Even as President Obama touts his record of “accomplishments” as he heads for the exit, his much ballyhooed Iran nuclear deal continues to put that region and the world at greater risk.

The Iranian parliament voted Monday to approve a vast increase in military spending, according to the government news agency. The money would be used to further develop its long-range ballistic missile program, armed drones and cyberwar capabilities.

Isn’t it just swell that all those previously frozen Iranian assets, freed up with the signing of the nuclear deal, are being put to such good use!

And if that weren’t enough to give civilized people everywhere nightmares, the Associated Press reported that same day that 130 tons of natural (unenriched) uranium would be delivered to Tehran under the terms of the nuclear pact. That shipment has already been approved by the Obama administration and the five other nations that are signatories to the deal and requires only U.N. Security Council approval.

Now Iran is prohibited under the terms of a U.N. resolution from working on missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons. So we have to assume the long-range missiles in question just ordered up by the parliament — and the ayatollahs — must be to deliver, say, Silly Putty, no?

Iran has already gotten its knuckles rapped — but little else — for last year’s round of missile tests, which then-U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “were not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the nuclear deal. Judging from the latest moves inside Iran to invest more in military hardware, that message meant nothing. So too the half-baked sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury on a handful of Iranian enterprises and individuals.

And as a special reward Tehran now gets 130 more tons of uranium, which can, of course, be enriched — even under the nuclear deal — just not to weapons grade, for now.

According to David Albright of the Institute of Science and International Security, that shipment could be enriched to enough weapons-grade uranium for more than 10 simple nuclear bombs, “depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon.”

So thanks, Mr. President (and Secretary of State John Kerry, too) for leaving the world a far more dangerous place than it was when you entered office.

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(c)2017 the Boston Herald

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