five countries that tested nuclear weapons before 1968—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and France—joined the NPT as nuclear weapons states. Other states that signed the treaty, the non-nuclear-weapons states, promised not to develop nuclear weapons. In exchange, the NPT recognized the absolute right of all signatories to nuclear programs “for peaceful purposes,” and the nuclear weapons states agreed to provide technical assistance and equipment for the development of peaceful programs. Nearly every country in the
world has now signed the NPT.

In 1974, Iran entered into a
safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), giving the IAEA the right to inspect Iran's nuclear sites and verify that it was not developing nuclear weapons. Iran continued to work with the West, including the United States, throughout the 1970s to acquire technology and equipment necessary for its peaceful nuclear program.

Everything changed in 1979 when Iran's shah, Reza Pahlavi, was overthrown. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been exiled by the shah, returned to Tehran, proclaimed the establishment of the new Islamic Republic of Iran, and became its first supreme leader. On November 2, 1979, militant Islamic students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The Iranians would ultimately hold fifty-two Americans hostage for 444 days.

Under Khomeini, Iran became the world's leading state sponsor of terror, targeting the United States, our allies, and our interests around the world. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, oversees the suppression of opposition inside Iran and its support for terror externally, providing financing and training to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. The IRGC also controls Iran's nuclear program and a large and growing
share of the Iranian economy. Therefore, lifting sanctions on Iran's financial, oil, and transport sectors, and releasing frozen assets to the government in Tehran directly benefits the IRGC.

President Obama has also taken the previously unimaginable step of agreeing to lift sanctions on the IRGC itself, including on its military arm, the Quds Force. The Obama nuclear deal also provides for lifting sanctions on Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani. Suleimani reports directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Quds Force is responsible for the deaths of members of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, they trained, supplied, and funded Shi'ite militias to fight against our forces. Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group sponsored by Iran, assisted the Quds Force in this effort. In Afghanistan, Iran has provided weapons and training to the Taliban and other insurgent groups. In both countries, improvised explosive devices with distinctive markings indicating that they were manufactured in Iran have accounted for significant numbers of
American casualties. According to a Pentagon
report published in October 2014, Iran was providing support for the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan as Iranian representatives sat across the negotiating table from Secretary of State John Kerry in the nuclear talks.

Today, the Quds Force is active on battlefields across the Middle East. According to former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael Flynn, the Iranian regime significantly increased its destabilizing activities during negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. As of this writing, Iran or its proxies control at least four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Sana'a, and Beirut, with a power and influence that is spreading.

ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2002, an Iranian opposition group held a press conference in Washington to announce that Iran was operating two secret nuclear facilities. They had evidence of a uranium enrichment facility near Natanz and a heavy-water reactor at Arak. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is required to report any new nuclear construction to the IAEA. These secret sites had not been disclosed.

Iran continued to claim that its program was peaceful in nature, but countries that are pursuing peaceful nuclear energy programs don't hide their
nuclear facilities underground. They don't build heavy-water reactors. They don't insist on enriching their own uranium. They don't build intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The disclosure of these secret sites brought immediate requests by the IAEA for international inspectors to visit, which they did in February 2003. The inspectors identified two facilities at Natanz: an aboveground plant that could hold 1,000 centrifuges and underground facilities with
room for 50,000. France, Germany, and Britain, known as the EU-3, began negotiations with Iran to halt work at these sites.

In March 2003, the United States and coalition forces invaded
Iraq. In the fall of 2003, the Iranians agreed to stop construction at the Natanz site and signed an additional agreement with the IAEA that would provide greater inspection access to any suspicious site inside the country. Iran had fought the Iraqi Army for a decade without being able to defeat it, and watching the Americans prevail in a
matter of weeks likely focused the thinking of Iranian leaders. They halted portions of their nuclear program—temporarily it turned out—almost surely to keep America from targeting them next.

In a dance that would be repeated many times over the years, the Iranians played for time. They would agree to cooperate with inspections and then obstruct and delay. They would agree to suspend activities and then restart them. They would pretend to negotiate in good faith while they marched ahead aggressively with their nuclear program.

Iran's current president, Hassan Rouhani, led his country's nuclear negotiations during this period. Although the Obama administration has portrayed him as a “moderate” and a “reformer,” he oversaw Iran's nuclear duplicity. He described it himself in his 2011 book: “While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing
equipment in Isfahan.”