Following the president’s comments comparing Republicans in Congress to the terror-sponsoring hardliners in Iran, Charles Krauthammer eviscerated Obama's entire conception of the Middle East nation. Appearing on The Kelly File last night, the Fox personality hit the president for being “delusional...pretending that those who chant death to America are some kind of KKK fringe in Iran.”
Krauthammer claimed that this is a common theme for President Obama: “[I]t's vintage Obama. The demonization of his opponents, lumping them together with people chanting death to America, I must say is a new low for the president, which is saying a lot considering how he does demonize the opposition, question their motives.” He then criticized the idea that Obama is strengthening the moderates in Iran, calling the notion "simply absurd.”
In fact, the long-time Fox analyst turned the tables on the president, arguing that the Iran deal will only serve to embolden the hardliners:
What he’s doing is he’s made common cause with the hardliners – meaning the government – by removing the sanctions, by giving them a clear path to a bomb and arsenal of bombs in ten years and not just a path, but in ten years they will have an arsenal that will be legitimated and considered perfectly okay by the international community. He is the one who will be giving tens of billions of dollars to the hard liners, meaning the government and Ayatollah, which will be used for terror activities for expanding its influence and for suppressing its people.
To end his point, Krauthammer cited the uprisings in Iran in 2009 as a primary example of the president’s unwillingness to help the moderates: “There was graffiti on the walls in Tehran that said Obama, Obama are you with us or against us. Those were the demonstrators, the ones who don't shout death to America, [who] look[ed] to Obama, and they got nothing.”
The segment ended with Krauthammer attempting to figure out how President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry could have negotiated this deal without knowing the real intentions of the Iranian regime: This [the destruction of Israel] is a fundamental principle of theirs, and that Kerry and Obama seem to dismiss it is really shocking. And you wonder, how can you negotiate if you have no conception of the real ideology and intentions of your enemy.”
The relevant portion of the transcript is below.
Fox News
The Kelly File
August 5, 2015CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I mean it's vintage Obama. The demonization of his opponents, lumping them together with people chanting death to America, I must say is a new low for the president,
which is saying a lot considering how he does demonize the opposition, question their motives. But what is even worse here is how delusional he is. He is pretending that those who chant death to America are some kind of KKK fringe in Iran. The people leading the chants are the revolutionary guards, the army, the parliamentary leaders. And of course, as he always calls them, Obama always does, the Supreme Leader himself in a speech he made just a few days after the signing of the agreement the chants break out death to America, death to Israel and the Ayatollah said, may Allah hear your prayers. Now, this idea that somehow he is strengthening the moderates is simply absurd.
What he’s doing is he’s made common cause with the hardliners – meaning the government – by removing the sanctions, by giving them a clear path to a bomb and arsenal of bombs in ten years and not just a path, but in ten years they will have an arsenal that will be legitimated and considered perfectly okay by the international community. He is the one who will be giving tens of billions of dollars to the hard liners, meaning the government and Ayatollah, which will be used for terror activities, for expanding its influence and for suppressing its people. And one more point – when the moderates were out in the streets, the students demonstrating against the regime in 2009, specifically the people he says that the conservatives, the Republicans are abandoning, Obama sided with the Ayatollah shooting people in the streets. There was graffiti on the walls in Tehran that said Obama, Obama are you with us or against us. Those were the demonstrators, the ones who don't shout death to America, [who] look[ed] to Obama and they got nothing.
KELLY: And we pulled a couple of quotes from the Ayatollah in the not too distant past. The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor. It will be removed. This barbaric, wolf-like and infanticidal regime of Israel, which spares no crime, has no cure but to be annihilated on and on and on about how, oh here is one. It has to be erased from the map. So, I mean, it’s pretty on point.
KRAUTHAMMER: Well then, you have to ask yourself what really is going through Kerry's head. After all, the man he negotiated with, the so-called moderate foreign minister, said exactly the same thing to an interviewer during the negotiations. It isn't as if these are extremist, wild statements. Look, it is a fundamental principle of the Islamic regime founded in 1979 to the expulsion of the influence of the United States, the domination of U.S. allies, meaning the Gulf Arabs and other Arabs in the region, and the most important ideologically is the eradication of Israel as a way to redeem the Islamic idea that lands that were once controlled by Islam have to remain under Islam. And particularly Israel because it is in the middle of the Middle East and because it includes Jerusalem. This is a fundamental principle of theirs, and that Kerry and Obama seem to dismiss it is really shocking. And you wonder, how can you negotiate if you have no conception of the real ideology and intentions of your enemy.
