Hillary Clinton has been running as the status quo U.S. presidential candidate while Donald Trump has been running as the candidate of change. Neither the United States, Israel, nor the rest of the Middle East can afford what will amount to a third term of Obama’s failed foreign policy. Particularly the continued implementation of the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal.

The facts show that on Hillary Clinton’s watch as Obama’s Secretary of State she initiated the Iran deal, embraced it fully when it was signed, and has been a silent cheerleader ever since. This in spite of the warning signs of an emboldened and cheating Iran.

Under Hillary’s watch as president there is high probability, based on her poor judgment and weakness as Secretary of State, that when Iran attempts to finally acquire a nuclear weapon, which they will surely do, she will not take any military action to deter it. Although the U.S. may impose unilateral sanctions, in the end, her efforts will fail to dissuade Iran to give up its program just as the U.S. failed to stop North Korea after her husband Bill Clinton signed a similar nuclear deal as president. Consequently, for the first time in history, a jihadist Islamic state, which has been publicly declaring for years, their willingness to wipe the Jewish state off the map and be destroyed for the sake of Allah, will possess the bomb.

As the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on September 8, 2015, Hillary Clinton in her last six months as Secretary of State helped open the door to a dramatic shift in US policy towards Iran by suggesting that the US will concede to let Iran continue enriching Uranium at small levels in order to convince, a bankrupt and internationally isolated Iran, to hold negotiations with the Obama Administration. In July 2012, Mrs. Clinton ‘s closest policy aide, Jake Sullivan, was the first one to meet in secret with Iranians diplomats in Oman, with many meetings to follow, while Holocaust denier President Ahmadinejad was still in power. As Mr. Sullivan, who now serves as Mrs. Clinton’s top presidential campaign advisor, said “she recognized the difficulty of reaching a solution, with zero enrichment”. Mrs. Clinton left the state department in early 2013 and later that year, the Obama administration agreed publicly that Iran could continue to enrich Uranium.

When the Iran deal was signed, she endorsed it fully as “an important step in putting a lid on Iran’s nuclear program,” and “the most effective path... to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

However, in reality the deal does not derail or abolish Iran’s quest for the bomb, but merely slows it down, and in less than 10 years the deal makes it legal for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

But in the meantime, it fundamentally unraveled the global sanctions regime against Iran, and no one except the U.S. will ever try to bring it back. Iran has been infused with multiple billion dollars’ trade and military deals with Russia, China, and Europe. This is in addition to $150 billion dollars paid to them by the U.S., including $1.7 billion in cold cash from the U.S., paid as ransom for the release of four American hostages, which in all likelihood will be used to fund terrorism. In addition, the WSJ just reported that on the same day Iran released the American hostages, Obama agreed in secret to remove UN and EU sanctions emplaced eight years earlier on Iran’s main missile financing banks. Iran has conducted up to 10 ballistic missiles tests since the forging of the nuclear agreement in July 2015.

Moreover, now that they have more financial resources and international breathing room to expand their influence in the Shiite world, and increase military interventio and terrorism in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America in order to build an anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Sunni axis  

Hillary has repeatedly stated that the agreement “will have to be enforced vigorously, relentlessly", but in reality the Iranians have already broken the agreement and she and the administration appear to have chosen silence.

According to the German intelligence agency’s annual report issued in July, Iran has been cheating and has a “clandestine” effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.” Moreover, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that “Iran continued unabated to develop its rocket program in conflict with the relevant provisions of the UN Security Council.” 

When Hillary stated in 2015 that she will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon, she was bluffing or lying in order to assuage Jewish-American voters’ concerns. Any honest assessment of Clinton’s tenure in office would conclude that she was among the weakest secretaries of state, undermining and deserting allies and protecting and appeasing enemies.

After the success of General David Petraeus’ military “surge” in Iraq defeated the terrorists there, as Secretary of State she supported Obama’s decision in 2011 to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, without keeping a small force behind as the generals recommended Obama to do. This created a power vacuum which ISIS took advantage of to form, flourish, and expand.

Secretary Clinton assured us for months that Assad was a “reformer”, and supported Obama’s decision not to attack or remove Assad even when he crossed the red line by using chemical weapons against his own civilian population. She delayed and postponed providing arms and aid to the anti-Assad Syrian rebels, until ISIS spread to Syria too. Because of her misjudgment, she left a human catastrophe of 500,000 dead Syrians and millions of refugees streaming into Syria’s neighbors and Europe. She supported bringing Russia back to the Middle East and Syria to supposedly fight ISIS which only helped to sustain Assad, its patron Iran, and therefore the civil war.

She was in favor of U.S. intervention in Libya and Egypt, undermining governments that were no threat to American interests which led to Islamic jihadists’ taking over in those nations. In Libya, this resulted in the murder of the American ambassador and the flourishing of ISIS.

It is true that president Obama has made his own foreign policy, but Hillary Clinton had the option of resigning if she did not agree with it but in reality she shares Obama’s central vision and judgment about the Middle East and the success of the Iran deal.

If Hillary is elected, almost certainly she will continue Obama’s kowtowing to the Iranians and facilitate any further concessions they may request instead of confronting their lies and ambitions of regional aggression and hegemony.

If Trump is elected, a change from the disastrous past eight years is likely. Even though there is no certainty of Trump’s actions as president, it seems that he possesses a better sense of judgment and the willingness to change America’s ongoing downhill course. Trump has consistently been against the signing of the Iran deal and campaigned against it, at the time saying “I never seen something so incompetently negotiated,” suggesting that he will re- negotiate it if elected. He has also been publicly critical of Obama’s weakness and silence regarding a newly strengthened Iran.

A Trump presidency is the only thing that will restore deterrence and American leadership in the world while protecting its allies and confronting evil.

Shoula Romano Horing is a Law Professor. Her blog: www.shoularomanohoring.com