Implausible Deniability – the Obama/Clinton Foreign Policy
Time was when politicians routinely played the verbal game of “plausible deniability” in a dubious attempt to escape culpability when asked, “What did he/she know, and when did he/she know it?” This strategy was most notorious in the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, when the primary issue of the hearings centered on whether or not President Richard Nixon had prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in, and the cover-up that followed. During that hearing, the most important and prescient question was asked by then Senator Howard Baker (R-TN), “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”
Forty-five years hence, the game of plausible deniability has taken on a new and more-menacing twist- the idea that the President (Obama) and his Secretaries of State (Clinton and Kerry) can pursue foreign policy initiatives which are damaging to U.S. interests and, in effect, aid and abet the enemy.
Take, for instance, the transfer of money to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In separate transactions during the course of this year, more than $ 1.7 billion has been transferred from the United States Treasury to the Iranian regime, most notoriously in the form of a cash transfer of over $400 million (in Swiss francs and euros) as ransom payment in exchange for the freeing of four American hostages held in Iran. Additional money has also been transferred from our government to theirs, in the form of electronic funds transfer, the details of which are still being made known, as of this writing. While this money indeed originated from Iranian assets seized during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the reimbursements of these assets included compounded interest, more than thirty-five years’ worth, and was integral to getting the Iranian regime to agree to Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran- an arms deal begun by Hillary Clinton and implemented by her successor, John Kerry. All three have promised the American people that the pursuit of this treaty, including the requisite transfer of money, would be the first step in engaging the Iranian regime towards more normalized relations, and improve Iran’s behavior on the world stage, despite the fact that opposition to this deal from a host of experts in the foreign policy arena was widespread and well-noted…and what happened?
Iran was able to bring to an end the inspections of both their own nuclear stockpiles of enriched uranium, and the centrifuges which manufacture these stockpiles, walk away with billions in payments and have become even more bellicose and belligerent in their actions against U.S. naval warships in the Persian Gulf.
Predictably, when the “you-know-what” hits the fan, the response from Obama, Clinton and Kerry will undoubtedly be, “We acted in good faith but, alas, Iran didn’t hold up their end of the bargain,” or some such rot, in their attempt to cover up their own incompetence with plausible deniability or, in this case, implausible deniability, since most of the American people vehemently opposed this deal and its cash payments, from the get-go. Worse yet, the very reasons that there was such opposition to the Iran deal in the first place, warning that the U.S. would be getting screwed in the process, will render the deniability for its abject failure most implausible, and not even the overt collusion with much of the mainstream media will be able to cloak the culpability that the Obama administration and Secretaries Clinton and Kerry possess, in the creation and implementation of the worst foreign policy deal in U.S. history. In essence, billions of dollars will have been squandered in a dubious attempt to create a legacy for Barack Obama, one that will rest on his shoulders and those of his incompetent Secretaries of State, for decades to come.
But what’s a few billion dollars to them? After all, it’s not their money, but ours…
-Drew Nickell, 20 September 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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