WarSclerotic

Dershowitz: Does this deal prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon? – Middle East – Jerusalem Post.

There is an enormous difference between a deal that merely delays Iran’s development of a nuclear arsenal for a period of years and a deal that prevents Iran from ever developing a nuclear arsenal.

Does the proposed deal with Iran actually prevent the Mullah’s from ever developing a nuclear weapon? Or does it merely delay them for a period of years? That is the key question that has not yet been clearly answered.

In his statement on the deal, US President Barack Obama seemed to suggest that Iran will never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. He said that this “long-term deal with Iran… will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” He then repeated this assurance: “because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon.” These seemingly categorical statements were intended to assure the world that Obama would keep his earlier promise that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

But is that what the deal itself does? Or, as stated by its critics, does it actually assure that Iran will be allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal after a short delay of several years? That is the key question that the Obama administration has refused to answer directly. It must do so before Congress can be asked to buy a pig in a poke for the American people.

There is an enormous difference between a deal that merely delays Iran’s development of a nuclear arsenal for a period of years and a deal that prevents Iran from ever developing a nuclear arsenal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many other critics of this deal describe it as merely a delay, while the Obama administration seems to be suggesting by its rhetoric that the deal will prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The devil is not so much in the details as in the broad outlines of this deal and its understanding by the parties. Does it or does it not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons after a relatively short moratorium? Iran certainly seems to believe that it does, Israel certainly believes that it does, and many in Congress—both Republicans and Democrats– seem to believe that it does. But the President seems to be telling the American public and the world that these critics are wrong: that Iran will never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon under this deal. Yet, just a few months ago, he seemed more cautious and candid in discussing his “fear” that “in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.” He also said that we have assurances of a yearlong breakout time “for at least well over a decade,” implying that after that indeterminate time frame, the assurances will no longer be in place. Obama’s statement, despite its confusing and ambiguous context, has raised deep concerns among critics of the deal. Moreover, the text of the deal includes time frames of eight-and-a-half years, 10 years and 15 years, which also generates confusion at a time when clarify is essential.

So which is it? Congress has a right to know, and so do the American people. Is it a postponement for an uncertain number of years – eight-and-a-half years, 10, 13, 14, 15—of Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon? Or is it an assurance that “Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon?”

The Obama administration insists that this is not a “treaty,” but rather a “deal.” A deal is a contract, and for a contract to be valid there must be a “meeting of the minds.” But has there been a meeting of the minds over the central issue of whether this deal allows Iran to develop a nuclear weapon after a moratorium whose precise time frame is unclear? And if there has been a meeting of the minds over this issue, what exactly is it?

Certainly the words of the Iranians are not the same as the words of Obama. Whose words accurately represent the meaning of the contract we are being asked to sign?

The time has now come to be crystal clear about the meaning of this deal. If it is intended to prevent Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons, the President must say so in the clearest of terms and he must get the Iranians to express agreement with that interpretation. Ambiguity may be a virtue at the beginning of a negotiation, but it is a vice in interpreting and implementing a deal with such high stakes.

Recall that former US President Bill Clinton made similar assurances with regard to North Korea back in 1994 – as the accompanying chart shows. But within a few short years of signing a deal that he assured us would require the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program, that country tested its first nuclear weapon. It now has a nuclear arsenal. How can we be sure that Iran will not act in a similar fashion?

The deal with Iran has been aptly characterized as a “leap of faith,” “a bet” and a “roll of the dice” by David Sanger in a news analysis for the New York Times. The gamble is that by the time the most restrictive provisions of the deal expire, Iran will be a different country with more reasonable leaders. But can the world and especially the nations most at risk from an Iranian nuclear arsenal, depend on faith, bets and dice, when they know that the last time the nuclear dice were rolled, they came up snake-eyes for America and its allies when North Korea ended up with nuclear weapons.

The burden of persuasion is now on the Obama administration to demonstrate that Obama was accurately describing the deal when he said that it will “prevent” Iran from “obtaining a nuclear weapon.” It is a heavy burden that will be – and should be – difficult to satisfy.

Alan M. Dershowitz is Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Law School and author of Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law.

▶ Megyn Kelly on the catastrophic Iran deal – YouTube.

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Netanyahu on Iran deal: The more you read it, the worse it gets | The Times of Israel.

Inspections clause is farcical, sanctions snap-back clause is incomprehensible, and a major Iranian terror chief, Qassem Soleimani, has been removed from the terror list, PM protests

By Avi Lewis July 15, 2015, 3:50 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the Knesset during a ceremony to swear in the new government, May 14. 2015. (Knesset spokesperson)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that perusal of the previous day’s nuclear deal with Iran yields a picture that grows ever bleaker.

The agreement is “filled with absurdities,” Netanyahu said, scolding world leaders for caving in to Iran’s “charm offensive” and crediting Israel with leading the fight against an Iranian bomb.

He called on the Knesset to present a united front in the fight against the “bad in every respect” pact. “The agreement that was signed in Vienna is not the final word. We will continue to fight,” Netanyahu pledged.

Iran and the world powers signed an agreement Tuesday in Vienna that mandates the Islamic Republic scale back some of its nuclear capabilities in exchange for a rollback of economic sanctions.

“When we examine this agreement — which is bad in every aspect — when we read this agreement, the picture becomes more bleak and we discover it’s filled with absurdities,” Netanyahu said.

“For example, the agreement gives Iran 24 days’ [notice] before an inspection; it’s like they offer the service free of charge that produces drugs a 24-hour warning before performing a search,” he said.

“In addition, the sanction snap-back mechanism is so complicated and serpentine that one needs a PhD to understand it. One clause creates a huge incentive to invest in Iran because it says that the reinstatement of sanctions will not apply to agreements that have [already taken place]. Another section includes the people that were removed from the sanctions list, one of them being Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s global terror arm. It is absurd, terror [meets] nuclear [power],” he said, referring to the commander of Iran’s elite Quds force.

According to Netanyahu, Western leaders were too easily beguiled by the Iranian regime, and if not for Israel’s efforts, Tehran would already possess a bomb.

“There is a willingness in the West to accept despotic regimes and seek peace at any price. Not all of them have internalized the lessons of history. Even today, the powers are won over by a charm offensive. I am not saying that we are in 1938 for two reasons; firstly, back then, no precedent existed for what was to occur, while today that [precedent] exists; secondly, today we have a state, while then we didn’t, and its purpose is to to act against those that threaten it,” Netanyahu said.

“If not for the efforts made by Israel, Iran would have already had the ability to arm itself with nuclear bombs. We exposed the Iranian issue on the international stage. We led the implementation of biting sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table. We set before Iran a red line on the issue of uranium enrichment which it has not yet crossed,” he said.

“One who speaks truth about this agreement is the president of Iran, who said that Iran has achieved all its objectives,” Netanyahu said, referring to President Hassan Rouhani who said Tuesday following the deal that “all the four objectives have been achieved.”

“We are not committed to this agreement and will continue to oppose it. For existential [threats] there is no coalition or opposition. We need a united front to ensure our survival,” Netanyahu said.

Iran’s nuclear deal puts Saudis on edge

Reuters By Angus McDowall and Hadeel Al Sayegh

15 hours ago

via Iran’s nuclear deal puts Saudis on edge – Yahoo News.

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers on Tuesday will make the Middle East a “more dangerous part of the world” if it comes with too many concessions, a Saudi official told Reuters, signaling Gulf Arabs’ deep unease over the accord.

The Saudis and their Gulf allies fear that the deal, by ending Iran’s pariah status and freeing its economy from crippling sanctions, will embolden Tehran to step up its backing for their foes across the Middle East.

Saudi authorities offered only terse public comment on the Vienna deal, some 10 hours after it was announced, but officials privately made clear their misgivings about its likely impact in a region where the Sunni Muslim kingdom has long competed with Shi’ite Iran for influence.

While acknowledging that the deal would mean “a happy day” for the Middle East if it stopped Iran gaining a nuclear arsenal, the Saudi official said he feared it would instead allow Iran “to wreak havoc in the region”.

“We have learned as Iran’s neighbors in the last 40 years that goodwill only led us to harvest sour grapes,” he told Reuters through a social network.

Saudi officials have publicly voiced only lukewarm support for the marathon talks, but in private have often argued that Iran cannot be trusted to keep to a deal.

Riyadh regards Iran’s support for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Iraq’s Shi’ite militias, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis as evidence that Iran wants to gain hegemony across the Middle East for itself and Shi’ite Muslim allies.

Commenting on the nuclear deal late on Tuesday, a statement on state media tersely stressed the importance of a strict inspections regime and the need to reimpose sanctions quickly if Iran failed to meet the conditions of the accord.

Saudi journalists, clerics and analysts were more forthcoming in setting out the country’s fears, which are also fueled by a sense that Riyadh’s main ally, Washington, now has divided loyalties after helping Iran to come in from the cold.

“Iran made chaos in the Arab world and will extend further after the agreement, and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries should reduce their confidence in America and turn their focus to Russia and China,” said Mohammed al-Mohya, the news anchor on the state-run Saudi Channel 1.

WAR IN YEMEN

For months Saudi warplanes have been bombing Shi’ite Houthi forces in neighboring Yemen. It says they are being encouraged by Iran – an accusation rejected by Tehran.

“What I’m hoping for is that we won’t end up having wars by proxy in the region, that Saudi Arabia will not feel pushed to fight indirectly wherever Iranian influence is,” said Abdulaziz al-Sager, the Jeddah-based head of the Gulf Research Centre.

“If Iran is determined to expand its influence, and use sectarianism as its way to do that, then I think they will be pushing Saudi Arabia to go into war by proxy.”

Riyadh gave Washington only a few hours’ notice of its intervention in Yemen, a sign that it no longer looks unquestioningly to the United States as guarantor of its security and is prepared to push a more assertive foreign policy of its own.

“The ‘Great Satan’ and the Europeans have surrendered to Iran, the terrorist Iran has proved that it is in the right and they are in the wrong,” tweeted Saleh al-Rajhi, director of the Center for American Studies at Riyadh’s Institute of Diplomatic Studies.

He joked that it only remained for the United States to visit the grave of Iran’s late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, “to ask for his blessing”.

“It is clear now that Americans are following their interests, irrespective of any historic promises given by the former leaders of both countries. Now the Obama administration is just looking at the ayatollahs,” said Mohsen Al-Awaji, a Saudi Sunni Islamist activist.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have held several meetings to reassure Gulf states in the culmination to the deal, most recently in May.

The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have both congratulated Iran over the nuclear deal but in private they also remain wary. Oman, which brokered talks in 2013 that ultimately led to the deal, called it a “historic win-win”.

(Additional reporting by Taghreed Almadani and Sandy Azmy; Editing by William Maclean and Gareth Jones)