RUSH: Allentown, Pennsylvania. This is Mac. Welcome, sir. It’s great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you. Listen, I’d like to talk about the agreement that they’re pursuing, the Obama administration’s pursuing with Iran. And, you know, what makes it particularly devastating, the stated objective is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear device, which has been a stated objective for a long time.

RUSH: Well, but, see, actually it isn’t.

CALLER: Well, the presumption —

RUSH: The presumption is, but the objective is that Iran will get a nuclear weapon in 10 to 13 years.

CALLER: Well, I disagree with that. In the intelligence community, particularly Israel, the presumption has been that they had a testable device for a while, limited. What they’re really pursuing, in my opinion, is a sustainable weapons program. That would be the reason to never test it, because the repercussions from the international community. If you look at the evidence, the amount of centrifuges they’re running, the independent work on long-range missile technology, the only way to accomplish this is to remove the sanctions and to prevent the international community from bearing down on this. If they test now, it will bring a backlash, it will prevent them from obtaining —

RUSH: No, I agree with all that. I think you misunderstood. It is not Obama’s intention to deny them nuclear weapons or power. He only states that. That’s been our traditional stance is that they shouldn’t. But the Obama deal, the deal on the table, Obama’s even conceded that their breakout time for a nuclear weapon could be almost down to zero after 13 years, meaning they’re 13 years away from getting it. They’re much closer than that, as you point out.

CALLER: Oh, I agree with you, and I believe it’s maybe six years, and I think if that happens, we’re gonna move to extortion diplomacy, and I believe once they have the capability to build a sustainable weapons program, because that’s what’s needed, then we’re in much worse trouble than we are now, and I actually have —

RUSH: You mean as opposed to one nuke?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And Netanyahu referred to this in roundabout ways. And, you know, the sanctions have worked preventing them from pursuing their real goal up to this point, but if the sanctions come off, they’re gonna make all the fuel they need, they’re gonna keep pursuing the long-range missile technology —

RUSH: The sanctions have come off and we are not demanding they reduce their centrifuges. They get to keep them and even build on them.

CALLER: That’s exactly right, and that’s why keeping what they produce is such an important factor. They’re never gonna let it outside their borders or store it in Russia or anywhere else —

RUSH: No way. No way.

CALLER: So I think we’re heading towards a very dangerous time, and from having friends on the ground in Egypt, they really perceive as all America thinks the way Obama does.

RUSH: Well, they’re not right about that, but I tell you, it may be time to review Obama’s foreign policy. Let me do this after a break. I think this will be a cold dash of reality for you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Daniel Pipes. I found this at on a post today by John Hinderaker at Power Line. Daniel Pipes, who is a Middle East expert think tank specialist has really put together a great paragraph that describes the wreckage that is the Obama foreign policy. “Count the mistakes: Helping overthrow Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, leading to anarchy and civil war,” and ultimately Benghazi.

“Pressuring Husni Mubarak of Egypt to resign, then backing the Muslim Brotherhood,” and then the Arab Spring. What a total disaster that was! This in turn is “leading now-president Sisi to turn toward Moscow,” because we’ve alienated him. He’s not our guy. The Muslim Brotherhood was our guy, and when the Muslim Brotherhood made a mess of things, the Egyptians threw ’em out. El-Sisi is a good guy, but he’s not one of ours.

Obama doesn’t particularly care for him, so he has had to turn to Moscow. “Alienating WashingtonÂ’s most stalwart ally in the region, the Government of Israel. Dismissing ISIS as ‘junior varsity’ just before it seized major cities. Hailing Yemen as a counterterrorism success just before its government was overthrown. Alarming the Saudi authorities to the point that they put together a military alliance against Iran.

“Coddling Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, encouraging his dictatorial tendencies. Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan prematurely, dooming the vast American investment in those two countries.” We’ve just basically wiped out every accomplishment that was made there, all because Obama didn’t agree with us going in the first place. Now, what this leads to, is a question that has been on the tip of everybody’s tongue since practically the first day of this admin…

Well, it’s been on my tongue since two weeks prior to the inauguration. You’ll never forget when I said, “I hope he fails,” and everything you see now is why I said that. But here’s the question that everybody has: Is it on purpose, or is it incompetence? Is the Obama foreign policy disaster — the sum total of his foreign policy is a disaster, all these elements of it — on purpose or is it incompetence?

It’s another way of asking: Is Obama succeeding? Is this what he wants in the Middle East. or does he want something else that isn’t working? Does he really believe that everything he’s done foreign policy-wise would renew love and respect for the United States and bring peace and tranquility to the region, or does he want this chaos? Does he want Israel to be in everybody’s crosshairs?

Does he want the United States to have a reduced role and thus much less influence in the region? Does he want this chaos? So is he failing or is he succeeding? That depends on what the objective is, and this is what people still are uncertain of. Daniel Pipes continues: “Is this a random series of errors by an incompetent leadership or does some grand, if misconceived, idea stand behind the pattern?

“To an extent, it’s ineptitude, as when Mr. Obama bowed to the Saudi king, threatened Syria’s government over chemical weapons before changing his mind, and now sends the US military to aid Tehran in Iraq and fight it in Yemen.” Stop and think about that. We send the US military to help Iran in Iraq — i.e., fighting ISIS — and to fight Iran in Yemen. Now, at the end of every one of these listed disasters, mistakes (or successes, depending on your perspective) there is Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

I think by now, those of us who pay attention on a daily basis have become fairly confident that there is no deal. This thing that was announced last week by Obama is not a deal. The Iranians are happy because sanctions have been lifted, but there are no restrictions. There’s just a series of promises that we’re gonna talk further and that Obama will talk. John Kerry caved on virtually every demand that we had made!

The Iranians said, “Nope, that doesn’t work for us. I’m sorry, Mister Secretary.” He caved on every one. Three or four different things. And the end result of this is, like our last caller said, Iran doesn’t just end up with a single nuclear bomb and the ability to make more. They end up with a nuclear program — nuclear power, nuclear weaponry — which will provide a brand-new, unprecedented destabilization of the region.

The question continues to be asked: Is this on purpose or is this ineptitude? Now, the ineptitude people say, “No, this is Obama’s naivete. He really believes in his own speeches, and he really believes that we have no business telling countries what weapons they can’t have.” I believe that, by the way. I really believe he thinks that we’ve had no business being who we are since the days of our founding, for whatever reasons. We’ve been through ’em left and right.

I think he thinks this country’s unjust and immoral, ill-conceived and all these things, and we’ve had no right to tell people around the world what they can and can’t do. “It’s none of our business whether the Iranians have a nuclear weapon or not. If they’ve got the ability to make one, who are we to tell ’em they can’t? Nobody told us we couldn’t!” Absent the concept of good guys and bad guys, then it might be easy to look at the world that way.

So Obama says, “We don’t have the right to tell them they can’t get a nuclear weapon!” Instead what he says is, “It’s up to us to persuade them never to use what they build for aggressive purposes,” and that’s just utter denial in who we’re talking about here. Obama gave an interview with Thomas “Loopy” Friedman. Let me see if I have that here. Please tell me I printed this out. Please. Ach! Please tell me I printed it. Aw, come on. Did I print it out or not?

I’m gonna have to summarize it. Obama said to Thomas “Loopy” Friedman… It was about our foreign policy, obviously. Obama said (summarized), “Look, we’ve been trying things for 50 years, here, and we’ve never tried anything different. Look, we are the all-powerful United States. We’ve got all the power in the world to start trying different things.” He said, “Look at Cuba! Cuba can’t do a damn thing to us. Since 1959 we’ve frozen ’em out. Well, let’s try something new. Let’s open up!

“Let’s see if it changes things for the Cuban people and for the United States. What harm is there? If it doesn’t work, then we’ll go try something else. Ditto Iran. We’ve been trying to tell the Iranians they can’t have a nuclear weapon for all these years. We’ve been calling ’em names and calling ’em state sponsors of terrorism. But we haven’t tried anything different! Let’s try something different. We’re the power in the region. Iran’s a small country! They can’t do anything to anybody!”

He really said this.

“They have a GDP of $30 billion; we have a GDP of whatever it is. Iran’s a tiny country compared to us! We’ve got all the power in the region. Let’s try something new. Let’s try,” and he used the magic words, “change.” Young people love the word “change.” The low-information crowd loves the word “change.” Believe me, it’s a magical word, particularly for leftists. Do not doubt me on this.

Damn it, I wish I had this in front of me. I’m gonna print it out during the break, because the whole point of it is that Obama is saying, “Look, we’ve been doing things the same for 30, 40, 50 years, and it’s not gotten any better. It hasn’t made any difference. We’re so powerful, we can’t be hurt by trying something new. Let’s go ahead and try a new approach. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll try something else.”

If you read that you may say, “Hmm, that makes some sense.” But it’s rooted in total naivete. There are reasons that we have been consistent from administration to administration, party to party. There’s a reason we’ve been consistent, and that’s because of a common understanding of who the bad guys are and who the good guys are in wherever in the world you’re talking about. That’s the thing that escapes Obama. Probably purposefully.