The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: Are the Iran Deal’s Days Numbered?

President Donald Trump

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Conservatives commented on President Trump’s de-certification of the Iran deal and demand that Congress strengthen it on Friday. “Today’s decision marks a major departure from the policy of the Obama administration which was that Iran could be appeased and eventually tamed and made into a US ally,” wrote the RedState contributor known as streiff. “This was a stupid concept that ignored 40 years of Iranian behavior but, then again, a lot of stupid people came up with the idea. Focusing on Iran’s spread of terrorism serves to strengthen the Arab bulwark the Trump administration has been building to contain Iranian expansionism.”

“Iranian influence is expanding,” the Daily Signal’s Madyson Hutchinson wrote, “and instead of slowing or preventing this expanding influence, provisions under the Iran nuclear deal have made it easier for Iran to negatively influence and destabilize the Middle East. Trump’s refusal to recertify the deal could mark a turning point in Iran’s destructive influence.”

Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin criticized Trump’s move:

[O]n Day One of the new Iran policy, Trump has isolated the United States from allies, lost bipartisan support from Congress, shifted attention away from Iran’s non-nuclear conduct (e.g. support for terrorism, intercontinental ballistic missiles tests) to the United States’ hints about not living up to the deal. To boot, he revealed that his administration is incapable of doing the legwork needed to carry off a risky scheme that apparently was designed to pacify him after his reported “fit” after the previous certification. Other than that, it’s going great.

At Commentary, Noah Rothman argued that the Iran deal will live on given the likelihood that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress will decide that Iran has been in compliance:

The Obama administration knew what it was doing when it frontloaded the Iran nuclear accords with benefits for the Islamic Republic. Iran got what it’s going to get out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The tens of billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and sanctions relief, the repatriation of suspected terrorists that Barack Obama’s own Justice Department said were risks to American national security, and renewed commercial ties with Europe; none of this can be undone. All that is left is for the West to appease Iran. To anger Tehran by calling its behavior into account might compel them to develop a fissionable device out of spite, or so the self-referential thinking goes in emotive dovish circles.

Trump’s decision will commence a 60-day review process in which Congress gets to decide how much blame it is willing to accept for keeping the Iran nuclear deal. Many Republicans who were outspoken opponents of the JCPOA in 2015 have softened their position today because, in reality, they simply cannot turn back the clock. Democrats and their allies in media have, however, sloppily taken all this to mean that Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA and anyone who wants the deal rolled back is ideologically blinkered. The dirty open secret is that Iran is not and has never been in full compliance with the nuclear accords.

In other news:

Conservatives continued to plug away at liberal Hollywood for enabling Harvey Weinstein. Breitbart’s John Nolte condemned NBC for passing on the Weinstein story:

NBC News not only gave away the story of the year, they lost the Pulitzers Farrow and The New Yorker are almost certainly going to win.

The question is why — why would an unbiased, objective, not-at-all leftwing news outlet refuse do run a towering story against an America colossus?

We all know why.

We all know NBC is not about holding the powerful accountable — you do not get any more powerful than Harvey Weinstein.

NBC is not about the bottom line and clicks — the Weinstein scandal is a barnburner.

NBC is not about protecting the weak from the powerful, or sheltering women from predators…

Nope.

NBC is only about one thing… protecting the power of centralized government by protecting Democrats.

Hot Air’s Allahpundit assessed news that Weinstein had an employment contract that appeared to allow for harassment and abuse. “Can’t fire a man if you’ve put a ‘rape fine’ clause in his deal and he’s been good about staying current,” he wrote. “The most darkly funny part of this is Weinstein thinking he still has a career to return to. The idea that Hollywood would welcome back a man who’s been credibly accused of abject degeneracy seems … totally plausible, now that I think of it.”

Rush Limbaugh argued that the Weinstein scandal proves Hollywood’s men adopted their liberal stances on women’s issues to attract women. “They will bend, they will shape, they will be flexible, they will lie, they will do whatever,” he said. “If they’ve zeroed in on a woman or a series of women, whatever those women want ’em to be, they’ll be it, or say they are. And I think that’s a large part of the men in that town being such hypocrites. Because they’re all known for being pro-female, pro-women, pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro-feminist.”