At last week’s nuclear summit, American President Barack Obama told the world that what he persists in calling “the Iran deal” was a “substantial success.” He went on to say that “the Iran deal” should be a model for America’s future efforts to restrain nuclear weapons technology.

The article describes the deal as controversial.  What ought to be controversial is the claim that there ever was a deal.  Obama signed the Joint Coordinated Plan of Action produced by negotiations as if it were a treaty, while his State Department admitted it was not legally binding on Iran in any way.  Iran’s parliament then proceeded to alter the language radically, finally passing language completely different from what Obama signed.  Iran’s version commits it to the end of Israel’s nuclear program, not its own.  The US Senate, which is supposed to consent to treaties by a 2/3rds supermajority, never voted on the “deal” at all.

So the President signed a “deal” without the Senate’s consent as the Constitution requires, which “deal” turns out to have no similarity to the “deal” Iran claims it will uphold.  That’s pretty embarrassing, but we could forgive it if the “deal” had worked.  It did not.

The famous “side deal” with the IAEA led, as opponents had predicted, to the IAEA simply closing its case without coming to any certain conclusions about Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Iran immediately began testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.  The Obama administration initially called these a violation of the deal and put the matter before the United Nations — their preferred method for resolving international disputes, since they wouldn’t want America to take the lead.  The United Nations failed to do anything.  That was expected given Russia’s financial interest in weapons sales to Iran and Russia’s possession of a veto on the Security Council.  Adding insult to injury, however, Russia justified its action by invoking the very same language that US Secretary of State John F. Kerry had been warned about during the Senate’s abortive consideration of the “deal.”

President Obama finally spoke up about the serial violations by Iran since the alleged signing of the alleged deal.

Iran so far has followed the letter of the agreement, but the spirit of the agreement involves Iran also sending signals to the world community and businesses that it is not going to be engaging in a range of provocative actions that are going to scare businesses off.

Leaving aside the laughable claim that Iran is obeying the letter of the agreement — This is your model for the future?  This is a “substantial success”?  This?