Another appeaser

Donald Trump, the debate, the rain and the plans for a new Shore restaurant in the Village aside, let’s recap last week’s news about another hot summer topic:

Monday, Aug. 3:

AMERICAN VOTERS OPPOSE IRAN DEAL 2-1, QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY NATIONAL POLL FINDS

American voters oppose 57%-28%, with only lukewarm support from Democrats and overwhelming opposition for Republicans and independent voters, the nuclear pact negotiated with Iran, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. 

Voters say 58%-30% the nuclear pact will make the world less safe, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll finds.  

Opposing the Iran deal are Republicans 86%-3% and independent voters 55%-29%, while Democrats support it 52%-32%. There is little gender gap; men oppose the deal 59%-30%, and women oppose it 56%-27%.

Tuesday, Aug. 4 … 

Reporting on Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., speaking on the Senate floor, The Hill newspaper in Washington posted:

BILL NELSON BACKS IRAN DEAL

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on Tuesday [in a 22-minute speech on the Senate floor] threw his support behind President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, joining a string of Senate Democrats backing the deal ahead of a five-week recess. 

“I acknowledge that this had been one of the most important preparations and will be one of the most important votes that I will cast in the Senate,” he said. “Unless there is an unexpected change in the conditions and facts before the vote is called in September — and it will be called on the very first day that we return in September — unless there is an unexpected change, I will support the nuclear agreement.”

Nelson added there is “no other available alternative” that keeps Iran from getting a nuclear weapon for at least the next 10 to 15 years …   

Nelson … called the deal the best option available to Congress …  

… Nelson warned that if Congress rejected the agreement, it could help quicken Iran’s ability to get a nuclear weapon, adding that “without this deal, Iran’s breakout time could quickly, quickly shrink from months to a handful of weeks or days.”  

If the Senate rejects the deal, Nelson says, the sanctions against Iran likely won’t be reinstated. ‘Under a deal, we keep most of the world with us.” – SEN. BILL NELSON

… He added that if his colleagues reject the deal, the sanctions against Iran likely won’t be reinstated. 

Nelson said it is “unrealistic to think we can force the foreign banks” of China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan “to hold on to their cash if “we threaten them with U.S. banking sanctions.

“How will those threats be taken seriously when they hold nearly half of the United States’ debt?”

Nelson said the U.S. cannot get a better deal with less economic support and less international support. “That is a fact that we are having to face,” he said. “Under a deal, we keep most of the world with us.”

(You can watch Nelson’s speech on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXxyN3ssLaE)

Throughout his 43 years as a state and federal career politician, Sen. Bill Nelson has always been a good, loyal Democrat. 

The Club for Growth, one of those Washington think tanks that fights for less government and more freedom on economic issues, gives Nelson a lifetime score of 11% on his voting record. That ties him  with the liberal-of-liberals’ standard bearer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog, consistently has ranked Nelson “hostile” to taxpayers over a 12-year period.

So it really comes as no surprise that Nelson would fall in line behind Barack Obama on the Iran nuclear deal.

But why? Why do so in the face of such overwhelming opposition from the American electorate? Nelson, after all, often has portrayed himself as a populist — a defender and voice of the people. 

Nelson himself acknowledged in his speech this vote will be one of the most difficult in his career. On the Senate floor, he said his support for the deal came after talking to colleagues, constituents, arms-control experts, foreign experts on the Middle East and Asia and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist.

As you listen to him, Nelson recites the Obama administration’s talking points. He virtually admits and accepts that the U.S. has no world influence to maintain sanctions if the U.S. rejects the agreement. Instead, he buys the argument that with the agreement in place, if Iran violates it, the world will unite to reimpose sanctions.

He said he doesn’t like it, but he accepts that with the agreement Iran will still be a state sponsor of terrorism.

By the time you finish listening to Nelson’s rationale, he reinforces what most Americans know: Obama and his aides violated the fundamentals of negotiating a good deal. In business, a good deal is when everyone walks away feeling good. Everyone may have given in here and there, but everyone walks away feeling as though the deal is fair for both sides. 

A majority of Americans certainly don’t feel that way at all. They feel we gave far more than we got. Sadly, Sen. Bill Nelson, rather than be a fighter (as he often claims), Nelson has joined the ranks of the wimpy appeasers.