http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Dick-Cheney-Obama-motive-Iran/2015/09/02/id/673295/By Greg Richter | Wednesday, 02 Sep 2015 08:27 PM
President Barack Obama's goal in the Iran nuclear deal appears to have been to make Iran the top power in the Middle East, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Newsmax TV.
"[T]he only way to interpret it and what his motives were was he really wanted to boost Iran's position in that part of the world and make them the dominant force at the expense of our allies," Cheney said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
Obama's ideology "doesn't fit reality," Cheney said, especially in regard to the Middle East, he said.
Watch Newsmax TV on DIRECTV Ch. 349, DISH Ch. 223 and Verizon FiOS Ch. 115. Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
Cheney said the only winner in the nuclear agreement is Iran, "in terms of having a path ultimately to develop a nuclear weapons, in terms of receiving over $100 billion, sanctions being lifted, the embargo on ballistic missiles being lifted, the embargo on conventional arms being lifted.
"They get everything in this deal and the Israelis and the Saudis and the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Emirates, all of our friends and allies in that part of the world are appalled with what happened," he said, "but they also feel directly threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran."
Republicans should have treated the deal as a treaty so they would have had to get a two-thirds majority of the Senate to pass rather than as it stands, requiring a two-thirds majority to override a promised presidential veto.
In addition, Democrats plan a filibuster that would prevent an up-or-down vote with names attached to how they voted.
"That's a total neutering … of the United States Senate in one of the most important issues that's likely to come before them in this decade," Cheney said. "I do not understand why they've allowed that to happen."
The former vice president under George W. Bush is co-author with his daughter Liz Cheney of the new book, "Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America," published by Threshold Editions.
