Obama can choose to enter the history books as the president who prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or as the president who facilitated it.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel. More from the author ► Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

I have always been of the opinion that logic is the force driving America's foreign policy. Recently, however, it has become apparent that there is a group among America's decision makers who want to reach a nuclear agreement with the Ayatollahs at any price.

From the moment the Ayatollahs became aware of this group and its goals, they hardened their positions in order to extract a permit to maintain a nuclear program - as a reward for doing the U.S. the favor of signing the agreement.

This, naturally, presages an agreement that is good for the Ayatollahs and bad for America and the world. Note that I am not saying "Iran" because most of the population of Iran - which is totally secular - wants the Ayatollahs to fall, and is not interested in an agreement that will give them economic breathing space and political power, whether or not they develop nuclear weapons.

I have summarized ten reasons that make it imperative that President Obama refrain from signing any agreement at all with the Ayatollahs. I have also spelled out the only way to keep them from obtaining nuclear arms.

1. The agreement signed in Lausanne at the beginning of April will not keep the Ayatollahs from obtaining nuclear weapons. President Obama actually admitted that. Perhaps it will make it take longer for them to obtain them, but Iranian nuclear weapons will go down in history as the achievement of Barack Obama.

2. The long term lesson learned from negotiations with the Ayatollahs has proven that, in every instance, they look for ways to lie, cheat, pull the wool over our eyes and hide the truth – all permissible under the rubric of "taqiya", a Shiite legal dispensation which allows them to lie and cheat if it serves their interests. Is there anyone in the Western world who still believes them and their stated objectives? Take Khamenei's injunction against developing nuclear weapons – it, too, is a form of "taqiya". After all, if he forbade them, why do they need a plutonium processing plant the nature of whose products is solely military?



An American president does not have to be a Republican in order to stand firm and present a resolute view of the dangers threatening the US and the world.

3. An agreement that frees the Ayatollahs from sanctions will be a shot in the arm for the regime that totally negates the values which the entire West and particularly the United States of America claim to espouse. If the U.S. and Europe really believed in the human rights, in democracy, freedom, women's rights, minority rights, homosexual and lesbian rights, freedom of religion and from religion, they would not sit at the same table with the Ayatollahs for any negotiations whatsoever. That is why any agreement with the Ayatollahs is the West's betrayal of tens of millions of Iranians and an abrogation of their right to lead normal lives like those of the citizens of Europe and the United States.

4. Any agreement that does not include a complete end to the Iranian nuclear program will encourage the Ayatollahs in their view that this is the hand of God, proof that Allah himself granted them victory over the nonbelievers, Christians, Americans and Europeans, those wine-drinking pork-consumers.

5. The feeling of victory the Ayatollahs will have will send the entire Middle East into a political, military and governmental maelstrom, whose characteristics are already obvious in Yemen, which is a continuation of the bloodshed for which the Ayatollahs bear responsibility in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

6. An agreement with the ayatollahs will set off a race for nuclear arms in the entire Middle East, with the strong probability that dangerous nuclear materials will find their way to terrorist organizations which are difficult to find, destroy or deter.

7. One of the goals motivating the Ayatollahs is their declared desire to control Mecca and Medina in order to restore Islamic rule to the followers of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph and founder of Shiism, who was murdered in the year 661 C.E.

A nuclear agreement will advance that goal, one which can only be achieved by destroying Saudi Arabia's regime. Thus, the agreement will add to the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which may lead to a general war in the Gulf and the destruction of oil and gas production in that region. One doesn't need much imagination to predict what will happen to the price of energy worldwide if that should occur.

8. Freeing the Ayatollahs from imposed sanctions will hand them tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars, which will be invested in various causes such as exporting terror, this with the help of Shiites in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North and South America who will take heart and begin to work to restore Shiism to power over Islam and the world.

9. The billions that will reach the hands of the Ayatollahs will allow them to 'purchase' Western politicians, which will then paralyze the ability of these countries to act in their own interests against the Ayatollah's hostile takeover of Western countries.

10. An agreement with the Ayatollahs will cause militant Sunni Islamist groups spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood - Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin, Jebhat al Nusra,Hamas, and many other terror organizations in various parts of the world - to accuse the United States and Europe of strengthening the Shiite side. This will lead to increased Sunni terror in Europe and the United States.

These ten reasons are enough to nix any agreement with the Ayatollahs, but the question that arises immediately is how to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons. The answer is straightforward: Western leaders – the group made up of the presidents of the USA, UK, France, Australia and Germany – must send the Ayatollahs an open letter stating the following:

"The party is over. And so are the negotiations. We do not believe a word you are saying, nor have we fallen for the smiles on your Leader's face. That is why there will be no agreement. You have one week to dismantle, starting from this very minute, all the nuclear installations in Fordow, Natanz, Arac, Parchin and all the rest. Dismantle all the centrifuges and ship the parts to us by sea.

"Note carefully: our land, sea and air forces are surrounding you and are already revving up their engines. A week from today, if you do not do as we demand, we will begin to flatten you down to ground level. 'Read our lips.' Take us seriously. Because we will not grant you an additional second."

"Signed: Barack Obama, David Cameron, Francois Hollande, Tony Abbot and Angela Merkel."

The more serious and credible this threat seems, the less chance there is that it will have to be implemented. The Ayatollahs are not suicidal, and at the head of their list of priorities is preserving their power, their country and their aspirations regarding the return of Islamic hegemony. They will elect to stay in power even if that means giving up their nuclear arsenal and this is the only way to convince them to give up their military nuclear plans. No other approach - certainly not an agreement- will prevent their nuclear armament and the catastrophic results for the world

The only question remaining is whether the West's leadership has really resolved to keep the Ayatollahs from having nuclear weapons. As of now, it has not shown evidence of such resolve, which is why the Ayatollahs did not feel obligated to give up their nuclear military program. That is the main reason they have hardened their positions and are encouraging murder and mayhem in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, while exporting arms to war-torn regions in contravention of the 2007 UN Security Council Resolution 1747.

President Obama has to decide whether to enter the history books as the leader in whose period of office, the road to Iran's turning into a nuclear power was paved, just as the history books will always accuse Jimmy Carter of helping Khomeini seize control over Iran. In contrast, Obama can choose to enter the history books as the president who prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, in which case his place is like that of John Kennedy, who stood up to Cuba in 1962 and forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles from Cuba.

Both presidents – Carter and Kennedy – were Democrats. An American president does not have to be a Republican in order to stand firm and present a resolute view of the dangers threatening the US and the world. All he has to do is use the power that, through great expenditure and effort, the US has amassed in order to prevent a war that will drag the world into a nuclear cataclysm brought on by Ayatollahs who believe that Allah's hand prevents them from making mistakes.

The angel of history must have been joking when he allowed the 2002 Nobel Prize for Peace to be awarded to Jimmy Carter, "for his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international disputes, promoting democracy and human rights, economic and social development."

It might be interesting to know what the prize committee thought of Carter's efforts to promote democracy and human rights in Iran, when he allowed Khoumeni to gain control of the country.

The angel's laugh will be even louder if President Obama – who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 – will turn out to be the president that allowed the Ayatollahs to obtain nuclear weapons.