Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been strutting through the halls of the World Economic Forum in Davos like an Oscar nominee at the Academy Awards. And why wouldn’t he be working the red carpet with a wide grin on his face, while treated like a movie star?
After all, being an actor comes easily to the head of the Islamic republic. Since taking the reins in Tehran in August, he has been type-cast in as a “moderate.” It is a role he has assumed with ease. Not only does it require few rehearsals, since his script is both short and predictable. But the Western audiences to whom he is playing get caught up in his performance, even when he forgets his lines and lets it slip that he only differs from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in style but not content.
It is thus that the long-time Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini loyalist — and current Ayatollah Ali Khamenei protégé — has been able to stave off stepped-up sanctions from the United States and Europe by pretending to engage in diplomatic discussions over Iran’s nuclear program. No matter how many centrifuges continue to spin or how much uranium continues to be enriched, all Rouhani has to do to buy more time to perfect long-range ballistic missiles for future nuclear warheads is to assure his P5+1 negotiating partners — the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany — that his intentions are “peaceful.” Then, when presented with evidence to the contrary, he goes on the offensive, accusing them of imposing “illegal sanctions.”
It is a carrot-and-stick approach that has served him in good stead. In fact, it led to the November 24 signing in Geneva of the Joint Plan of Action, an interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries according to which Iran would implement a temporary freeze on some of its nuclear activity, in exchange for a decrease in the sanctions that have been crippling its economy.
This agreement, which U.S. President Barack Obama proudly points to as vindication of his policy to engage with Iran, rather than increase sanctions, went into effect on Monday. By Wednesday, however, Iran was already putting on an encore of the double-dealing that characterizes its current government. In an interview with CNN in Davos, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the Obama administration has misrepresented the terms of the agreement. “The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments,” he said. “We [Iran] did not agree to dismantle anything.”
On Thursday, it was Rouhani’s turn to talk to CNN. This he did with a vengeance — towards the U.S. Congress, that is, which is trying to guarantee that Iran abides by its part of the interim agreement through fear of additional sanctions. “We are not afraid of threats,” Rouhani said. “And the language of threats is ineffective when it comes to Iran. The language they need to choose should be a legal one, a respectful tone of voice when addressing the Iranian people.”
This angry indignation was absent from the speech he delivered from the podium of the forum. Announcing that he was embarking on a new program of “constructive engagement with the world,” Rouhani waxed poetic about the need for economic development in the Middle East, which he described as “engulfed in flames.”
He ought to know. Iran is a key arsonist, after all. And Rouhani was at the forum to collect some insurance money to fill his empty till.
When asked whether he meant to engage with the entire world, he chuckled. “Only with countries Iran recognizes,” he said, understanding that both the question and his answer were referring to Israel. He also made another veiled reference to the Jewish state when he said that the real obstacle to a full nuclear deal was “a lack of serious will by other parties or pressure influenced by others.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the podium a few hours later and warned against believing Rouhani’s latest charm offensive. He also stressed that many in the Arab world were “not reassured” by Rouhani’s stage act. “Believe me, they get [the fact that Iran] … remains aggressive, supports terror, participates in the slaughter in Syria, and is pursuing the development of ballistic missiles and plutonium for nuclear weapons. They get it right, and we get it right. We all wish there was a real change in Iran … [but] we have to look at their deeds, not the soft words they utter.”
It is both comic and tragic that Netanyahu has to invoke Arab-Muslim displeasure with Rouhani in order to persuade the West not to trust him. Nor will it do any good. The critics will continue to pan Netanyahu while giving Rouhani a standing ovation.
Such is the international theater of the absurd.
Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.'”
Were Mohammad Zarif not the foreign minister of Iran — a nation aspiring for Israel’s destruction — Israel Hayom probably would have called him on Thursday, asking him to write the commentary below. Zarif could have written the book on Western “blindness” on the nuclear issue. He certainly could have written about how easy it was to dupe the international community, which has stopped giving any weight to the military option, even for deterrence purposes.
In the current state of affairs, Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani could have given themselves the last 24 hours to joke about the world, which chose Friday (for some reason) to embrace the Islamic republic, sending its wayward son home. The problem with this story is that it comes at our expense! At the expense of our future!
During an interview with CNN on Thursday, Zarif actually referred to the interim agreement ratified at the end of November in Geneva using almost the same exact words that we — who were in Geneva to report on the negotiations — used to discuss the deal. What Zarif explained was that the West saw cheese in Switzerland; Israel saw holes; Iran saw both.
Now, Zarif is setting out to explain why the interim deal is “bad,” which has been Israel’s stance since the very beginning. And since Iran is so sure of itself, it gave itself permission to tell the entire world: We outwitted you, and just look at you now.
Zarif could have spoken the truth. He could have said that Tehran knows the Obama administration won’t act against it. After signing off on the agreement, the military option was stuffed in the back of the drawer. Iran is playing with time. Our question now: Is the Obama administration as well? The assumption is yes.
The Obama administration has three years left until a new government is tossed this hot potato. It needs to walk away with achievements. Despite the high hopes of 2008, Obama is not approaching the final stretch of his presidency with impressive credentials. Iran and the negotiations with the Palestinians (the highest hurdles left to jump) are supposed to mark the 44th U.S. president’s greatest achievements at the end of his term.
Tehran has gall. It scorns the gesture it received from Western powers in Geneva. It blasts the American government. Zarif explains that “the White House is exaggerating the description of concessions and is exaggerating Iran’s commitments.” Iran has reminded us that it has “continued to enrich uranium, and is not obliged to dismantle its centrifuges.”
While Iran protests, the Obama administration has stymied a Senate bill, backed by dozens of senators including Democrats, to slap new sanctions on Tehran to make sure negotiators aren’t just using the carrot (easing sanctions) with the Iranians, but also the stick.
Meanwhile in Davos, Rouhani has gone from his effective smile diplomacy to a policy of laughter. Iran went from war film to romance. Hugh Grant could have played Rouhani on Thursday. What a mad world.
Speaking on Thursday, Rouhani stressed that Iran wants a good future, but only with the states it recognizes. In short, a good future is a world without Israel. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Rouhani’s boss, who says the same thing (just without smiling or laughing), made the same comments on the first day of the Geneva talks. That did not stop the deal from going through.
Rouhani was not speaking to the conservative audience he’s used to back home. There’s no difference between Khamenei and Rouhani when it comes to anything concerning the nuclear issue or Israel. In the ayatollah regime, the good guy and the bad guy are the same person.
Rouhani’s Iran managed to teach itself one thing following this whole debacle: In our world today, it pays to laugh.
Earlier this week, The New Yorker published a 17,000 word article by its editor, David Remnick, summarizing his time spent recently in travels with President Barack Obama. That Remnick should get such access to the president is not a surprise, since under his leadership, The New Yorker has shifted in a significant way from a magazine that was once known and widely respected for its fiction, essays and cartoons, to a magazine indistinguishable from many others for its role advancing the favored causes of the Left in the nation’s political wars — whether it be hysteria about climate change, bashing Israel and its American supporters, or mocking Tea Party supporters and their preferred candidates, as well as Republicans of any denomination. Previous editor Tina Brown had turned The New Yorker into a Vanity Fair twin with fewer pictures and longer articles. Remnick has made The New Yorker a close relation of The Nation with more fashion ads and better paper stock, and the one constant — longer articles.
Remnick had already given his loving embrace to Obama in a lengthy biography “The Bridge” that was little read, and now found mainly on remainder shelves or on Amazon.com for a penny for the hardcover edition. Remnick discovered some evidence of creative writing (fiction) in Obama’s memoir, but worked hard to preserve the reputation of the president, ignoring all evidence that Obama was not even the author of the much lauded “Dreams From My Father“. America’s great black hope had to be protected, whatever Remnick discovered (or chose to ignore) in his research for the book.
One part of Remnick’s latest article has gotten a fair amount of attention. After the killing of Osama bin Laden, the administration hoped to coast to a 2012 re-election victory with the theme of “Bin Laden is dead (and so is al-Qaida), but General Motors is still alive.” The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, provided an inconvenient truth, as if there were not other evidence around, that al-Qaida will still alive and kicking. It is in light of the campaign’s messaging, that the administration’s desperate effort to mislead about who was responsible for what happened in Benghazi and why they did what they did, became so important. The New York Times, 16 months after the date of the attack and the killings of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, was still busy doing legwork to buttress the White House’s original fabrication that the attack resulted from a spontaneous demonstration aroused by a Muslim-mocking video produced by a Coptic Christian in the United States, that of course, no one in Libya had seen. In any case, the Times author, David Kirkpatrick, maintained that no evidence existed that al-Qaida had its hands in the attack. The Times of course, had multiple objectives with the Kirkpatrick whitewash — make sure Obama came out looking truthful (a big problem after the Obamacare lies), and make Benghazi go away for Hillary Clinton to better enable her to glide to victory in 2016.
With chaos seeming to envelop one country after another since the start of the so-called Arab Spring, and the clear involvement of al-Qaida and Sunni terror groups in violence occurring in many countries at the moment, the president has been at pains to justify his sweeping confidence that al-Qaida was a solved problem. Remnick describes the president’s latest “all clear” on al-Qaida this way:
“In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that al-Qaida had been ‘decimated.’ I pointed out that the flag of al-Qaida is now flying in Falluja, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; al-Qaida has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too.
“‘The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,’ Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. ‘I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.'”
Yesterday came newsthat Israelis had prevented an al-Qaida attack on the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv. The jayvee squad involved was arrested (Laker benchwarmers?).
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal in its front page news box had five of the top seven stories relating to Sunni and al-Qaida linked terror attacks:
1. Murder of 3 vaccination workers in Pakistan
2. Shiite pilgrims killed in a bus bombing in Pakistan
3. Al-Qaida linked militants imposing religious rules on Fallujah and strong arming local leaders
4. Two Islamists claiming responsibility for terror attacks in Russia, and promising more
5. A Beirut car bomb killing 20 with an Islamic group claiming it was in retaliation for Iran and Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian Civil War
One might think that the president’s characterization of the current terror threat from Islamic radicals (of the Sunni persuasion) missed the mark. Does a terror attack on a U.S. embassy count as a major operation? It didn’t for Obama and his national security team in Benghazi, so why should a Tel Aviv attack be viewed differently? Would a major attack at the Sochi winter games show evidence that the jayvee team had sent a few of its top stars on to the next level?
The president is very confident with sports metaphors, but even Remnick seems uncomfortable with this one. In any case, Kobe and the Lakers are well past their best days, and the shelf life of the “al-Qaida is decimated and on the run” meme seems also to have expired.
The Remnick articles speak of Obama feeling the need to address the stale thinking that is so common in America on foreign policy, and work through the new realities that are out there. But the al-Qaida threat seems more like an old reality that is hanging in there, with new delusions about their demise being the real problem with the White House team’s thinking.
One other prominent new reality for the administration seems to be that Iran is on the verge of becoming a partner of the United States, given how many common goals the two countries share. Again, The New York Times is first with the breakout of the new “special relationship.” The new partners have their work cut out for them, since Obama has to deal with interference from Israel which the president and his team, none too subtly suggest is poisoning the waters in Congress (which Obama friend Tom Friedman has argued is controlled by Jews and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Rather than threatening new sanctions against Iran for failure to perform under the terms of its current agreement with the P5+1, as a strong bipartisan majority in each branch of Congress prefers, the president is letting slip out that his current plan is to gut the sanctions that are already in place, and that likely forced Iran to begin serious negotiations for the first time.
The White House seems to be creating the foreign policy version of “Fifty Ways to Please Your Lover.” Abandoning existing allies? Check. Always reading the best into Iranian intentions? Check. Providing fodder for anti-Semites in the U.S., Iran and the region who think Israel controls the U.S. government? Check. Ignoring every public Iranian declaration that puts the lie to their having changed course with their nuclear program? Check. Love can be blind, but in this case, something else may be in play — the administration has switched sides, so it has become part of the Iranian propaganda machine. Maybe the president actually sat through those Reverend Jeremiah Wright sermons.
Two remarkable statements must be juxtaposed to understand how much trouble lies ahead in trying to get a nuclear deal with Iran.
Thus far, the trouble has been over the temporary arrangements, meant to last six months and likely to be extended for another six. That deal was reached last year and an implementation agreement then took two more months to reach. The next task is to negotiate an arrangement that is comprehensive and permanent. How likely is that, and have we really thus far reached any agreement at all?
The first statement is that of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, reported by The Wall Street Journal. ISIS is led by former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright. This is from The Journal’s accountof the ISIS report:
“The report by Albright’s institute focuses on denying Iran the ability to make weapons-grade fuel through the two separate tracks Tehran is developing: the enrichment of uranium and the production of plutonium. On uranium enrichment, ISIS said Iran’s activities must only take place in Natanz. A second, underground plant near Qom needs to be closed to guarantee better IAEA monitoring, it said. The study concluded Iran also needs to reduce to 4,000 the total number of centrifuges it is operating from a current capacity of nearly 20,000. This will deny it the ability to quickly produce the highly enriched uranium needed for a bomb.”
So denying Iran a weapons capability means it must destroy 15,000 centrifuges. And as The Journal notes, “The institute’s prescriptions aren’t viewed as particularly harsh or hard-line. The report accepts that Iran will maintain some ability to continue producing nuclear fuel as part of a final agreement through the enrichment of uranium at low levels for civilian use.”
How likely is it that Iran will agree to destroy 15,000 centrifuges?
The second statement, that of Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, offers an answer. Zarif was in Davos this week and did an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that will be broadcast on Sunday, February 2. “We did not agree to dismantle anything,” Zarif said. And there’s more:
“Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks — the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany. ‘The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments.'”
In old-fashioned contract law, a contract (for instance, a nuclear deal) is only reached when the parties have a meeting of the minds. As one law dictionary puts it, “When two parties to an agreement (contract) both have the same understanding of the terms of the agreement. Such mutual comprehension is essential to a valid contract.” Black’s Law Dictionary, the most famous of its kind, says that a contract requires “mutual assent,” defined as a “meeting of the minds” in which each of the parties “agrees to all the terms and conditions, in the same sense and with the same meaning as the others.”
Nuclear negotiations are not private contracts, of course, but the old contract law precepts ought to give us pause. If the parties disagree strongly over what has been agreed, has anything really been agreed?
From “Pressure Points” by Elliot Abrams. Reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations.
Neither the November 24th P5+1 “deal” nor the White House summary of the subsequent agreement to continue the process deals effectively with Iran’s efforts to have nuclear weapons.
NOTE: I tried to address much of what follows when writing earlier about the Iran Scam and have difficulty understanding why there is very little public or even official interest in the problems the deal raises. Please let me to elaborate here a bit more on why the P5+1 “deal” is a scam, why it matters and to offer some hypotheses about the lack of interest.
The text of the English language version of the P5+1 “deal” is available here and the text of the January 16th White House summary of the recent agreement to go forward by reducing sanctions and beginning inspections of some (but not all) Iranian nuclear facilities is available here. I posted articles about the November 24th “deal” here and here and the White House summary here. The first two minutes and eleven seconds of the video embedded below provide a concise summary of what has been happening.
An article by Elliot Abrams re-published at Israel Hayom questions whether, in view of the current disagreements between Iran and the United States about what the “deal” means, there is really a deal. I am concerned that there is a “deal” but that it has little to do with Iran’s continued development of nuclear weaponry.
There has been substantial albeit unilluminating media praise — particularly outside of Israel — for the “deal.” However, with rare exceptions U.S. and European media have provided little coverage of the omissions of both the P5+1 “deal” and the January 16th White House summary to deal effectively with Iran’s aggression oriented nuclear facilities and efforts — her Parchin military facility, development of nuclear warheads and missiles with which to deliver them.
It is suspected that nuclear weapons research is being conducted at the Parchin site, particularly as satellite imagery from August provided evidence of ongoing construction and testing being carried out in secret at the base. [Emphasis added.]
The satellite evidence showed major alterations at the site which the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) says were meant to hide possible tests of conventional triggers for a nuclear explosion. [Emphasis added.]
The evidence followed satellite images from August 2012 showing cleanup activities at the base, as well as images showing suspicious activities at a building suspected of housing nuclear blast experiments. [Emphasis added.]
Furthermore, the IAEA has not been allowed in to inspect Parchin since 2005 despite calls by Yukiyo Amano, head of IAEA, to allow inspections.
Power Line provides an overview here. One part of it is reprinted below:
Iran is alleged by the IAEA, the United States, and at least three European governments to have had a well-structured nuclear weapons program aimed at building a warhead small enough to fit on the Shahab 3 ballistic missile.” The agreement does not even warrant that Iran has no other dual-use or enrichment or nuclear facilities. Why? [Emphasis added.]
It is reasonable to assume that such activities continue at Parchin (and perhaps at other unmentioned sites) and that Parchin may in addition have become a venue for some of Iran’s newest and most productive centrifuges.
Uranium enrichment well beyond twenty percent will likely begin (or continue) at Parchin — despite or perhaps because of — inspections of the Iranian enrichment sites mentioned in the “deal.”
By analogy if, based on substantial credible evidence someone is reasonably suspected of having stolen a horse, that suspicion cannot be assuaged, at least rationally, without inspecting his pastures and his stables. Even if (unlike Iran) the suspect is not a notorious liar, his mere assertions that he did not steal the horse cannot be taken as the truth and alone overcome credible evidence that he did. The P5+1 negotiating team has, or should have, more than reasonable suspicions about Iran’s efforts to get “the bomb;” yet by ignoring Parchin, that is what the team seems to have agreed to do.
Despite Tehran’s protestations that it has no intention of ever creating a nuclear weapon, Iran, in fact, has been developing a warhead for some 15 years. That design is now near perfect. [Emphasis added.]
Compare Iran’s nuclear weapons program to the use of gunpowder. One stuffs gunpowder into a bullet, loads it into a rifle, and then finds a marksman who can hit the target. Iran has nearly mastered all those steps – but in nuclear terms. Four technological achievements are key to completing Tehran’s nuclear weapon: 1) accretion of enough nuclear materials, highly enriched to weapons grade – that is, about 90 percent; 2) machining that material into metal to create a spheroid warhead small enough to fit into a missile nosecone, where it will be detonated; 3) developing a trigger mechanism to initiate the atomic explosion at the precise moment of missile reentry; and, of course, 4) obtaining a reliable rocket delivery system to carry such a weapon.
Start with the nuclear material. Experts estimate that a single bomb would require approximately 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, that has been boosted to concentrations of at least 90 percent. Much of Iran’s nuclear enrichment remains at 3.5% and 20% levels. But the numbers are deceiving. Enriching uranium to 3.5% is 75% of the distance needed to reach weapons grade. Once Iran has reached 20%, it has gone 90% of the distance.
Today, Iran possesses enough nuclear material for a fast breakout that would finish the job in about six weeks, creating enough material for five or 10 bombs. The current international deal leaves large stockpiles of 3.5% material and the centrifugal ability to quickly enhance to the next level of 20%, which again, is 90% of the distance needed.
The quoted article was written almost two months ago. Enrichment apparently continued at least until January 20th at Iranian sites within the “comprehensive” November 24th “deal.” We may eventually know how much highly enriched Uranium Iran has or had at those sites. However, we do not know how much highly enriched Uranium Iran now has at such excluded facilities as Parchin. Moreover, enrichment to and beyond 20% may well continue therewhile the “deal” continues to be implemented and sanctions on Iran diminish. The intent of the P5+1 negotiators seems to have been to trust but not to verify also with respect to this aspect of Iran’s most important efforts to get nukes. Why?
Continuing with the linked article,
Second, that HEU must then be metalized and shaped into a dense spheroid compact enough to fit into a missile nosecone. Iran has mastered the nuclear metallurgy, testing the process by using other high-density metals, such as tungsten. Tungsten objects have been detonated in a special underground chamber to measure its analogous explosive character. [Emphasis added.]
Third, the spheroid must be detonated. Iran’s warhead design employs a R265 shock generator hemisphere drilled with 5mm boreholes filled with the volatile explosive PETN. When triggered with precision, the PETN array can cause a massive synchronized implosion. This will fire an internal exploding bridgewire that will, in turn, actuate an embedded neutron initiator to finally detonate the atomic reaction – and the mushroom cloud. This sequence of devices has already been assembled and tested by Iran. It possesses more than 500 exploding bridgewires on hand, adding more each day. [Emphasis added.]
The article appears to be consistent with the November 25th article linked and quoted above about Iranian efforts at Parchin to “hide possible tests of conventional triggers for a nuclear explosion” and “images showing suspicious activities at a building suspected of housing nuclear blast experiments.” If it is even partially correct as to Iran’s research on nuclear warheads, to assume without investigation that her efforts have been and are for purely “peaceful” purposes, or simply to ignore them, makes no sense. However, that appears to be what the P5+1 negotiators have done. Why?
Iranian Missile development with North Korean help
announced expansion of bilateral ties . . . after reaching a scientific and technological cooperation agreement which, according to Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, has brought the two countries with “common enemies” closer.
Iranian state media said the nations will cooperate in research, human resources exchange and joint laboratories and in the fields of information technology, energy, biotechnology, engineering, agriculture and food technology.
. . . .
Khamenei met with Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state, who was in Tehran for the Non-Aligned Movement summit held this week.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea have common enemies, because the arrogant powers do not accept independent states,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Kim said that the expansion of ties with Iran was among the strategic policies of his country. Addressing the summit, the DPRK leader criticized the recent joint military exercise of the U.S. and South Korea in the Korean Peninsula, saying the exercise pushes the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.
. . . .
In the past North Korea has come under fire for providing Iran with advanced missiles, based on Russian designs, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal. [Emphasis added.]
Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to Secret American intelligence assessments cable dated Feb. 24, 2010, the New York Times reported in November 2010.
The missiles could, for the first time, give Iran the capacity to strike capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, the report said, citing data obtained by WikiLeaks. The North Korean version of the advanced missile, known as the BM-25, could carry a nuclear warhead, the report said.
In December 2010, it was reported that a team of Iranian nuclear scientists has been sent to North Korea and that the two governments have agreed on a joint nuclear test in North Korea with a substantial financial reward to Pyongyang. [Emphasis added.]
With the reduction and eventual elimination of sanctions on Iran, she will have substantially more financial ability to reward North Korea. North Korea, herself under severe sanctions, needs the money.
Intelligence reports indicated that as recently as late October Iranian technicians from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), a defense organization that builds liquid-fueled missiles, were in Pyongyang collaborating on the booster development.
SHIG has been sanctioned in the past by both the U.S. government and the United Nations for illicit missile transfers.
U.S. officials said the new booster could be used on both a space launcher and a long-range missile. Iran and North Korea are believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be using their space programs to mask long-range missile development. [Emphasis added.]
Officials said the covert missile cooperation indicates the Iranians are continuing to build long-range strategic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear warheads at the same time they are negotiating limits on illicit uranium enrichment. [Emphasis added.]
Intelligence assessments have said that both countries could test a missile capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear warhead within the next two years.
Henry Sokolski, head of the private Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said he agrees with U.S. special envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies that more pressure should be applied on North Korea to give up its nuclear arms.
“As Glyn Davies put it, if the North Koreans don’t demonstrate that they understand they must fulfill their obligations, then more sanctions pressure will be brought to bear on them,” he said.
“He was speaking of the North Koreans but what’s good for the goose should also be good for the gander—in this case, Iran,” Sokolski said.
John Bolton, undersecretary of state for international security during the George W. Bush administration, said the main purpose of Iranian and North Korean ballistic missile program and their longstanding cooperation “has always been to serve as the delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons.” [Emphasis added.]
A top Iranian military leader announced late Tuesday [November 27, 2013] that Iran has developed “indigenous” ballistic missile technology, which could eventually allow it to fire a nuclear payload over great distances. [Bracketed insert and emphasis added.]
Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the lieutenant commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made the critical weapons announcement just days after Iran and the West signed a deal aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear activities. [Emphasis added.]
Salami claimed that “Iran is among the only three world countries enjoying an indigenous ballistic missile technology,” according to the state-run Fars News Agency.
Again, by ignoring Iranian development, construction and testing of ballistic missiles, the P5+1 negotiating team appears to assume with no evident basis — particularly in the context of Iran’s nuclear warhead development — that Iran does not intend to use her missiles to deliver atomic bombs. Why?
Why do the November 24th “deal” and the January 16th White House Summary mention none of these matters?
It is easy to understand why the January 16th summary does not mention them: they are not pertinent to the November 24th “deal,” which does not mention them either. The failure of the November 24th “deal” to mention them is more difficult to understand.
There is no apparent basis for concluding that the P5+1 negotiators and their helpers were blissfully unaware of Parchin or of Iran’s warhead and missile development. A suggestion of willing indifference might be more credible. But why would the P5+1 negotiators be indifferent? The preface to the English language text of the November 24th deal states,
Preamble
The goal for these negotiations is to reach a mutually-agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons. This comprehensive solution would build on these initial measures and result in a final step for a period to be agreed upon and the resolution of concerns. This comprehensive solution would enable Iran to fully enjoy its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the relevant articles of the NPT in conformity with its obligations therein. This comprehensive solution would involve a mutually defined enrichment programme with practical limits and transparency measures to ensure the peaceful nature of the programme. This comprehensive solution would constitute an integrated whole where nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This comprehensive solution would involve a reciprocal, step-by- step process, and would produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions, as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme. [Emphasis added.]
The preface is facially comforting, particularly if read with casual indifference and in isolation. It is, and perhaps is intended to be, falsely comforting. Has the unverified (and under the “deal” unverifiable) promise of Iran that she will never under any circumstances ever seek or develop nuclear weapons been accepted at face value? With no inspections permitted at Parchin, other (undisclosed) facilities for missile and warhead development and testing as well as for Uranium enrichment? If so, what’s the point of the inspections that Iran has agreed to allow and which the P5+1 negotiators accepted? Why not simply accept Iran’s representations and promises, eliminate all sanctions and let her continue to do as she pleases? Indeed, why did the P5+1 representatives even bother to negotiate a deal? Did they do so based on (a previously agreed upon?) conclusion that sanctions would have to be lifted so that their own countries as well as Iran could benefit economically?
A related basis might be that with President Obama beset by domestic political difficulties at home due in part to the economy, and with much of Europe also experiencing dire financial problems, a need was perceived to do something in the realm of foreign policy that might ameliorate domestic problems, at least temporarily. Striking a deal with Iran would, indeed, be something. If that was the perception of President Obama et al, perhaps they misoverestimated their abilities.
If the promise never ever to seek or develop nuclear weapons was not accepted at face value, might it be because it does not matter? Perhaps it was assumed that Iran already has sufficient nukes, does not need more and therefore won’t bother to construct more. One nuke could achieve Iran’s long held and often stated goal of eliminating Israel. Even with only one remaining nuke, she would be recognized as a full-fledged nuclear power in the Middle East; perhaps that’s all she needs or wants.
A congruent explanation might be that containment would be more convenient for the Western powers than prevention; that might even might work for the United States and Europe. The threat of mutually assured destruction worked in the past, so why shouldn’t it work with Iran –particularly after she had obliterated the only reasonably free and democratic nation in the region and could thereafter coexist with the at least marginally more congenial Islamic states there?
An easier answer might be that the P5+1 representatives recognized that the “legitimate media” in the United States and elsewhere important to them have little interest in foreign policy matters that do not directly, adversely and immediately affect their audiences; to the extent that there is public (and therefore media) interest, it diminishes rapidly and then vanishes.
To the extent that the media are interested, they generally prefer good news to bad; good news “sells.” As noted in an article at Commentary Magazine titled Why the West Buys Iran’s PR Campaign,
People like [Jon] Stewart and others who are buying Rouhani’s act aren’t doing so because they love Iran or even because they despise Israel and enjoy its discomfort at the prospect of a deadly enemy being embraced and empowered by the West, though some obviously do like that aspect. What they really like about Iran’s decision to create a new façade of cordiality to the West—one that seems to them to be a repudiation of Rouhani’s repulsive predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—is that it allows them to pretend that there is nothing to worry about. Rouhani allows them to live in denial as Ahmadinejad did not. As long as an open villain like Ahmadinejad was the front man for the regime, it was hard to ignore the truth about Iran’s bid for regional hegemony or its desire to annihilate Israel. But with Rouhani they can, like the Obama administration itself, treat the Middle East as a former problem from which they may now withdraw in comfort. [Bracketed insert and Emphasis added.]
We know Rouhani’s charm offensive is effective because it’s accomplished what every good public-relations campaign aims to do: tell people what they want to hear and persuade them it’s the truth even when it’s a lie. Under the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that those who are willing and able to see reality—like the Israelis and those Americans who share their legitimate concerns about the direction of American foreign policy—are going to be subjected to continued mockery and abuse. [Emphasis added.]
The easiest answer might that a bunch of less than fully competent P5+1 repersentatives — facing hardly any immediate danger to their own nations and with little interest in the security of Israel — were outwitted by descendants of Persian rug merchants. That seems at least partially consistent with the principle of Occam’s Razor.
It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
The application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion.[a] The razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. Philosophers also point out that the exact meaning of simplest may be nuanced.[b]
current US intelligence efforts to detect nuclear weapons programs in other countries is [sic] totally inadequate and how agencies approach the issue needs to be revamped.
That’s hardly surprising. However, despite substantial evidence of Iran’s efforts at the Parchin site, as well as her nuclear warhead and missile development and testing efforts, all appear to have been ignored by the P5+1 representatives in reaching a “deal” with Iran.
Admittedly, it is very difficult to penetrate these closed societies and unlock their most closely guarded secrets. But this report also harangues our agencies for not developing the technologies and processes to adequately monitor and verify nuclear programs that we are entitled by treaty to inspect.Just how does the administration plan to verify any agreement with Iran that might be reached? This report declares we’re not fully ready.
We have a president who wants to get rid of nuclear weapons but apparently doesn’t care we don’t have the ability to monitor the nuclear programs of countries who would be signatories to such a treaty.
WarSclerotic 
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