Joe HonickWhen I was just a kid and consistently asking my mother and father “why” questions, the answer almost always would be simply: “because….” When I would ask “because why..” the answer for me as for many readers would be simply “because I say so.”

Comes now one of the biggest sales jobs in history by President Obama, and the only answers we can get from the White House amount to the kind referred to above we received from our parents: “because.” And the “because” we are supposed to accept is that President’s claim that not doing this “deal” meant war.

Let’s examine this concept a little more.

Long before this claim of leadership, other nations with nuclear claims to fame threatened us and the rest of the free world. Just in the last few days alone world media revealed new nuclear advance by North Korea. The Guardian has just revealed the US turned down a strong effort to get Russia into the NATO orbit or at least into some kind of moderating alliance. That rejected “deal” was in 2012.

The insistent question must simply be, “If the real reason for doing the deal with Iran is to avoid a war, why would we not have demonstrated really historic leadership in finding ways to do a deal with Russia?”

We know from sad, expensive, tragic and inexcusable experience what it means to have listened to the presidential “because” reasoning of the late Lyndon B. Johnson and the questionable Tonkin Gulf event as an excuse for Viet Nam. The same goes for Bushes Sr. and Jr. decisions to fight wars in the Middle East desert that the locals like Saudi Arabia should have done for themselves and then the really questionable declaration of "weapons of mass destruction” that we never found in Iraq.

Now we find Russia moving more seriously into Syria to assist the murderous dictator Assad, the same man we assured we would not force out of office, the same man we later threatened with “consequences” that we never delivered.

The resultant massive refugee realities were abound to occur, as we and the world have managed to tuck the huge murders of men, women and children in Syria into the back pages and all the other atrocities that never even got minimally acknowledged in our “deal” with Iran.

And so we return to the business of “why”. Why have we done this deal knowing what we know now and with Congress being pressured to give the President its stamp of approval?

“Why” did we fail to use the same principle of engagement with the Russians a few years back when we might at least have made similar progress? “Why” have we let the Russians now move into Syria knowing what the claimed “alternatives” to our deal with Iran might ignite if we took the Russians on as they take this step?

Finally, there is the “what” factor. “What” will we now do to help the countless hordes of refugees who have fled Syria and other places in efforts to not only be free but survive with their families because what they left behind rests heavily on our strategies in their countries?

“Because” does not suffice.

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Joe Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.