The Administration’s Orwellian Language

It is a truism that if one does not think straight, one’s words will be confused and one’s actions are likely to reflect that confusion. This is nowhere more evident than in the Obama administration, which now deploys Orwellian language to obscure evil and hide from its own obligations.

The White House uses more linguistic tricks when comes to Iran. White House press secretary Josh Earnest conceded the Iranian missile test violated the United Nations resolution. But it’s fine. Really, he told us: “This is altogether separate from the nuclear agreement that Iran reached with the rest of the world. In contrast to the repeated violations of the U.N. Security Council resolution that pertains to their ballistic missile activities, we’ve seen that Iran over the last couple of years has demonstrated a track record of abiding by the commitments that they made in the context of the nuclear talks.” So we should trust them not to cheat on the nuclear deal because they haven’t cheated on it before and only have cheated on other international agreements? And what about the consequences for violating U.N. resolutions?

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“The next president must immediately put a stop to the linguistic and legalistic games of the Obama administration in excusing and justifying Iranian illegal activities,” says sanctions guru Mark Dubowitz. “To permit this to continue will reinforce a pattern of self-delusion and obfuscation that will do even more damage to American credibility and make enforcement of the Iran deal a non-starter. Put the Iranian regime on notice: if you test long range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, you are in violation of the UNSCR that underpins the nuclear deal — and we will re-designate the Central Bank of Iran that has played such a key role in ballistic missile financing.” The administration will not do that, so Congress should.

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