Bachmann uncorks on Obama, Armageddon

WASHINGTON — It was a warning on the perils of appeasement reminiscent of Churchill.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., cut straight to the heart of the matter when WND asked her what the nuclear deal with Iran will mean.

"The major nations of the world have chosen to fail to thwart Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. It is a blunder of such great proportion, history will record it's folly," she ruefully predicted.

The congresswoman had an equally dire assessment when asked: Did the deal mean Israel would now have no option but to launch a preemptive strike on Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Israel may have 'to save the world'

"Now Israel must secure not only her destiny, but she may have to save the world from an Islamic-inspired nuclear Armageddon," she observed ominously.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal brokered by world powers over the weekend a "historic mistake."

"Iran gets billions of dollars in sanction relief without paying an actual price," said the prime minister. "Iran gets written permission to breach U.N. Security Council resolutions."

The deal, spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, will ease strict economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for steps supposed to curb the nation's nuclear program.

Netanyahu had insisted, to be effective in stopping Iran's drive to build atomic weapons, any deal had to end Iran’s enriching of uranium and include the demolition of a plutonium reactor under construction.

'Surrender by the United States'

But an Associated Press analysis showed the Israelis' worst fears were realized because the deal does not do either of those things and "relies heavily on Iranian goodwill."

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton called the deal an "abject surrender by the United States" because "Iran retains its full capacity to enrich uranium, thus abandoning a decade of Western insistence and Security Council resolutions that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activities."

He warned, "Iran may have gained all of the time it needs to achieve weaponization not of simply a handful of nuclear weapons, but of dozens or more."

Bachmann wrote an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post earlier this month that questioned the president's entire approach to the Mideast, noting Obama recently told the U.N. General Assembly that “Israel’s security as a Jewish and democratic state depends upon the realization of a Palestinian state" rather than neutralizing the threat from Iran.

But, the congresswoman remarked, "Palestinian refusal to accept statehood in 1937, 1947, 2000 and again in 2008 suggests that destroying Israel, not building a Palestine, is the Palestinian goal." That led her to wonder, "[W]hy are we pressuring Israel at all?"

'Suicidal deal'

In an interview with the Post, she said the looming deal with Iran would not just be bad for Israel, it would be "suicidal" for the world.

Bachmann spoke with WND after having recently returning from Israel, where she first learned the outlines of the deal and met with a clearly concerned Netanyahu.

"The meeting was unlike any we'd ever had," she said. "He was very upset and apoplectic about what this deal would mean."

She contrasted Netanyahu's sober concern with a bombastic speech given last week by Iran Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the fanatical Bassij volunteer loyalist militia.

The man who has ultimate authority over his nation's nuclear program called Israel a "rabid dog."

"He went on to say they will not change their nuclear program one iota," Bachmann noted. "And the response from the tens of thousands of paramilitary, who would be the front line of his military response, all shouted in unison, 'Death to America! Death to America!'"

Even more stunning than what the Ayatollah said, according to Bachmann, "was the silence that came from the Obama administration in response to those words."

Obama endorses Iran's 'right' to uranium

"And, as a matter of fact, they (the Obama administration) gave a gift, the greatest gift that Iran could ever hope to receive," Bachmann said. "It's this: In the president's press statement that he issued, he talked about Iran's 'right' to enrich uranium."

Indeed, Netanyahu has pointed out nations such as Canada and India import their uranium to run nuclear power plants, and that if Iran really did not want to use the nuclear fuel to build a bomb, it could simply do the same.

Bachmann called the deal "almost beyond belief, because after decades of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, they've been rewarded for bad behavior."

'Moment of clarity'

She termed this a turning point and a "moment of clarity" in the United States' relations with Iran and Israel.

"It's a moment of clarity for the Obama administration. In his press release, the president referred to the Islamic Republic of Iran, not just as Iran. I don't believe they (his administration) have referred to the Jewish State of Israel."

She repeated the observation to emphasize what she clearly considers the historic and ominous nature of this deal.

"This is a moment of clarity," Bachmann said. "The president has made it abundantly clear that, for all practical purposes, he and his team are perfectly content to see Iran join the very exclusive league of nations with nuclear weaponry. "

Then she spelled out exactly why she believes this deal is both so historic and so dangerous.

"It's always been, in order to gain admission to that club, you had to be responsible," she said. "This is the most dangerous nation with the most dangerous weapons, acquiring them at the worst possible time, with stated intentions to use them to wipe Israel off the map and to use them against us, to bring about the defeat of the United States of America."

Transforming America, then the world

WND asked Bachmann: Why do you think President Obama believes this deal was a good idea?

"Just go back to the speech he gave five days before he was elected president in which he said he was going to fundamentally transform America," she replied. "He's done that domestically, on the economic side with Obamacare, and now he's doing it with foreign policy."

She didn't mince words when describing the effects of the president's foreign policy.

"He's completely changed the dynamic of the United States and our role in the world, reducing the U.S. as a world power, reducing the strength of the U.S. military, continually disrespecting and pulling the rug out from under our allies."

She then returned to a theme, but put it in a hopeful light.

"I think this is a moment of moral clarity," Bachmann said. "We should have joy because now, after all the rhetoric we've had (from the administration) about being supportive of Israel, now we have an opportunity to put it on the line. That's what we need to realize – what's going to happen now? What's the next step?"

'Israeli military strike is the only way' left

Bachmann may have left the question hanging in the air, but another severe critic of the deal spelled it out.

Ambassador Bolton said there is only one option left: "So in truth, an Israeli military strike is the only way to avoid Tehran’s otherwise inevitable march to nuclear weapons, and the proliferation that will surely follow."

Bolton said the real target of the deal was Israel, and he called it an attempt to stop the nation from launching a strike against Iran to defend itself.

"Obama, fearing that strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon, clearly needed greater international pressure on Jerusalem," he said. "And Jerusalem fully understands that Israel was the real target of the Geneva negotiations."

And, by stating "Tehran judges correctly that they have Obama obediently moving in their direction," Bolton clearly agreed with the Saudis that the president has been manipulated by the Iranians.

Iran outmatches Obama

In fact, veteran Saudi negotiator Prince Alwaleed bin Talal told Bloomberg News that Obama is outmatched by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“There’s no confidence in the Obama administration doing the right thing with Iran,” he confided even before the deal was struck.

Perhaps the most significant measure of how great a threat Iran now poses is that Israeli is now in an unprecedented, and previously unimaginable, de facto alliance with other Arab nations against Iran.

“We’re really concerned – Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East countries – about this,” confessed bin Talal.

And the Saudi Prince has his own ideas as to why Obama would make such a deal, which have everything to do with the president's disastrous health-care law and nosediving poll numbers.

“Obama is in so much of a rush to have a deal with Iran,” he said. “He wants anything. He’s so wounded. It’s very scary. Look, the 2014 elections are going to begin. Within two months they’re going to start campaigning. Thirty-nine members of his own party in the House have already moved away from him on Obamacare. That’s scary for him.”

This is wrong

Bachmann's commentary in the Jerusalem Post outlined just how much Israel has had to overcome just to survive to this point.

"It is not Israel that has declared war on its Arab neighbors since its inception in 1948," she wrote. "It it is the neighboring Arab states which invaded Israel the day it declared independence."

"It is not Israel that refused peace talks following the first Arab-Israeli war, it was its Arab neighbors."

She accused the Obama administration of leaning heavily on Israel to make concessions while not calling out the Palestinian Authority for it's "uninterrupted record of ... intransigence and extremism."

"This is wrong," she declared. "This is counter-productive. This harms peace prospects. This does not serve American interests. This is not America at its best."

Bachmann noted how American presidents have always stood by Israel "when faced with threats, violence, extremism and non-acceptance. Israel faces all these right now."

She added, "The time has come for the United States to cease pressuring Israel into unmerited, dangerous, one-sided concessions."

However, the congresswoman believes that is what the United States has just done, with historic consequences to follow.

Follow Garth Kant on Twitter @DCGarth